I woke up to gloomy rain and an empty room.
Groaning like a feeble old man, I pushed myself out of bed, only for the room to spin and collapse around me.
With shaky, bruised hands, I used the wall to keep myself upright.
From the wobbling in my limbs and lack of excruciating agony, it seemed my broken bones had healed.
What was left was a patchwork of aches and pains that had me stumbling and bumping into furniture.
Someone had changed me into overly large sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I paused and sniffed—the material had a delicious cinnamon scent.
Xerxes.
The clothes dwarfed my frame and hid the extent of my injuries.
After slamming into the door with an athletic thud, I tripped into the hallway.
The wall kept me upright as my blurry eyes tried to orient the shadows thrown off from the grand chandeliers.
A gnarled golden monster snarled at me from across the hall, and I jumped in surprise, heartbeat heavy in my chest as I stared down the foe.
After an embarrassingly long time, where I waited for it to make a move, I realized it wasn’t going to attack.
Because it wasn’t a monster at all—well, at least not in the way I’d been thinking.
I’d been having a standoff…with my own reflection in the hall mirror.
The numb had picked an impressive champion.
Whoever was responsible for the voice in my head was clearly not the brightest.
I made the endless trek down the ridiculously long hall. Seriously, who needed this many rooms in a house? It was ridiculous.
“Lucinda? Aran? Jax?” I yelled softly as I hobbled.
My bare feet slapping across the hardwood was the only sound.
Great, everyone had abandoned me.
Twenty minutes later, I stumbled to a stop at the end of the hall. Polished wood taunted me as I easily visualized my body breaking like a rag doll.
My eye twitched as I tensed my thighs and prepared to complete my greatest feat—walking down the grand stairway.
Before my big toe, which was once again missing its nail, had made contact with the top step, Walter materialized out of nowhere. “Please, stop, miss.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the flat floor, grateful that someone had saved me from myself. “Where is everyone?”
I tried to stand up straight and present an image of wellness, but my back spasmed with pain, and I reverted to a hunchback form.
“You were asleep for another two days. The girls went to school this morning, and the other alphas left to deal with some personal matters.”
My alarm must have shown on my face, because the old beta put a wrinkled hand on my arm.
“The girls will be taken care of. Aran and Jax are their escorts for their first day. The don enrolled them in Sect Schola. It is the preeminent institution for ABOs and is extremely prestigious. Don’t worry.”
Hands shaking uncontrollably from stress, I breathed slowly and tried to not hyperventilate.
The only thing that kept me from a full-blown panic attack was the fact that Aran and Jax were with them. They wouldn’t let anything happen to them.
“So everyone is gone?” I tried not to look as pathetic as I felt. As an orphaned child, it only made sense that I had deep-rooted abandonment issues.
Walter patted my hunched head. “No, Xerxes stayed behind because he wasn’t feeling well.”
The knot in my stomach loosened, and I tried not to seem too eager.
Now that I was no longer dying violently, it was time I had a mature conversation with the omega.
There was an unnamed twinkle in Walter’s eye that I hadn’t seen yet. “He’s in his room at the end of the hall. I’m sure he would like to see you.”
I nodded, catching the unspoken words.
Xerxes was in his nest.
Walter turned to pick up the bag of dirty clothes at his feet, and the soiled laundry reminded me of my values.
“Now that everyone is indisposed, I can get you out of here,” I said softly. My talk with Xerxes could wait.
Walter drew his shoulders back and rose to his full height, which was barely a few inches taller than me.
“Excuse me, miss?” The gray hair atop his lip trembled.
He was overjoyed that I was freeing him.
Once again, it was hard being such a good person.
“You don’t have to be a servant. I don’t know what Xerxes is doing to keep you here against your will, but I have money. Let me get you out of here.”
The tremble in Walter’s upper lip became a full earthquake.
Poor man was overjoyed.
“Miss, how dare you presume I don’t want to serve this house.” Walter clenched his fists, and I suddenly pictured the beta thrashing me.
“Walter,” I said calmly, because his years of oppression had confused him, “you should not work for free. It is an uncivilized and awful practice.”
Outrage over my past and the fucked-up realities that burdened people’s lives had me standing straighter and forgetting my many ailments.
“It is wrong,” I snarled with conviction.
Walter’s bushy white eyebrows furrowed, and his mouth opened and closed for a long minute as he processed that I was saving him.
When he finally spoke, his words were biting. “Miss, you are under the mistaken impression that I am unpaid. Everyone working in this noble house is paid an exorbitant salary.”
I pursed my lips in disbelief.
Walter snapped with annoyance, “Miss, it is my supercar that I lent you the other day to take to the test.”
“Um…really?” The fancy car that accelerated at a ridiculous speed did not seem cheap.
Walter muttered something about unsophisticated morons under his breath, grabbed the laundry bag, and stalked down the hall away from me.
For a long moment, I gaped after the butler and tried to process the fact that he had voluntarily chosen to buy a matte-purple car with black stripes down the side.
I just couldn’t picture him selecting it.
Finally, when my shock had worn off, and it became clear I wasn’t going to magically transport to my destination, I began to slowly limp down to the far end of the house.
Even though my bones groaned and my muscles spasmed, my spirits were lighter.
A weight had lifted off my chest.
It had bothered me horribly that Xerxes kept unpaid servants, and might have influenced my actions toward the omega.
Ugh, I was such a fool.
Sure, the omega wasn’t perfect.
He had a knife fixation, rage issues, trauma, and an inability to express his emotions. But didn’t we all?
My bruised cheeks pulled up into a smile as I hobbled slowly.
He doesn’t keep servants. A painful laugh created a spasm in my chest as I tripped over a piece of rug and slammed into the wall.
What a glorious day.
When I finally got to the dark alcove at the very end of the hall, I was covered in sweat and swaying on my feet.
My knuckles were still hurting, so instead I slammed my toe into the door violently and shouted, “Xerxes, it’s Sadie! Open up!”
Knees trembling, I slumped into the alcove and desperately tried not to pass out.
My little excursion—as enlightening as it had been—was a lot on my feeble body that had apparently been playing dead in a coma for four days.
The door didn’t open.
“XERXES!” I shouted with all my might and gave the door a few good kicks.
Said omega shouted back, “Go away, Sadie!”
I relaxed with relief that he was inside and I wasn’t causing a scene in the hall for no reason.
A maid scurried by with linens in her arms, and I gave her a big smile. “Congrats on the salary.”
She narrowed her eyes and hurried away from me.
I shrugged and turned back to the issue at hand. “Um, no, I’m not leaving. Open the door. We need to talk.”
There was a long silence as I assumed Xerxes was hurrying to open the door for me.
Nothing happened.
“Let me in!” I yelled maturely and stomped my foot.
“No! Fucking leave!” Xerxes snarled, his honey accent thicker with rage.
My jaw dropped, and my chest cramped with pain. After everything that had happened, that was how he was going to play it.
At this point, a better woman, who respected boundaries, would have taken the hint and promised to visit later.
But I hadn’t braved the exhausting trek down the hall to be turned away because a man was having a meltdown. And it rained every day; what else was new?
I took a deep, centering breath, then bellowed, “If you don’t let me in, I’m breaking down the door.”
There was the sound of someone banging into something and swearing. “Wait, what?”
I took a step back and girded my lady loins. “With my bones still healing, I am about to 100 percent shatter my femur!”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” The shout from inside the room was feral.
Wasn’t the bond supposed to stop that from happening?
I narrowed my eyes and tried to envision busting through the heavy, ornate structure. “Then last warning. Open the door or I’m coming in.” Was it made of steel or wood? I prayed to the moon goddess for the latter.
“No! Sadie, you are not coming in here!”
I sighed depressively. That was not the right answer.
With another deep breath, I channeled my very, very, very repressed inner warrior woman. She did not like being woken up and was more prone to long naps and giving up, than to action.
Midswing, the door glinted in the soft chandelier flames. It was 100 percent steel, and I was about to shatter every bone in my right leg.
I was a dumb bitch.
There was no way to halt the momentum spinning me forward, so I squinted and prepared for agony.
It never came.
Instead, there was a soft grunt, and large hands easily caught my leg midkick.
It took me a moment to realize that Xerxes had slammed open the door and grabbed me.
Long blond hair hung down to his butt in soft, shiny waves, and his impressive chest was bare of clothes.
Sweatpants hung low on his hips, snagging on the edges of his indented V lines.
Xerxes breathed deeply, and his sculpted eight-pack rippled at the motion. His olive skin pulled across it deliciously, and I was hyperaware of how large the hands were that held my calf.
My mouth watered as I ogled the sheer perfection that was Xerxes’s six-foot-five frame.
He might be an omega, but he was more impressive than most of the alphas I’d fought.
I flushed as I realized I’d been licking my lips and staring at his abs like a possessed woman.
When I glanced up at his face, my pulse sped up for a different reason.
Xerxes’s eyes glowed electric purple, and he was staring reverently down at my sweatpants-clothed leg that he was still holding in his hands.
The moment extended. It was uncomfortable standing with one leg kicked in the air, and I tried to tug it away.
It was just a leg; it wasn’t that exciting.
Xerxes didn’t move.
It was then that I realized a wave of sugary cinnamon was pouring off the omega with an intensity that made my eyes water.
His biceps bunched tightly, and his nostrils flared, breathing me in.
“Um…Xerxes? Are you okay?” I asked softly, holding my hands up like I was talking to a wild animal.
He released a low omega whine. Goose bumps broke out across my skin. My instincts screamed at me to coddle, to protect.
I reached for him. Xerxes slowly looked up, and I stopped just before my hand touched his silky hair.
His pupils were blown wide, and a vein across his forehead jumped against his skin.
This wasn’t Xerxes.
It was an omega in heat.
“You should probably release me and let me—”
I was cut off as Xerxes abruptly wrenched me by the leg and dragged me into his dark nest.
