“Easy for you,” Omega muttered, curling his hand protectively around the front of his pants.
I stroked through his curls, and he calmed, rubbing his cheek against mine. I wished that I could calm my own rapidly beating heart, but Stella would’ve only called me here in such a rush if either I was in trouble or serious danger.
I’d say that the odds were pretty even between the two.
I got in a final stroke, before pushing myself up and dragging Omega with me. I clasped his hand, pulling him over to the clockface, which looked down on Oxford’s city center. Beneath us, lay the domes, spires, and sweep of streets, which were bathed in twilight. The non-magical bustled between them, looking small and fragile from this height. I’d been raised amongst them, but now I knew that I was truly separate and different.
Trust Stella to have placed herself above them.
“For a long time, I believed humans to be the myth,” Omega breathed.
When he pressed his palm against the glass, his warm breath ghosted it like his handprint.
Huh, so that’s what true wonder looked like?
Yet shouldn’t a werewolf be drooling bloodthirsty savagery right about now? Or had that been one of the sketchy details that was wrong, just like the whole fantasy about wolves being wiped out apart from outlaws, or Omegas being submissive Charms because mine was a rebel.
What else was a lie?
I nodded. “Yep, and they mustn’t ever know that our world exists.”
With a pop that reminded me disturbingly of Zetta, Stella slid through the bronze skin of the wall. “Missed me?”
I rolled my eyes. “And you call me dramatic.”
Stella grinned. “Stairs are so last season. I’m delighted to see you, my beauty and her beast.” Then she tugged on the leash in her hand, and a wolf stumbled through the wall after her, falling to his knees.
Omega growled, stepping forward, until I stilled him with a warning tap of red to his chest.
The pretty wolf had a neat wave of strawberry blond hair and wore nothing but a lace pair of panties. If he’d been my age, I’d have allowed myself to think what Omega would look like in them, but this new wolf was barely more than a teenager…and I knew him.
I tightened the crimson around Omega like I could protect or keep him from knowing the truth about my family because I wouldn’t become the type of witch who leashed and shamed a wolf. Yet this was the teenager who I remembered sitting quietly at our last Christmas together: my mom’s werewolf.
Had Stella taken him after her sister’s death? I shuddered at the thought of the grief she must’ve taken out on him…at what I would’ve done to him even as a kid.
Stella petted her wolf’s hair. “This is the current Ambassador to the Wolf Kingdom…and he’s mine.”
I snorted. “What do you allow their princes to wear? The sexy panties with the satin trim and white bow?”
Stella glanced at Omega, who winced. “Only on special occasions.” Then her hand tightened in the Ambassador’s hair; he didn’t even flinch. “He’s not my Charm, but I can still own a wicked wolf and condition him.”
You know, conditioning didn’t sound good.
I shivered, binding Omega closer to me with my shadows. His silver entwined with my magic like it also needed the comfort. Since he was trapped in a strange witch’s house with another wolf on his knees in panties, that seriously didn’t make him a eunuch.
“Hey, what’s up with the summoning? I still can’t get the blood out of my mouth.” I hoped that Stella didn’t pick up on the way that my voice wavered.
Stella leaned over, tying the Ambassador’s leash to a metal ring on the floor like he was a dog, before sauntering closer. “Your mum’s cape suits you, by the way.” Self-conscious, I ran my hand across the velvet; I was too hot but I couldn’t bring myself to slip it off. I needed its reassuring weight on my shoulders. “We’ll get to the reason for this party soon, but first, did you enjoy the long pink drink of deliciousness?”
I blinked.
Captain, you’ve received an incoming orgasm.
I flushed at Omega’s snicker because of the ringtone, as my pocket vibrated with a text. I yanked out my phone, before grinding my thumb into my pocket; Okami squirmed.
Okami was in for one prank ass kicking.
Have u tamed the angel Addict yet? Sexy times count! :) Ste X
I raised my eyebrow, before stuffing away my phone. “I’m standing right here.”
Stella waved her hand dismissively. “Magic texts are as quick as telepathy. Interesting choice in ringtone.”
“It’s not my…” I sighed. “I’m all over the angel taming. He’ll be saved,” I choked on the word and fought to turn it into a cough, “so there’s no need to do any, you know, breaking.”
I remembered Ramiel’s gentle caress of my hand, his joyful laugh, and the soft waves of his hair, but then the way that he’d fallen terrified to the floor with his wings out, awaiting punishment from me…
There was no way on earth that I would hurt him or allow any other witch to break him.
I shrank back as I realized that both Stella and Omega were assessing me searchingly and that wasn’t intimidating at all.
Then Stella flicked her hair, but her gaze was still hard. “Addicts are as beautiful as wolves and just as sinful. You don’t need to worry, niece, because I’ll be watching.”
Honestly, she thought that’d reassure me?
I forced myself to smile. “Then everything’s peachy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that crazy.” Stella prowled closer, until her breath gusted across my cheek. I drew back, but hit the clockface with a dull clang. I glanced over my shoulder at the dark streets dizzyingly far below. “I hoped that you’d have a fun honeymoon with your angel and wolf but since events in Oxford, you need to take up your role as Liaison with the wolves right now.”
“Hold up,” I tried to catch Omega’s gaze, but he was carefully looking at the floor and refusing to meet my eye, “I didn’t even want to take one wolf…and then you say that it’ll be three…and now I have to play diplomat with all of them?”
Stella petted my hair, just like she had the Ambassador’s. I noticed that although the Ambassador’s head was ducked, he was sneaking glances at me. When I caught his eye, he paled, but I only smiled, and he cautiously smiled back.
“You are the Wolf Charmer.” Stella smoothed my hair, trying to make it lie straight, just like my mom always had. “In peace, we have to play the diplomat, especially with our worst — although hot enough to melt our panties — enemy. You simply hide your hate with a smile. Unless…you wish there to be another war…?”
Next to me, Omega startled. His silver thrummed through my red, throbbing as fast as his pulse and panted breath.
I blinked. “Firstly, can we put a ban on the word panties and secondly, nope, I’m all full up on death. I’ll pass.”
Stella nodded. “That’s good to know. Then it’s time to let you in on why you were summoned.”
She clapped her hands like a sultan, and there was a sudden clatter of footsteps on the staircase leading up into the clock tower.
So, apparently not everybody thought stairs were no longer in trend.
A mom and daughter in floor-length black velvet dresses with a twist of leather like coiled whips for a corset, swept in with the grandeur of duchesses. The daughter looked my age, and the mom’s arm was clasped around the daughter’s waist, whilst the daughter’s chin was tilted up like a snooty fox. Their hair was midnight black, and their eyes sparkled ice blue. With a sickened jolt, I recognized them as Ivy and Lux, witches of the House of Blood: the most dangerous coven in Oxford.
Plus, the biggest snobs.
Not to mention the fact that Lux had bullied me as a kid, and boy did she still look like the kind of bitch to enjoy pulling off frogs’ legs.
I shrank against Omega, and his hand slipped into mine, squeezing.
A man, who I realized with a frightened eep was
Lux’s twin, Aquilo, trailed after them with his hands deep in the pockets of his black jeans, whilst his velvet shirt hung open to reveal a pendant shaped like a blood moon. His hair, however, was as light as his twin’s was black; his almost white mop hung into his eyes, and he swept it back with one hand before his pale blue eyes focused on me. Aquilo had grown up pretty, but all I could remember in that moment was the coldness of his eyes and the terrified thudding of my heart, whilst his sister had tormented me.
Yet I wasn’t a kid anymore, I was a Wolf Charmer, and I’d done a lot of growing up myself.
I straightened my shoulders, and made myself meet Aquilo’s gaze, arching my brow.
To my surprise, Aquilo merely nodded to me, before resting his hand on the Ambassador’s shoulder, just as the Ambassador stole a grin up at him.
Almost as if Aquilo wasn’t an elitist dickhead with a cruel streak.
Before I could even start to work that out, Ivy was waltzing across the tower, fussing at Stella until she stepped aside, and then dragging me away from Omega and into her arms.
When Ivy pressed my cheek onto her more than ample chest, her coppery stench made me gag. “Do you have any idea how I’ve missed you? Why how you’ve grown! So beautiful now, my goodness, just the picture of your mother at your age, and your magic…” She closed her eyes, shuddering in ecstasy. “…its taste is ambrosia. You are quite the catch.” She pulled me back at arm’s length to study me. I wriggled as uncomfortably as when my mom had assessed me all dressed up before a party. Yet I was also flooded with warmth at the idea that I’d been missed. Even my aunt hadn’t said that; I’d been more like the necessary duty, returning because there was only one Wolf Charmer. “You’re not engaged yet, surely?”
Aquilo snorted, casting me a sneering glare. I drew back from Ivy. Like Aquilo had proposals coming out of his ass…
“Aw, look how Aquilo’s grown too,” I spat out before I could stop myself, “although his hair’s still so blond that he only needs a pair of panties to pass as an Omega.”
Whoops, did I say that out loud? What happened to my ban on the word panties?
Aquilo’s haughty expression had frozen, whilst pink blossomed all the way up from his chest to his cheeks. I’d forgotten just how easily his skin blushed. I tore at my lip with guilt, risking a glance at his twin sister, but she was studiously ignoring Aquilo as much as me.
When we’d been kids, Lux had been fiercely protective of her twin. What had changed?
Then into the awkward silence, both Ivy and Stella burst into laughter, although Ivy’s was the high trill of the embarrassed and trying to hide it. Trust me, growing up in the Hamptons, I recognized that sound.
“Now that’s something I’d pay to see,” Stella smirked. “Can there be pole dancing involved?”
Omega elbowed me in the stomach, and I doubled up with a pained groan. Yet I hated his scowl directed at me even more.
“It’s not fair to mock the boy,” Omega growled, “just because you don’t like his ma planning to marry him off to you.”
I gaped, swinging to Aquilo, but he only studied me with a shuttered coolness like I was both the bully and the simpleton.
What gives…?
Ivy patted my shoulder. “He’s been trained. I promise, he’ll make a superb husband, discrete with your other lovers, and from the best breeding stock.” Please, for the love of witching hell, stop talking… “I’ve ensured the best education, but he knows his place.”
Shocked, my gaze met Aquilo’s. Despite his mom’s humiliating sales pitch, he kept his chin up and that took courage.
I knew that mages were our enemy but were even men born into witch families treated as inferior, simply because they weren’t the female magical line?
I’d been the only kid in my family and homeschooled until eleven, when I’d been sent away to America where everybody had been equal, so I’d never seen men treated like this, and it didn’t feel right. My mom had taken charge in our household, but that had only been because she’d been the Wolf Charmer, right?
Aquilo had followed his sister’s lead in tormenting me as a kid but had he ever had a choice?
I might not be in the market for a husband, but I couldn’t allow a guy that I’d once known to be sold to someone else either. I hated the way that my insides churned at the thought.
Why was being a Wolf Charmer this complicated?
“Cut it out, Ivy, she’s not interested. I had to practically gift wrap the wolf to get her to take him,” Stella huffed.
Ivy shrugged. “Oh well, it was worth a try. I’ve been trying to offload this,” she jerked her thumb at her son with all the coldness that earlier she’d shown me warmth, “but all he does is stand and scowl or turn up his little nose. It doesn’t matter how many times I whip him.”
What the holy hell…whip…?
“I might only be non-magical, male, and worth no more than selling off, mother,” Aquilo’s cool drawl hid the tension in his shoulders, as he clasped his hands behind his back, “but I have my uses. Did I not achieve the highest grades every single year, as you required? Do I not study the human world, werewolf customs, and the secrets hidden in the arcane? Is that not why you brought me tonight? Or am I little more than well-mannered breeding stock to be thrown at every available witch?”
I couldn’t help the grin. “I think that you can strike the well-mannered.”
Then I regretted it, as Omega elbowed me again.
“Did you hear a man talking?” Lux’s voice was the same oiled slither that had made me shudder, when I’d been hiding from her in the House of Blood, and our parents had smiled indulgently thinking that it was nothing more sinister than Hide-and-Seek. Boy, were adults blind. “The wind wouldn’t dare raise its voice amongst the magical. I’m thirsty, mother.”
Aquilo bit his lip, hanging his head. I’d hated his arrogance as a kid, dreaming of the day when I could wipe it from his face. But now it had been, I honestly didn’t know why I’d hated it so much. Maybe, we’d been too alike.
When Stella clapped her hands again, the Ambassador’s leash melted. He scurried to his feet, reaching through the bronze skin and pulling through a tray of Champagne flutes. On his knees, he offered the tray to each of us witches in turn.
But only the witches.
I considered not taking the drink in protest, but the Champagne looked too tempting and I had a feeling that whatever I’d been called for, I’d need alcohol to soften it. After all, the House of Blood was here, and if I was about to be spanked for messing up, then I wanted to be drunk first. I downed my drink in one go, even though my nose fizzed with bubbles.
Omega lifted his eyebrow. “Respect.”
Through the sudden wooziness, I watched Stella slip her hand onto Omega’s lower back. “You can earn yourself a drink, after you help with your first case.”
“Case?” Omega pulled back from Stella’s hand that had wandered down to cup his ass. Now it was me growling, and Stella grinned as she slowly pulled away her questing fingers. “You’re wanting me to help you?”
“Well, you have the qualifications since this was a wolf attack. Excuse me, a wolf murder.”
I gasped, but Omega’s eyes only narrowed. “We deal with our own justice in Wolf Kingdom. Why are you poking in your noses?”
Stella’s eyelid twitched. “Ride his cock but learn to muzzle his mouth.”
Omega instantly hunched his shoulders, whilst he panted.
I soothed my hand across his shoulders, and glared at Stella. “I take it that we’re here for something important, right? A wolf’s been murdered? So, back off because you’ll get further if my wolf isn’t curled up in a panic attack.”
Stella raised her hands above her head like she was about to summon lightning. “I said a wolf murder…one of ours has been murdered by a wolf, and the reason that it’s become our business is that it happened this side of the wall in my city. The kind of murder that could start a war with the type of death that you don’t want.�
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“Nay, that’s impossible.” Omega struggled to slow his breathing as he shook his head. “There hasn’t been a full moon in three weeks. For a wolf to have escaped from Wolf Kingdom without you knowing and then discovered a way to escape the collar…”
Stella’s eyes sparked silver. “Don’t believe me, pretty wolf? How about now?”
She sliced her arms down, and the tower lurched. I shrieked, tumbling backwards onto Omega who caught me, as we both tumbled onto our asses. My crystal glass smashed. When I looked up again with my head spinning, a bloodied corpse lay on the floor.
I was going to hurl…
“Jump vision,” Stella explained, casually sipping on her drink as she leaned against the wall. “Here in the House of Seasons, we can catch glimpses of time and sometimes weave it, rarely can we stop it. Like this murder…”
Omega patted me on the back, whilst I gagged, before crawling closer to the mangled body and sniffing.
You know, there were times that I forgot Omega was a wolf shifter and times that it was impossible to ignore. This was one of those impossible to ignore times.
To my surprise, Aquilo strode to the corpse with equal purpose, crouching down on the opposite side to Omega and brushing back the man’s brunet hair. Then he blanched.
“I know…knew him,” Aquilo murmured. His cold mask slipped just long enough for me to see his grief, before his gaze became shuttered again. “Kolby’s family had just discovered that he had magic…and so, being a mage, he’d been informed that he was to be given to the wolves. The last time I spoke to him, he was understandably terrified.”
“Whoa, what sort of dumbass tradition is that?” I demanded.
Stella shrugged. “I know. Why not simply kill him? But we all have our silly traditions.”
Boy, did I get what Omega had been trying to tell me about traditions.
Aquilo swallowed, whilst his shoulders stiffened, but he stroked down his friend’s cheek, before studying his mauled body.
“Wouldn’t you say that they simply followed through on the whole throwing to the wolves?” I asked.
Only Perfect Omegas: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance Series (Rebel Werewolves Book 1) Page 6
