Making nests still wasn’t my strong suit, but over the past few weeks I liked to think that I made do and the structure in front of us was no different. I’d utilized the four posts of the bed and the top railing to make a cozy cave that was big enough for an alpha to get inside of it with me.
Or two, my nasty little brain whispered as I waited for Edison to speak again.
This morning when I’d gotten up and decided to bite the bullet and build the bridal nest, I still wasn’t considering inviting anyone into it, let alone two men.
That was, at least, until Edison kissed me in the garden after the ceremony. I could still feel the way his lips had rasped against mine and the hunger in his dark, blown-pupil eyes. Then I’d watched him devour Rhodes with the same kind of hunger, his expression an invitation into a world I had no clue how to navigate. I was a damn goner after all of that.
“You were telling me about Rhodes?” I finally prodded, giving him a gentle tap so that he would put me down on my own two feet again.
Instead Edison deposited me onto the little settee that sat against one of the tall windows and began to fiddle with the buckles of my heels as he started to speak again.
“Rhodes and I met when we were nine. He was the son of one of my father’s men and because we were in the same age group my father thought it would be a good idea for us to become subordinates.”
“Not friends?” I cut in to ask.
Edison’s chuckle was sardonic as he shook his head. “Father didn’t believe in friends, pet.”
Finally managing to free one of my feet from the death trap Oona called a shoe, Edison gave my foot a gentle squeeze, working his fingers over the red sore spots with a finesse that nearly made me moan out loud.
“We grew up together and did everything together. School, college, all of it.”
“And did you always love each other?”
My question seemed to throw the alpha off as he struggled with the buckle of my other shoe.
“Love?” Edison asked with a scoff, black brows drawing together. “Pet, what Rhodes and I do isn’t love. It’s a necessity.”
“How so?” I understood needing me to an extent. I could give birth to heirs at the very least, but what use would kissing and sleeping with his closest… subordinate have?
“A few years ago I slept with women pretty freely,” Edison began and I had to shove down the sudden, irrational wave of jealousy his words gave me. It made no sense whatsoever to feel this way as my only claim on the man in front of me was thanks to the ring on my finger.
It’s a contract marriage, Perrie, get your shit together, I reminded myself, my insides twisting a bit as he continued to massage my sore feet.
“It’s a need for an alpha and I never had any trouble with it… until one of them decided to put two bullets in my chest while we were in the middle of having sex.”
My mind went back to the first night that I saw them both and the wound he’d come into the cancer ward to get Dr. Stedmeyer to patch up for him. Was that injury the same one he was speaking of now?
“After that I locked it down… and Rhodes helped me with that. As my best friend, nothing more.”
I wanted to snort at his words. The way the two looked at each other in the hallway told me that they were anything but best friends.
Apparently, my earlier deduction that I was going to become their very pretty beard was wrong, but that didn’t also mean that they weren’t in complete denial about how they felt about each other.
Sometimes men really were the denser sex.
“And inviting him into my room earlier? What was that about?”
Edison’s hands started to travel up my legs, continuing to squeeze and massage my sore calves with strong fingers. “My hope, pet, is that eventually you may want to… welcome him into our union as a member of our pack.”
Reaching down I stopped him before he could slide up past my knees. If I let him go any further then I was afraid I would agree to anything Edison Keane asked of me so long as he didn’t stop touching me. “Last time I checked, the Keane leaders don’t have packs. It’s a tradition and all that, remember?”
Every single thing I’d heard from the long-winded droning of the older omega who taught me told me that they were staunch traditionalists that bucked against change.
Edison didn’t seem dissuaded by my hands stopping him and instead he just pulled my fingers up to his lips and brushed a kiss across my knuckles. It was far more innocent than the rasp of his hands on my legs had been, but for some reason it made my insides clench even more tightly as our eyes met.
“Pet, over the past three weeks has anything I’ve done shown me to be a traditionalist in any sense of the word?”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t think so. Besides, if I really wanted to be a traditionalist I never would have married you and that would have been such a shame.” At my confusion, Edison grinned. “Keane men also don’t marry outside of the clan. There are a plethora of branch daughters that were born for the express purpose of maybe being my wife one day and I didn’t choose any of them.”
My mind reeled at that and suddenly all of the tension between Edison and the older generation made a lot more sense. He’d basically told them to shove their ways up their asses and was probably going to continue to do so for as long as he lived.
And damn if I didn’t feel flattered by it.
“But why are you so against it all? Wouldn’t upholding your traditions make your place as their leader more solid?”
Edison cupped my face in his hands, gently pulling me forward until our lips were a hair’s breadth away from each other. “Because I think it’s all bullshit. The entire system is the reason why my mother couldn’t live her life in peace after everything that happened to her. Why she still was forced to bear an heir long after her mind had been shattered. Pride and tradition is the reason why the family started to weaken by the time my father finally kicked the bucket two years ago.”
Edison’s words contained a deep anger despite the bland expression on his face.
Then his lips were on mine again, reminding me of the reason we were in my bedroom in the first place. I couldn’t, nor wouldn’t fend off his hands this time as they bypassed my knees and slid under the short chiffon skirt of the reception dress Oona had put me in.
His palms were almost too warm on my thighs as they lifted me up out of the chair and spread me astride his knee. It was more contact to a place that no one but me had ever touched than I’d ever had before and I let out a squeak of shock.
“I thought you weren’t going to touch me until my heat?” I managed through gritted teeth as I tried to shift into any position that would ease the sudden tingling sensation that sitting on his leg was bringing.
Edison’s lips ghosted along my jaw, sending a shiver down my spine. “Actually, Perrie, the contract we made stated that I wouldn’t touch you unless you wanted me to.”
