Emboldened by our earlier kiss and her silent permission to touch her, I finally let myself actually look at her body.
Despite being as short as she was, her legs were long and they led up to her tapered hips and waist. The breasts which had been a palmful in my hands earlier were perfectly formed with a pair of pink nipples topping them off. My eyes traced up the column of her neck where, when she turned to me upon hearing my re-arrival back into the bathroom, I got a good look at the fresh bond mark that Edison had placed there.
I never thought Edison Keane would bond with anyone. He usually kept everything but me at an arm’s length, so it was surprising to see Perrie wearing it now and I couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like to share that kind of physical proof of a connection with someone.
Somehow, Perrie had felled the notoriously anti-love alpha and had done it in two months flat, bringing her track record up to two-for-two because as soon as she kissed me I’d known I was a goner too.
I’d spent so much time and effort resisting Edison and Perrie that the moment that I realized she was missing it was like the world as I knew it was crumbling away underneath my feet.
For one, Edison would never have forgiven me for letting the same thing that happened to his mother happen to her and for two, I never would have forgiven myself for it.
When we tracked her to the party and I found her on the ground with blood on her lips I had to force myself not to shove her little brother’s head under the water until he drowned.
While Edison had been the one in the end to go into a panicked rut, I had barely staved off my own as my inner alpha, which was almost always silent, was shrieking in my head for me not to let him take Perrie away from me and her nest.
But Perrie wasn’t mine and that was the only thing that held me back as I watched him carry her away.
After that, I threw myself into making sure that shit didn’t burn to the ground in Edison’s absence, finally seeing this afternoon that he’d calmed down enough to sleep and let me take care of the exhausted omega.
Because all my instincts wanted to do was take care of her. To bathe her and soothe her, and care for her every need. They’d certainly been having a fucking field day when she insisted I feed her by hand.
“Rhodes?” The omega who seemed to be taking up every corner of my mind right now, cut through my rambling thoughts and I realized that I was still staring at her body like I was a young alpha who couldn’t control himself.
Clearing my throat, I hurried forward to grab the platter of food next to Edison, ignoring his smug smile.
“Let’s talk in the room, it sounds like the maid is done,” I muttered, my neck warming as I turned on my heel and hurried out of the bathroom before I could make any more of a fool of myself.
I settled in on one of the small couches that faced a gas fireplace that the maid must have lit and waited for Edison and Perrie to come out of the bathroom.
When they did emerge, Perrie was also dressed in Edison’s clothing, the sweatpants she had on needing to be rolled up several times so she could walk, and Edison having changed into a pair of work out shorts and a shirt.
The pair settled down on the couch opposite of me, Perrie reaching forward to snag a piece of rolled turkey off of the platter to munch on while we waited to see who would be the first to speak.
Edison, always having hated nothing more than a long drawn out silence, finally sighed. “I suppose I should be the first to say that I am not angry about you and Perrie kissing.”
I knew he wasn’t, but it was nice to hear him say it out loud. No, if anything the other alpha seemed to be buzzing with glee over the fact that I’d finally given in—probably just like he knew I always would have, the bastard.
“Furthermore, with everything that is going on at the moment, I think we should continue to take things slowly and reveal the formation of our pack after New Years once we’ve solved all of the bullshit that’s being going on—”
“Wait,” I cut in, blinking with surprise. “Pack? What pack? I haven’t agreed to that yet.”
One of Edison’s dark brows lifted and he exchanged a glance with Perrie whose expression fell a bit. “I figured that, by you kissing my omega, that you were acknowledging that you wanted to be a part of our pack.”
I wanted to point out that Perrie had been the one to kiss me first, but I figured bringing up the semantics of it would still get me to the same place in the end.
As soon as Perrie’s lips had touched mine I knew that it was an inevitability that I would give in.
“I’m still worried about what the branch heads will say or do, Edison you have no idea what bullshit they’ve been pulling just because you were incapacitated. Can you imagine what they’ll do if you decide to break one of the core traditions that they still cling to?” I asked with a shake of my head. “Especially for someone like me.”
It hurt to say those words out loud about myself and it clearly affected Perrie too because she was sitting up in her seat and frowning at me. “What do you mean ‘someone like you’? Outside of the tradition, why should they care that it’s you? You’re Edison’s second-in-command, if it’s anyone it should be you.”
Edison’s gold eyes met mine and he shrugged one shoulder as if to say that it was up to me to tell her about my past.
The desire to keep it to myself and keep Perrie looking at me the same way she always did nearly won out. When people knew about where I came from they either looked at me with pity or disgust, but never with open trust and attraction like Perrie was now.
“I’m the son of a whore,” I began with a heavy sigh.
“Sex worker,” Edison corrected like he always did when I tried to disparage myself and my mother.
It didn’t matter much to me as I had no loyalty or affection for the woman who’d given birth to me, but it made Edison feel better so I amended my statement.
“I’m the son of a sex worker and my father was a Keane branch member. I was never supposed to happen and my existence was hidden until I was nine when Edison’s father learned of it and needed a playmate for his son.”
Perrie’s auburn brows drew together. “But why would he seek out you to be Edison’s playmate?”
“Pet, what have you noticed the most about the men we keep close to us here at the estate?” Edison asked her gently, his hand creeping around her stomach so that he could pull her more firmly against his chest.
Perrie thought about it for a moment, like there was some sort of secret answer she couldn’t reach even though it was obvious. “That they’re all younger. There’s no men older than you two at the mansion.”
“Correct,” I jumped in. “A lot of younger Keane men died during the war against the Serbians and it forced the older generation to scramble to refill the ranks and even as they tried… there was a sudden rash of daughters born into the clan. Not sons. Collum is actually the closest in age to us and he’s still eight years younger.”
“My father believed that the best way to create loyal subordinates was to raise them alongside one another, but there was no one in my age group until he discovered one of his men had a child out of wedlock the same year I was born,” Edison explained, glancing over at me with warm eyes that suddenly took on a mischievous glint. “Though I’m sure he’s now rolling in his grave because said subordinate has had my cock inside of him.”
Perrie’s cheeks flushed prettily at his words and we both groaned when the scent of strawberries started to fill the space between us.
“Sorry,” Perrie muttered. “But I can’t control it when you say things like that.”
Clenching my hands together, trying to ignore the way my mouth watered at her scent, I continued. “The branch heads weren’t happy about me whatsoever, but without sons of their own there was nothing they could do but start to angle their daughters into the potential position of wife.”
