“Yes. With all those tears you look quite hideous.”
These teasing words did their work, for a small smile tugged at my lips. With a little more gentle coaxing, they decided that I would stay in bed for the rest of the day. I did not have the strength to argue and accepted the arm of a housemaid to half carry me up to my bedchamber.
I stripped my clothes off, throwing them on my bed, and grateful for the cold air on my flushed skin. Then saw for the first time something I should have noticed weeks ago. I was nesting. It was not a small nest either, but one built high with a deep hollow in the middle of it to sleep in.
“Oh, Miss Viola, yes. You’ve been nesting. We have just been bringing you fresh—“ the maid smiled at me.
“For how long?” I asked.
“Oh, two weeks. Maybe three.”
“Thank you.” I was not thankful. Nesting? Impossible, for my heat was not due for months.
She bobbed a curtsy and left me staring at the intricately layered fabrics and pillows. Throughout I could see hints of colour. I shifted closer and bent to sniff the clothing I had placed. All of it held a trace of Syon, and in the middle was my lavender gown that held his scent and my slick. I climbed in, too exhausted to consider the consequences of what building a nest signified, and pulled the fragrant clothes and blankets over me. Buried in my nest, I inhaled the familiar cloves and musk that belonged to my mate. Mate… The word had slick pouring from me. Hoping that it would tempt him to return, even while I knew he was miles away.
The tears came next. Not the same grief I’d felt on my father’s death but loss so profound I could not breathe. No one was responsible for my devastated heart by my own hubris, my arrogance.
The next day, my body ached and my aunt came to tell me that my uncle wished to speak with me. She refused to let me out of my bed, and the conference was awkwardly held as he stood at the door and I huddled in my nest.
“You will end this charade,” my uncle pressed his alpha will on me.
I did not bother to reply. I, more than any, knew that everything was over.
“What? You won’t fight me?”
I bit down on my lip to stop the tears that threatened to fall.
“Leave, Richard,” my aunt pushed him aside. “Viola? My dear? Your mating gland is swollen. Are you expecting your heat? No! Well, you are about to go into heat. Don’t worry, child…”
She sent for a maid who returned with a tray of barley water and broth. Then it was a matter of bringing even more nesting materials and forcing me to eat small meals so that I could keep my strength up for the heat I had not expected.
It was the worst heat of my life. I keened and howled, unable to find the relief I needed. At one point a serving girl entered carrying a parcel of shirts that I ripped from her arms. I brought them to my face and found my body relax, soothed by the smell of my alpha mate. The one who should be my mate. They soon became lost amongst the linens of my nest as I writhed in agony at my loss.
My hands were inadequate to the task, and I used the large wooden dildo I had brought with me from home. In my past heats, it had helped with my need for a stretch but now I whimpered knowing that somewhere slept the alpha who would be able to stretch me more, better than some toy. But I knew that only Syon’s knot would soothe my omega needs.
On the third day, my heat broke. I lay in my nest weak and delirious, stinking of sweat and slick and sex. My aunt sat with me, bringing tea loaded with sugar in the mornings and bitter beer in the evening. It took some time before I was strong enough to leave my bed for a bath, and as I soaked in the steaming water, my muscles began to loosen as did my control of my emotions. I could not speak my anguish but I could cry, so I did.
“It was not a proper heat,” my aunt said with a sideways glance at Mrs Markham, who had come at her request.
“What?” I asked. “I think it was real enough.”
“You had a false heat, which is why it was so... Difficult and short. Only three days?”
“False heat? I’ve never heard of that,” I pressed a hand to my still feverish forehead.
“Lord save me from omegas who are raised only by alphas!” My aunt threw her hands in the air. “My dear niece, did you get no instruction on your heat?”
I tried to remember. “I read books and of course I have had a heat a year since I was sixteen. My father died barely a month after my first heat.”
The two older omegas looked at each other.
“But your sisters never spoke to you about a false heat? Flash heats?” Mrs Markham sat forward in her chair. She pressed her lips together and took a breath as if preparing to petition the king. “A flash heat happens on the cusp of your first heat with the alpha you mean to mate. It is to ensure the alpha will stay by you until the real heat comes. You would have had a real heat if your alpha had remained close, but now your body is in limbo waiting for him to return. You will be weak and irritable until an alpha can help you through your heat.”
“A mate heat?” I asked. “That is a fairytale. True mates are a fairytale.”
“Oh, that is true enough, but if an alpha and omega have been exposed to each other for a very long time, bonds are formed. For both of them. Especially if they have been spending months together on a daily basis. The alpha’s bite is merely the final culmination. If... if you have been exposed to an alpha… Known his seed.”
I blushed remember all that had happened between us.