The champagne flute was removed from my hand, soon to be replaced by a glass of ice water. Yes, cooling. I put it up to my forehead, damn the makeup artist’s work, and rubbed it against my now sweating brow.
“Dear god,” he hissed, crouched down before me, a hand going to my bare knee, “you’re tipping into frenzy.”
“So I’ve been told,” I ground out, then gulped down a mouthful of water.
“Good girl. You’ll need to stay hydrated. Do you have any suppressants with you, Ms Rhodes?”
Somehow that was naughtier, more carnal than calling me omega. I felt like I was back at school, but all of a sudden, my art teacher was a helluva lot younger and hotter than old Mrs Collins. And that hand… His fingers twitched against my skin, like he’d like to do something else altogether.
And when I looked up, I wanted him to.
My tongue flicked out, scraping over my red slicked lips, and he followed every movement.
“Ms Rhodes? Suppressants?”
“Yes, of course.” I grabbed my super small, super useless little cloche bag and opened it, popping out a few pills and palming them before taking the glass of water from James again. He watched me swallow them down, then more water.
“James,” an older man said, bustling up. “We need to open the show.”
“In a moment, Oliver. This is Miranda Rhodes’ daughter, Cyn.” Oliver was backing the fuck up at the sound of Mum’s name. “She’s just had a little turn, and I’m making sure she’s OK. Most of the people aren’t here to see the art, so delaying things for a few minutes won’t hurt.”
“Of course. I’ll circulate more brie.”
“Now, Ms Rhodes, I need you to take nice long breaths for me, in and out. Very good. In and out, holding your breath for two beats between each breath. Good girl.”
This, this was what society had shaped us into, alphas and omegas. He didn’t want to fetch me water or watch me breathe, I could feel that in the electrical pulses that thrummed between us. But if he lifted me up, stripped me bare in front of all the betas, plunged his tongue into my naked cunt, then slammed into me, forcing me to take his knot just like he wanted to, it made it very difficult for us to exist in a society mostly made up of betas.
Their way, of sensible, stable, productivity, had been shown over and over to work best for the collective. So instead, alphas prided themselves on caring, sheltering, protecting omegas, to show they, too, were worthy of their place at the top of the social ladder.
Which was what I had to remind myself. His quiet concern, his firm commands, they weren’t for me. He didn’t know me. They were for the unruly omega designation that was a part of me, to stop me from embarrassing myself.
Of course, he had to ruin that quickly constructed defence, didn’t he?
“You look quite beautiful right now,” James said, staring, the previously mischievous look in his eyes transmuting to something much harder. “Those flushed cheeks, those glowing eyes, that bloody pearl collar. Did you mean for me to imagine ripping it off, sending all those pearls bouncing across the marble floor, and replacing it with my hand?”
“I…”
“What the hell is going on?”
His voice was a cold slap across the face, breaking the spell James had been casting and leaving me gasping in response.
Orion.
“I asked you what you were doing, Chadwick.”
James straightened up, squaring his shoulders as he did so.
“Did you put her in this state?” he snapped in response. Silence at that. “What the hell were you thinking, and why is she roaming these shark tanks, shedding blood into the water?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“But you know who did. Jesus Christ, Orion, I thought better of you. She’s about to tip right over into frenzy.”
“I know.”
“And you let her out?”
“She’s not mine to say yea or nay too. We offered her somewhere safe to see this through, and she refused.”