He snorted and shook his head, but his focus didn’t wane.
“In the end, I drew them in separate sessions, and the pain of being apart came through every fibre of their being, which I recorded.” He pulled back, holding up his drawing and looking at us, then the sketch critically. “So why don’t you tell me about the way your unconventional relationship works? People must be equally shocked that four alphas can share one omega. It seems a practical solution to our omega shortage, but of course, that would mean that we alphas would need to set aside all our possessive posturing. Or is a battle waged every night, to see who wins the place by the fair maiden’s side?”
I turned to watch Brendan and Orion, feeling them move and knowing what was coming and needing to see that more than my next breath. Rhys’ hand tightened on my hip as I watched Orion lean closer, closer to Brendan, stringing the whole thing out for the benefit of the audience. You could have heard a pin drop when their lips connected. A strong hand slid up my spine, long, slow strokes as they kissed.
“Well, well…” Chadwick said. “It looks like my instincts were right—this is a very unconventional relationship indeed.”
But I found it hard to focus on what he was saying, the two alphas turning to me, eyes alight. The bright sunlight picked out the scatter of freckles across Brendan’s nose, the slightly too long curl of his hair, the way his full lips plumped under Orion’s assault. And Orion’s were just as pouty as those green eyes narrowed down on me.
“Come here, omega,” Orion ordered. “Show the nosy artist what we do. He’s shown us his, now it’s our turn.”
I shouldn’t, the need to keep this shit under the radar riding me hard, but no more than them. I could ignore his words, stay nice and neat and normal-looking on my favourite artist’s couch, or I could do this.
There was a definite disadvantage to being alpha or omega. Our designations, our very nature put us at odds with the majority of society. Alphas, they made their mark on the world, forcing it to bend when they wanted it to, to fit them and their needs. But an omega? Lowest down the hierarchy, yet also the most prized, we were always tagged as weak, whining, pathetic little things. But what could be braver than this? Having the eyes of the world upon us as we surrendered to our alphas so completely, giving them everything we had, trusting them to recognise that gift and treat it with the respect it deserved.
I kissed Brendan first, half crawling into his lap to do so, the small distance between us too much, Orion’s hand skating down my spine as I took his mate’s mouth. Slowly, conscious of the show we were putting on and unable to stop from playing up to that, Brendan’s hands slapped down on my hips, shoving me down as he pushed up against me.
“Are you tipping into frenzy again?” Orion asked, trying for calm concern, but his eyes were trained on us, finally darting in to taste me, then Brendan, and back again until we were all breathless.
“Keep going,” James said through gritted teeth. “This is fucking amazing. You’ll have to sit for me again. I could generate enough pieces from this
to hold a whole other show.”
Which cooled my blood somewhat. Suppressants operate primarily to mask an omega’s scent, to redirect unwanted attention away from them and stop alphas thinking scent is consent. But they helped reduce the intensity of frenzy, not allowing me to get swept away by everything that was going down.
“Tell me how you all met, how you came to share an omega.”
I looked across at Rhys, who watched everything going on from behind that fall of sandy hair, particularly James. He was like a sentinel standing watch over us, making sure we were safe as we clawed at each other.
“This is what you wanted, to interrogate us,” he said to the artist in a low rumble.
“Not interrogate,” Chadwick replied. “I could draw you all very competently just as you are, but that’s not art, that’s replication. It’s what’s inside, the dynamics between the models, that is where the true art begins. The more I understand, the more I can imbue my drawings with.”
“You wanna know about us?” Rhys asked, the challenge apparent in his voice before his gaze softened, turning to me and hauling me into his lap. He buried his nose in my hair, breathing me in deep, as if to suck every bit of my subdued scent in. “I’ll bite. Our story is a long one.”
“All the better,” the artist said as he sketched rapidly, making marks on the page before discarding the drawing for another piece of paper. “Tell me your story.”
Chapter 21
“Brendan and I, we knew each other since we were kids. Same school, similar neighbourhood. I lived over on the shitty side of the school district, where he was on the nice side. We were these lonely little kids in a big fucking zoo of a school, and we found each other,” Rhys said.
When he looked over to the other side of the couch, there was something so fucking naked about his face, I wanted to string out the moment so that James had time to record it. I’d pay his fee myself, if I could have a drawing of that to hang on the wall, preserving it forever. Brendan saw it too, reaching out across the back of the couch, their fingers gripping each other’s.
“He was my best friend, my shadow. I didn’t come from alpha parents, but people were assuming I would present as one from an early age. I was bigger, taller, heavier than most.”
“I figured he’d protect me from the bullies,” Brendan said, “so I was glued to his side. Then when I got there, I found I liked it. It took a long time for us to act on it, but… I knew his scent better than my own, could tell you at every point it began to deepen, grow more complex. I was so fucking sure I was his omega. We kissed a bit when we became teenagers, fooled around, but nothing serious. We had to wait until we were revealed. Even my parents thought I’d come out an omega, though god knows where that would have come from. Everyone was reassuringly beta in my family.”
His eyes dropped, following the way his fingers traced the lines on his lover’s palm.
“And then I went to bed a kid and woke up an alpha. I fucking cried. Dad was so proud. Pretty sure he thought I was gonna represent the country in rugby or some shit, but I just bawled like a baby, and Dad just stood there, not knowing what to do.” When he looked up again, his curiously coloured eyes met Rhys’.
I knew they loved each other, saw that in their bond, but right fucking now, Brendan’s expression was a love letter to Rhys, and the big alpha was sending one right back. I went to pull away, feeling like I was intruding, but with the sixth sense of an alpha, their hands shot out, keeping me where I was, between them.
“It was Mum, bless her, who came up with the answer. No silly social conventions or expectations about alphas and omegas were going to stop her baby from having his heart’s desire.” Brendan smiled, but when I reached out, touching his cheek, I felt the wet slide of a single tear. “Rhys was standoffish at first.”
“Protective. The omegas started throwing themselves at you like fucking confetti. Those bastards and bitches were out for what was mine, but that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.” His hand tightened around Brendan’s, pulling me close, making me want to get out of the way, but Rhys wasn’t having that. I was tucked up on his lap, held tight as Brendan kissed him with everything he had.
“Are you getting this?” My voice contained some real command for the first time in my life, causing James’ eyebrow to jerk up. “This needs to be recorded. I’ll pay for it, if that’s what it takes. Record it.”