I SLEPT through the last leg of the drive. I woke as I was lifted out of the truck in Jonah’s arms, his purr humming to try and help me sleep through the jostling. My eyes slid open but what I found for a view was so incongruous and confusing, that they shut again before I’d finished processing the sight.
Enormous gray stone and stained glass and shrubbery.
“Jesus, Bull. What the hell is this place?”
That was what finally caught my attention, the shock in Ryan’s voice. I opened my eyes again, my jaw dropping slowly as Jonah carried me up a pebbled drive to a palatial front staircase. With stone lions perched on either side.
“It’s… where I grew up,” Bullet said, his back facing mine as he trudged up those deep steps to huge front doors with dim golden knockers, goblin faces screaming and trying to loose the heavy rings trapped in their jaws.
“Put me down,” I whispered, sitting up in Jonah’s arms.
He set me on my feet at the first step, his own attention caught on the… it was a mansion. A big stone mansion with electric candles in the tall windows and what looked like long wings of rooms stretching in either direction.
“Did you know about this?” Seth whispered to Jonah, who shook his head.
I expected Bullet to knock when he reached the top of the steps, but instead he pulled a key out from his back pants pocket, and slid aside a false old fashioned looking keyhole on the door to reveal a more modern one. I hurried up the steps, wanting that first look inside this strange place. It was like something out of an old movie, grand and ancient, with tall pillars holding up a stone balcony above our heads.
“Grab her things,” Jonah said to the others. “Bullet, who else is here?”
“No one,” Bullet said, glancing over his shoulder, finding me at his back and giving me a tight- lipped smile. “It’s just us. We can stay as long as we need. Come on, kitten.”
His huge hand enveloped mine, and with a heavy turn of the key and a dense click from inside, he pushed open the door. The floor was marble, that was the first thing I saw. A soft beeping sounded from inside, and Bullet pulled me in, guiding me to a narrow carpet in a huge and shadowy entrance hall as he went to key in a code at an alarm system on the right side of the room near a side table with a stained glass lamp. He pulled it on and the space became clearer.
In front of me a round table sat loaded with a heavy, low vase, overflowing with roses. Fresh roses, deep reds and orangey peaches and bruised purples. A few leaves had fallen to the surface of the table, but otherwise the bouquet was intact, and fragrant as if someone had set it there this morning. Beyond the table, a wide staircase led up and split in two directions. Heavy, dark wallpaper
stretched up from half paneled wood walls. I looked up to follow the line of the staircases, saw the balustrades extending above me, and then the enormous and unlit chandelier.
“Bullet,” I whispered.
“I know,” he grumbled, and I snorted by how unimpressed he sounded.
Behind me, the others entered, soft curses muttered under their breath as they lined up behind me, their boots noisy on the marble until they reached the carpet.
“What the fuck, Bullet?” Mackenzie said, a breathless laugh in his throat.
“So, yeah,” Bullet said, and then the words ended lamely there.
“Yeah?”
“Um… bedrooms are upstairs,” Bullet said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Kitchen is, um, there’s a smaller staircase back there on the left that takes you down there. Greenhouse at the end of the left-wing. Lots of sitting rooms…and shit.”
We stared at him and I watched the flush rise up his neck, hiding in his beard until it flooded his
cheeks.
“Baby, I got…somewhere to show you.”
“Man, you cannot just swing open a fucking iron gate, drive up to this place, and then be like, ‘there are bedrooms upstairs,’” Seth said, laughing.
“Fuckin’ watch me,” Bullet muttered.
I left the carpet, tried not to flinch at the echoing slap of my shoes on marble, and crossed to Bullet. His tension melted as I pressed myself to his chest and rested my head over his heartbeat. Was it right that we came here if it made him so uncomfortable?
“I’ll explain everything tomorrow,” Bullet said to the others. “And there’s nothing stopping you from lookin’ around. Helping yourself. But right now, I’m taking Baby up to bed.”
“Where?” Jonah asked.
“Take the stairs up to the right-wing, door at the end of the hall will take you up to the nest.”
“A nest?” I asked, perking up and leaning back to find Bullet’s stare.
He nodded, lip quirking up to the left. “Proper one.”
A part of me agreed with the others, I wanted the answers to the mystery of this place now. I could wait for my nest if it weren’t for the twitch of tension running up and down Bullet’s arms.
Bringing me and the others here was costing Bullet something, and if he needed to retreat, then I could help with that. I faced the others and met Jonah’s gaze, nodding and watching his jaw lock before he answered with a nod of his own.
“Here’s your bags, baby girl,” Jonah said. I met him on the marble, Bullet following behind me and taking the bags before I could slide them onto my own shoulders.
“You won’t leave tonight, right?” I asked Jonah, uncertain if the others would come find Bullet and I later, or if they’d leave me to handle our edgy alpha.
“No, we’re takin’ a couple days to settle you in,” Jonah said, leaning and pressing a kiss to my raised lips. He bent and pressed his lips to my ear. “We’ll come find you after we get the lay of the land.”
I nodded and then stepped back into Bullet’s arms and followed his guiding touch up the broad and curving staircase into the ‘right-wing.’ It was dark and Bullet didn’t bother with any lights, just tucked my hand in his and pulled me along. We passed shadows of heavy gilded frames on the walls, their contents obscured in the dark. The hall went on with a near nightmarish length, the wing almost
comically large.
“You told me you grew up here,” I said.
Bullet was quiet, although I thought I caught his head nodding ahead of me.
I spoke slowly, hoping he would pick up the thread of thought for me. “Like… it was… your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. Well, technically grandparents, but my mom and her alphas lived here with them. Here.”
Bullet stopped in front of a narrow door and jiggled a handle open. His shoulders barely fit through as he stepped inside, jerking in the bags of bedding and my clothes that had been hastily packed. He flipped a switch and I braced myself for sudden, harsh light, but the bulbs overhead warmed gradually, a soft glow from round bulbs that circled the curling staircase.
“Bullet, is this a turret?” I asked, a slight giggle escaping.
“Um, yeah kinda.”
The stairs were polished wood with dense carpet, so it couldn’t have been that old. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t have thought you came from…”
“Old money?” He paused, and this time when he looked over his shoulder at me I could make out his grin in the soft light. “Yeah. I can’t say I never fit in while I was growing up. But things definitely changed after my designation came in.”
He continued up, and I chased his heels until we broke out of the spiraling steps and onto a landing. There were two doors at an angle. Bullet opened one and flicked a light switch, revealing black and gold tile, another smaller chandelier hanging above a deep clawfoot tub. There was a shower booth big enough for four, and on the opposite side of the room was a long bar with a wide countertop and two sinks.
The other door opened to a second set of steps and I watched Bullet disappear up it, my eyes lingering greedily on the luxury bathroom. Curiosity won out, and I followed Bullet up. It was only a handful of steps that opened into a small, round room. The walls were a deep and velvety blue, curving up the sides to a domed ceiling with a modest, rounded, glass roof at the very top. The floor was made of a memory foam mattress, and Bullet tossed the bags down and then toed off his boots on the final step. I shuffled out of my own shoes and watched his feet sink into the cushions with the first step.
The floor seemed to follow a gentler opposite curve to the ceiling, pooling into the center where a tangle of velvet pillows and silky sheets and chenille blankets and downy black comforters waited
for me to dive into them.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Bullet huffed and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me to his chest and burying his face in my hair. “Hoped you’d like it.”
“It smells like you,” I said. It smelled like roses at least, and I remembered what he said about his mother and her alphas. “It was your mother’s?”
“It was mine,” he said.
I jerked back at that and spun to face him. “Yours?”
Bullet sighed and scuffed his hand through his beard. Then he turned and let himself fall carelessly backwards into the bedding, a fluff of pillows and comforter bouncing around him as he landed. It looked like a soft landing and I was dying to copy him.
“C’mere, kitten,” Bullet purred from inside the nest.
A nest. A real nest, with a low ceiling and a skylight and a never-ending bed. I took one step onto the platform and whimpered as memory foam swallowed my foot. I ran forward, bouncing through cushions and then dove onto Bullet. He caught me with an oof and a laugh as I burrowed over him and into a deep well of blankets.
“Omigod, omigod,” I sighed as I rolled in infinite softness, grabbing up each texture and nuzzling into it.
Bullet purred at my side and it drew me back to him, twisting through blankets to roll to my side and face him. His eyes were drowsy, but he seemed relaxed finally.
“Bullet, honey. You’re an alpha,” I said.
“I am.”
“How come you have a nest in a mansion that no one in our pack seemed to know about?”
“There’s more than one question in that,” Bullet said, and I shrugged. “Umm, so my mom’s family was pretty matriarchal. Long history of having omega children. But my mom, she had a hard time getting pregnant, which is rare for omegas. So when she got pregnant with me, everyone assumed I’d be…”
“An omega,” I finished for him, my eyes wide.
“Instead they had me. Barking, snarling. Dirt behind my ears at the dinner table. My mom and my grandfather tried to groom me. Thought that when I was old enough my designation would start to flip in the right direction…”
“I don’t, I can’t—“ My eyes drifted up the ceiling in confusion. “I don’t know how anyone could mistake you for anything other than alpha.”
Bullet hummed and his arm slithered under the pillow holding my head up, tugging me back to his warm chest and planting a kiss on my forehead. “I think Mom knew, but the doctors told her she wouldn’t get pregnant again and she felt like she let her… I dunno, legacy down, or whatever. And, you know, I wasn’t always so big and scary.”
I tilted my head back to see him smirk, his eyebrows waggling. I snorted and relaxed into his arms. “Scary’s not the word I’d use,” I said.
He grunted. “Oh yeah? What word would you use then, kitten?”
“You’re gentle with me,” I said, and Bullet purred.
“I’d never hurt you, Baby,” he said, the teasing vanishing from his tone.
I shifted, abandoning the cloud-soft nest for my rocky and muscular alpha, stretching myself over his chest. His hands slid down my back and settled themselves comfortably on my ass, squeezing briefly.
“I know you wouldn’t.” I nuzzled into his chin and left a kiss there. “But I think the word I would use is…sexy.” Bullet purred, and I stretched up to peck his lips and pull away before he could chase me. “Or protective.” I kissed the side of his mouth. “Or patient.”
“Not always that,” Bullet said, words vibrating in his throat. And despite the claim he held me loosely so I could lounge over him, his hands keeping me steady on his chest.
“Is that why you always look so sheepish when you growl or bark?” I asked him. “Because you were raised to be an omega?”
“S’pose so. When my bark came in—I mean, really in—it was a rough couple years. My dad tryin’ to keep me in line, and me being a shit and takin’ advantage of my grandad falling in line when I barked. So it’s a little bit guilt too.”
My legs slid open pushing myself up to sit, feeling Bullet’s hips below mine, admiring him in the mess of jewel-toned pillows, hair falling loose from where he’d tied it back.
“I love that you’re sweet and careful,” I said, watching his smile grow slowly across his face. “I love hearing your growl too,” I added, and his smile stilled and eyes widened. When I emphasized my point with a roll of my hips, his lips parted. “Your bark makes me wet.”
“Kitten,” he said, and the word was halfway between a purr and a growl.
“I don’t need you to be anything other than yourself, Bullet,” I said, rocking almost imperceptibly above him. “If there’s some Quincy in that too, well he’s more than welcome. And if there’s more alpha than you were raised to be, that’s fine with me too.”
“You tired, Baby?” Bullet asked, voice gravelly low and eyes hooded. His hands tugged my skirt out and then slid beneath to hunt for skin.
“I napped in the car,” I said, grinning and waiting for the predator beneath me to lunge.
“Then take your clothes off.”
The words were soft, almost whispered, but they held the beautifully dark and open echo at the back of his voice. My alpha just barked.
