When she moved to stand, he lifted a hand. “Don’t touch the glass. Your mind and body have enough to heal as it is.”
Three Alphas armed with a vacuum, floor wax, and a tray of simple food came and went in a blink.
Brenya ate gruel, smiling at the taste. The man drank something that stank of rotting tubing. And then they went to the separate ends of their bed.
In the dark, Brenya could have sworn Jacques touched her hair, shrieking as she roused from sleep to scrabble away before he might mount her.
The nest of pillows scattered, Brenya locking herself in the bathroom as if that trick might work.
She’d seen the man rip the door from his own lavatory. That didn’t stop her from bracing against the wood.
Jules’ voice came instead. “When you are ready to come out, there are matters we need to discuss.”
He did not sound angry. Glancing into the emptiness of him, the Beta was the same neutral calm as always. But Jacques, Jacques was scratching for attention just enough to bring gooseflesh on her body.
Minutes passed, and she felt more foolish. Jacques Bernard was not in the room. He hadn’t been any of the times she had jumped at shadows or thought she heard his purr.
Unlatching the door, she found the Beta rebuilding her nest. Shy, she went to help him, altering the placement of a few soft things for optimal structural support.
“When an Omega is parted from the person they share a pair-bond with, mental decline commences. Auditory hallucinations, physical reactions, nightmares.” The perfunctory way in which Jules said these things, it made it seem immaterial, manageable.
It felt no different than a supervisor outlining her duties for the day.
Handing her the last pillow to place wherever she wanted, he met her eye and took the fresh calm of the moment away. “Jacques Bernard has been under a medically induced coma, a feeding tube ensuring he receives optimal nutrition. However, this situation is unsustainable. It is clear to me that it would be in your best interest to have Jacques functioning.”
That was why the Alpha’s psyche had withdrawn like low tide. He was there, but he was quiet, and the idea of him crashing back in left Brenya shaking her head. “No.”
Jules Havel explained further, emotionless and unresponsive to her refusal. “There will be times you will be required to tolerate his presence. How often those moments arrive will depend on your reaction to his absence.”
Shaking her head more firmly, she clutched the last pillow to her chest. “No.”
“He will be assigned to tend Lucia through her pregnancy.”
Brenya didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t care. “Please don’t give me back to Jacques Bernard!”
It looked like the Beta considered reaching out to touch her, wielding a firm voice instead of a soft touch. “You share a pair-bond with the Alpha. He will be an unavoidable nuisance for the rest of your life. But do not imagine that I would ever let him fuck you. You will never kneel again to take him in your mouth.”
When he gestured for her to climb into her nest, she did, retreating under the covers as if the whole night might go away.
Jules underestimated Jacques’ obsession if he imagined the Alpha would leave her alone.
A warm purr came from the Beta climbing into his side of the bed. An auditory caress that was so different than the purrs she experienced in the past.
Yet it worked the same; her eyes grew heavy, and the knot in her stomach loosened. A strange hum fell from her lips, Brenya floating on the cusp of sleep.
When the phantom touch came again, she didn’t scream.
She slept.
She woke, she dressed, she looked through the information the Queen of Greth Dome had organized for her. The final note was from Jules, informing her where she might find a space set up for her work.
Upon preparing for her day, her heel found a single missed shard of crystal. It burrowed in, cutting her foot as she padded dazed across the floor to the room she had discovered the day before. Tiny droplets of blood were left behind to soak into the wood.
She would not think of Jacques. She would think only of gears and what might be done with them.
Under the fresco, bathed in great light, simple supplies had been prepared for her. A drafting desk, paper, pencils, the tools of the trade for the life she had once lived.
Hours later, Jules pulled the shard from her heel, Brenya ignoring him as her pencil flew over a tilted desk.
Standing over her shoulder, near enough she could feel the heat of him, already saturated in the subtle scent of him, Brenya explained what he had not asked. How this clock would work.
She talked for ages, flipping through the pages she had drafted, her hair wild, her voice alive.