Page 55 of Cost of Courting

Bailey waits while he puts her in the bed and then sits on the edge and reaches out and strokes her forehead. It’s one of the few places she’s not bruised.

“I’m coming with you to take care of this,” Bailey pauses, his eyes hard as flint. “Who was it?” Bailey says in a low growl.

“A guy named Hammer.”

Bailey’s low growl sends a thrill through me. I like this. Our omegas are so fierce.

Kingston’s ass of a cat jumps up between us, hissing, and curls up on the pillow beside Selene.

I glare at it, it just glares back, unblinking, knowing it’s got the upper hand and no one will touch it.

We settle in for the long haul, watch the omega sleep and heal.

“I’m going home.”

“Not happening.”

The argument between Selene and Kingston has been going on for days. She wants to go home. He is refusing to let her unless we all go with her, which she flat out refuses.

But Kingston and Selene always went toe-to-toe like this. They rev each other up to these impossibly angry levels. Both are as stubborn as each other. Kingston looks lighthearted and fun, but he’s more emotional and far more likely to react in a way that gets everyone furious with him.

Mael simply watches the outcome while he doctors her injuries. I’m not sure how he’s ignoring all the awful things she’s saying, but Mael has suddenly decided to join the running for Sainthood.

I’ve been observing her behaviour. She’s nervous, and she’s running. Which is very unlike Selene. It took me a full day to realise it's us that is making her nervous.

I walk over now and lean over her, fluffing her pillow. She falls silent and shrinks back in the bed, her eyes averted, but I can smell the telltale spike of her perfume and see the way her pulse flutters in her neck.

She is nervous of us because she is attracted to us.

That makes it easier to watch her argument with Kingston. It’s some strange kind of foreplay.

Bailey, on the other hand, is something different. She is angry with him, possibly even as angry with him as she is with us. Bailey ignores her anger, instead teasing and speaking nicely to her consistently despite all the horrible things she says.

Two weeks pass, and we have achieved exactly nothing. She is short or sharp; she spends most of her time in bed or in a chair or trying to leave.

I had hoped that things would change, but she refuses flat out to engage with us.

On the day when we decide we can no longer keep her here, I watch her bickering with Kingston. She brushes her hair behind her ears and lets out a snarl.

“I just don’t understand why you are back here. Did you abandon your other omega, too?”

I slam the spoon I was using to stir dinner down on the island. “That’s enough.”

“What’s enough?” she snarls. “This? Oh, so I’m not allowed to ask about the other one?”

I storm over and grab her upper arm, dragging her out of the house and into the backyard.

“You know what your problem is, Selene. You are so crazy jealous because we left with another woman. It is killing you and turning you into this bitter shrew of an omega.”

She glares at me so hard I think she might actually knife me if she had a chance.

“The fact is that we realised right away that she wasn’t for us, and we left her. Now we’re here, and you have a decision to make and facts to face. We’re here for you. No one else.”

She takes a step towards me, not at all scared of me. She’s never been scared of me, not even when I was dripping with someone else’s blood.

“If you realised right away that she wasn’t yours, then you deliberately didn’t come back.”

I pause, frustrated. She goes to walk past me, but I hook her waist and pull her back, pressing her against the wall of the house.

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