2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

BLAKE

I scoffed quietly to myself as I approached the immaculately kept brick manor in Mayfair. Of course, the spoiled pretty princess omega whose staff had been nagging and demanding my services for months lived here . Where else?

I'd done my fair share of projects for wealthy wankers over the years, but they were my least favourite jobs to work on, even if the buildings themselves were incredible. Most of those clients didn't actually care about preserving the character and heritage of the home. They cared that I was booked out months in advance, and I'd worked on other rich fuckers' houses, and there'd been a bullshit article about me in the paper, stood in front of some freshly restored cornices like a tosser.

I should have been working on a beautiful chapel right now in collaboration with the historical society. But they ran out of money and put the project on hold, so here I was.

A staff member—an inoffensive-smelling beta with a faintly disdainful expression—opened the front door, pursing his lips at the sight of me. I didn't dress to impress clients; I dressed to work . If that offended Miss Uptown Omega, then maybe she'd pull the plug on this idea and send me on my way. She'd been first up on the cancellation waitlist, but I had other options.

"Blake Alwis?" the snobby butler asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in distaste at my affirmative nod. "Right this way, Ms Dara is expecting you."

Though, it would be slightly disappointing if the omega pulled the pin now, if only because I wanted to get a peek under the curtains at this magnificent property. It was undoubtedly a masterclass in craftsmanship.

The room that the butler led me to was the closest to the front door, limiting my opportunities to look around. Though, what I could see wasn't particularly worth looking at. It could be the interior of any modern build from this angle.

I added it to my list of crimes the wealthy had committed. They had plenty of money—just build a new house if you wanted it to look like a new house. Leave the ones with character for the rest of us.

Though the rest of us couldn't afford to live in Mayfair.

"Ms Dara? Mr Alwis is here to see you," the butler called through the door, announcing his presence with a gentle knock.

"Let him in."

My dislike for this wealthy pest of an omega who'd been hounding me continued to foment as the beta opened the study door, gesturing for me to enter. At what level of wealth did people stop opening their own doors? Did she even know how door handles worked or was that a poor person life skill?

"Mr Alwis. A pleasure to finally meet you."

I grunted in acknowledgement, sizing up the room as I stood in the doorway of the circular office. The curved bookshelves alone that lined the walls would have probably taken a significant chunk off my mortgage, and the black marble and oak desk in the centre of the room was clearly a custom piece, curved to fit the exact contours of the room. It suited the space, but I wasn't sure it suited the omega standing behind it.

Inika Dara was sleek and polished and expensive, to be sure. But she wasn't cold like I'd expected her to be. After just a few seconds of looking at her, it was clear that everything about her radiated warmth beneath that elegant, poised exterior.

Odd.

And, of course, she was fucking beautiful. Just my luck. Inika Dara had deep brown skin; thick wavy black hair, pulled into a low ponytail, and the darkest eyes I'd ever seen, framed by impossibly long eyelashes. Everything about her—from the high cheekbones to the plush lips, and her graceful neck screamed elegance .

Was she just born looking like that? Or was that a by-product of unimaginable wealth, too?

I hazarded a guess that Inika Dara was unmated too, though her lack of scent made it difficult to tell. She'd obviously slathered herself in scentshield lotion, which I grudgingly appreciated.

The silence had dragged on, but Ms Dara didn't seem to be in a rush to break it. She raised an eyebrow as she sized me up right back, probably unimpressed by me wearing jeans and a thick, well-worn sweater to meet a client. In stark contrast, she was dressed head-to-toe in black office wear—a high-necked tight sweater and fitted slacks.

Wasn't she an unemployed heiress? Perhaps I needed to revise my ideas about what unemployed heiresses looked like.

"Would you like to sit down, Mr Alwis?" Ms Dara asked, gesturing at the seat in front of the desk. "Or you could continue to loom in the doorway, if that's more comfortable."

I snorted, taken aback at her boldness. Then again, she'd probably gone through life saying whatever she wanted without consequences.

"Alternatively, we could move to the courtyard if you're concerned about my scent?" Ms Dara suggested.

I shook my head, trudging over to the desk and taking a seat as she delicately sat down in hers.

"I can't smell you," I muttered, slightly shocked that she'd raised the topic so easily. It wasn't the kind of thing well-bred omegas discussed, from my vague recollections of the public school my brother and I had been forced to attend.

"Excellent. Well, let's get to it, shall we? As you're probably aware from mine and my assistant's many emails…" She paused, giving me a long look. I supposed that this was probably the part where I should apologise for making her chase me down, but I wasn't so inclined. I didn't want to work for rich fucks who didn't appreciate the character of these old buildings anyway.

Her eyes almost seemed to flash with amusement for a moment, but then it was gone and she resumed speaking. "I'm looking to recreate a specific piece of plasterwork over a staircase and landing that was walled off for many years. Unfortunately, it's been long since removed, but I have the original plans for the house—well, the stables, as they were—and I've heard you're the very best at these kinds of projects. I'm told you use traditional materials like cow hair where needed to match original work, is that true?"

"It is," I replied gruffly, reluctantly impressed that she'd done her research, and was hiring based on more than the fact that I was busy and had inadvertently cultivated an air of exclusivity that seemed to appeal to the wealthy.

"Does it feel like you're part of a long-standing tradition, keeping those traditional methods alive?" she asked, tilting her head to the side as though she genuinely wanted to hear the answer to that question.

"I guess," I admitted gruffly. Nothing about this interaction was going the way I'd envisioned it.

She gave me a long look, the corners of her mouth twitching before she opened a drawer, pulling out a manila folder and sliding it across to me. "I made a copy of the plans for you to take a look at—you can keep those. Shall we go upstairs to see the space?"

I grunted in agreement, eyeing her slightly warily as we both stood. On reflection, it was weird that we'd had this meeting with no one else in the room, let alone going upstairs with her to where I presumed the more personal areas of the house were.

Sure, regular omegas went about their lives and got things done without a bodyguard following them everywhere, but I fully expected Inika Dara to have one. An entire squad, in fact.

Though, perhaps, what I actually expected her to have was a mate . How had an omega as coveted as the Om-Guard heiress not been mated off during her first heat?

We made our way out of her office, past a mostly glass wall that looked into a central courtyard, heading up a flight of stairs.

Honestly, all the money in the world couldn't buy good taste.

Converting an 1800s stables into a grand home would have undoubtedly required a lot of work, but it was unfortunate that whoever had done it hadn't left a trace of its original character on the inside. The walls were covered in tastefully expensive off-white luxury wallpaper, the many fireplaces I could see through open doors were stainless-steel edged gas inserts halfway up the walls, and the entire place was done up in shades of cream, beige, and brown.

It was a fucking travesty.

There wasn't a trace of raw brick or aged timber as Ms Dara led me upstairs. No reclaimed doors. Even the beautiful wooden window frames had been covered in a smooth layer of inoffensive eggshell paint.

"It's not very authentic, I know," Ms Dara said with a wry smile. Perhaps the look on my face had been projecting my thoughts. "It looked like this when I moved in—I wouldn't have chosen to remove so many of the original features."

"You didn't see anything you liked better when you were house hunting?" It wasn't like there was a shortage of obscenely expensive historical homes in this part of town.

Ms Dara's smile tightened a fraction before she fixed her perfectly pleasant expression back in place. "I didn't choose it. But I have no complaints. Obviously. It's a lovely home. I'm very grateful to live here."

I wasn't sure who she was trying to convince with that statement. She showed me to the space before quietly excusing herself to take a call. The butler with the judgemental hawk eyes reappeared to stare at me while I measured and photographed the area. He did it under the guise of polishing a side table, but he seemed oddly invested in shining one spot.

Ignoring his disapproving gasp, I knocked on the door to Ms Dara's office on my way out, poking my head in when she called for me to open it.

That ought to give the butler a conniption.

"I'm done here. If you're happy to proceed, then I'll be back in a couple of days to rip out the more recent plasterwork and get the space ready. It'd be helpful to have the surrounding hallway area cleared of furniture before then."

"That won't be a problem. I'll have Graeme see to it immediately."

Of course she would.

I grunted out some kind of acknowledgement before making for the front door. For some reason, everything about this project felt like it was going to be a challenge, which made absolutely no sense considering how incredibly basic it was. The area was small, and I was recreating an arched lath and plaster ceiling directly from the original plans, which required a lot less brainpower than reimagining it from scratch.

It must have been her .

Something about Inika Dara spelled trouble for me, and I had no interest in delving deeper to discover what that was.

I had the distinct feeling I might not like what I found.

I steeled myself to walk in the front door when I got home, already feeling the vibrating tension of alpha aggression radiating from inside the house.

We shouldn't live together.

Objectively, three grown alphas living under the same roof was a bad idea—we were territorial by nature, and our instincts demanded we push out any competition for resources.

But even if we'd all been cool-headed betas, it would have been a bad idea because we drove each other insane.

The first thing I heard when I opened the front door was Freya's sweet little voice of reason, and it broke my fucking heart. She was five. It wasn't her responsibility to mediate between full-grown adults.

"Everyone, just take a breath. Daddy, take a breath. See? Like this."

This wasn't her job. We were failing her.

"What's the problem now?" I grumbled, stomping into the kitchen.

Freya turned her exasperated gaze on me, both hands on her hips just like my mother used to do when standing her ground against rowdy alphas. "No shoes in the house, Uncle Blake."

I grumbled out an apology, trudging back to the front door to remove my work boots. As the resident omega, Freya set the rules on that sort of thing, and I needed to be better at following them.

"Right. What are you fighting about, then?" I asked, re-entering the too-small kitchen in my socks.

"Grandad wants to go down to the pub with Lewis and Jasper tonight," Freya said, calm and logical, as she always was. Leo and I hadn't sounded like that at five. We had been little assholes who got sent home from school for swearing.

"Alright." I looked between the three of them, trying to figure out what the problem was. Dad was at the pub most nights, probably to get away from the house and the abundance of tension that filled it.

"But Dad wants him to babysit," Freya said exasperatedly, looking at me like I was the problem now.

"I see." I watched Leo closely as he suddenly seemed very interested in washing the breakfast dishes he'd had all day to do. "Somewhere you need to be, Leo?"

He shot me a glare over his shoulder, pressing his lips together. He'd never admit in front of Freya that he wanted to go and fight in the illegal underground ring where he made the bulk of his money nowadays. But she wasn't a dumb kid. She'd picked up on the fact that whenever he wanted Grandad to babysit, he appeared at breakfast the next morning looking like he'd been through a meat grinder.

"We've got that thing, remember?" Leo asked, still scowling at me.

"Nope, it seems to have slipped my mind. Remind me?"

He shoved the frying pan into the water a little harder than necessary, sloshing bubbles everywhere.

Leo was a great fighter. One of the best at Leviathan, and the crowd loved him because he wasn't afraid to put his body through the wringer to get a win. But he was also a nightmare, and the club owners had decreed that he wasn't allowed on the premises without me, because someone had to keep him under control.

"Invite Lewis and Jasper around here and order a curry or something. I'll pay you back for it," Leo muttered, glancing hopefully at Dad. How Leo was the favourite son, I would never know. Dad hadn't eaten curry once since Mum died—clearly Leo hadn't been paying attention.

"I can come to the pub, Grandad," Freya piped up. "I'll bring my colouring and sit nice and quietly."

I exhaled heavily, glaring at Leo, who had the good sense to look at least a little sheepish.

"No need for all that, Frey," Dad said, patting Freya on the head. "Lewis and Jasper can come round here and you can help me make toad in the hole. How does that sound?"

Freya beamed up at him. She was an easily pleased kid, really. She just wanted some attention.

"I'm going to go to my room and draw them both a picture."

"I'm sure they'll love that," Dad assured her as she skipped off, giving me a warning look on the way past, like I was going to be the problem here.

Dad exhaled heavily as Leo was drying his hands, and my brother immediately spun around to face him, his body language all confrontation.

"Got something to say?"

Before everything had fallen apart, Dad might have risen to Leo's goading—even though Leo had always been his favourite—but he never did now. Sometimes, I wondered if that was why Leo still did it.

"Make smart decisions," Dad sighed, shuffling out of the room. His back must have been giving him grief today. "Remember, you have more than just you to think about. I'm going to call the boys."

Leo turned his combative glare on me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Save it for the ring. A heads-up would have been appreciated, by the way. What if I had plans tonight?"

Leo frowned. "You never have plans."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to start going out more."

"Where?"

"None of your business."

He snorted. "You're full of shit."

Siblings were a fucking curse. Though, I'd probably like him a lot more if we didn't live under the same roof.

"Whatever. I'm going to wash up. I'll meet you down here later. You should go hang out with Freya for a bit. Do some drawing with her."

Leo side-eyed me for the suggestion, but followed me up the stairs and headed to Freya's room because he knew I was right. He wouldn't be any use to her tomorrow.

A couple of hours later, we headed into the back entrance of Leviathan , descending the dark staircase to the basement where the fights were held.

They changed the times of the fights each time to throw off the authorities, and this one was early enough to attract mostly the after-work crowd. It was definitely Leo's preferred audience. They had deep pockets and weren't as cautious with their bets as the regulars.

"You're getting a little old for this, aren't you?" I grumbled, following Leo. The thud of the bass upstairs was already giving me a headache, and the ever-present stickiness of the floor was more viscerally disgusting to me each year.

I wanted to be at home. On the couch. Ideally, with a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits, and no people around me.

"No. I'll fight until I'm too old to climb into the ring."

"Or until you're too injured to do it anymore. Anything other than get a proper job, hm?"

Leo shook his head slightly, but he was in a good mood. This was his happy place. Nothing I said bothered him here. He saved all his ire for his opponents.

"There you are!" Ronnie yelled over the noise of the crowd. "Get over here, Leo!"

"Are you going to finally get back in the ring tonight?" Leo called over his shoulder.

I snorted, shaking my head. I hadn't fought in years . The money wasn't something to be sniffed at, and the radiator in Freya's room needed to be replaced. But I'd rather earn my money the old-fashioned way, and not ruin my professional reputation by showing up to work with a bust-up face.

I couldn't imagine what Inika Dara would think if I walked into her home looking the way Leo did after a fight. It would probably traumatise the little omega princess.

Leo disappeared into the crowd to talk to Ronnie, while I got myself a pint and found a good pillar to lean against.

A group of betas in tailored suits were clinking their glasses together nearby, laughing loudly. I wondered if they ran in the same circles as the Om-Guard heiress? No, surely not. Their suits looked nice, but not that nice.

Why the fuck was I thinking about her, anyway? I shook my head slightly, taking a sip of my beer. I didn't usually think about my clients at all once I left work for the day.

It was just because she was an unmated omega, that was all.

A beautiful unmated omega.

But that was the reason she was in my head. It wasn't as though I spent an abundance of time around unmated omegas. I never had. After finishing school, I'd immediately joined the army, and then I'd focused on building the business. By the time I'd even considered getting to know some omegas and settling down, Leo and Freya's lives imploded, followed shortly by Dad's, and everyone moved in with me.

An omega of my own wasn't in the cards for me anymore. I couldn't expect anyone else to put up with my fucked-up family, and bringing them into that situation would be cruel. Besides, Freya needed me. I didn't want to split my focus by having kids of my own.

I exhaled heavily into my beer, my fingers tightening slightly around the glass. That's what that weird feeling had been when I'd left Inika Dara's house.

Sexual attraction.

How very fucking inconvenient.