They Took His Inheritance, He Claimed Three Alpha Mates novel · Chapter 2 of 40
Chapter 2: Midnight
James knocks at midnight with a lamp and a bad excuse and admits Linda sent him. Max shuts the shutters on the clerk's window, kisses him, and Rose starts the Night Domain.
"Come at midnight," Max said, loud enough for the third pillar to hear. "Bring a lamp. The east wing is dark."
James looked at him for a long second, and then the crooked grin came back.
"I'm a terrible liar," he said. "I'll bring a really bad excuse."
He kissed the back of Max's hand, the way people did at banquets, and went off down the corridor whistling.
Max walked the other way and did not look at the pillar.
His room was on the second floor of the east wing, a cold square space with a high bed and a window onto the gallery.
The window had a wooden shutter on the inside and a clerk on the outside.
Max could not see him, but Rose could.
ROSE: He has taken the corner seat of the gallery. He has a stool, a flask and a pen.
ROSE: He is paid by the night, so he will not leave.
Max sat on the bed, pulled off his boots, and set the shutter closed with a bang.
The latch would not stop a man who wanted to look through the slats.
He dragged the wardrobe across the floor until it blocked the slats, and then he stood there panting.
The body he was in was lighter and weaker than the one he remembered, and his palms ached when he gripped the wood.
ROSE: Your host was ill as a child. The scars are part of why. You are healthy now, in the way I am allowed to make you.
Max flexed his hands.
"What are the exact rules of this Domain?" he muttered.
Rose answered in neat white lines.
ROSE: One Domain per night. It begins when you say so, after dusk, and it ends at dawn.
ROSE: You become an alpha. Your chosen alpha becomes an omega. Neither of you will have a choice about the change, and both of you will remember all of it.
ROSE: The alpha you choose bears your mark if you bite him. Marks are permanent and they are your claim. A bonded omega cannot be ruined, and you will be bonded in every sense that matters to the Charter.
ROSE: Warning. The Registry does not enter a bond without your guardian's signature. Mary has not signed. She never will.
Max sat down again.
"So I get the three men," he said, "and the clerk writes down three ruined nights, and the law says I'm ruined anyway."
ROSE: Correct. You are gambling that the marks stand in front of the packs before the records do.
ROSE: That is called a plan.
"It's called a coin toss," Max said.
A knock came at the door.
It was soft and polite, and it came just after the clock in the hall struck twelve.
Max opened it.
James stood there with a lamp in one hand and a covered basket in the other.
He had changed out of his banquet coat into a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he smelled of woodsmoke.
"I brought bread," James said. "And cheese. It's for my story."
"What's your story?"
"I was hungry, and I'm a very wandering sort of person."
"That's the bad excuse?"
"I told you it would be bad." James lowered his voice. "Is he out there?"
"On a stool, with a flask."
James swore quietly and with real feeling.
He came in, set the basket on the table, and shut the door behind him.
He stood in the middle of the room, large and warm and awkward, and looked at the wardrobe dragged across the floor.
"Redecorating?"
"Hiding," said Max.
"From the clerk?"
"From everyone."
James gave a short laugh, and then it faded.
"Max, I don't like this," he said. "Linda told me you were spoiling her inheritance. She said you'd poison the packs against her. She asked me to make sure you wouldn't sleep alone, and I knew what she meant."
"What did you think she meant?"
"That she wanted a witness." James looked at the lamp. "She was very sweet about it, and I kept feeling that I was being handed a knife."
"But you came."
"I came because you were gray at that banquet, and I was the only one who asked if you were okay."
His brown eyes lifted.
"I did owe my life to her," he said. "I really did. That's why I never said no. But I've been wondering for about a year why she never lets me see her hands."
Max went still.
It was the first crack in the story, and James had put it there by accident.
He wanted to tell James everything.
He wanted to hold up his own scarred palms and say it was me, that was always me.
ROSE: Advice. A rescued man who learns the truth will love the debt, not the man. Wait.
Max curled his fingers into fists inside his sleeves.
"Thank you for telling me," he said instead. "Sit."
James sat on the edge of the bed, and it creaked.
"I've got terms," said Max.
"I figured."
"One night, one alpha. You don't tell Linda a single thing, and you don't follow me to the next one."
"There's a next one?" James said. "Joel and Raven, right. I assumed she'd send me first because I'm the only one who'd show up."
"You're the only one who told me the truth."
James didn't answer.
The lamp hissed between them.
Max crossed the room, stopped in front of him, and put two fingers under his chin.
"Tell me you didn't come for her," he said.
"I didn't come for her," James said, hoarse. "I'm sorry. I'm very much here."
Max bent and kissed him.
James made a sound against his mouth, surprised and rough.
His hands came up and gripped Max's waist, and the kiss deepened until Max's knees went weak.
James kissed fast and with total commitment.
He pulled Max down into his lap, and the shirt rode up under his big warm palm.
"Okay," James said into his mouth. "Okay. That was not a bad excuse. That was a very good excuse."
"Shut up."
"I'm trying to compliment you."
"Do it with your mouth shut."
James laughed against his lips, and then he did.
The heat built slowly, with the lamp burning low and the clerk's pen scratching somewhere past the shutter.
Max had James's collar open and his teeth at the pulse in James's throat when the whole room changed.
ROSE: Dusk to dawn. Say the word and the Domain begins.
Max's heart pounded, because he had been in this world for one evening.
James's thumbs were drawing slow circles on his hips, and his eyes were dark and trusting.
"Whatever you're about to do," James said, "do it."
"Night," Max said. "Domain."
The air tightened, and the lamp guttered.
A wave of heat rolled up Max's spine, and his hands grew heavier and broader.
His scent turned from honey and rain to something sharper and darker that filled the whole room.
James froze beneath him, and his pupils blew wide.
"That's not your smell," he whispered. "That's an alpha."
"Yes."
"You're an omega."
"I was."
James's breath caught as his own scent soured, softened and slid toward sweet.
His fingers dug into the sheets.
"Max," he said, shaking. "What's happening to me?"
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