"This overweening whore of an omega doesn't know his goddamn place!" Lucien raged, his long hair flying out as he tossed his head.

Isla pushed past her husband and slapped Lucien's face so hard he staggered and spun. "You are such an ???????????????????????????????????????????????????? to me to that I wish I'd never borne you," she growled, and Jules nearly wet himself at hearing the raw choler, at smelling the wrath of a powerful, ferocious alpha that also scented maternally.

Jules got on his knees, but he didn't bow his head. He would not. He needed to see if Lucien went toward Keita. "He wants my friend," he told Adrian, meeting the man's eyes. "I contradicted him."

"Of course you did," Adrian said. "Keita is too good for my lazy, whore-mongering, alcoholic son."

Lucien's bottom lip quivered. He put a hand over the welt forming on his face, and hunched over, his eyes going from parent to parent in disbelief and indignant rage. "You would deny me the omega? Why?"

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"Because he's a human being with ????????????????????????????????," Adrian answered, rounding on Lucien. "Because your over-sexed personality doesn't assure you of anything, you stupid boy!" He took Lucien by the shoulders, and shook him, hard. "This is not your house, these are not your people, and you can't ???????????? someone!"

"Halian owns this over-grown, mutant omega!" Lucien protested, pointing at Jules. "I know all about it! He bought him with gold! That ???????????????????????? you can own someone!"

"Jules stays with your brother because he ???????????????????????? him," Isla corrected, her tone like the dead of winter. "???????????? of his house staff do, omegas or not!" She faced Jules, then. "Jules, please get up. Show my ignorant son how you feel about Halian. Show him what you did to prove it."

Jules found his legs. Slowly, he got up and turned his back to the youngest Novar. His hands were shaking as he lifted his shirt.

"Jules did that of his own volition," Adrian said as Jules exposed his brand. "He did it so that no one could ever take him away from Halian. You should pray to the Almighty every night that you are someday worthy enough to earn that kind of feeling, Lucien. You certainly aren't going to merit it on the path you currently walk."

Isla strode over to Keita and gently but insistently took his hand. "Keita, dear, you come back to my room," she said. "You are off duty for three days, and you will spend that time with me and Adri."

"Yes, Madam Novar," Keita said, bowing his head.

"Jules, are you good to go?" Adrian asked bluntly. "Your cheeks are flaming." The elder Novar's face was calm, but barely, and Jules clearly read that Adrian would do worse to his second born than Isla did. He only needed the sanction from Jules's own lips.

Jules would not be party to alpha posturing or correction, in any way.

"I'm fine, Master Adrian," Jules said, using the familial-formal. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me for being twenty-odd years too late in correcting my son," Adrian said. "Lucien, you will clean up the mess in here, and go to an empty room in the east wing to await your brother's punishment. I'll be listening, so I'll know if you disobey. You are not to speak one more word to Jules, or to anyone else. And, because you've ruined the noon meal with broken glass, you will be Ellaine's bitch for the next week." He paused. "Why aren't you sweeping yet?"

Lucien, his face like a snarling gargoyle, went for a broom. "You'll be leaving in a few days, Father," he said.

"That's true," Adrian said. "By the time your brother gets done with you, you'll wish you'd left with me."

When they were alone together, Jules met Lucien's eyes. "Hal knows what mercy is," he said. "Ask for it."

"Shut the fuck up, you hulking omega," Lucien hurled at him.

Jules dumped out all the soup and glass-infested bread dough. Ellaine hadn't come back, so he went and got fresh vegetables from the cellar, another bottle of wine, and some venison. While Lucien continued to clean, he seared the meat and put it out to cool. He fried flour in oil mixed with venison leavings, and stirred it until creamy, then divided it between two pots.

He poured beef broth into the pots with a good measure of red wine in each, then cut up the deer meat. That got dropped into the pots to simmer on low heat. He sat at the prep table and began chopping onions, carrots and potatoes.

The silence stifled Jules. He set all the vegetables into the separate vats of hardy stew and made his mother's flat bread.

Halian came in the back kitchen door, and shed his hat and coat. "It smells good in here," he remarked as he turned. He went motionless as his eyes took in Jules's burning face, and the fact that his brother was cleaning. "What has happened?" He asked with a deadly kind of quiet.

"Your omega prostitute stepped in between me and a juicy breeder," Lucien snapped out, throwing his wiping cloth toward the fireplace. "I tried to correct the son of a bitch, and Mother and Father came down on me!"

Halian's eyes focused upon Lucien with such intensity that Jules couldn't even bear to look. "What did you ?????????" Halian asked Lucien. "Tell me the truth."

"Oh, his name was Keita, and your omega got in my way," Lucien said. "All I wanted was a good lay."

Jules sneaked a glance in time to see Halian's eyes close and his shoulders pull outward like an ox about to assume a yoke. "Jules," Halian said softly, so softly. "Go and get Bill and Sam for me, would you?"

Jules bolted up and ran out the back door. Sam was easy to find, being a perpetual denizen of the stables. "Report to Hal in the kitchen," he panted out, then ran back into the rear yard and headed for the Chrysler cabin. He pounded on the door until Meg answered. "Hal needs your dad," he said. "Right now, Meg."

"I'm here, I'm here," Bill said, stepping out. "Jules, take a deep breath. Inhale. That's it."

Jules began to calm. "We had an altercation with Hal's brother, and Hal needs you," he said. "Sam's already on his way."

"Well, this can't be good." Bill reached to one side and his hand came back with a heavy cloak. "Stay with me, Jules," he ordered firmly. "Keep taking deep breaths. Master Novar needs you to have some sense right now, I imagine."

Jules forced his breathing to calm. He clutched onto Bill's bicep to steady himself. "Bill, it was bad," he said. "Ellaine left the kitchen to get Madam and Master Novar, and didn't come back. I don't know where she is."

"She's probably in Madam Novar's rooms," Bill said, throwing an arm around Jules's shoulders. "It's okay, Jules. We'll get through this. Stay strong."

The scent of assured, steady alpha flooded Jules. He leaned on Bill all the way to the manor, only then realizing that it really wasn't just Hal and his family that didn't have alpha stink. Why hadn't he taken note that all of Halian's alpha servants smelled okay to him until just now?

They entered to find Lucien on the floor, unconscious, with a bleeding nose and mouth, Halian calmly wiping his hands with a clean dish cloth. "Take him outside and chain him to the farrier post," Halian said. "Bill, you and Sam are to make a one person stockade tonight, and put my brother in it. You will leave him to suffer, and not speak to him. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," Bill said as Sam said a slurred 'yessir'. They dragged Lucien out.