Chapter 17 #2
“It’s a tushy-cushy,” he says proudly holding a doughnut-shaped cushion up as though it’s a fish and he’s an asshole posing for a dating app profile photograph. “I knew we had one somewhere. I searched the whole cabin from top to bottom and eventually found it in the garage.”
“I’m not using that,” I hiss pointedly.
“Oh,” he says, disappointed. “Okay.” We eye each other for a tense moment, and his eyes skid off mine again. “I made some chicken soup for you. D’you want to get some fresh air while I heat it up?”
He motions to a distinctly uncomfortable-looking outdoor bench on the porch.
It’s one of those wrought iron ones with a timber seat.
I consider my options briefly and reluctantly lower myself down onto it when I can’t think of a reason to decline that doesn’t involve me alluding to the fact that his dick is the size of a freight train again.
As I do it, he slides the fucking tushy-cushy under my ass.
It helps rather a lot, so I decide not to remind him that I’m not using it.
He heads into the house and sucks the air out of my lungs as he does it. I sit on the stupid bench, struggling to breathe until he gets back.
He sits next to me, turning his body so he’s mostly facing me.
“Are you okay, Lucy?”
His voice is molasses. It’s his heat voice, not his normal voice. It’s the voice he used to say my name when he knotted me, bathed me, took care of me.
My asshole has the incredible audacity to twitch hopefully at the sound.
“I’m—” I blink fast and breathe through a terrible urge to sob. I’m partially successful. I manage to tamp down the snivel that threatens, but while I’m working on that, an errant tear makes a break for freedom and streaks down my cheek quicker than I can stop it.
Branson watches the tear, his face lined with concern, as it tracks all the way down to my jaw. Then he raises his hand, making a loose fist, and wipes it away with his knuckle.
He touches me hesitantly, like he doesn’t know me, and is unsure if his touch is welcome.
That makes me cry more.
I turn into him, burying my face in his neck. “Everything hurts,” I cry. “And, and, I’m feeling so much. Everything is big, and I feel all alone in my body, and…”
His hand is a weight on my back. Solid and grounding. A hot mass that calms me more than I thought such a thing could.
“I feel it too, Lucy.” His eyes are glimmering and soft. Honey brown and honest, shiny orbs that reflect nothing but care and concern. “That was…” His mouth opens and closes as he searches for the right word. “Intense. It was…”
He’s trying to be eloquent and failing, and I love that for him. He looks vacant and stunned, which is exactly how I feel.
“Was it more intense than other heats you’ve been involved in?” I snuffle hopefully.
He looks at me for a while, studying my eyes. Eventually, he nods slowly. “Yeah. It was…unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I-I haven’t… I didn’t know it could be like that.”
My stupid heart races at hearing him say it.
It beats jubilantly and so quickly that it loosens my tongue.
“It was so strong, Branson. It rolled over me, and now everything is sore. My chest hurts. It feels like there’s a big, bruised ring that’s been branded into my sternum, and my neck is so sore. Not just my throat. My neck too.”
Beside me, Branson stiffens. His Adam’s apple bobs and sticks in his throat. His eyes become fixed and glint with something hard to place as they bore into me. He turns his head sharply from me as if to stop me from reading what’s written in them.
Huh?
Something is off. This isn’t him at all. Branson is the most alpha alpha I’ve ever met. Confidence and self-assurance ooze from his pores, yet now he looks…sheepish?
No. That isn’t it.
It’s not sheepish, but it’s something like it.
He keeps his head turned away from me, seemingly engrossed in the view of the forest. He laces his fingers together and releases them, rubbing his palms on his jeans. He stops that and begins fidgeting with his thumbnail instead.
The entire time, something remorseful tightens his jaw.
Guilt.
Branson looks guilty.
What the hell?
The brand on my chest pangs deeply, and so does the sore place on my neck. It’s an odd ache. Deep and painful, yet not altogether unpleasant. The type of pain that could feel good if it received the right kind of pressure.
I move my head, testing my range of motion, and it hurts deeper.
I raise my hand absently and run my fingers down my jugular vein, seeking relief. I get close to the base of my throat and flinch hard. “Ow!”
Wait.
What the fuck was that?
I grab my neck again, this time with both hands, and frantically run my fingers over my scent gland.
It’s raised.
Sweet Jesus, it’s raised. It’s hot, bumpy, and sensitive to touch. More sensitive than usual.
Much, much more sensitive.
I fly off the bench and launch myself at the front door as panic takes hold. I yank the door open violently and throw myself through it.
I stand in front of the entry table and gape at my reflection.
In the mirror above the table, I see my eyes, wide and wild, as my hand slowly travels up to my mouth to stifle a scream. There, in plain sight, is a mark on my neck. An angry, red mark. An irregular circle of shiny, raised skin.
Pure, unfiltered shock torpedoes up my legs and down my arms. My limbs stiffen, fingers stick straight and splay open as my eyes stretch in horror.
I spin in a broad circle, arms flailing as I attempt to wave off an invisible attack. “A mark?” I hiss and squawk. “A motherfucking mark?”
Branson appears in the doorway, casting a long shadow into the room, but wisely giving me a wide berth. His eyes are downcast and his mouth is a thin line. He looks pained and ashamed. As he bloody well should. “You.” I jab a furious finger at him. “You bit me.”
He’s lucky I’m hoarse, or I’d be raising the fucking roof. Things being what they are, most of what I say comes out in soft hysterical tones, and the rest in screechy consonants that make my eyes water.
He works his gaze slowly up my face until our eyes meet. They bounce off each other like oil and water, but Branson keeps his eyes fixed on mine until I relent and look at him. “I’m so sorry, Lucy.”
The room spins, and so do I. In the mirror, my reflection waves its arms around and my face morphs into something I normally wouldn’t let other people see.
“You’re sorry?” I scream silently. Branson looks at me soberly and nods. I splutter, clutching my chest as I choke on shock and disbelief that rapidly turns to fury. “You mated me for life, and you’re sorry? Sorry?”
As I say it, the gravity of the situation begins to sink in. Panic makes my blood run cold and my ears uncomfortably hot. A thick fog swells and puts so much pressure on the backs of my eyes that I feel dizzy.
Holy shit. Branson bit me. He mated with me. He sank his teeth into my neck, into my scent gland, during a heat wave. He injected his alpha venom into my omega bloodstream.
He altered my DNA and bonded us for life.
For life! For fucking life.
No.
This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.
It’s impossible.
Think. Think, think, think. There has to be something you can do.
“I said ‘I’m so sorry,’” says Branson, attempting an apologetic smile.
I glare at him open-mouthed. My brain cuts in and out, thoughts jumbling, as what has happened slams into me.
“Oh, this is bad,” I say to my reflection. “This is very bad. No. No, this can’t be happening.” I swipe at my neck furiously, trying to wipe the mark off. “Wash! Yes, that’s it. We need to—”
“Lucy,” says Branson, not moving.
“We need to wash it off! Get disinfectant. Get petrol and a lighter. Get whatever the fuck you can think of to get this thing off me before it takes. Hurry!”
“Lucy,” he says again. This time, his voice is low and rumbles not only through the air, but through me as well. It floods my mind and my bones, turning them to jelly, rendering me mute and immobile. “It’s too late.”
He takes two steps toward me and pulls the collar of his flannel shirt away from his body.
He pauses, eyes hard and soft, and arches his neck deeply.
If it weren’t for the situation being what it is, if it weren’t a complete shit show, and if I weren’t more hysterical than I can ever recall being, it would be quite something to see him like that.
It would be strange and arresting to see Branson, the most alpha of alphas, willingly exposing his throat to me, a man half his size, half his stature, half his strength.
If things were different, it might even be beautiful to see Branson showing himself to me at his most defenseless.
It’s such an unexpected sight that it jumbles my thoughts. I don’t move for several seconds, until the situation at hand comes roaring back to my consciousness.
I notice Branson has raised his hand, so I follow the line of his finger as it points above his clavicle.
I notice a tiny indentation near the base of his throat.
An irregular circular dip in his skin that emulates the scar on my neck.
A mirror image of the mark he bit into me, sunken into his flesh.
A dip where mine is raised.
A pale, silvery dent, where mine is hot, angry, and swollen.
The mystical twin of the mark on my neck.
“It’s taken,” says Branson, voice still low.
“I think I need to lie down.”
“Do you want me to carry you?”
I hold up my hand weakly, raising my nose high in the air and sniffing disdainfully. “Kindly don’t touch me.”
I totter to the living room, amazed I’m able to stay on my feet, and slither onto the sofa as soon as I get to it. I melt into the seat, flat on my back, as the shock of what’s happened robs me of the last of my strength.
Branson props a pillow under my neck, and when I don’t protest, he props another under my knees.
I allow it because I’m too faint to do it myself.
“Can I bring you some soup?” he offers quietly.
“No talking,” I say, tight-lipped as my eyes flutter closed. “Please, don’t disturb my peace any more than you already have.”
Branson pads silently to the kitchen, and the brand on my chest throbs a little more with each step he takes.
I throw my arm over my face to hide my eyes, and to try to nip the infuriating compulsion to look at him in the bud.
I know where he is. He’s in the kitchen, clanking crockery and cutlery like a bull in a china shop.
I can hear him plain as day. I don’t need to look at him.
I don’t.
I’m not that pathetic.
I open my fingers a crack and peer through them to see a sliver of Branson stooped over the stove. His chest is caved and he has a hand on his heart. His face is lined with discomfort. He looks in my direction every few seconds, and when he does, the hand on his heart clenches hard.