Chapter 12 #2
He’d been wrong that night, when he’d thought he had it all under control. When he’d assumed connecting with the omega’s qi was easy. Yes, it’d come naturally, but he’d had no idea the act he’d been performing hadn’t been a simple healing, but a forming of a life long bond.
“Ah.” Shiloh leaned back. “So it’s guilt.”
“What?”
“The reason you’ve stuck around. The reason you treat me so kindly. It all stems from guilt. You feel bad that you bonded with me without my consent, and hate that you gave into temptation afterward and fucked me.”
He flinched and Shiloh grunted.
“We never talk about it, but we both know what went down that weekend. All this time, I assumed your doctor friend healed me, and then you helped me through my heat. Sure, I could never remember any of the details, but my ass hurt for days. Didn’t take a genius to guess why.”
Sarang frowned. “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me then. Now is your chance.”
“There aren’t any past examples to reference,” Sarang began. “You aren’t Gray, so the life-bond can’t be shared the way it was meant. You can’t see or feel qi.”
“As in, I’m lacking and you regret it.”
“No!” Shit. “I’m saying in order to protect you, I have to be physically present to see and heal any damage. I can sense you from miles away, but I can’t tell if you’re in danger or injured like I would be able to with another Gray.”
“That makes it sound like you’re concerned for me, but if I die, you’d lose your greatest source of qi.”
“No. I mean, well, yes, but that’s—”
“I understand, alpha.”
“You do not,” he insisted. “I can stabilize from you from a distance. I didn’t need to go with you and join the mafia. I chose to because—”
“I had everything to offer. Everything you needed. Money, status, and a well of life force you could tap into without me ever realizing. You just wanted to live, isn’t that it? Isn’t that the real truth you’ve been so afraid I would uncover?”
“No.” He shook his head, vehemently denying it. “I’d give my life for you. You know that.”
If he’d come clean on his own, this never would have happened.
But he’d been afraid. A coward.
Like his father.
He’d sworn to never be like him, and yet Sarang had been the spitting image in the end. The same way his father had been too much of a coward to come home and break up with his mother face to face, Sarang had been too scared to risk losing Shiloh to the truth.
“Let’s put that to the test, shall we then, alpha?” Shiloh rose to his feet. “Let’s see how long you’ll last before you’re willing to give me what I really want.”
“If it’s revenge, take it. I won’t fight you.”
He scoffed. “Revenge? Interesting that that’s where your mind went instead of considering this a debt that needs to be paid. You put a bond on me I didn’t ask for, don’t you think it’s only fair that you give me one that I did? Settle the score, so to speak.”
Sarang wasn’t following. “You can’t seriously still want the bite after learning all of this?”
“Why not?” Before Sarang could feel an inkling of hope, Shiloh continued.
“What better revenge than trapping the alpha who used me? You could choose to drain me dry right now, true. Siphon all of my qi and kill me. I couldn’t prevent you from doing so even if I wanted to.
That feels unfair, doesn’t it? But a claiming bond? ”
This new version of the omega he’d thought he’d known was hard to adjust to.
Though Shiloh’s personality wasn’t necessarily a complete one-eighty, he was still a far cry from the man Sarang had come to care for.
His time in the mafia had helped him better understand the twisted machinations of powerful people, however, and right now, the Prince of the Eumia was exuding that power flawlessly.
“You seem affronted, alpha.” Shiloh tipped his head. “How hypocritical.”
“You think you can subdue me?” Sarang asked. “How? Make it so I can only get hard for you, and then deny me your body?”
“It’s an idea,” Shiloh didn’t confirm or deny it. “We don’t need to physically touch for you to get your fix.”
“I’m not an addict,” he growled. “This isn’t—”
“You just hypothesized that I plan to mate you and force you into painful celibacy, yet that’s the part you’re insulted by?
” Shiloh whistled. “If nothing else, I’m grateful for the revelation that neither you nor I were ever honest with one another.
And to think, I’d started to feel guilty over my own deception. ”
“Had you?”
“No.” Shiloh laughed. “I can’t experience that emotion.”
“You’re like Kian.” He’d hidden it well, so well, that Sarang had mostly bought it.
There’d been moments of course, tiny slips, but Shiloh’s dark upbringing had helped explain those momentary lapses away.
Never in a million years would he have guessed just how thoroughly the manipulation went. “Why hide it?”
“Because of you,” Shiloh surprised him by saying. “I don’t remember much from that day, nothing after I passed out. But I do remember the last thing you said to me.”
Sarang shook his head, silently asking him to elaborate.
“Your type, alpha?” he tsked. “Don’t tell me you don’t recall. You spoke enough about that day while you were out of it to reveal you’ve got a good enough memory to know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Vulnerable omegas who need protecting.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. How off base he’d been.
“The Prince of the Eumia was neither of those things,” Shiloh explained. “So I became them. It was simple enough to pull off. Your ego made it easy. You liked feeling needed. Liked when I came crawling to you for help.”
“The baby wasn’t the only lie.” Sarang’s mind raced over the past four years. “Lane?”
“I thought for sure seeing me with such an incompetent alpha would push you past your breaking point,” Shiloh confessed, “but I was wrong. There were moments where I could have sworn you were jealous, but they were fleeting.”
“You’re not the only one good at masking your true feelings,” he shouldn’t have said it, but the truth spilled past his lips anyway.
“Save your breath.”
Right, he wouldn’t believe him now. He may have faked a lot of things, but Shiloh’s trust issues were very real. And it wasn’t like Sarang had given him much to trust, now that he’d found out about the life-bond.
“I was angry at first,” Shiloh told him. “I almost wanted to hurt you.”
“Do so if you wish.”
“Don’t be a martyr. It’s too late for that angle. Ask me why I was angry, Rang.”
“Because I lied and betrayed you.”
“Because you made me feel,” he corrected, sneering the word with obvious discontent.
“Because I’d bought into the bullshit and thought you felt something toward me that wasn’t based off a bid for money and power.
Romantic love isn’t real, but I thought you loved me in your own way.
I thought I could play off of that and convince you I was worthy to commit to. ”
He thought he was the one who’d needed to be worthy?
Sarang shook his head, but the omega wasn’t finished.
“But it turns out, you’re only slightly better than the rest. Sure, a lesser man would have claimed me that night, but you did the respectable thing and held back. Points for that, I suppose. Sticking around, making me believe you care? That’s fucked up.”
“I do care about you,” he said. “That’s why I’ve never allowed myself to have you.”
“You think rutting strangers who smell a little like me is a show of care?” Shiloh laughed. “You’re mistaking love for lust.”
“Even though we can’t recall it, we slept together after I healed you. You mentioned it yourself just before. Trauma connections. I was worried that’s what this was.”
“You think you want to fuck me just because—”
“Not me,” he cut him off. “You.”
Shiloh stared at him silently for a moment. “So you were aware of my crush.”
“Not consciously.” He’d never allowed himself to go there, shut those thoughts down whenever the omega did something that made him think maybe it was possible.
“There’s no telling what type of effects the life-bond has on you.
That, coupled with the trauma connection…
Your feelings are misplaced. A byproduct of what happened to you that weekend. ”
“I always praised you for your intelligence,” he drawled, “but I was wrong. You’re the biggest idiot on the planet. Perhaps even in the entire galaxy.”
This was getting them nowhere, so Sarang pivoted.
“Saving your life that night isn’t enough for you to forgive me, because you’ve never valued your life,” he supposed. “Both then, and recently in the parking garage, you welcomed death.”
“I had nothing to live for.”
“Had?”
Shiloh shrugged. “Now there’s you.”
“Prince.”
“Did you find our fucking such a hardship?”
“Prince.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll give you time to realize how wrong you are.”
Sarang felt a prickle of panic when Shiloh moved for the door. “Wait.”
“You’ve had enough close proximity to strengthen the life-bond,” Shiloh stated. Then he paused and cocked his head. “I always wondered why you’d seem like the energy was zapped out of you sometimes. Now it all makes sense. I understand why you really came to get me on Synastry last month as well.”
Last…month?
He’d been out of it for at least two weeks then.
Sarang would have to deal with that later, right now, he needed to keep Shiloh here. Keep the conversation going.
The fear of losing him was too great.
It was selfish, but Sarang was still too greedy not to hold on.
“You can access my qi from great distances, yeah, but not from another planet,” Shiloh concluded.
He didn’t appear to be hurt. Not even angry, like he claimed he was earlier. The omega was calm. Despite all of his words to the contrary, he didn’t appear to be bothered by any of this at all.
“I don’t know who you really are anymore.” Sarang may as well be staring down a stranger.
“Ditto, alpha.”
Fair.
“What other lies were there?” Sarang asked.
“Too many to list,” Shiloh replied.
“I only had the one.”
“Did you?” He clicked his tongue. “Think long and hard about that one. Your lie had a trickle effect, same as mine.”
“Everything I did for you, I did because I wanted to,” Shiloh swore. “It had nothing to do with the bond. I went to Synastry because I was worried about you. No other reason.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I can go over a month without needing to stabilize the life-bond, Shiloh.”
“Didn’t seem that way.”
“I was injured these past couple of weeks, that’s why. If it’s bad enough to be life threatening, having my partner physically present helps speed up the process.”
“So you need to keep me close in case you’re hurt.” He nodded. “Noted.”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“You’ve made it very easy for me to do so.”
“Shiloh—”
“Enough, Rang. I think some time apart will do us both good.” He placed his hand over the doorknob. “Stay here and be a good alpha for me, won’t you?”
“Shiloh, damn it!” He pulled against his chains, but it was no use.
The omega turned his back on him and walked out.