Chapter 16 #2
“Pervert.” Sarang kept humping.
“Would you prefer I look at someone else? I could suggest Caelum hold its own Den Night. Bring in some business and potentially get fucked all at once.”
“Loh.”
“Yes, alpha?” his tone couldn’t be anymore saccharine if he tried.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into here.” He didn’t realize just how intensely he was feeding Sarang’s fantasies. Now, every time he touched himself, he was going to be picturing the omega on the other end of a camera.
He flexed his glutes and dragged his cock over the pillow before making a big show of flipping onto his back.
Sarang settled over the plush object so his hips were lifted, and spread his thighs, thrusting into the air.
His cock bounced, red and almost as thick as his wrist, and precome splattered, dotting his abs with glistening drops.
Shiloh’s breath hitched, and Sarang barely contained the flair of self-satisfaction that brought him.
It was the rut talking, but he was starting to wonder why he cared so much whether or not Shiloh’s attraction to him was because of the life-bond.
Did it really matter?
If it meant Sarang could have the omega he wanted, why fight it?
Morality would only get a person so far, and it wasn’t like their species were all that known for having it anyway. Alphas took their mates. That was why it was called a claiming. That was why the act itself was violent and bloody.
Who was he kidding, trying to play the good guy?
The prince wasn’t the only one who’d worn a mask, he’d just been more honest with himself about it.
“Come here,” Sarang ordered again, trying to wear the other man down.
He ran his hands up his chest, over his nipples, pinching and twisting them suggestively while flicking his hips.
The room was starting to cave in on him, his vision growing cloudy while instinct took over.
It wouldn’t be long before he lost the ability to carry a conversation like this.
“Will you bite me, alpha?” Shiloh asked, but Sarang’s hesitation was all the answer he needed, and he followed it up with a growl of his own. “Then no. You can knot your fist again, since you seem to enjoy your own company over mine.”
“We need to talk,” he tried explaining, but the omega wasn’t hearing it.
“The only thing we need to do is screw.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Sarang sneered. “If all you want me for is my body, this will never work. I’ve dreamed of a partner, Prince, someone to stand with me. Not someone who I can use, or is okay with being used themselves.”
Shiloh sighed heavily. “This is about the life-bond, isn’t it? Let it go. I have.”
“Liar.”
“Fine. I haven’t. I’m still pissed you kept such a monumental secret from me. There. Does the truth make you happy?”
“The truth,” Sarang stated, “is you only feel the way you do because I’m a Gray who messed with your fate.
The life-bond doesn’t affect you the way it does me, but that doesn’t mean a part of you can’t feel the connection between us.
It’s manufactured. Think about it. Why else would someone like you wake up and suddenly obsess over someone like me? ”
“Someone like you? Don’t tell me you’ve got low self-esteem, Rang. How unbecoming.”
“You really lack empathy, don’t you?” He’d figured that out, of course, but the more they spoke, the more apparent that reality became.
“You sound like your brother. For years, you acted as his voice of reason…That was pretend? Even so, the fact you could pull it off means you’re at least consciously aware of what’s considered right and wrong, no? ”
“Please get down from your moral high horse,” Shiloh said. “And stop being so damn contradictory. Am I the one suffering from a fake connection, or are you? Who’s to say you aren’t attracted to me simply because you’re dependent on me to survive?”
“I’m the one who created the bond,” Sarang pointed out, but Shiloh merely snorted.
“You saved a random eighteen-year-old’s life because you couldn’t sit back and watch a kid die.
That had nothing to do with wanting me, and everything to do with wanting to play the hero.
Well guess what? Actions have consequences, alpha, and I’m yours.
If you didn’t want me, you shouldn’t have saved me.
“I looked into it,” Shiloh continued. “Grays can save more than one person. In the past, they were even hunted and forced into armies to help heal wounded soldiers. You can replenish your qi by siphoning off anyone. Why haven’t you fed on Bishop?”
“It doesn’t work that way for me.” Yes, for others of his kind, that was the case, but as a half breed, things were different for Sarang. “I discovered that the hard way.”
The omega paused, then surmised, “You found out when you healed me and inadvertently formed a life-bond. It was an accident.”
Was that a layer of hurt in his voice, or was Sarang imagining it? It was hard to be sure of anything through the ringing in his ears. His rut was well upon him now, making Shiloh sound like he was far away and partially under water.
His body was covered in sweat and his cock leaked nonstop, rivers of clear fluid rolling down his tip to coat his balls, taint, and drench the pillow. The wet sounds when he gave in and began fisting himself echoed tauntingly in the room, momentarily drowning out anything else the omega was saying.
Sarang wanted to deny it, wanted to comfort him, despite everything, but his tongue was thick in his mouth now, his brain unable to catch and hold onto anything long enough to actually formulate a sentence.
The truth was, he could feed off Bishop, but there was no telling what that would do to Shiloh, a being who wasn’t capable of siphoning off swells of energy.
A person could die from too much the same as they could from too little, the body not meant to sustain more than it needed. If they were in the same room, if he had his eyes on Shiloh, Sarang did it, but in a situation like this, when the omega was far away…He wouldn’t take the chance.
He couldn’t control his Gray side like he could his alpha.
Not that he was currently able to control that very well either.
The withheld piece of scented clothing became painfully apparent when Sarang instinctively reached for it, free hand moving across the bed before recalling Bishop hadn’t left one this time.
He growled, the sound threatening and deep.
“Since you still seem to think anyone but me would do as your mate,” Shiloh quipped, “have fun going through another rut on your own.”
The speaker crackled, signaling an end to the conversation, and Sarang roared in outrage.
With that last tether holding his sanity together gone, his mind splintered and he was consumed by raw, primal desire.