Chapter 19
The alpha pheromones messed with Shiloh’s head. When Tull stepped forward, he hissed at him.
Sarang was heavy and fully pressing down on him now that he’d passed out, but all Shiloh could think about was how close he’d come to finally getting the bite, only for this asshole to arrive and ruin it.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” He tried to claw his way free, but the knot caught behind that tight ring of muscle pulled and he wheezed, going still to prevent it from tugging again.
“It’s pheromones, they’re making you wild,” Tull tried telling him. “We won’t hurt him, Prince, but you’re both in danger right now. You’re in need of medical attention.”
What he needed was for them to get the hell out so he could prove to his alpha he could be good. Every time Sarang had called him bad, it’d been like a barb to the chest, his omega instincts to please and submit to his alpha taking full control of his system.
“Tranquilize him too,” one of the other alphas, a soldier who worked directly under Tull, said. “It smells so strong in here, I might fall over. Doesn’t matter that he’s a dominant omega, the underboss held nothing back.”
Shiloh glared when Tull lifted the weapon and aimed it his way.
He didn’t have enough air in his lungs to make another verbal threat, but it was clear Tull saw it written across his face a second before he fired and Shiloh lost consciousness.
* * *
He was fairly certain he’d been chopped in half.
When Shiloh woke, blinking blearily up at the ceiling, he couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. For a moment, he wondered if he’d been in a fight, a territory battle that had left him crippled, but then reality started slowly coming back to him.
This wasn’t Synastry, and he wasn’t eighteen on the run from their enemies.
But he didn’t know where he was. This place wasn’t one of the rooms at the hotel, the space as unfamiliar as the ruby red sheets he was tucked under.
A machine beeped at the side of the bed and he turned his head, catching sight of a monitor currently flashing his vitals.
The end of an IV trailed to his right hand, and he stared at it for a while, mind taking forever to catch up.
“You were out for a day.” Sarang’s voice caught his attention, and Shiloh lifted his head to peer across the room.
The alpha was sitting in a chair, looking showered and put together.
Not at all how Shiloh had left him.
At the hotel.
“What—” He sounded like someone had made him swallow a jar of thumbtacks. “What happened?”
“I broke one of your ribs.”
“Oh.” Shiloh dropped his head back down and closed his eyes. The room was starting to spin a bit.
“Oh?” the alpha sounded incredulous. “I just told you I hurt you.”
He shrugged a single shoulder. “I was bad. You did what you had to do.”
His mother had done a hell of a lot worse to him in the past than break a single rib, or even a single bone for that matter. Whenever Shiloh had stepped out of line, she’d beaten him back into place.
“I tore your hole, Shiloh. You were bleeding. If Tull hadn’t arrived and stopped me—”
His eyes popped back open and he gasped. “You were shot!”
Shiloh rushed to sit up and then cried out, practically falling over in an attempt to lift pressure off his rear.
The alpha was at his side in a blur of motion, taking him by the arm and turning him so he was lying on his stomach. Without a word, he flipped the blanket off of Shiloh, exposing him to the cool air.
Making him realize with a start that he was completely naked.
Sarang cupped his cheeks and parted his ass, leaning over to inspect his entrance. “You’re still swollen and puffy. You finally closed up, but you have to be careful. Even with me controlling the flow of qi, it’s taking a while for you to heal.”
“Yeah, because you were shot three times and weakened.” Shiloh tried to roll away, but a heavy hand smacked down on his bottom, causing him to freeze. His mouth dropped open. “Did you just…?”
“I’ll spank you again if you don’t start taking this seriously,” he warned, grabbing a tube of cream from the end table, before moving to kneel between Shiloh’s legs. “This will hurt. Bear with it.”
“What—” He hissed and squeezed his eyes shut when his thighs were forced further apart to better accommodate the alpha. At the press of a finger against his damaged entrance, he clenched fistfuls of the blanket beneath him.
Sarang was as careful as he could be, rubbing cream around his bud, making sure it was slick and covered before attempting to push into him. When Shiloh whimpered, he hushed him and released a wave of soothing alpha pheromones.
Some of the tension between his shoulders eased, and Shiloh lay still, allowing his alpha to tend to him.
“You can’t remain on your stomach because of the rib,” Sarang said. “It’s mostly healed, but…Let’s not take any chances.”
“A broken bone is mostly healed, but my ass still feels like it was held against a shredder?” He whistled. “Damn, alpha, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t realized the full weight of your current situation.”
No, but now that they were talking, he was starting to recall what the full weight of the alpha holding him down had felt like.
He shivered.
Sarang spanked him again.
“Fuck! Seriously?!” He would have risked turning, but Sarang finished up and hauled him onto his back before resettling the comforter over his front. Shiloh glared up at him.
The alpha grabbed a tissue and started cleaning his finger. “This is my bedroom. You’ve always wanted to see it, haven’t you?”
That caught his curiosity, and Shiloh glanced around with renewed interest. No matter how many times he’d asked in the past, he’d always been denied entrance to the alpha’s suite.
Unfortunately, seeing it now, there wasn’t really all that much to view.
It was mostly empty, with the only real pop of color being the silky cherry red bedding.
“What changed your mind?” he asked, turning back just in time to catch a spark of something possessive flicker in the alpha’s eyes. Shiloh’s breath caught in his throat, instincts making him go still in the face of a potentially upset alpha.
Sarang planted a palm on the pillow at the side of his head and leaned in, capturing Shiloh’s chin firmly between two fingers.
“I told you I wanted to talk, yet you kept denying me. Now it’s my turn to make the rules.
Until you and I can come to an understanding, you aren’t stepping a single foot out of this suite.
Maybe not even this room, if you aren’t careful. ”
Shiloh blinked at him, wondering who the hell this guy was, but the alpha wasn’t nearly finished.
“You won’t be receiving visitors, so don’t waste your time plotting ways to escape. No one can help you. Not Bishop. Not even Sloane. For the time being, I’m the only one you have, omega. Just me and my company.”
There was something…different about him. Something off.
The induced rut was over, and in appearance he seemed normal and well within his senses.
Except for his eyes. The way he was staring at Shiloh, unblinking, hyper focused, it was a lot like the way he’d looked at him at the café just before he’d thrown him down and ripped him open with his ridiculously huge alpha cock.
Shiloh’s gaze dropped quickly to the spot between the alpha’s thighs, only risking a very brief glance, but it was enough to confirm the alpha wasn’t currently hard.
“What’s gotten into you?” he dared ask, only for Sarang’s lips to twist up in an almost cruel smirk that could have rivaled Shiloh’s own.
“You made your point, that’s all,” he said, voice dangerously low, velvety and edged with a barely restrained threat. “You exposed yourself to me, and I’ve acknowledged the real you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He didn’t give Shiloh a chance to reply.
“Here’s the thing though, omega,” he tapped his bottom lip with a finger, “If you aren’t a good person toward me, then by that logic, I don’t have to be good toward you.
” He settled himself over Shiloh, hushing him when he released a pained sound as mild pressure was placed on his rib and his ass was pressed into the mattress.
“So, you and I are going to work on it. In here. Just the two of us. You’re going to learn how to be honest with me, how to trust me with all of your truths,” his fingers brushed damp strands of hair off Shiloh’s forehead, “How to be good for me again, and in return, I’ll figure out if I can accept the real you. ”
“If?” Shiloh growled it, but ended on a whimper when more weight was applied over him.
Sarang had never hurt him in the past. Hell, a couple of months ago, if he’d so much as given him a papercut, he’d be all apologies, fawning over him.
“What? You think you’ve earned my bite, omega?
Doing what, exactly? Tricking me? Making me believe you’re someone that you’re not?
Locking me up and forcing me into rut?” He grinned when Shiloh’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do the same to you.
I promise I’ll be present for every one of your forced heats. ”
“Rang,” he swallowed the lump in his throat, “Got to admit, you’re scaring me a little.”
“That’s my intention.” Sarang placed a chaste kiss to the tip of his nose.
“As soon as you’re fully healed, we’ll begin.
An eye for an eye. You’ll take the heat inducer even if I have to shove it down your throat myself.
You’ll experience every single one of those forced mating periods you made me go through.
The only difference is, I won’t leave you alone.
You’ll cry and beg for me, omega. Plead and promise and agree to give me whatever I want in return for the chance to sit on my knot.
And I’ll eventually let you.” His grin widened. “If you’re good.”
Shiloh wasn’t sure how to feel about this impossible turn of events.
On the one hand, evil Sarang?
Hot.
So hot.
Like staring too long directly at the sun hot.
But on the other hand…