Chapter 18 #2
His hand went to the side of his neck, and he felt the indents of the marks.
They’d been tended to and covered in second-skin, a clear substance that acted like a barrier and would help quicken the healing process.
Kian had given him an ointment, but the doctor at the medical facility had done him one better.
Would the alpha order him to remove it?
Kian was the possessive type. He liked seeing his marks. Sky had caught him staring these past two days, a smug look on his face…He hadn’t felt sorry at all.
The door locked behind them, and the alpha headed deeper into the building, opening cupboards and pulling out items as though this were his studio and not Sky’s.
“Where did that come from?” Sky frowned at the thick navy comforter Kian took out, then at the heated blanket in a lighter shade, and finally at the full electronic tea set, complete with cups and saucers. “Have you been in here without me?”
“A few times,” Kian admitted. “I wanted to be sure it was fully stocked before your next heat. I also noticed you didn’t have anything to drink or eat. You get caught up in your work and go hours without so much as a sip of water. That isn’t healthy, omega.”
“How do you know that?” He stepped back when Kian brought the items over to the table and started sorting through them. “Were you watching me?”
“Stalking,” he corrected unabashedly. “I believe that’s the word you’re looking for. And yes. I was.”
“Since when?”
“Since I returned to Glyph. So…About two months now.”
Sky had figured Kian had arrived sooner than Elm and his family thought, since he’d clearly had enough time to set Club Caelum up, and the business seemed to be bustling with clients. But to stay hidden for two entire months? “Why?”
Kian spread the comforter over the table and then settled the heated blanket on top, switching it on. Next, he moved to the counter against the wall, plugging in the electric kettle and getting things in order over there. He turned, holding two boxes, a moment later. “Tea or cocoa?”
He stared at him. “I’d like to talk about the stalking.”
“What’s to talk about.” Kian weighed his options and then shook the brown box.
“Cocoa, and then tea. The chocolate will help calm you down, and the tea will provide antioxidants. You were out in the cold for a while. I don’t want you getting sick, especially this close to Fright Night.
The twins have been looking forward to it. ”
“Which ones?”
“Shiloh and Sloane,” he replied. “Arbor and Avi aren’t really the corn maze type.”
Sky wondered if he’d slipped into an alternate dimension as Kian got the cocoa prepared. “You aren’t mad at him?”
“At Shiloh?” He shrugged. “I’m livid but not surprised. My brother was testing us. He’s good at that sort of thing. And you passed so,” he turned back with a steaming mug in hand, “I’ll refrain from punishing him too severely. You however…Drink first, little omega. Then we’ll talk.”
“I want—”
“We can talk about the stalking as well.”
Sky rolled his eyes but accepted the cocoa, too chilly to allow his pride to prevent him from doing so. He felt it all the way to his bones, and it wasn’t even winter yet. As he sipped, he couldn’t help but glance at the table and the promise of further warmth.
“Get in the nest,” Kian suggested, his tone making it clear he wasn’t ordering him to do so. If Sky refused, he wouldn’t push him.
Probably because the bastard was aware only one of them would suffer if Sky remained standing, and it wasn’t him.
Holding out the hot mug, Sky waited for Kian to take it before he pulled himself up onto the table and crawled to the center. He cocooned himself in the heated blanket, a contented sigh slipping past his lips as he was instantly embraced in heat, his shoulders slumping forward.
Kian didn’t join him, opting to linger at the end of the table, handing his cocoa back once Sky had settled.
“It’s going to take me a while to drink this,” Sky said. “It’s hot.”
“That’s okay. We aren’t going anywhere tonight.”
“We’ll stay here?”
Kian tipped his head. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Yes, it was. Sky felt safest here, in his own space.
He hadn’t had the studio for long, but he’d already developed working habits, so everything was as familiar to him as though he’d held this studio for years.
So much so, the only way the alpha would have been able to sneak these new things in without him noticing was if he’d done it the past couple of days.
After he’d already claimed Sky.
He wanted to blame his stupid preset instincts for the way that brought a wave of warmth to his gut.
Wanted to blame his reaction on the fact that he was an omega, and an alpha taking care of him was meant to elicit that type of response, whether he wanted it or not.
But he hadn’t been lying about the mental exhaustion he was under.
He liked that the alpha had thought of him. So what?
According to his casually delivered confession, Kian had been thinking about him a hell of a lot sooner than Sky had even realized.
“The night we were here last…” Sky cleared his throat and tried again. “I thought I made you want me. I thought my pheromones were affecting you, and you would never—”
“I’ve always wanted you,” Kian interrupted. “Always.”
Sky lifted a disbelieving brow, and the alpha grunted.
“All right. I’ve wanted you since my presentation, in one form or another. It didn’t turn sexual until later, but shortly after I became an alpha, I started viewing you differently. I started to notice you.”
“I didn’t know that.” Sky pursed his lips. “Are you lying?”
“You don’t believe me because you were always spying on me from afar?” Kian chuckled. “Little omega, if I’d wanted you to know my feelings, I would have let you.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know?” He considered the possibilities. “Because I hadn’t presented yet?”
“There are four years between us, Sky.”
“It’s three and a half,” he corrected. For some reason, those six months had always seemed like a big deal to him. Like they somehow made all the difference in the world. “We’re both adults anyway.”
“Now,” he agreed. “Not back then.”
“And when I was eighteen and just barely legal?” Sky couldn’t help but point out. “When you took me in a bathroom decorated in orange and black twinkle lights and empty beer bottles?”
“You hadn’t presented yet and I was leaving,” Kian explained. “I couldn’t risk it. If I left you behind, and you turned out to be another alpha?”
“What if I’d been a beta?”
“I would have claimed you still.”
“But you wanted an omega.”
“Most alphas do.”
Sky took a gulp of the cocoa, burning his tongue in the process. He didn’t like being told Kian would have moved on if he’d presented as an alpha, even though it made total sense. As an alpha, Sky most likely wouldn’t want to be with Kian anymore either. “We’ll never know what might have happened.”
“We won’t,” he said. “Thanks to me.”
“You traumatized me that night,” Sky accused him, but Kian’s gaze turned knowing.
“You enjoyed every second of being owned, don’t deny it. The rougher I got with you, the more slick you produced. You were so wet for me that night, I had to put effort into making it hurt for you.”
Sky bristled. “What?”
“That’s how you wanted it,” he insisted.
“I told you. I’ll do anything to please you.
All you have to do is please me in return.
Fear me, love me, it doesn’t matter. I want everything from you, Sky.
Every hope and dream. All your nightmares and your secret longings.
I’ll forge a world wherein I am your god. You’ll worship at my altar.”
“And in return?” Had he really just asked that? His voice was breathy and weak, his heart thumping a mile a minute. The mug was clutched so tightly between both hands, it was a wonder the ceramic didn’t splinter and crack.
“Anything,” Kian replied. “Everything. Whatever you want, it’ll be yours, just never do what you did today. Don’t run from me. Don’t try to escape. Cease resisting, Sky, and I can promise you perfection.”
“You know what that’s always meant for me. What I’ve always envisioned for my future.”
“This again.” Kian scowled. “Do you really think you’ll be happy stuck in a home in the suburbs? Taking care of a brood of children, with no time for your craft? No time for me?”
“People have kids and still manage to enjoy time for their partners.”
“I won’t be satisfied with some of your time. I want all of it.”
“Aren’t you the one with the weird breeding kink?”
“I like the idea of it,” he admitted, “I like teasing you about it while I spear you on my cock and drive in deep enough you can feel me forcing you open. But it’s a fantasy. The same way you like picturing my masked visage taking you against that bathroom sink surrounded by cliché holiday décor.”
Sky had never shared those thoughts with anyone. Had the alpha merely been able to guess based on his reactions, or was there something else he wasn’t telling him?
“Even before you knew my identity, a part of you knew you were safe with me. Why do you think your reaction was so different when Kenta tried something?”
At the mention of the deceased alpha, Sky recoiled.
“On some level, you always knew it was me,” Kian continued. “You were just too afraid to hope for it.”
“No, I…”
“You were able to pick up on my pheromones the second you presented. You scented me that night, Sky.”
“I was completely out of it because of the violence of it all, and you left the planet right after. We weren’t in the same room again until we ended up here, years later.”
“You never visited my house?” Kian asked. “Never lingered by my bedroom? Never sniffed the sweatshirts or jackets I conveniently left behind on the couch or the back of a chair?”
Kian had only returned home a handful of occasions since leaving, and his appearances had been too sporadic and brief for Sky to catch him and see him in person, but…
“You knew I’d do that?” Sky would have been embarrassed, if not for what that meant.
“I left them specifically for you to find.”
Kian had wanted him to know. Had wanted him to connect the dots on his own, only Sky had been too stubborn. Too caught up in his head, desperately trying to forget the whole ordeal or the things it’d awakened within him. The things it’d made him feel.
The truths about himself he hadn’t been ready to accept.
“Admit it, little omega,” Kian said. “I’m everything you could possibly desire and more.”
“You scare me,” he told him. “What you do scares me. Why else would you have kept it a secret? You’re the Dominus of the Eumia.
Sure, fine. I admit it. I like being tossed around and forced onto your cock.
I like when you balance the pain and the pleasure.
When you refuse to stop, no matter how many times I say no.
And maybe that makes me a freak, and maybe I’d disgust people—I disgust myself—but there’s a fine line between wanting to play in the bedroom and actually dating a mafia king.
“Sex is one aspect of my life. You’re saying that’s not all you want from me. You’re saying you want to own it all, control it all. What does that even look like to you, Kian? In your mind, what am I allowed to do and not to do?”
Sky had pretty much decided not to fight this when he’d turned away from the police station, he recognized that. But it didn’t mean he’d be fine with taking whatever Kian dished out for him.
“I’m an only child,” he reminded. “I’ve lived twenty-one years spoiled by my parents, doing as I please. Yeah, maybe I like giving up control in the bedroom, but I have plans, alpha. I’ve got graduation, and I’m going to open this studio, and—”
“I’m not stopping you from doing those things,” Kian reassured. “If I didn’t want an artist for a mate, I wouldn’t have picked an artist, no matter how good you smell. I know who you are, Sky.”
He blew out a breath. “That makes one of us.”
“Sky.” Kian rested his arms on the table and leaned in. “I know I rushed the claiming, but the rest doesn’t have to be that way. We can take our time and figure this out together. I’m giving you choice in all areas except one. Is that really so terrible?”