Chapter 19
Kian had received the call from Sarang that his brother’s protective detail had lost Sky at the mall, and he’d been livid. He’d pulled up Sky’s location through the tracking device he’d had implanted and had rushed off in a blur. But once he’d found him…
He’d sat in the car, watching as Sky had exited the doctor’s office, seemingly defeated.
He’d known there was no chance anyone would attempt to undo his bites, so he hadn’t been worried.
Kian could have stopped him there but elected not to.
His omega needed to come to the conclusion he already had, and if his running the first chance he got was any indicator, he wasn’t quite there yet.
So Kian had followed him from a safe distance all the way to the station.
Sky had been so absorbed in his own thoughts, he hadn’t even noticed.
They were there, standing out in the cold, for over an hour before Sky’s shoulders had pulled back and he’d turned away and finally caught sight of him waiting.
He wanted to take it as a good sign, as progress, but Kian was also concerned about pushing him again before he was ready. His siblings' warnings from before seemed to taunt him, which was why he’d driven Sky here instead of straight back to Caelum, where they belonged this late at night.
At least he’d had the foresight to stock the place. There was food as well, which he would get in a bit, once his omega had fully calmed down.
“I’m a Dominus,” he confessed, even though Shiloh had clearly let that cat out of the bag already.
“You’re my Possessio.” He’d named him officially, but decided to keep that part close to the chest for now.
It wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other anyway.
“I only get the one, and it’s you. Just as I’ll only ever have one omega.
You can stick to your plans, you just have to make room for me in them. ”
Kian tugged at the end of the blanket lightly. “Like how I’ve carved space for myself here.”
“And the stalking?”
“Nothing overly invasive. If it’d gotten too close, you would have noticed me, and I wasn’t ready to greet you yet.
There’s still much about you I’m dying to know.
Things I hope you’ll eventually confide in me, when you’re done playing pretend and bored with lying to both of us about your own wants and desires. ”
Sky sighed, but didn’t try to claim he wasn’t doing those things. That had to be a step forward. He picked at the heated blanket. “What else do you have?”
“Pecan bars and popcorn.”
The omega perked up. “Really?”
“Are you hungry?”
“We aren’t done talking yet.”
Kian chuckled. “Your self-restraint is admirable.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not letting you fuck me tonight.”
“Noted.”
“I mean it, alpha. Our bet is still on, and I haven’t lost yet.”
“I’m well aware.” If he’d thought forcing Sky to take his knot would have helped, he would have done it already.
He wasn’t completely obtuse. “Shiloh’s alpha never gave him the bite.
Now he’ll never get the chance to. Instead, beta scum was able to snatch him off the streets and force him to breed with a stranger. ”
Kian had killed every last one of them already; their screams still echoed in his head when he thought about it. If there’d been a way to resurrect someone, he would have done it just for the chance to skin them alive all over again.
“You were hanging out with that alpha, dating him. I just about lost my mind, Sky. A man in my position isn’t good at waiting around. If I want something, I take it. But with you…I stretched my patience for as long as I could.”
“But then you took me anyway,” Sky said.
“I never meant to rush you. I just couldn’t risk it.”
Sky was quiet for a moment, and it was clear he was trying to understand, either for himself or for Kian. Eventually, he asked, “Couldn’t risk something like what happened to Shiloh happening to me? Or couldn’t risk me choosing someone else?”
He felt his mood darken and struggled against acting on it.
His siblings and the Eumia were used to his personality, but it was obvious, despite all of the watching from afar Sky had done when they’d been younger, he’d never caught on to who Kian truly was.
That was another detail that upset him, honestly.
Kian didn’t like that he’d been watched so closely and yet had remained so overlooked.
“You wanted the fantasy,” he found himself accusing.
“You had a crush on this idea of me, a version you’d made up in your head and clung to.
I’m not that person. That person isn’t real.
He doesn’t exist. And if he doesn’t exist, and you realized that on your own, there’d be no reason for you to wait around for him any longer. ”
Sky laughed, the sound empty. “At least you’re honest. You aren’t normal, but you’re honest.” When Kian tilted his head, he elaborated. “You didn’t even pretend the reason was because you were worried something horrible would happen to me.”
“Of course that’s part of it.” Wasn’t that logical to assume?
In Kian’s line of work, he was constantly aware that bad things could happen to the people in his life.
It was even more likely now that he was a Dominus and actively working to take down a crime ring.
The syndicate had his back, but he guarded even against them. “Some things go without saying.”
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, from now on, everything between us needs to be said. Everything.”
“You aren’t leaving me, Sky. That’s nonnegotiable.”
“Does it look like I don’t know that?” He flung his arms out, indicating their surroundings. “I figured that out myself, thanks. If I tried reporting you, you’d just get off thanks to your connections with the Imperial family, and even if, by some miracle, you didn’t, you—”
“I have an entire organization that could hunt you down on my behalf,” Kian finished for him. “They’d drag you back to me, and the second I managed to have the charges dropped, I’d—”
Sky held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah. I said I got it, okay? Enough with the scary mafia king threats. A dominating alpha is one thing, a domineering alpha is another. You already know that’s not the type of mate I’ll ever submit to. So, here’s my proposal.”
Kian braced himself, ready to put his foot down if he had to.
He didn’t want to use threats against his omega, but he’d get the younger guy in line one way or another, no matter what he had to do, or how low he had to stoop to have him that way.
After years of longing, that’s just how it was going to be.
“You claim you aren’t going to control my life?
Prove it. I want a redo, Kian, and since that clearly isn’t happening with your marks all over my neck and your possessiveness, at least give me the time you had to come to terms with all of this.
You’re right. You aren’t the man I thought you were.
I’ve also never planned on getting anywhere near the mafia, let alone becoming the mate of a member.
I can’t even think about you being the Dominus. It freaks me out too much.”
Sky squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, seeming determined to have his way now that he’d gotten Kian’s undivided attention.
Not that he’d ever not had it.
“I don’t want to live above a host club.
” The omega put his hand up a second time when Kian instantly went to argue.
“Not right away, I mean. I’m not used to that much space, and your penthouse is huge.
I also don’t like the idea of being monitored by so many people.
The campus apartments are loud and crowded, but none of us are being watched twenty-four-seven.
I can leave my apartment anytime I like without needing to excuse myself or explain where or why I’m going. ”
Kian had been working up to giving Sky more liberties, like being able to come and go as he pleased, but Sky hadn’t been ready for that.
Or, more accurately, Kian hadn’t trusted him enough to follow through on the coming back part of that equation.
But his day playing runaway seemed to have helped.
If nothing else, Sky had at least come to the conclusion that this was his life now.
“Elm and I have to give up our apartment at the end of the month,” Sky kept going. “Since the semester is coming to an end, and we’re graduating, we won’t be allowed to stay there anymore.”
“You aren’t moving back in with your parents, omega.” He was mated now. He didn’t get to run off to mommy and daddy. There was no way Kian’s pride would allow that.
Sky scowled like he thought that was a dumb idea as well. “I want to stay here.”
“Here?” Kian glanced around pointedly. The space was small. Sure, it was comfortable enough to work in, and he could see it converting into a quaint little storefront eventually, but as a place to live? Not to mention… “This is not secure enough for my Possessio to permanently reside.”
“It wouldn’t be forever,” Sky reiterated his earlier sentiment with a huff. “Just until I can adjust to…well, to you.” He hesitated and then said in a softer voice, “You aren’t the alpha I wanted.”
That stung more than it should have. Kian growled before he could help it, clenching his jaw when that had Sky shrinking in on himself and dropping his gaze to the spot on the table between them.
“If I unleashed my pheromones right now, you wouldn’t be able to repeat that,” Kian stated.
“I don’t mean sexually,” Sky said. “Of course I want to sleep with you. That didn’t change despite everything, even though it most definitely should have.
The fact I do still physically want you, that I’m so sexually attracted to you it’s practically got me on a leash, is the only reason I’m willing to put in any work on this at all.
It’s why I didn’t even try to get the police to see my side of things and do their jobs without fear of Imperial repercussions.
I want your body, Kian, but that’s not enough to build a life on. ”