Chapter 13
“It’s going well then?” Aster asked a few days later.
“What?” Thorn finished typing out another message to Baal, and then lowered his device. “What did you say?”
His brother rolled his eyes, laughing at him. They were in the hospital room, but Aster no longer needed help getting off the bed or going to the bathroom. According to the doctor, he’d made great progress and would be able to enter the rehabilitation center sooner than they’d anticipated.
Thorn was nervous about it, since he wouldn’t be allowed to see him for a bit during that, but also understood the importance of restricting what types of pheromones Aster came into contact with while he was learning how to re-regulate his own.
“Your alpha,” Aster drawled. “Things seem to be going really well with him. He dropped by yesterday and seemed like he was in a good mood.”
“He came to see you?” Thorn hadn’t seen Baal in over a week.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.” He laughed more openly. “Wow, I can’t believe this. If anyone had told me I’d see someone tame my older brother, I would have called them crazy. You’re so gone for him.”
“I am not.” Crossing his arms, he leaned back in his chair. He’d been sitting at his bedside for the past hour. His laptop was open on the table across the room, since he’d planned on sticking around and attending his online class here.
“Sure,” Aster clearly didn’t believe him. “Well, if you ever decide you don’t want him, give him to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“What? Only a moron would give up a good alpha like Baal. He’s rich, attentive, sexy—”
“He’s ten years older than you.”
“So?” Aster shrugged. “Hang onto him until I’m eighteen then.”
“You can’t have my—” Thorn abruptly stopped talking.
Good Light.
Had he really been about to say that?
Aster gave him a smug look. “See? You like him.”
“No, I don’t.” He couldn’t.
“Why? Because the contract?”
All of the oxygen seemed to be sucked right out of the room and Thorn stared at him, mind blanking.
“Brother-in-law told me I wasn’t supposed to mention it, but that’s obviously what’s holding you back,” Aster continued. “Who cares about a dumb thing like that? Don’t let it hold you back, Thorn.”
…He was going to kill the alpha.
How dare Baal tell him!
“Wait!” Aster grabbed onto his wrist when Thorn shot to his feet, easily guessing he was about to storm out and go find the underboss. “Come on, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“He wasn’t supposed to tell you!”
“Why not?” Aster bristled. “I’m sixteen. I’m not a kid anymore. Hell, before I was hospitalized again, I was offered a breeding contract as well.”
Thorn’s mouth dropped open. “You what?!”
He shrugged it off. “You’re smarter than this.
No one actually expects to get pregnant these days.
The Imperial family has promised they're working on a wonder drug, and we’re all pretty much just waiting on that to actually happen.
There’s not really much else we can do, right?
Breeding contracts don’t hold the same intent they used to. ”
Thorn dropped back down into his seat, brow furrowing.
Aster gave him a funny look. “You seriously didn’t know? Using the contract for exclusive dating is super popular right now. Brother, you aren’t that old. How are you this clueless?”
Twenty-two might not be old, but it’d been a long time since Thorn had interacted with anyone his age aside from serving them food.
Baal was older than he was. Even if Aster’s generation was taking things like that more lightly, there was no way the alpha would.
“Ask him if you don’t believe me,” his brother suggested, and Thorn shook his head vehemently.
“I would rather gnaw off my left foot.” It was bad enough Thorn had developed any sort of feelings or attachment to the alpha.
The last thing he needed was to tip his hand and make that known.
He’d lose any ground he’d covered if he did something like that.
Their relationship was already so imbalanced.
“He didn’t have any right to discuss this with you. ”
“In his defense, I was the one who brought it up.”
Thorn’s frown deepened.
“Like I said, it’s pretty common now. A breeding contract ensures that both parties are covered if a miracle pregnancy happens to occur. Without a contract, one side could choose not to tell the other. There have even been rumors of babies being sold.” He growled. “That’s so fucked, right?”
It was.
“If you’re going to have sexual relations with someone nowadays, it’s smart to cover your bases. I wanted to be sure Baal wasn’t just using you for his own twisted pleasure, so I asked outright if he’d signed a contract with you yet. The fact that he had eased my mind.”
Thorn had been so worried it would add unnecessary burden to Aster, but his brother was telling him it’d actually had the opposite effect?
“Let’s change the subject.” He couldn’t talk about this anymore.
“What are you so afraid of?” Aster asked, the question the same as the one Baal had given when Thorn had hesitated to open his gift.
“Am I really that transparent?”
“Not usually,” he replied. “But lately? Yeah. Whenever your alpha comes up, you are.”
He groaned and ran a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
“I don’t get what’s holding you back.”
“He’s the underboss of the White Frost, for one,” Thorn reminded. “You remember how difficult things were when we were involved with them in the past.”
“Yeah, because we were debtors, and low-level members came around randomly to threaten us for payments. With Baal around, no one would dare. Plus, he’s not a bad guy. Look.” He motioned to the corner of the room where a decorated Christmas tree stood. “He’s done more for us than our own dad did.”
“That’s…” Thorn rubbed at his temples.
“What were the two of you talking about just now?” Aster graciously dropped it.
“He was asking how my classes were going.”
“Ah, the classes he paid for? I was shocked when I found out you’d accepted.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t exactly give me a choice.”
“Boo hoo. The big bad alpha is forcing you to get a degree on his dime.”
“Watch it,” Thorn warned, but he couldn’t help but smile back at his brother’s teasing grin.
“Seriously though,” Aster sobered some. “If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you.”
“And you think the alpha will make me happy? Really?” He nibbled on his bottom lip and blurted, “What if he leaves?”
“So what if he does? Relationships end all the time.”
“What if I get attached?”
“Thorn, you’re the strongest, most independent person I know. Even if the man you love dumps you, you’ll pick yourself back up again and dust yourself off. Have a little faith in yourself.”
He scowled. “I’m not in love with him.”
“Not yet,” Aster agreed. Then he waggled his brow suggestively. “But he’s totally in love with you already.”
“Shut up.”
“He is! I swear!”
“Don’t put shit like that in my head. It’s hard enough without it.” Thorn’s device dinged and he turned his wrist to check it, finding another message from the alpha of topic. “He just invited me to a New Year’s party.”
The two of them had talked every day the past week, but for some reason, Thorn’s chest felt tight at the thought of seeing the alpha in person again.
When was his heat due? He’d gotten so caught up in everything, he’d nearly forgotten. Pulling up the app that helped track that sort of thing, he saw it wasn’t for another couple of weeks.
Alphas and omegas could take suppressants to put their heats off, but it wasn’t healthy to skip more than two in a row. Those with extremely strong pheromones often used smaller doses in their daily lives as well, to keep themselves from triggering the ruts or heats of others.
Did Baal need them? He was a dominant alpha. Most of them did.
He also had excellent control over his pheromones though, so maybe it wasn’t necessary.
“Are you going to go?” Aster asked. “I’m supposed to be moved into rehab by then, so don’t worry about me. We won’t be able to spend it together anyway. I’d feel better knowing you weren’t at home alone, or worse, working your ass off at a delivery job like last year.”
“Baal made me quit working, remember?” He typed a simple okay out to the alpha and hit send. “Besides, it’s not like I actually have a choice. Inviting me is just a pleasantry.”
“Boo hoo—”
“I get it, brat,” Thorn cut him off.
A party probably sounded like the best thing in the world to Aster.
His illness meant he had to be taken out of school, and couldn’t be around many alphas or omegas at once.
If he was, their pheromones would flood his system and risk permanently damaging his internal organs, or worse, could kill him.
If it’d been something else, like a failing liver or kidney, they would have put him on a transplant list, but transplants for pheromone disorder weren’t possible.
It was still too rare a disease, with not enough research being done on it.
According to the doctors, the treatment plan they’d put him on had come from Glyph.
For the first time ever, they were being told it was possible he’d make a full recovery.
It’d been years since Aster been around more than a handful of people at once, and it was clear he was eager to get back out there.
Enrolling him in the rehab center would ensure he didn’t overdo it and took his time to properly heal before getting the chance to assimilate back into society.
Aster had presented early, at the young age of fourteen, and it’d been mostly downhill from there. It made sense that an alpha like Baal swooping in and seemingly saving them from a life of struggle was viewed as a blessing.
But Thorn couldn’t afford that type of luxury thinking. As always, he needed to be the one with a clear head on his shoulders.
No matter how badly he secretly wished he could give in and call the alpha his own.