23. Evans #2
“He shouldn’t be alone right now.” Shaking my head I swallow down my anger. I need Hunter. And he needs me.
“What can you do for him?” Ivii scoffs, earning herself a soft nudge from her mother.
She means that I’m useless to him right now because I’m not an omega.
I can’t ease his rut for him. I won’t be able to settle the storm raging inside him as his secondary nature takes over.
During a rut, an alpha’s only drive is to mate.
There’s a burning compulsion to breed and mark and claim.
They become nothing better than animals seeking out omega pheromones and a hole to knot.
I know, I’ve been there, desperate for relief, begging for it to end.
“Whatever he needs.”
“Look, I appreciate how much you care about my son but it’s not that simple. You know what it’s like in rut.” Lyle looks apologetic, and there’s sympathy swimming in his blue eyes. So much so, I feel like if I don’t get out of here, I’ll drown in his pity.
I’m not helpless.
I can do something.
Anything.
Even if I just let him know he’s not alone.
Ivii rolls her eyes with a sigh. “He won’t even let you near the cabin, dummy. Instincts will make him feral. Territorial.”
She’s right, the second I get too close he might attack me. Alpha’s dislike being close to another alpha during their rut, the urge to protect what's theirs strong. It also prevents their nesting grounds from becoming tainted with another’s scent, which can turn an alpha almost murderous.
“I have to try. Spending a rut alone is torture.” Our bodies don’t feel like our own.
It’s like fire in our veins, and we’re clawing for relief.
An alpha cock swells with the need to knot, becoming heavy and sensitive but if we can’t, then nothing takes off the edge.
It’s like taking too much viagra, and amplifying it with some sort of beast mode.
“Look, I’m sorry for whatever it is I’ve done to annoy you today, but Hunter is my best friend.” Pushing to my feet, I glare at Ivii.
Her cold shoulder is nothing. Sadie does that all the time. And her prickly attitude rolls right off me. Ivii Ashbourne has nothing on Harrison Crawford, so if she thinks the little barbs in her words are going to keep me away from that cabin, she has another thing coming.
Pushing to my feet, I ignore them calling after me as I follow the trail of lights to our cabin. The beers I’d had make me braver than I should be right now, since disturbing an alpha during a rut is dangerous but it’s Hunter.
It’s Hunter.
And Hunter is mine.
As I crack open the door I’m instantly hit with the overwhelming scent of spiced oranges, laced with hints of turpentine like always.
It’s like Christmas on crack, with the sharp, sweet, almost pine scent of the turps underpinning it all, permeating everything.
If I could see it, I know it would be surrounding me in thick, swirling clouds of burnt orange.
“Get out Evans,” a voice snarls before I’m even three steps in the door.
Not Benny.
Not baby.
He’s standing in the corridor outside his art room, wearing a pair of black boxes, skin flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. Wincing as I take another step forward, he looks like he’s in agony, his muscles tensing and flexing in the dim glow from the kitchen light.
“You’re in rut.” I point out the obvious as I try not to stare at his tented boxers, but I know how stubborn Hunter is. Look at the beans and rice bullshit he’s been pulling for the last couple of years. I wasn’t going to let him put a wall between us now.
He grits his teeth, words hissed on an exhale as his hands ball into fists. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I say, taking a shaky step forward while his nostrils flare. I’m trying to hold my pheromones back, keep them in check but his are overwhelming and I can feel my control slipping through my fingers. They weren’t kidding about him being a dominant alpha. “You’re a mess.”
“Don’t fucking argue with me right now, get your ass back down to the family cabin.” Placing a hand on the wall to steady himself he glares at me. Blue eyes flash angrily as more pheromones flood the cabin making my head swim.
“Fuck you. You’re not the boss of me,” I slur, my mind hazy around the edges. He could be the boss. If he used his Alpha Voice, but he didn’t. Which means he doesn’t really want me to go either. “And it’s still not a fucking cabin. Neither of them are.”
My alpha instincts flare, demanding I call him on his bullshit. Even though I know it’s stupid, even though he clearly out-alpha’s me. Baiting him is just a distraction, something to get his mind off the unbearable pain wracking his body right now.
His voice is low and gravelly, but the words are sticky and heavy like honey as they hold me glued to the spot. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to pin you down and fuck you right here on the cold floor. It won’t be gentle. It won’t be soft. You will be mine.”
Mine is snarled, sending a shiver through my entire body as my knees buckle.
“Who said you’d be the one doing the fucking?” I challenge as I manage to stay on my feet. I couldn’t leave now, even if I wanted to. The urge to submit there, beneath everything, a quiet whisper at the base of my spine but the alpha need to stand my ground is louder.
His scent is like glue, sticking to me, rooting me to the spot while my alpha roars that I won’t accept defeat. I won’t be chased away by him.
Hunter laughs as he rubs his face.“We both know you’re dying to know what my knot feels like, baby.”
Taking a deliberate step forward, his eyes lock with mine and I see the hunger there. The need. He wants me. To devour me whole.
“Five,” he whispers.
“You’re so fucking arrogant.” I grunt as I lift my chin to glare at him, but the truth is, my cock is so hard right now. I’m leaking in my swimming trunks, the tip already sticky and slick and all I’ve done is take another hesitant step forward.
“Four.”