Chapter 11
Defective
~ETIENNE~
Iam waiting for her to laugh.
That is what happens next, right? That is the natural progression of events.
She asks the question, I confirm it with my silence, and then she laughs.
Mocks me. Tells me that at my age, being a virgin is not just unusual but pathetic.
That an Alpha who cannot get hard over an Omega is broken. Defective. Less than.
Every muscle in my body is coiled tight, bracing for impact.
Because that is what I have been conditioned to expect.
It is not like I had not tried. I got close once, back in my second year of high school. An Omega from the neighboring academy who flirted with me at a joint sports banquet. Pretty. Willing. Exactly the kind of girl every Alpha my age was supposed to want.
We went back to her dorm. Kissed for a while. She started pulling at my clothes, pressing herself against me, her pheromones filling the room like a fog designed to override every rational thought in my brain.
I remember thinking, this is it. This is the moment I finally become the Alpha everyone expects me to be. My brother had stories. Rafe had stories. Cal had stories. And I was going to have mine.
And I felt nothing.
Not just nothing. I felt disgusted.
A visceral, bone-deep revulsion that had nothing to do with her as a person and everything to do with the wrongness of the situation. Like my body was physically rejecting the experience. Like every nerve ending was screaming at me to stop, pull back, get out.
So I stopped. Left her to go home. Made some excuse about not feeling well, which was not entirely a lie.
She called me cold feet afterward. Or whatever term Omegas use to degrade an Alpha who cannot perform when the moment presents itself. The rumor spread through the circles that mattered, adding another layer to the reputation I was already building as the lesser Laurent brother.
Defective. Broken. Incomplete.
Maybe that is when I knew there was a fundamental difference in my wiring. That the blueprint everyone expected me to follow was written for someone else.
But then…
But then Mabeline Mae Rose walked into a locker room covered in blue slushie, and my entire body came alive in a way it never had before.
Fuck.
I am trying to calm myself now, trying to regulate my breathing and my pulse and the traitorous reactions happening below my belt.
Because my cock is twitching every single time she speaks.
Every syllable, every laugh, every sharp-witted observation that tumbles from her lips sends a jolt of electricity straight through me that I am powerless to control.
And her scent.
God, her scent.
It is everywhere in my car now. Vanilla sugar and frosted roses have seeped into the cloth seats, woven themselves into the air vents, settled over every surface like a perfume I never want to wash away.
The closed space has concentrated it, amplified it, turned the interior of my sedan into a greenhouse for pheromones that my body is absorbing with alarming enthusiasm.
I will never open my windows again if it means keeping this aroma right here. Every future drive, every commute to practice, every errand will be accompanied by the ghost of her presence, and I am perfectly fine with that arrangement.
You are spiraling. Stop spiraling. She asked you a question and you are sitting here having an internal crisis while she waits for an answer.
The silence stretches between us, growing heavier with each passing second.
And then her hand lands on my knee.
Warm. Deliberate. Grounding.
She leans in, closing the distance so that I have no choice but to turn and look directly into her hazel eyes. They are gold-flecked and serious, holding mine with a steadiness that makes my heart stutter.
"Etienne." Her voice is firm. No trace of laughter. No mockery hiding beneath the surface. "I am being serious. Are you?"
I stare into those eyes, searching for the judgment I am certain must be lurking there. The disgust. The pity. The dismissive amusement that every other person has shown when they discover the quiet Alpha cannot perform.
But it is not there.
She is genuinely asking. Open and honest and waiting for my answer with a patience that feels foreign.
Risk it. She has been honest with you about everything. She deserves the same.
I swallow hard, trying to ignore how fast my heart is hammering against my ribs.
"Yes," I whisper. "I am being serious."
The word hangs between us, fragile and exposed.
I look away, feeling the heat crawl up my neck and settle across my cheekbones.
"I have not... been with an Omega. I have never gotten that far." My voice drops lower, the admission costing more than I expected. "I tried once. It did not work. My body just rejected the whole experience."
I rub my thumb against the steering wheel, the repetitive motion keeping me anchored.
"I have never felt a pull from an Omega.
To be honest. Not the way other Alphas describe it.
Not the instant attraction, the overwhelming need, the biological imperative everyone says is hardwired into us.
None of it." I exhale slowly. "I wondered if I was defective.
Broken in some fundamental way that I could not fix.
I even wondered if maybe I was gay, but I never felt attracted to Alphas either. No Betas. No one."
A bitter half-smile tugs at my lips.
"I just never found the person who lit a flame under me, I guess."
I glance at her, the thought completing itself inside my head without reaching my lips.
Until you.
Mabeline is quiet for a moment, her hand still resting on my knee. Still warm. Still steady.
She does not pull away.
That alone makes my chest ache.
"There is nothing wrong with that," she says softly. "And you should not feel ashamed by any means. Bodies are complicated. Attraction is complicated. The whole pack-bond system is designed to make us feel broken when we do not fit the mold, but the mold itself is flawed."
She shrugs.
"You waited for someone who mattered. That is not defective. That is particular. And there is nothing wrong with being particular about who you share yourself with."
I chuckle lowly, releasing a breath I did not know I was holding.
"Tell that to Rafe."
She rolls her eyes with the full theatrical force of her entire personality.
"Rafe is a jerk with probably a low ego, and that is exactly why he bothers you. Because you project a confidence that he does not have in himself yet. It is easier to tear someone else down than to build yourself up, and he has not figured out how to do the second one."
I blink. Once. Twice. Three times.
"Is that what you see?" I ask quietly. "When you look at him?"
She nods without hesitation.
"I am a very observant individual." Her voice carries a matter-of-fact certainty that leaves no room for argument.
"You have to be in the world of figure skating.
You cannot just jump into the swing of things or rush to conclusions.
You have to observe. Monitor every move and every execution on the ice.
Study the way a competitor holds their arms during a spin, the angle of their blade on a landing, the fraction of a second between a triple and a quad rotation. "
Her eyes light up as she talks, that guarded distance melting away, replaced by a passion I have only glimpsed in fragments until now.
"That is what makes you not only a better skater but a better performer.
Because you can distinguish exactly what your competition is doing right or wrong, and you adjust accordingly.
" She tilts her head. "Same principle applies to people.
Watch long enough, and you learn what is real and what is a front. "
Observant. Smart. Perceptive enough to read Rafe better in two days than I have managed in two years.
She is remarkable and has absolutely no clue.
I nod slowly, processing her words with the same care I give to lines of prose when I am revising a manuscript.
"That makes a tremendous amount of sense," I admit. "More than most advice I have received in my life."
She smiles, bright and warm, and the sight of it loosens a knot in my chest that has been pulled taut for years.
"Well," she says, leaning back in her seat with a playful tilt to her chin, "I may not tickle your feathers exactly, but I would not mind a date. If the offer still stands."
Does not tickle my feathers.
If only she knew that her mere existence has set every feather I own ablaze.
"The offer permanently stands."
She nods, fiddling with the crumpled bagel wrapper in her lap.
"Fair exchange for the honesty then. I should tell you that I have not really enjoyed any dating or romantic experiences myself.
It has just been thrilling one-night situations to keep the hormones at bay.
Scratch the itch, get through the cycle, move on.
Nothing that lasted. Nothing that meant a damn thing. "
She says it casually, but I can hear the hollowness underneath. The loneliness of physical intimacy without emotional connection.
"What about your heats?" I ask carefully. "If you do not mind sharing."
She shrugs, completely unbothered by the question.
"Irregular. And way shorter than the standard.
Instead of a week of madness like most Omegas deal with, mine are just one to two days.
My doctor said they might get longer once my body adjusts to having Alphas consistently present during cycles.
" She picks at the edge of the wrapper. "Apparently I am in fight-or-flight mode all the time, which suppresses the full hormonal response.
My body does not trust enough to let go completely. "
Fight or flight. Constantly. For years.
Her biology adapted to protect her because no one else would.
"I can handle it," she adds quickly, like she can sense my concern building. "The short heats, the irregularity, the whole mess. I have been managing on my own for years. Not ideal, but functional."