Chapter 11
Miraya
Ireally meant to fight Prodigy on the ten more books thing, but I came out of that shop with ten hardcovers, twelve paperbacks, five bookmarks, and a red dragon plushie that was so soft I couldn’t stop rubbing my cheek against it.
I was still a little dazed from his growl, and maybe my heart had melted at his protectiveness.
I couldn’t help but obsess over the way he’d gone all Scary Alpha Mode to defend me from the guy who sniffed me.
I mentally filed it in the same folder as Tybalt beating the ever-loving crap out of my buyer.
I pulled that thought out every night, remembering the dull, fleshy noise each punch made, unleashing justice and rage upon him.
I startled when the comforting growl of Prodigy’s bike cut out, finding the clubhouse in front of us. I hadn’t even noticed us pass through the gate.
“Doing okay, ray of light?” Prodigy asked, looking at me over his shoulder.
No. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I was glad for the helmet, although less glad when he kicked down the stand and helped me remove said helmet. I knew I was a mess, my face flushed, pupils dilated, lips parted with rapid breaths I couldn’t find a way to slow down.
“Giant might have something to ease the transition into your heat,” he said, hanging the helmet over the handlebars and running his fingers over my face. My lashes fluttered at the touch, at the cool relief. “But it’s too close to give you any heat blockers.”
“I know,” I rasped, my throat hoarse, my whole body ravaged by flames.
Sweat had stuck my shirt—well, his shirt—to my back, and as we looked at each other, a bead of it rolled down my forehead.
Prodigy leaned forward to kiss my head. He licked the bead from his lips when he drew back, his eyes almost as dark as mine.
“You want me and Tyb to help you through it?” he asked, so calmly that any mortification I might have felt never formed.
I flexed my hands, licking my dry lips. “It’ll hurt, if I try to tough it out alone. I’ve done it before and it’s… unpleasant.”
Prodigy was quiet for long enough that I looked up at him. His expression was something like a wince.
“What?”
“Now you’ve met your mate, and he…”
“Rejected me,” I said harshly. “It’s fine, you can say it. The truth won’t kill me.”
“My brave girl,” Prodigy murmured, and before I could blink, I was off the bike and in his arms. His warm, earthy scent bathed my senses as he tucked me close to his chest, a sense of safety massaging the tension from my bones.
“With the rejection, enduring a heat alone won’t just hurt, Miraya. It could kill you.”
I jolted, my heart crashing into my ribs. “I…” Fuck. Fuck. “I didn’t realise it was that bad.”
And something in me shrank and curled up and wanted to cry.
“That’s why you’ve been hovering like a mama hen.
No wonder you’re protective if I’m on death’s door.
” Every alpha instinct he had would be howling at him to protect me, along with the regular instincts of an alpha scenting an omega approaching heat.
I let out the mother of all groans, wishing I could disappear into the solid muscles of his chest.
“Miraya.”
“I’ll be fine, I just need to be dramatic first.”
“Ray of light.”
Oof, the name hurt. “Just give me a minute.”
“I’m the strongest alpha in the MC. Possibly even in the city.”
“Not that you’re cocky,” I muttered into his chest.
“I am entirely in control of my alpha impulses at any given time. I’m fully rational, and I chose to spend time with you this morning.
I didn’t drive you to a bookshop and spoil the shit out of you because my instincts are roaring that you need saving.
I wouldn’t see you through your heat for that reason, either.
I did it because I like what I see when I look at you, and you’re so damned strong, and I admire that. It’s an attractive quality.”
“Trauma’s hot to you?” I drawled.
“You are hot to me. Your fire, your courage, your scent, your humour. The fact you read. Even the theft of Tyb’s shirt makes me like you. The fact that it belonged to me pleases the alpha in me very much.”
My chest expanded, my omega side preening, thrilled mostly by the compliment to my scent. It was an intimate thing to compliment an omega’s scent, when we were so guided by our senses.
“You’re welcome to approach any other single alpha in the club, and they’d jump at the chance to join you in your nest. But please don’t. The thought of someone other than Tyb and I getting to witness you in your heat makes me a little…”
I drew back so I could see his face. His expression was utterly even, controlled. I wanted to see what lurked behind it, what fuelled these words he spoke so passionately that they soothed my soul. “A little…?”
“Murdery.”
I remembered the depth and ferocity of his growl in the bookshop, and I swooned again.
As much as I distrusted alphas in general, I was beginning to trust this alpha.
I knew I was safe with Prodigy, because if he had nefarious plans he’d have taken advantage of my hormones already.
And the combination of feeling safe but knowing an alpha would kill to keep you… that shit was crack to my omega.
A purr swelled in my chest, but I choked it back. It was too soon to purr for an alpha I’d met days ago.
“If anyone else entered my nest, I’d be the murdery one,” I admitted, willing myself to move out of his arms.
“Territorial?”
“A tiny bit.”
His laugh warmed my chest. “I sense an understatement, Miraya.”
“Miraya,” a low, velvety voice repeated, and I jabbed Prodigy’s side.
“You knew he was there,” I accused.
“I may have done,” he admitted. “Tyb, meet Miraya. Miraya, you know Tyb. You’ll never guess his birth name.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Tybalt rumbled. “Asshole.”
“Is it Derrick?” I asked, pulling myself from Prodigy’s arms with reluctance so severe the burn in my soul spiked. His attention and closeness lulled the pain into background noise, but now I choked back bile as it hit me again, all at once.
Tybalt stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, ink exposed by the sleeveless shirt he wore. The expression on his face could only be described with the word unimpressed. I smirked, and continued.
“Dave? Herbert? Gerald? Barbara?”
That got him to break, and a laugh filled the courtyard, filled my chest. “Barbara? Fuck off, warrior.”
I smirked, a spill of warmth in my chest. “You sound a little tetchy, Barbs. Something wrong?”
Darkness filled Tybalt’s eyes, inky and absolute, and my heart skipped.
Common sense would assume the heart-skip happened because of fear, but that didn’t explain why my stomach cramped and a fresh spill of arousal dampened my underwear.
His nostrils flared, and mortification killed my lust in a heartbeat.
I accepted the bag full of books Prodigy removed from the top box and hurried towards the clubhouse’s door.
I needed to lock myself in my nest until this was all over. I needed—
You want me and Tyb to help you through it?
Whatever you need, tell me and it’s yours.
I needed bravery to accept that, to admit it to them, but all my courage had fled, my strength used up on the ride home.
It didn’t help that Prodigy’s protective growl had worn off, and logical Miraya was in the driver’s seat, not hormonal Miraya.
She’d be able to beg them for help in a heartbeat.
Hormonal Miraya would get on all fours right now in the courtyard and whine for a knot.
My gut cramped. Shit, don’t think about knots.
One more day, I told myself, a bastardised version of my old motto. A day would come alright, and I’d be in pain and misery and spiking, delirious need for the foreseeable future.
I sighed when boots scuffed the steps close behind me, a full shiver moving through me when Tybalt caught my elbow and drew me to a halt on the landing in front of the clubhouse door. “Need to burn off some energy, warrior?”
I just glared at him, my skin tingling under my borrowed jacket right where his hand rested, my body so hot I expected curls of steam to waft from my skin. I was surprised I wasn’t too hot to touch.
He seemed to realise I was suffering, because the wicked amusement on his face eased to something softer.
Not all the way soft—I didn’t think Tybalt would ever be completely gentle for anyone, even an omega this close to my heat—but the combatant edge left his features, and his voice was a low rumble when he spoke, gravelly but warm.
“I got this from that piece of shit’s apartment,” he said, and held out—holy shit, my phone.
I snatched it in an instant, my mouth parting in surprise, a tightness unravelling in my chest. I wanted to call Mum and Aunt Teja all day, but I hadn’t found the nerve to ask for Prodigy’s phone again, and it was too awkward to ask any of the other women or bikers when I barely knew them.
I barely knew Prodigy and Tybalt too but…
it felt different. They felt different. My instincts, my omega, all my gut feelings told me I could trust them.
If I hadn’t already met my mate and been rejected, I might have thought they were both mine, both woven through my soul.
“Anything else?” Prodigy asked, jogging up the stairs towards us, my red dragon plushie in his hand.
Something in me tripped up at the sight of it, this powerfully dominant alpha who’d growled another alpha into submission, who led a biker club of men fully loyal to him, carrying the plushie he bought me simply because the texture gave me comfort.
It was such an alpha move—a true alpha, not whatever those fucked up auction staff and my buyer claimed to be—that I swooned on the inside.
“A few things,” Tybalt replied, still holding onto my elbow. In case he hadn’t noticed, I held still, not wanting to spook him and lose the contact. “Nothing concrete, but worth looking into. I left some shit on your desk.”
“I’ll go over it now,” Prodigy replied, fitting his hand to the back of Tybalt’s neck and kissing him in a rough press. And then like it was the most natural thing in the world, he handed me the dragon, slid his hand into my curls, and kissed me, too.
It was the softest, most chaste brush of our mouths, but it transformed the few butterflies in my stomach into a whole colony. The acid burn in my soul disappeared entirely. The kiss was over in a second, but it left an imprint that tingled even when he stepped back.
“Tyb will take care of you,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Tell him exactly what you need from us. Let us help.”
He brushed my jaw with the back of a knuckle and then ducked inside the clubhouse while I was still staring, shellshocked, smiling.
Tybalt draped a long arm over my shoulders while I was still processing what just happened, his voice that low, rumbling caress. “You wanna talk about your perfume, warrior?”
“No,” I muttered.
“Tough shit. Come on, let’s go make a plan for when your heat hits.”
And like he and Prodigy had colluded to wipe me of my power of speech, he kissed the crown of my head. His lips lingered, letting the affection find its mark on my damaged soul.