Chapter 17
Shiloh watched Sarang tear about the room.
He was safe in Caelum, at his desk in his study, the live feed of the alpha taking up the entire projected screen on the wall across from him. He’d left the sound on so he could hear Sarang as he destroyed things in a fit of rage, overcome by the urge to mate.
Animalistic instinct was an interesting thing. It could reduce someone as proud and straight arrowed as Sarang into little more than a growling, heaving mess.
If Shiloh tossed an omega in there—hell, if he instructed Bishop, a beta, to go in right now even—there was little doubt the alpha would mount and rut them.
Because Shiloh wasn’t special.
No matter how much he’d convinced himself otherwise over the years.
His gaze dropped to the report on his tablet, pages of information on Grays leering up at him.
Apparently, untrained Grays could easily form a bond with someone accidentally.
They’d spoken of Sarang’s past, even if he’d never shared what his father really was, so Shiloh knew the alpha had been abandoned at a young age. If he’d been forced to figure out that side of himself on his own, it added up that he’d make such a massive mistake when he’d healed Shiloh.
Which meant Sarang had never wanted this.
Had never wanted him.
He’d merely stuck around due to his guilt, knowing that he risked both of their suffering if he left and ended up siphoning too much of Shiloh’s qi at any given point throughout their lives.
His damn bleeding heart.
That’s what it boiled down to.
Not the version Shiloh wanted. From anyone.
Sure, he’d purposefully made himself small and pathetic in the eyes of the world, but that had been with the single goal of drawing Sarang in. He hadn’t minded so much that the alpha postulated around him and puffed up his chest. That he thought he was the only thing between danger and Shiloh.
But this type of need?
The one fueled by guilt and regret?
Yeah, no. He could more than do without it.
The alpha wasn’t the only one being contradictory, and Shiloh hated it.
He hated what he was being reduced to.
Hated second guessing himself and feeling.
Apparently, the bond could only be formed once, much like the mating bond.
When their spouse died, that was it. They still couldn’t form another, and while they could stabilize their qi using practically any living life form, the hit they were guaranteed from their bonded partner was immensely more powerful and satisfying.
The reports even said they could go longer while stabilizing less. Could expend more qi, without risking imbalance within themselves.
Shiloh didn’t share in those benefits.
As an omega, he felt nothing. Sure, he could now explain away those rare times Sarang had gotten seriously injured and he’d felt tired as a result, but aside from that…Typically, he wouldn’t know if the alpha was stealing his qi.
Even that week he’d kept the alpha in bed, forcing him to come to the point where his body had struggled to heal itself, Shiloh had felt mostly fine.
A little tired by the end of the day, but nothing a hot shower and a power nap hadn’t been able to fix.
He was a well of life energy, vital, young, and powerful as a dominant omega.
Sarang had hit the jackpot.
“Stop being so gods damned righteous,” he snarled at the screen, watching the alpha come in his hand for the fifth time in less than two hours.
He’d continue to struggle like that until the drug burned out of his system and the false rut ended or he was given a warm body to screw.
Since the latter wasn’t going to happen…
“You’re just making yourself suffer more.” Shiloh felt a burst of anger and tossed the remote across the room. The device hit the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. “Unnecessary.”
All of this was.
All of it.
The alpha only had to acquiescence. Hand power over to Shiloh through the bite. Make them the equals he claimed he wanted them to be.
There was nothing on how the life-bond might affect Sarang’s alpha nature. Nothing to prove or disprove that it’s what was causing him to crave Shiloh during his ruts.
The attraction between them seemed to be real, only, some of that attraction had diminished the second he’d realized Shiloh was abrasive, crass, and cruel. The second he’d shed the illusion of a damsel in distress, the alpha had begun questioning his affections toward Shiloh.
Bishop and Dio’s comments haunted him in ways he’d never imagined. At the time they’d been spoken, he’d been so certain in himself, but now…
What if he truly never got the alpha back?
What if this was it for them? A relationship built on lies, and guilt, and shame?
Sarang’s need to cling to the moral high ground prevented him from seeing how desperate Shiloh was for him. How much he didn’t care whether or not some secret part of the life-bond had instilled these longings within him.
Had the bond changed him?
Perhaps.
He had to admit, Sarang had made a fair point.
Shiloh had gone into that basement caring for nothing, and had left it with a deep-rooted obsession for the older male.
As a member of the Eumia, it’d hardly been his first brush with death, even at the young age of eighteen, and Sarang wasn’t the only person to have saved his life.
Shiloh had never developed possessive feelings toward any of them, which meant he’d be a fool not to acknowledge the one major difference.
Sarang’s qi inside of his body might have trigged something, altered something…
Emotions maybe. Things he hadn’t been capable of feeling before, but suddenly could.
He danced his fingers on the surface of the desk as he pondered Sarang’s accusation about how he’d played the part of reason for Kian these past few years. His performance had been good, obviously, but he hadn’t really bothered to stop and consider why that might be.
Why he could suddenly understand abstract concepts like right and wrong well enough to articulate them without getting flustered.
Some of that came down to logic, of course. Logically, he could comprehend Sky had been angry at Kian for taking away his freedoms. But just because he understood, didn’t mean he agreed.
Since the dawn of time, the strong had overpowered the weak. That was simply the way of things. Why should Kian feel bad for being stronger than his chosen mate?
All of that made sense. When you could fully grasp a concept, you could execute it, even if you didn’t believe in it yourself.
But what of his feelings toward the situation? How he’d felt the need to help push Sky in Kian’s direction?
That…was abnormal for him.
This whole time, he’d been livid over the normalcy he’d believed was being thrust upon him due to his crush, and this new revelation didn’t help ease that sting. Shiloh had been content in who he was prior to meeting Sarang in that damn field. Had been satisfied with his lifestyle, and his path.
Now he couldn’t eat, sleep, or breathe without thinking about the frustrating alpha.
Without yearning for him.
And not just his cock or his knot.
Not just the hard fucking his baser instincts craved.
It genuinely bothered him that Sarang might not like him anymore.
As. A. Person.
As though it should matter at all whether or not Sarang wanted to cuddle and share intimate discussions about their day.
It bothered him that the alpha might not have truly liked him from the start, only sticking around out of a sense of duty and responsibility.
Viewing him as a victim.
He wasn’t. Even if he’d never agreed to being saved or the life-bond, Shiloh was no one’s victim, and his wicked desires could attest to that much. When it came to Sarang, he didn’t feel wronged, he felt ownership.
For whatever the reason, Shiloh wanted to take him as his alpha. He wanted Sarang to pin him down on the regular, dominate him and fuck him deep and brutally. Hurt him like he’d done on Den Night. Make him scream and beg for it.
Reduce him to nothing but raw sensation.
Push him into that state of being where emotions didn’t matter and the truth was irrelevant.
Shiloh could forget all about the life-bond and its possible effects on them both then.
Could go back to simply wanting, without what ifs hovering over his head like a guillotine.
He wouldn’t be dwelling on the hypocrisy then.
On how it was one thing for the life-bond to have altered his perception, but another for it to have instigated the alpha’s.
He could at least accept the end results. If all of this was because of the bond, so be it. As long as Shiloh continued to want, and got what he wanted, that was all he cared about.
But Sarang was different.
The alpha was fighting it specifically because he believed none of this was real. He’d bought into the excuse that these feelings, this connection, was fake and brought on by their shared well of qi.
Diogenes thought he understood Shiloh. Believed that was why he’d make a better match. But he had no clue.
Understanding, connection, love. Those were things for children. Wishes the na?ve made before the harsh realities of the world were thrust upon them and they were forced to face the music.
Shiloh pressed a hand over his heart, felt the steady beat, and pursed his lips. This was just an organ meant to keep him alive. Like any other. What the head perceived as the heart’s longing was little more than a chemical reaction in the brain.
A reaction Shiloh had not, and most likely would not, experience.
Unless…he somehow was being rewired because the alpha’s lifeforce inside of him…
“I’m not broken,” he muttered to himself. The rest of the world was.
And the whole lot of them could take their “normal” and shove it straight up their asses.
If Sarang was refusing the bite because of this life-bond, because of the uncertainty it brought them—and if this bond really had affected Shiloh and unlocked an emotional range he would have much preferred remain dormant—then that left him no other option but one.
Shiloh would find a way to sever it.