Chapter 25
Since no one was allowed to visit him, all of Shiloh’s meals had been hand delivered by Sarang himself.
When breakfast came and went, Shiloh found himself getting nervous.
He kept glancing at the door, trying to convince himself his concerns were unwarranted.
The Eumia was a big organization and Sarang was the underboss.
He had a lot of responsibilities. Really, it was a wonder he’d managed to go two whole weeks without missing a single meal. This was nothing.
No big deal.
Around lunch time, he started pacing. The plug shifting uncomfortably within him with each step.
He’d woken used. Had known it the second he’d shifted and his hole had stung. More proof came when he’d gone to the bathroom to relive himself, removing the plug just long enough to do so, and had filled the toilet with globs of white.
Shiloh froze.
Was that it?
He’d been ordered not to take the toy out, but surely Sarang hadn’t meant to ignore nature. This couldn’t be a punishment for—
The plug started buzzing inside of him, right against his prostate, and the suddenness and surprise took Shiloh to his knees. He gasped, one hand clutching the end of the bed, the other clawing at the hardwood flooring, vision momentarily clouding over.
The sound of the door opening brought a wave of relief and he made a keening sound when the alpha appeared, holding a small plate with a slice of lemon cake on it.
Sarang paused in the doorway, tipping his head and taking in the view, before the hand in his pocket pressed the hidden remote, shutting the device off.
Shiloh slumped.
“I brought you dessert.” Sarang set the plate on the end table and motioned for Shiloh. “Come eat.”
“Where were you?” He dragged himself off the ground and walked over, plopping onto the side of the bed when the alpha stepped back to make room for him. “And why are we skipping proper meals?”
He’d been well fed all this time. The cake had come, but usually after lunch.
Now that he’d skipped breakfast, it was strange that there wasn’t anything healthy.
That definitely couldn’t be a punishment for taking out the plug, since they both knew Shiloh would prefer to eat cake over anything else no matter the time of day.
“I was busy dealing with more traitors,” Sarang informed him. “We were able to root out another three. They’re being questioned accordingly.”
“Need my help?” It was a shot in the dark, made mostly in passing because he already knew what the alpha would say.
“You aren’t allowed to leave this room,” he reminded. “Besides, I don’t want to see blood on your hands.”
Shiloh stabbed the fork into the tip of the cake. “That’s going to be a problem, since I’m a member of the mafia, and also a bit psychotic.”
“Omega.” Sarang captured his chin, tipping his head up so their eyes met. “Tell me you’ll try.”
He hadn’t had a single bloodthirsty urge since coming here. It seemed like being kept by the alpha, cared for and tended to, was enough to settle whatever monster had bloomed within him.
“All right. But no promises.” Shiloh ate a bite of the cake and then held out a palm, wiggling his fingers.
“What?” Sarang lifted a brow.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
He clicked his tongue. “My marble.”
“I didn’t bring one today.”
The fork froze against his bottom lip, Shiloh’s brain taking a moment to process. On the bedside table, the mostly filled jar seemed just as confused as he was, the gemstone orbs within catching the light and winking.
“Why not?” Shiloh didn’t like this feeling. It was like he’d been wronged somehow. It made no sense, and yet he couldn’t stop the uncomfortable sensation spreading throughout his chest.
“I didn’t feel like it.” The alpha shrugged like it was no big deal.
“What?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters!” Shiloh set the cake aside to prevent himself from throwing it. Like a child.
“Oh?” Sarang cocked his head.
“You don’t get it. I want my marble, Rang. You always bring me one. I want it.”
“Don’t be spoiled, omega.”
“Spoiled—” He growled, a burst of angered pheromones shooting out of him. “You’re the one who started giving them to me. You’re the one who made me like them. You can’t just stop—” His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the corner of the alpha’s mouth lifting. “This is a trick.”
“Not a trick,” Sarang corrected. “A lesson.”
“In?”
“How are you feeling right now?”
“Pissed off.”
“You can do better than that. Dig deeper and be good for me.”
Be more honest, he meant. Shiloh blew out a breath. Fine.
“I’m disappointed,” he said, “and confused. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t bring one when you always have. Did you run out?”
“I did not. There are still more in the bag in my office.”
“Then…why?”
“I told you,” Sarang replied. “I just didn’t want to.”
“But I’m upset now.” From the outside, it might appear as though the alpha was the one holding the cards here, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Shiloh wasn’t being held against his will—he wanted to be here.
So far, nothing the alpha had done to him had been things he didn’t also want.
Even last night. “Does this have something to do with why you secretly fucked me?”
“If it was meant to be a secret, I would have cleaned you up and made sure you woke without being able to figure it out. But no, these two things don’t have a correlation.” Sarang slipped his hands into his pockets. “Are you upset that I took advantage of you?”
“You can fuck me whenever you please,” Shiloh stated. “Though it would have been nice if you’d woken me up so I could also enjoy it.”
Clearly he’d been drugged. There was no way Shiloh would have slept through taking the alpha’s cock otherwise, but he didn’t bother bringing that up.
“If I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” the alpha drawled, “that means I can stop bringing you marbles. Stop bringing you cake.”
“No,” Shiloh said tersely. “You can do what you want within reason.”
“And bringing you sparkly, useless baubles is somehow reasonable? You can’t even do anything with them. They just sit there in a jar. You don’t need them to survive. They can’t feed you or bed you. They don’t provide oxygen to breathe. Just because they make you feel good—”
“They make me happy,” Shiloh told him. “Who cares if they’re virtually useless? I like them. I want you to keep giving them to me. And it’s really unfair of you to suddenly change your mind when you’re the one who started giving me them in the first place!”
“You said you didn’t believe in love.”
“What?” The change in subject baffled him. “What does that—”
“These marbles are like that.” Sarang reached into the jar and grabbed a handful, seemingly unaware when that caused Shiloh to tense.
He wasn’t going to take them back, was he?
“Each of these symbolizes my love for you.” He dropped one back into the jar.
“They symbolize a day spent together. A memory made. A connection built.” Three more clanged into the jar.
“You’ve come to expect them from me because they bring you reassurance that I still care.
They confirm that this intangible, invisible thing between us exists.
The second I stop offering them? That’s doubt you’re feeling right now, omega. Apprehension.”
Shiloh pressed a hand over his heart and frowned.
“When love gestures suddenly end, it’s disappointing and confusing,” the alpha continued. “Everyone feels that way.”
“It’s not about the marbles.” Shiloh eyed the jar, and the remaining ones in Sarang’s hand. Even knowing this was an elaborate ploy, he couldn’t shake the heavy feeling. “Put them back.”
“I don’t want to give my heart to someone who might wake up one day and stop giving me marbles,” Sarang said.
“This has got to be the dumbest way to prove to someone love exists.”
The alpha chuckled, dropped the rest of the marbles back into the jar, and then pulled a new one from his front pocket and held it up. When Shiloh reached for it, however, he pulled it away.
“You said you didn’t bring one,” Shiloh accused.
“I lied.”
“If I have to be good, you have to be good, too. That’s only fair!”
“Fair?” The alpha grunted. “I’m giving you marbles as a physical representation of my love. What have you given me?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to point out he couldn’t exactly get anything while locked in this room, but Shiloh caught himself.
He’d never been particularly interested in picking apart his own emotions.
So long as he could learn to mimic them, that was all that mattered.
But it was obvious that’s what the alpha was insisting he do now.
Sarang wanted him to feel.
And he wanted him to define that feeling.
Why?
Love?
“I can’t prove to you that love exists,” Sarang interrupted his thoughts then.
“Only you can make that decision. But I can show you what it feels like when you’ve come to expect something nice from someone, only for them to suddenly take it away.
I will never have another mate. You’re going to be it for me, omega, and if you wake up one day, bored with me, and make me feel the way you’re feeling right now… ”
“A lesson and a threat.” Shiloh understood. “I don’t want you to be unhappy, Rang.”
“Remember this, that way if, in the future, you change your mind, you’ll sympathize.”
“I don’t know if I’m capable of sympathy.”
“You are. You just proved as much.”
Had he?
“Love is wanting the best for someone else. Wanting to support them and help them see the best in themselves. Like how you insisted I would make a good underboss, even though I didn’t agree.”
“You’re the best underboss.” That wasn’t undeserved praise, and Shiloh wasn’t the only one who thought it. He’d heard many of the other members voicing the same sentiment.
“You’re worthy of love.” Sarang held out the marble again, and this time he allowed Shiloh to take it. “All that is, is mutual respect and shared experiences. It’s standing by one another through good times and hard times. About putting that person first.”
Sarang had always put Shiloh first.
“I doubt it includes holding each other hostage,” he quipped, only for the alpha to smile.
Sarang picked up the fork and scooped another bite of cake, offering it up to Shiloh.
He opened his mouth and took it, chewing while he inspected the alpha’s expression for more clues. If this was about emotion, none of these physical items mattered. The cake and the marbles, they were metaphors, or examples. Tools.
Because Shiloh couldn’t comprehend things the way normal people did. He needed to be shown. Needed to experience it on his own.
“Rang, I—” A pang in his lower region cut him off and he dropped back onto the bed.
“The inducers are kicking in,” Sarang said. He took the marble from Shiloh’s grasp and placed it with the rest, then slowly started to remove his clothing, all the while watching as Shiloh began to writhe and moan.
His skin heated and flushed, feeling too tight for his body, and his hole ached even though it was still stuffed with the plug.
He was lying on his back before he realized he’d moved, parting his thighs wide, humping into the air suggestively.
Slick dripped from around the toy, leaking free to stain the bedsheets.
“I’m going to show you how it can be between mates,” Sarang’s voice was seductive, alpha pheromones already filling the room in response to Shiloh’s forced mating period.
“I’ll teach you how to love and not just covet.
You’ll see why there’s a difference. By the end, you’ll never be satisfied without all of me again.
And,” he got onto the bed, kneeling between Shiloh’s legs, “you’ll understand why I want all of you in return. ”