I watch as Dex is snoozing away. His head is on my chest, right over my heart. I take a dark strand of his hair and wrap it around my finger, let go. And do it all over again.
Maybe I overdid it just a little.
But, personally, I couldn’t feel better.
Aside from that… thing… in me that is growing bigger and bigger.
I feel much calmer, at least. I’ve landed on a conclusion, for now. I will probably panic later. I will feel bad. I will curse the sky and the ground, every star, every moon, every planet will receive a piece of my ire. The entire cosmos will be declared my enemy.
And after some time, I will be fine. People aren’t so simple. It’s not a straight process.
I’m certainly not simple, at least. Coming to terms with things has always been a bumpy road for me.
It took him a third kiss before he got it.
He asked, “so if I wanna try this…?” and I replied.
I hold back an urge to rumble. I might wake him up.
Not all replies can be put into words. This was one of those.
It’s not possible to explain why I’ve mate-bonded to a relative stranger. How many siblings does he have, if any? Are his parents betas? Where did he go to school? It just doesn’t come up in conversation at the gym and, for the most part, if we went somewhere to eat, it was mostly discussions one often hears among alphas. We don’t need to know each other to talk about which stock is tanking, which political party has made the biggest blunder in the last month.
Dex has always been rather quiet, too.
“Friend” is giving our relationship a lot of grace. I don’t think he even knows my full name.
“Acquainted” is far more accurate.
And yet, it’s a painful definition for me.
I place a soft kiss on top of his head. The unrequited mate bond makes itself noted.
This would indeed be a problem. Dex and I haven’t created a bond together yet. We haven’t had the opportunity. At most, one can say that there’s a certain attraction between us, and a lot of potential. But as far as bonding goes, that shouldn’t be possible.
Not yet.
I’m not going to burden him with the fact that I am already bonded to him. That’s not his fault, and he shouldn’t feel like he has to bond with me to make it up to me or because I’m an alpha.
This is my burden to carry. It is not one you spring upon a potential lover and expect building a stable relationship.
I want to give Dex what he wants to have. And that is not the burden of knowing this right now.
I must learn to restrain myself better, not let the thing inside me loose. It’s too unrestrained, too impulsive, too many things I don’t like.
But at least, it seems, that dark side knows that no matter what, I will never force a bond, be it through claim or otherwise.
I begin carding my hand through his hair.
“Mate,” I mouth.
It feels good to say. I can’t say it. I can only accept that the gates behind me have slammed shut. If I ever wished for anything else, that is no longer a path I can take. I only have one direction to move, and it’s down into the abyss.
I’m okay with that
For Dex, I would jump off the ledge even if I remain alone for the rest of my life.
A soft bell sound breaks through my thoughts.
“…”
Why did I toss my phone all the way there? Why can’t I be a normal person and just place it on the bedside table?
With a lot of creative thinking and dextrous feet, I manage to get my phone.
I turn to Dex just to make sure he’s still sleeping. Only then can I open the conversation with Amandine, who was the one who just sent me a message.
Were I to come for a visit this eve, would it trouble you greatly?
Were she to write like a modern person, would it make her life more difficult?
I send a curt, Yes, back to her.
She is usually quick to reply, but it takes a while before I receive her message: I thought you said you have your shifts in the morning this month, and surely your rut hasn’t arrived quite yet?
I have company, is my very modest explanation.
I can tell she likely let out a small gasp based on the reply, May I be so discourteous to ask?
It’s rather new. I’m not ready to introduce any relatives yet. This one is rather quiet and shy. Have patience, sis.
After a time long enough for me to put away my phone, believing she had nothing else on her mind, I hear that soft bell again.
Is now a bad time?
I look at Dex and carefully dislodge myself. I grab my discarded pyjama bottoms and the dressing gown and go downstairs.
Once I’m in the study with a bottle of water and an ache that feels like death despite the fact we’re merely in different rooms, I connect a pair of earphones to my phone before I call my sister.
As I wait for her to answer, I have second thoughts.
Not about calling, no.
About the door.
I lock it.
If Amandine wants to call me when she can’t visit, it might also not be something I want others to overhear.
Mate or not, Dex and I are not so close that I would feel comfortable with him finding out the complexities of my closest relatives.
The call goes through and the first thing I hear is, “Not now. Go away. I just need a few minutes.”
“Put me on speaker, Amandine,” I say in a frosty tone.
Not a greeting. I only catch myself doing it when I better hear the deep voice of an alpha saying, “Why are you being so secretive? This is not like you.”
“Amandine is speaking with me. Is there a problem with me having a private conversation with my sister?”
I feel like my voice dropped dangerously low. It’s not a growl, no. But it’s darker than I remember me speaking, even at my harshest commands.
I am instantly worried about Amandine. Did that affect her?
“Oh. Why didn’t you say it was your brother?”
Soo.I hear a slammed door in the background, making it clear the man had, quite frankly, stormed out in a huff.
“Goodness,” my sister says with a sigh.
It doesn’t seem like she was affected by my voice. Maybe I’m imagining it.
“He’s been all wound up tight lately. I don’t understand — he has never been so territorial that I can’t even make a call without him getting jealous. He’s always been so very reasonable.”
I met her alpha so many years ago, and even I could hear the jealousy and suspicion. That certainly hadn’t seemed like the alpha my sister had bonded with while still in school.
I pause for a moment, feeling like I found something out before I should have, and can’t help but to ask, my tone softer, “How have you been feeling lately?”
“I have been very well, thank you. I can feel a bit of fatigue in the afternoons, but perhaps it’s the weather lately. You know how sensitive I am to the grey of rain.”
Goodness. Feeling well and fatigue? That’s not a little odd to you, sis?
“Nothing else? It’s been a while since we spoke,” I push ever so softly.
“Well, I did have a few days of nausea some time ago, but other than that, I have been well. Truly.”
“What about your weight?”
She chuckles. “Nurse, is this a medical examination? It hasn’t decreased, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“So you’re getting a bit…” I search for the word she likes to use for her so-called winter weight, “…pudgy?”
“Indeed. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Dearest sister, sweet Amandine, you naïve thing. Everything is out of the ordinary with you right now!
I even feel a little emotional.
I put it aside for now. All things have their time, even during a phone call.
She had reason to wish to speak to me, and it wasn’t her health, clearly.
For better or for worse.
“It does sound you’re doing a little better than usual, considering the time of year,” I say. “I am doing quite well too.”
“So I hear,” she says. “May I be so nosy as to ask whether this person is a male omega or female omega?”
I grimace. “Not an omega.”
I hear Amandine gasp in delight. “Leopold! What horror! Have you no sense of propriety?” she chastises me with mock upset. I don’t mind.
She could tell me the sky was green and I would, after a brief health evaluation, agree with her.
However, this was not a topic for today. She knows so too.
“What is on your heart, Mandy?” I say instead.
“I missed you during the recent gathering.”
“Why?” I ask in confusion, brows furrowed. “I can’t attend, you know that.”
“I know. But neither Mum nor Dad mentioned you. Did you not have time to drop by in advance?”
“No, I went. I even had a lukewarm discussion with Mum…”
Oh.
“I suppose she didn’t like that very much,” I sigh. “She must indeed have thought I was accusing her.”
“What? Did you do something? Not Dad?”
When has Dad ever done something to Mum? He’s a good mate.
“It’s nothing major. Have you noticed anything off with her recently?”
“No,” Amandine answers slowly. “Perhaps she has been a little more snappy, but it could be stress.”
Why are you defaulting to everyone being stressed? Next, you’ll tell me I’m stressed too, won’t you?
“No, it’s merely hormonal changes. She is a bit imbalanced at this time, and it causes various symptoms that can be somewhat disconcerting.”
“What? She hadn’t gone through that yet? I thought one would be at a younger age?”
“It’s only a little later than the common range. It’s at a perfectly reasonable age,” I reply, a little bemused by the fact I am teaching my older sisterabout when menopause occurs.
At least it’s not an alpha outside of medicine, I suppose.
“So you did come to congratulate Francis?” she asks me to confirm.
“I did. She told me to clean my room.” I pause. “I made a greater mess of it instead.”
“Why? That’s not like you.”
“Just a small disagreement and big emotions,” I say to wave it away. “Do you know if Mum has used anything of yours to nest?”
“I don’t think she ever has… She always said my scent was too cloying for another omega to stand.”
“What about Francis or Emmy?”
Sis was quiet for a long while. “I can’t remember them mentioning it.”
I nod to myself. “Do you have anything significant in your old room?”
“No, not really. Some old clothes, old reference books, a few toys I’ll never have any use for—”
Oh, don’t say that, sweetie. I disagree with you on that particular point about the toys.
“—and perhaps some random trinkets.”
“You should go tomorrow and look through everything.”
For multiple reasons.
“What an odd suggestion! Why?”
“Do you remember…”
I hesitate to say it. I even rub my face.
Children. Pups are a menace. Including myself as a child.
I can’t.
“Do you remember the chewing toy I had?”
“Chewing toy? You hated chewing toys!”
“Yes, I have heard the story before. So, do you remember the chewing toy?”
Sis is quiet for a while and then she makes a sweet little “oh!” noise as she makes the connection.
“You mean Lord Cotton Candy Cloud!”
If she only had left it at recognition.
I detest being the youngest sometimes. All my siblings have something embarrassing on me that I can’t accept.
“Yes, the plush toy.”
“What about Lord Cotton?”
“It’s gone.”
“What? Why? What does that mean? Did the staff lose it?”
“No, I mean, it’s related to Mum’s menopause. It’s been removed.”
“Did they throw it out? Why?”
“Amandine.”
It comes out darker and cooler than I meant it. It reminds me a bit of Dad.
Sis is quiet as she tries to put two and two together.
“WHAT?!” I hear the clatter of a chair toppling over. “Did she throw it away?! How dare she toss out a part of your childhood! I’ll go speak to her right now! How unacceptable!”
Something that I didn’t know had been jammed into my heart quietly dislodges itself.
“Don’t be so angry. Don’t act so rash, Amandine. Mind your blood pressure. Sit down before I come over there and put you back into a chair myself.”
I am honestly more worried about her than about the stupid toy. It really doesn’t matter so much. No, my sis needs to be careful. The toy can be tossed into the bin for all I care.
“Sit down,” I continue to urge her. “I’m not mad. It wasn’t tossed away. It’s been recycled to be nesting material.”
“That’s even worse! How are you holding up? That used to be so important to you. Should I come over? I’ll bring something sweet to make it better. No, wait, not sweet. I’ll bring something… something bitter! So bitter you feel better!”
“Sit down,” I commanded her. “I’m not upset about it anymore.”
“How can you not?!”
“Amandine, you are so very sweet. With a sister like you, how could a brother ever be mad about the small things? That you’re so upset is more than enough.”
It’s all the validation I could want. Just one incredibly upset omega is far more than enough.
“You should be more upset about this!” she says and goes on a tirade about how that was such an important memento of mine.
I don’t tell her I didn’t even remember I had it until it was gone.
After listening to her upset huffing for nearly ten minutes, I say. “You will become a wonderful mother, sis.”
“Mother? I’m not going to be a mother. We haven’t managed to conceive.”
“Have you found any scents unbearable lately, Amandine?” I ask. “Have you been craving anything lately? What about any nesting obsessions?”
I hear the chair topple over again. “No!”
She will break the chair against the floor at this rate.
“You should book an appointment first thing to—”
I wince when I hear the excited squeal, followed by a pause and finally a panicked “oh no, my goodness, what happens now?”
“Sit down, Amandine,” I tell her again. “Mind your blood pressure.”
“Oh. Yes. I should sit down. Goodness. Oh, mother,” she says, her voice shaking. “Hi, little one. Are you well?” She must have realised how she was reacting because she then address me again. “Goodness, Leopold. You’re becoming an uncle.”
I don’t point out I’m already an uncle and she’s an aunt. I just let her have this moment, waiting for her alpha to come after hearing her.
I quietly end the call when her alpha arrives to ask what’s the matter. This is not a moment I should be part of.
I sit quietly in the study, fiddling with the earphone case.
I look out of the window.
“It’s really that stupid, isn’t it, Leopold?” I ask myself.
It always is.
I always bottle everything up. It has always been that way.
How I managed to be a spoiled little master, yet never told anyone how I was feeling about things I can’t say.
But personally, I want to believe I was trying to get attention because I didn’t know where else to direct everything going on in my own internal world.
It’s easier to demand for a new toy you get bored with after a week than explain why one is jealous of one’s older beta brothers. Easier than to explain that one is upset about being an alpha, because one doesn’t want to be different.
It’s easier to only make friends and foes and nothing in-between when everyone calls them an alpha a whole decade before they even present.
It’s easier to posture, than to learn how to process; easier to suppress entirely than restrain.
I toss the case onto the desk and stand up. I walk over to the door and unlock it.
Mate.
I have barely even opened the door when that dark part of me rears its head again.
I open the door with an indulgent smile. I’ll give that part of me credit where credit is due. It can probably tell Dex apart from thousands of other betas with similar scents.
Then again, I share its nose. I can also tell him apart from just as many. It just takes me a couple of more seconds to recognise it.
Dex is lowering his hand, apparently having been about to knock when I opened the door. I catch him by the wrist and raise his hand to my face.
The sparks rush through every nerve in my body. Touching him makes me feel whole and satisfied. I want it no other way.
I kiss his palm. Dex flushes.
So perfect.
“My sister needed to talk. Didn’t mean to take so much time you would wake up without me still in bed.”
“It’s fine,” he says softly. He studies me for a few moments. “Did something good happen?”
“I’m becoming an uncle,” a grin pulling at the corners of my mouth. “A maternal uncle, that is. I’m already a paternal uncle.”
“Oh! That’s exciting,” Dex says, looking genuinely delighted.
I can’t resist tilting his head back by the chin and placing a kiss on his lips.
“For her and her alpha, especially.”
“How far along is she?”
I think about what she said. “Could be anything from perhaps eight weeks to perhaps around the late second trimester.”
Dex looks shocked. “How?”
“I couldn’t do an ultrasound over the phone, obviously,” I say with a sly smile. “If I could do that, no mate of mine would safe from me. I would check his pregnancy status all the time.”
He gets even more deliciously flushed. “I can’t get pregnant!”
“Oh? I thought I said ‘mate’. Since when did we become mates, I wonder?”
His expression changed to the most adorable little pout. I chuckle. I press a placating kiss on his lips. “My bad, mate. I didn’t think you were the jealous type.”
“I didn’t know you were a rogue,” he replies.
This makes me laugh a little. “I’m worse than a rogue.”
In his confusion, he furrows his brow. “What’s worse than a rogue?”
I bow my head and nip at his ear. My instinct bubble just beneath the surface. That dark part of me wants to make itself known.
As if I hadn’t shown him enough of that side. He should be allowed to get to know the good side, too.
But it wins just a little nonetheless and my voice drops into an especially deep rumble: “A dominant devil of an elite apex dressed like an angelic caretaker. One who has taken a deep liking to you specifically.”
Dexter’s ears take on a pink tint. He averts his gaze by looking at his feet.
“I don’t mind,” he mumbles.
I sure hope not, because every time I merely perceive him, I fall deeper for him, the bond strengthening. No amount of restraint in the world will be enough, no matter how many times I tell myself otherwise, regardless of what comfortable lies I can think of.
That is, until the day I can learn to truly accept not only my virtues that I value and which make me feel like an impostor, but also all the sins I see and loath in myself which let me make feel a little broken and yet so much more alive.
But where this goes, only the future will show me and him, with time. For now, I will just do what I do best: running with all my might to what I want most, seeing nothing but the trophy right in front of me.
And that “trophy” was, apparently, always beta-shaped without me knowing until now.
Author’s Note
That’s it for main story. Tomorrow I’ll begin post the six after stories of Leo’s.