Page 23 of Broken Alpha

“So your mother thinks I’m a prostitute?” Aidyn asked, finally breaking the silence, a playful pout on his lips.

Chuckling lightly, I bent down to kiss him before answering with a sigh. “The Ellis family is a very prestigious family. We’re among the elites in big houses. We hold balls for all the major events and holidays, and the Christmas and New Year's parties are invite-only, and everyone wants an invite. It’s a life I grew up in and one I don’t care for. I’m the black sheep, so to speak. They want me to stop dragging my feet, settle down, marry a good Omega, and continue the line. My mother has tried to set me up with every Omega she deems worthy, regardless of gender or my sexual preference, and I have refused everyone.”

“And I’m not worthy.”

My eyes flashed open as a wave of anger seared through me. Aidyn didn’t sound upset or offended, just indifferent, as if he knew his place. But his thoughts were wrong. His place was beside me, and I would fight for that right, regardless of what my mother said.

“You listen to me, little fawn. Yes, you are. She doesn’t get to decide that for me. She suggests that I keep you as a lover but have a marriage and produce offspring with another to keep up appearances and what she deems to be ‘my duty.’ But fuck that. That isn’t the life I want, nor is it the life I want for you.”

He said nothing, lost to his thoughts as he brushed through my hair, his fingers snagging occasionally on a tangle. I leaned into his touch, tilting my head against the back of the chair. I found I was perfectly content, enjoying the feel of him on my lap, pressed against my side. I knew we would have to use the descenter when we left the classroom, but it was like my office had become our own little world. Everything beyond that officedoor could wait while we hid from it all and enjoyed each other's presence.

“When do you have to leave for your class?” I asked quietly, my eyes still closed.

“Soon,” he responded. “Is it wrong that I want to skip?”

I couldn’t help but smile at that, squeezing his thigh as I finally opened my eyes to see him watching me.

“What kind of teacher would I be if I let a student skip their classes?”

“The kind that sleeps with his student and would take advantage of the extra time.”

I chuckled and shook my head. He’s right. I would love to bend him over this desk and bury my cock in his eager hole, claiming him again. God, the weekend couldn’t come soon enough. This reminded me of our conversation the night before. He had made a decision, but I had to wait for him to bring it up on his own.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to Erik,” Aidyn said as if he could read my thoughts. “He had left by the time I woke up this morning, and he left my text on read, which bodes well for the conversation we’re going to have tonight. It’s my turn to make dinner, so I’ll make a favorite dish as a peace offering. I was feeling anxious, so I came to find you; I’m sorry if I’m intruding.”

“You could never intrude, little fawn. I wanted to see you but had no excuse to.”

“I want to stop fighting, you know. I don’t know if what you said about fated mates is real, but I’m done fighting whatever this is. My Omega wants to give in to you, and that scares me. What if, by doing so, I rush things or make you uncomfortable? What if I’m too needy and become borderline obsessive? What if I lose who I am?”

“Baby,” I sat up straighter in my chair, moving him effortlessly as I readjusted. Enveloping him in my scent and pheromones, I soothed the panic he was clearly experiencing. “You and I arefighting the same battles. My first and last thoughts of the day are of you. I seek you out when I enter spaces you frequent; I check my phone constantly, thinking it vibrates with a new message from you. You consume my very being in ways no one else ever has. You’re my mate, and I won’t believe differently. I’m only uncomfortable when we’re apart. You could never be too needy because your desires are the air I breathe. You could never be obsessive because I already worship the ground you walk on. You can never lose who you are because your Omega is part of you. His desires and wants are yours; you must let yourself have them. You are my biggest weakness and greatest strength, and it is my duty to cherish and love you. And it will be a blessing to do so.”

Aidyn blinked at me; his cheeks tinted a soft pink as he processed my words, reading between the lines. “You love me.”

He presented the statement like it was also a question, cautious of my response. I don’t know when I actually realized I had fallen in love with him, though I suspect it was around our bookstore date. Smiling down at him, I opted for the truth.

“From the moment you walked into my classroom.”

His lips crashed into mine, surprising me briefly. He pressed into my body, pouring his emotions and unspoken words into our kiss. His cheeks were damp with tears, their saltiness mixing into our kiss. He released his pheromones as his purr returned, telling me without words that he happily returned my affections. He was mine, and I was his. And no one, not even my parents, could take him from me.

“Where the fuck did he go?” I mumbled to myself, going down the condiment aisle of the grocery store.

I don’t want to say that Aidyn had been distracted lately, but I could tell that something was making him rather flighty. He suddenly got the impulse to make me his favorite dish during his stay with me this weekend, and since I needed to pick up groceries anyway, it was the first stop we made after class. Except halfway through our shopping, Aidyn exclaimed he had forgotten something and had run off to grab it, but he never came back. So here I was, wandering through the grocery store, looking for my lost Omega.

I found him standing at the seasonal display at the front of the grocery store, where they sold a few decorations for the upcoming holidays, which happened to be Halloween. I had actively been avoiding this section, if I was honest. Every year, I drop hundreds of dollars on Halloween décor I didn’t actually need, purely because Halloween was my favorite holiday and I’d take it over Christmas any day of the year. While I was not actually a fan of horror movies — and let’s be real, today’s “horror” is just someone throwing around as much gore and blood as they can in a scene — the holiday was still my favorite, and I had a certain set of movies I watched every year.

As I approached him, I noticed he was staring at a group of plushies sitting on the shelf beside a carton of chicken broth. A throw blanket with bats on it was in his hands, and I watched him repeatedly squeezing the fabric, running his thumb over its texture, and something clicked in the back of my brain. Aidyn’s Omega was looking at potential nesting material.

“Hey,” I said, smiling as he jumped at my voice, pulling him from whatever trance he was under.

“Oh, hi!” he said, rushing to put the blanket back on the shelf, grabbing the broth carton, and putting it in the cart. “Sorry, that should be all I needed. Did you get all you needed?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I realized that you don’t have a nest at my place. Did you want to build one there, too?”

“What do you mean ‘too’? I don’t have one at my own apartment, remember? I don’t even know how to build one.”

“There is no right or wrong way to build one, Aidyn. Just let your Omega take over; he knows what to do. If you see anything you’d like, put it in the cart.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have the money for it right now.”

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