Page 91 of Stalked By the Alphas
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling cold despite the warm day. “No, you can’t.”
Zach takes a step towards me, then stops himself. “Hazel, I... we... we love you. We’ve always loved you. But we went about it all wrong. We hurt you in ways we can never take back.”
“Love?” I laugh bitterly. “That’s not love, Zach. Love doesn’t manipulate. Love doesn’t control. Love doesn’t violate.”
Zach’s face crumples, and for a moment, I think he might cry. “What we did wasn’t love. It was obsession, possession. We were so afraid of losing you that we lost sight of what really mattered, and we destroyed everything.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stem the tide of emotions that want to crush me. When I open them again, Zach moves around the side of the desk and drops to his knees, looking at me with such raw anguish that it takes my breath away.
“I know we don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he continues, reaching for my hands tentatively. “But I needed you to know how sorry we are. How sorry I am. And that if you ever decide you want us in your life again, in any capacity, we’ll be here, and we will do things differently this time.”
Part of me wants to scratch his eyes out, to shovehim away from me and to tell him to get out and never come back. But another part, a part I’m trying desperately to ignore, aches to comfort him. To tell him that maybe, someday, we can find a way past this.
Instead, I take a deep breath and pull my hands back. “Your five minutes are up, Zach. You need to leave now.”
He nods, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I understand. Thank you for listening, Hazel. I’m so, so sorry.”
As Zach stands up, I feel a pang in my chest. Despite everything, seeing him so broken hurts. But I can’t let that sway me. I’ve been hurt enough.
“Just go,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Please.”
Zach nods, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. He turns to leave but pauses at the door. “Hazel, I?—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off. “Just don’t.”
He gives me one last tormented look before slipping out of the office.
My legs feel weak, and I sink into the chair behind the desk. My mind is reeling from the encounter. Zach’s apology, his obvious remorse, the pain in his eyes - it all swirls in my head, mixing with my own conflicted emotions.
His scent still lingers in the air, and I let out the purr, which was so desperate to come out earlier. It reverberates around my office, and I curse myself as I stand up and lunge towards the door. “Zach! Wait!”
He pauses halfway through the shop door but doesn’t look back.
“Zach,” I say again, my voice cracking with a thousand different emotions, some I can’t even name. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be standing here, calling to him. My omega side has reared her head, and I hate that. But I also can’t ignore it. As much as I want to be independent from this biology I was handed, I can’t. And maybe me trying to be this way, separate from the omega, is what pushed the alphas into doing what they did. Maybe if I had accepted who I was, what I was, maybe things would’ve been so much different. Who can tell? Am I blaming myself for this betrayal? No. Not really. But I’m also not innocent. As Zach turns slowly to face me, memories flash through my mind. Memories I see now in a whole different light. The way they made it obvious that they cared about me and how I shut them down, thinking they were joking or just being flirty. Time after time after time.
I remember when Carter said he loved me on my 18th birthday, and I laughed it off as a joke. The hurt that passed over his face that I dismissed is clear to me in my mind’s eye now. Or when Noah wrote me that song, and I told him it was sweet, but he shouldn’t waste his talent on silly love songs for me. The way his face fell. And Zach... sweet Zach, who offered to see me through my first heat if I was comfortable with him being there, and I shook my head, determined that I didn’t need an alpha or a real knot.
Am I to blame for their deceit, their actions? No, but I let my independence, my need to be different from other omegas, my stubbornness not to see what was infront of my face the whole time push them away when I can see they tried.
Fuck.
When Zach’s soulful grey eyes meet mine, I realise what I was denying myself all along. What I didn’t even dare to acknowledge because of all the hurtful words, the judgement and snobbery from their parents.
“Hazel?” he murmurs.
It brings me back to the present, and I shake my head, turning on my heel, my throat thick with a longing that I have pushed away all this time. If I give in now, what does that make me? The exact thing I never wanted to be.
Stalking back into my office, I try to slam the door, but Zach’s hand slaps against it, stopping it forcefully and sending it bouncing back against the wall. My breath hitches, and I take a step back, shaking uncontrollably as his scent spikes, causing mine to do the same. His nostrils flare, staring at me with such love and longing that I choke back another purr.
He moves into the office and closes the door. Then, in two giant strides, he is in front of me, his hands cupping my face as he towers over me before claiming my lips in a kiss that buckles my knees. I tear at his shirt, clawing at him to get closer to me. I stop thinking and let the omega take over, just to see what happens.
He growls softly when he finds me eager in his arms. It sends goosebumps over my skin. His cock is pressed against me, hard and ready, and I gasp when heshoves me against the wall, his hands dropping to the dress to bunch it up around my hips.
“Zach,” I moan weakly.
“Do you want me to stop?”
My breath catches in my throat. I don’t even want to say yes. I just want to do what comes naturally. I don’t want to think too much about what I’m doing or the implications of fucking him in my office when I’ve been celibate, or so I’d thought, for so long.
