Page 25 of Alpha Heat
“Can I get dressed now?” Xan asked, his voice small.
“Please.”
Urho kept his back turned as the rustling behind him indicated Xan’s eagerness to cover himself. He tried to think of something—anything—that would make his own arousal dissipate before the moment came when he must turn around to face the boy.
Instead, an image of Xan the day they met, four years younger and pretty as the day was long, bloomed in his mind. Xan had stood in the summer sun in nothing but his swim trunks, his compact body shimmering with sweat and the drying water from a romp in the waves. Urho’s breath had caught, and he’d stopped dead in his tracks, pinned in place by the sight of the boy.
Something similar had only ever happened once before in his life, on that beautiful day he’d first seen Riki. Right after seeing his mate and stopping mid-sentence, silenced by Riki’s beauty, he’d scented Riki’s perfection and imprinted on him in a wild and violent way. They’d beenErosgapéfrom that moment on, forever, and even now.
Obviously, imprinting had not followed that awestruck moment of seeing Xan on the beach; it couldn’t have physiologically. But now with the musky, strong scent of Xan’s arousal still flooding his nose, Urho’s brain and body itched with lust and a demented sense of proprietary ownership—mine—that he couldn’t explain or begin to understand.
Xan was an alpha. Urho was an alpha. The Holy Book of Wolf and the law of the land made it plain—never could two alphas share a bond of that nature, not without paying a terrible price. Until that very moment, Urho had always believed in the rightness of the strictures.
But now…
“I smell you,” Xan whispered, the air between them crackling with energy. “Your arousal is heaven to me.”
Urho could barely restrain himself from pulling Xan into his arms and making him submit to the protective, insistent urges rising up inside him. He didn’t recognize himself with all these feelings. He didn’t know where to put them.
“Stop,” Urho gritted out, instead. “That’s disgusting.”
The air sucked out of the room and Urho struggled to breathe through his shame.
“I’ll give Caleb your regards,” Xan said from behind him, his voice cold now and threaded with hurt. “And I’ll pass on your opinion that I’ll be fine. You can leave the pills and your instructions with my doorman. Then I trust you to find your own way out and spare us both any further humiliation and discomfort.”
Urho opened his mouth, turning to issue orders for care, to demand another promise that Xan would never again seek out whatever monster had done this to him—or possibly to drag him into a violent kiss—but Xan was gone, the door left barely open and the sound of his footsteps dissolving down the hallway.
Urho’s knees gave way and he dropped to the too-small chair, his heart lurching. He struggled to hold himself back from charging after Xan as shame and bewilderment made him their bitch. He sat there long enough to hear the echo of Xan and Caleb’s voices moving through the house toward the upper levels. And then even longer, until a beta servant came and suggested that he’d be happy to show Urho out.
Confused, the world a popping, fizzing, spinning, insane place now, Urho handed over the pills, gave instructions for Xan to take them, and then allowed the servant to show him out into this new and nightmarish unknown.
The sun wassetting when Urho parked his car on the curb outside of his home. His stomach still ached and his hands shook from the ordeal at Xan’s house that morning. Because that is what it had been, he told himself firmly—an ordeal and nothing more.
It seemed callous and wrong to be more distraught by the events of the morning than he was over a stillbirth in the Calitan district that afternoon. And yet he couldn’t shake the sensation that his very bones still rattled from the minutes he and Xan had shared in the old nursery together.
He’d tried to put it behind him, driving out to the clinic with determination to lose himself in his work. He’d found the staff buzzing with worry over an omega who’d come in well ahead of his expected laboring time. Things had gone downhill from there for both omega and babe.
Urho had been lucky to save the man, and he’d had the sad job of holding the man’s hand as he’d sobbed over his lost child. Where the alpha was who’d impregnated him, there was no one to say. Not all omegas were lucky enough to beÉrosgápe, or even contracted, and not all were contracted to a man who cared for their well-being.
But after the pitiless stillbirth, Urho had tried to unwind by sorting through files in his office. It hadn’t worked. Then he’d dealt with a few drop-in patients. They’d gotten his mind off Xan, but only temporarily. He’d finally given up when he realized he was replaying his conversation with Xan over and over, rather than listening attentively to a young omega presenting with continued bleeding following a tough birth the prior week. He’d managed to focus long enough to put the man’s mind at ease, prescribe some herbal tablets to help with clotting and healing, and schedule another consult in a few days time.
After that, he’d driven past Xan’s house again, peering up at the windows and ransacking his mind for a reason to ring the bell. He’d eventually forced himself to drive on home, confused by the urgent, restless sensation beneath his skin.
He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t think straight. He kept returning to Xan as he’d last seen him, ass up on the daybed, and the swirl of pubic hair around his swollen asshole—used and yet beautiful. Somehow beckoning to Urho with his red pucker.
And now, still dazed, he sat squirming in his car, staring up at his own three-story, faded red brick house. The home he’d shared with Riki before he’d died.
A bolt of need rocked him hard, and he slid from his car with his jaw set and a fresh certainty in his step. Riki always brought him clarity, in death just as he had in life. Just being in his presence would soothe Urho and bring him to his senses.
He rushed through the front and side gardens, past the rose bushes hisErosgapéhad once cherished, and into his house through the library entrance. He took the back stairs up to the hallway leading to a suite of rooms he claimed as his own. He let out a long breath when he successfully avoided any beta servants, especially the nosy—though incredibly talented—cook, Mako, who would undoubtedly be worried about the state of dinner if Urho didn’t make his appearance soon.
He passed through into the bedroom. It was cool and dark there. The space held only a large bed with a light blue canopy that matched the drapes and a chest of medications that he kept for emergencies.
Riki had chosen the décor the year before he died, and Urho still remembered the sweet smile on his beloved’s face when he’d stood in the room, surveying his choices. Urho had agreed with him when Riki had proclaimed it perfection.
One wall was dominated by a large painting of the ocean—crashing waves, blue skies, and soft-looking white sand—another of Riki’s choices. The other wall was entirely mirrored, making the dark room look even bigger and affording them both a beautiful view of their lovemaking. Riki had been quiet and unassuming for the most part, but he’d loved to watch himself as Urho had fucked him silly. He’d said it helped him believe that his life was true, that the beautiful happiness they shared was real, and that Urho was sincerely his in every single way.
Urho sat on the bed, undoing his tie and shuffling off his jacket. He stared at the blue curtains floating over the wide windows, and then turned to gaze at himself in the mirror. Haggard was the only description for his face at the moment. He’d shaved that morning, but already his afternoon shadow was creeping up, making the dark circles under his eyes look even deeper. He kicked off his shoes and raked his hands through his hair.
