Page 37 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
My mind says one thing, while my fingers continue to draw lazy lines along the defined edge of his collar bone. Another contented sigh leaves his full lips.
“Youaremy alpha. You felt it, too. When you healed me. Youscented it.Don’t tell me you didn’t. Even now, your scent is so strong . . .” A whimper escapes his throat that sounds desperate and demanding. “I wished I could be in this form. To hold you. I wanted to be here for you. It would have made our bond fall into place, but I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried.”
He keeps talking about scents, about claiming, and something inside me trembles. I want to deny it and question it, because I don’t understand a single thing, but I recall that moment in the shower. The moment he’s talking about, the seizing feeling that he belonged to me.
Even now, having him so close, I feel a pulse, a thread pulling me towards him. It’s not exactly as alluring as Rue but different. Like I need to protect him. Iwantto protect him as much as I want to keep him. Is this what it means to be an alpha, like he claims me to be?
“What happened to you, Styx?” I ask quietly before I can stop myself.
Stop. Stop talking to him like that. Stop drenching your words in kindness, and for the love of all fuck, stop stroking him like he’s your favorite vibrator!
My hand slides lower, and the rapid slamming of his heartbeat drums against my palm. I slowly sit at the edge of the bed, but I still can’t stop touching the warmth of his body. It’s just like when he was my pet. I still want to find comfort in knowing he’s close.
I can’t explain it.
“I was brought to Hallow Hill Academy a long time ago—”
“How long ago, shifter?” Rueren cuts in, his tone hard and no longer filled with that lustful sound he had earlier. It’s hard, but not angry, exactly. Calculating. Demanding.
“I don’t know,” Styx says, his brows pulling together hard as if his entire life is missing and all he has left isme. “There was a man. There was a room . . .”
“A man in a room. You’re really quite the detective, huh?” The vampire behind me sneers.
“Stop.” The look I toss the tosser is enough to get him to shut up.
Or so I think.
“What’d the man look like? Where’s the room? Hell, I’d settle for knowing the color of the walls at this point.” Rueren slams the words out one after the other, and I’m starting to feel a little like the tree both of my pets are pissing on to claim a piece of uncharted territory.
“What color were the walls? Gray. They’re all gray. I’m color blind, you flying rat fuck.” Styx’s gaze is so glaring, I almost see death shining in his eyes. It’s the first sign of a temper I’ve seen from him.
It still doesn’t stop the quiet laughter from shaking out of me.
“I’m not a flying rat,” the vampire defends lamely. I laugh at the completely offended expression he wears.
Big warm hands wrap around my calves, and then Styx’s head is in my lap.
And I swear my heart stops.
“All I know was I was cursed. Cursed into silence in the form of my beast.” His hold on me tightens with a bit of pressure of his nails digging into my flesh as every muscle in his body tenses with hard lines and solid strength. “Time drops away when I’m in that form. When I’m all wolf, days are like years. It all felt like a pressing cage. Until I met you, alpha,” he whispers, his breath kissing my skin in a way that has me shifting in his hands. “And you broke that curse by speaking those magical, key words.”
Kumquat cock were the magical words? I bite my lips to keep from giggling at the ridiculousness of it. I suppose it makes sense, though. No normal person goes around screaming those words. Whoever cursed Styx is a genius. An evil genius that will feel my blade through their balls—or ovaries, I suppose—but a genius just the same.
I feel the gaze of the man behind me. Rueren lets the smallest amount of time pause between the three of us. And then his cool fingertips graze along my throat. My hair is pushed away, and his erotic words take their place against my skin.
“Want to help the little pup forget his past?” Lips press against my skin just faintly. Just enough to make my lashes shutter to a dazed and lustful state. “You’re his alpha, Sekar. Show me you know how to be an alpha.”
“I’m not an alpha,” I argue weakly. “Not in the way you think I am.”
Hurt flashes in Styx’s eyes as he lowers them to the floor. I hate that I’ve put that look there.
“You are,” Rue says. “Everyone hassomethingin them. You’re a natural born leader and the power to dominate this little omega lives inside you, if you’d only show us.”
Styx’s attention snaps to me in an instant. His big emerald eyes are watchful as he stares up at me. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
