Page 23 of Alpha's Embrace
“You scared me. I was worried.”
He gulped. His voice came out soft and wondering. “No one has ever cared for me like this.”
“Surely the nurses are efficient.”
“They are,” he said, looking down at the cloth. “But they rarely touch me.”
His tone had a depth in it of distance and echoes. Loneliness.
“Geo, you are very kind,” he said softly. “I have never known such as you. You are a good king. But probably you should leave now.” He stumbled over those last words, as if maybe he didn’t want to say them aloud.
“I am no king.”
“No?” He looked so young as he asked the question, so pure and new and uninformed. He’d never been in the world. What was I thinking to tell him I would advocate for his release? It would terrify anyone who had spent their life locked away. It would be like learning to walk and breathe all over again. But sometimes learning new things hurt.
I moved the wet, soapy cloth over his shoulders. He leaned into the touch and my cock throbbed.
“I’m sorry if I scared you with my plan,” I said.
He hunched a bit in the water, letting his hands and forearms slip underneath the steaming liquid.
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“I can be over-zealous when I get a task I think worthy of completion.”
“Am I a task?”
The question forced me to back up again, to reassess everything. “You are a person. Real and alive.”
My hands slipped a little off the cloth and onto the smooth skin above his pecs. Heat raced over every inch of my body, trembling every hair from my calves to my nape. My eyes went hot. My cock strained against its fabric cage. I was responding to the touch, nothing more, I told myself.
“I confess,” he said, meeting my gaze and holding it. “I was a bit frightened at your words. Frightened for myself. Frightened for others, even though I have never felt a dark thought toward another in my life. But I am afraid of what others might think of me, or do to me. A Sylph loose in society? Even with a chaperone? Has it ever happened?”
Of course he was afraid. How could I be so stupid? It’d sprung all my ideas about helping him too quickly. I had not thought ahead. My impulses had caused him pain and in turn, that pained me.
“There have never seen Sylphs outside institutions to my knowledge,” I replied. “But surely somewhere in time it’s occurred.”
“Hmm,” he said. “You really think so?”
No. I didn’t. But I wanted him to believe it.
“My kingdom isn’t ready for me, I think,” he said.
I wanted to chuckle. I felt so comfortable with him. But I kept my emotions to myself and said, “Perhaps not.”
“I wouldn’t want to be a burden to anyone. I think I can rule from here and be just fine.”
He spoke it as a statement, flat and decided.
“With the doors unlocked,” I added.
Slowly, he nodded but seemed unsure.
“I might not feel entirely safe,” Misha said. “Even with guards. You say all your Alphas who work here are bonded. But I’ve seen the ways they look when they think I don’t notice. I’m not normal. They can’t see me as normal, so how can I expect strangers in the world to see me any other way? I don’t think I could ever rule from anywhere but here.”
He was right and I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all.
My hand slipped to other parts of his body now. Down and across to one leg, the cloth smoothing over his beautiful golden skin. The white bubbles clothed him all over, sparkling in the rays of sunlight from overhead, glistening in rainbows from the yellow lights on the walls.
