Page 10 of The Alpha Escort Agency
Then there'd come the first day that someone else had named it, had confirmed it; a girl in his Maths class glaring at him with reproach and calling him Alpha. He'd left school straight after the lesson ended and taken himself off where he could do no harm, finding an abandoned hut in the woods and smashing it to pieces with his fists and his feet, wanting his body to hurt as much as his soul did, wanting to punish his body for betraying him like this, for making him into something he didn't want to be. It didn't leech the anger though, and he'd returned home bitter and ashamed, shutting himself in his bedroom to stare at the ceiling.
When he didn't come down for his dinner, his grandad had tapped on his door.
“Rory,” he said, letting himself in before Rory answered. “Can we talk, lad?”
Rory didn't respond and his grandad seated himself on the edge of his bed, turning to peer down at his grandson's face, his eyes laced with concern. “You want to talk about whatever it is that's bothering you?”
“No,” Rory said gruffly, his deep voice no longer sounding like his own.
“You know, it might help.”
“How?” Rory spat. “It won't change anything.”
“Rory, you're a good lad. You always have been; kind, hardworking, honest. We're proud of you, me and your nan. Very proud. Always have been.” He patted his shoulder.
“I'm not.” The tears came then, hot in his eyes and on his cheeks and he tried to blink them away. “If you could know the thoughts in my head.” He turned his face away to the wall, his stiff body following, his back a brigade against the world. “I don't want to be like this.”
He could feel his grandad’s eyes on him, pausing to think. “An Alpha?”
“Yes. I don't want this, I don't want to be like this.”
“Why wouldn't you want to be an Alpha?”
“They're bad — violent, possessive, cruel.”
“Some can be, but so can some Betas, some Omegas. Alphas can also be loyal, brave and caring.” His grandad shifted on the bed, the mattress sinking. “My father was an Alpha, Rory, and he was all those things. I know you will be too.”
“No, you don't understand, how can you? I have all these feelings, bad feelings, straining to break free, these urges that want me to do bad things. I don't think I can control them.”
“Like what?”
“I can't tell you.” How could he? How could he reveal all the awful things inside his head?
“About girls? About boys?”
“Both! There're girls I want to … I want to … and then there're boys I want to smash,” he growled, “smash to pieces.”
“I was the same, Rory. You're young. These feelings are new. They will fade. You will control them. I've no doubt you will be a good man. No doubt at all.”
His grandad had been right. The raging feelings of those teenage years have calmed and he's learned how to quell them.
He is a good man, he thinks, as he layers the lasagna with pasta sheets, he's proved himself to be so.
While the lasagna is cooking, he refills the bird feeder with seed, and then packages up the extras he's made and drives them round to his grandparents.
He tries hard to be a good man, but when Joanna left he realised that wasn't enough. She'd wanted more than goodness. And as the years have passed, he's wondered more and more if a good man is what women actually want.
Chapter 5
The October sun has faded away and today the sky is covered in thick cloud; the light sucked away and everything tinged with grey. Alice closes the curtains, happy to stay inside and prepare her room for her heat. From her cupboard, she drags various different cushions she has collected over the years, a few small plump ones, a couple body-sized and others made from materials like velvet or silk. From the blanket box, she digs out the special bedding she bought herself when she was last promoted and changes the sheets on the bed. They are made from the softest cotton, and she only ever uses them for a heat when everything feels rough and unbearable against her overly sensitive skin.
Her temperature is already soaring as she heads for the shower, turning it to the coldest setting and ducking underneath, hoping it will cool her skin and allow her to continue her preparations. When she emerges, she wonders what she ought to put on. Something attractive? And maybe she ought to wear makeup too, but what would be the point, it would only end up smeared across her face within seconds of her heat starting properly. Instead, she searches through her chest of drawers and finds a cotton vest and jersey shorts, not bothering with a bra.
Then she turns her attention back to the bed. She likes to arrange her cushions in a circular pattern, creating a space for herself in the centre, and so she busies herself now with arranging them, finding her favourite duvet and extra blankets. She's halfway through this job when her phone buzzes and she scampers across the room to pick it up from her dressing table.
“Hi Maria,” she says, tucking the phone under her chin and continuing to fuss with the bed. “What's up?”
“I'm just checking up on you,” Maria says. “How are you? How are you feeling?”
