I won, he kept saying.Mine.
Except the human half of the shifter didn’t want us.
Her small hand suddenly stroked my chin, her fingertips grazing my stubbled jaw. I instinctively moved away from her touch, my wolf growling inside.
She flinched and pulled her hand back. “Sorry.”
“Don’t test my control,” I gritted out through my clenched teeth. “You won’t like the consequences.” Not because I’d knot her, but because I would discipline her.
By locking her in a fucking room to suffer alone.
Which, arguably, I was already going to do, but I could at least try to help by purring for her. Assuming my animal even allowed it at this point.
“I’m not trying to test your control,” she snapped back. “I just… I wanted to touch you.”
“It’s not your right to touch me, Doctor.”
She released a disgruntled little growl of her own, causing my wolf to stand up and take notice. He rather liked that sound. “I didn’t reject you,Alpha. But I’ll concede that Iinsultedyou.”
All I could do was grunt in response. I wasn’t having this conversation again.
“I didn’t mean to insult you, Jonas.”
Another statement unworthy of a response. Whether she meant to or not, she’d done it.Repeatedly. For months.
A year.
I’d tolerated it because I’d seen it as a challenge. Now I understood that it wasn’t a challenge; it was an Omega rejecting an Alpha.
I would not be my biological father.
I would not force myself on an unwilling Omega.
I’d been raised by a good Alpha. He was a V-Clan wolf with a penchant for the night and a taste for blood, but he was also a strong man. AnhonorableAlpha.
He still protected my mother, living peacefully in Blood Sector.
Well, as peacefully as one could during this turbulent time.
But his safety and security were what had allowed me to explore other options. To live outside of the nest. Otherwise, I would have felt compelled to remain home to protect my mother.
Neither of them had withheld the story of my birth, or the events that had led up to it.
He’d claimed my mother while I was still in her womb.
They hadn’t known what it would do to me.
But I’d been all X-Clan Alpha.
Although, if Riley was to be believed, that meant I had no control. So hey, maybe I adopted that “power” from my mother’s mate.
“You’re really mad,” Riley marveled. “I don’t think I’ve seen you mad before.”
It took physical restraint not to react to that asinine comment. Whether she was purposefully goading me or not, I really didn’t know. It seemed all she did was try to piss me off. So why would now be any different?
She fell quiet again, giving me a few minutes of blissful silence.
Until she suddenly jolted against me.