Page 7 of Prodigy & Tybalt
It was a pretty fireplace, too. Dark red marble veined with black, the mantel around it home to photos, a globe, a stack of books, and a framed diploma. I wondered if the fire worked;the room would be cosy with flames crackling, the sumptuous crimson décor like a hug. Comforting and dangerous. I reminded myself I wasn’t staying; I was leavingright now,so there was no point yearning for open fires.
“Okay, okay.” Tybalt raised his hands, palm out. “Jesus, fuck. Shouldn’t she be a little more concerned that you’ve been missing for weeks?”
I just glared at him, because I couldn’t defend my mum. She was the most nurturing and generous person I’d ever known, but she lived with her head in the clouds. The cynical part of me knew it was beta privilege, because she hadn’t grown up with grown men leering after her, or family members making offhand jokes about when I’d get my first heat, or sniffing the air for a hint of perfume when I was fourteen fucking years old.
I sighed, and replaced the bronze tiger on the end table I grabbed it from. I was bone tired, but doused with adrenaline. I couldn’t stop fighting, but I didn’t know how much energy I had left. “Keep your comments about my family to yourself, asshole. Where’s the way out?”
I turned and aimed for the door, the back of my neck tingling with warning. I waited for my instincts to howl that I shouldn’t have given him my back, but they remained at the same jagged, edgy level they’d been at since I woke up. I wrapped my hand around the cold door handle, and growled, deep in my throat, when a golden hand slammed into the wood above my head and kept it shut.
“Let me go, or I swear to every higher power, I will fucking kill you,” I threatened, my voice deep and guttural. Rare—so rare for my voice to be like this. My omega wasfuming,and not shy about letting him know.
“Alright,” he agreed affably. “Turn around and kill me.”
I whipped around to face him, my body starting to shake, my teeth gnashing as rage and pure, venomous murder poured through my veins, pumping through my heart, soaring—
Tybalt hugged me.
His voice was a softer rumble when he spoke. “Ha, tricked you. We’re hugging now.”
“Let me go or lose an organ,” I warned, struggling, jabbing my finger into his side. I hoped I hit a kidney.
He grunted, but didn’t release me. In fact his arms tightened, and a low, beautiful vibration came from his chest, pouring up his throat and into every last one of my senses. A purr.
My head dropped onto his chest with a thud, my body melting, limbs fluid, and a blissful, comforting heat worked through me like a massage, like a promise.
No, there reallywasa promise in his purr, and I’d never heard one like it. Equal parts safety, protection, and sheer bloody murder. It was like catnip. I wanted to rub my face all over him, to literally roll in the heavenly sound of his purr like my cat Saffron did when she broke into the jar of catnip we kept on top of the fridge (strategically out of her reach.)
“You don’t really want to kill me. You want to stab your fingers into Sweetie’s chest and rip out his heart for rejecting you. You want to burn his skin off with bleach and use a rusty spoon to remove his eyeballs one by one. You want to scream and cry and throw up, because it hurts so much it feels like it will never end.”
My throat closed up, the acid-burn in my chest unbearable. “No, I definitely want to kill you.”
“When I—after I was rejected, I became this angry, vicious little prick. I couldn’t cope with it, couldn’tbreathewithout fucking agony, and I took it out on anyone who got too close. I let the hatred consume me, let it burn me up until there was fuck all left worth redeeming. Don’t do what I did, warrior.”
“Stop hugging me,” I bit out, my voice the only part of me that remained sharp, my body a malleable, boneless thing as his purr vibrated through my body, filled my ears, filled the hollow, screaming part of my chest.
“It helps. The hug, the purr, the touch. It just—helps.”
I didn’t ask how he knew. Didn’t give a shit. Even if right now, with his arms around me, it was the first time I’d been able to properly breathe since my fated mate looked me in the eye and said he didn’t want me.
You are not my mate.
I flinched, my breath catching, and Ihatedthat this arrogant, snarling dick felt it crash through my muscles, felt it echo through his body, too. His purr deepened, full of violent protection.
“The first day is the worst,” he said, his voice pitched low, this soft, velvety murmur that hit me with the same impact as his purr. I glared even as tears stung my eyes.
“I’ll get revenge for this,” I muttered. “When you least expect it.”
“Revenge for hugging you?”
“Yes,” I hissed, my eyes nearly rolling as the vibrations of his purr deepened even further, rippling through my body so thoroughly they invaded every part of me, found every bit of acid burning my soul, and for just a moment, swept it all away. “You’re using your purr against me, coercing me into a hug.”
“That’s a shitty accusation to throw at someone who’s just trying to help you,” he said, but without anger or reproach. And he released me, taking several steps back.
The pain rushed back into my hollow spaces immediately. I sucked in a sharp breath as the corrosive mate bond burned its way into my blood and bones, as the rejection tore its spikes through all my soft vulnerabilities.
“I’ve been where you are,” Tybalt said, in that midnight soft voice. “I know what helps, and what makes the pain so bad you can’t fucking think straight.”
“Good for you,” I grumbled, telling my body to turn to the door, to open the damn thing and run from this place. But it took all my concentration to breathe without Tybalt’s purr. This was one reason I was so resentful of alphas, so resentful of being an omega. We were utterly pliant when an alpha purred, so easy to control when they growled or barked. And right now, I needed someone to vent all my rage and hurt on, so it was easy to hate Tybalt for purring me into a hug.
