by Leta Blake
“Other families of our status have beta servants to do those chores for them. And to cook.”
“Other families don’t have your pater as omega. He likes his privacy. And so do I.”
Washing and waxing the car took a few hours and kept Jason’s mind occupied for the most part. He did drift off into fantasies at several points, imagining making Vale a present of a brand-new car straight off the assembly line, then riding with him to the seaside cottage for a week of lazing together in the sand. He wondered whether he could get a car in cerulean blue.
Afterward, he went up to his room to shower again. He changed into a pair of clean trousers cut to perfection by his pater’s tailor and a plain green button-up shirt. He started on a paper for Professor Rochera’s biodiversity class, spending extra time drawing the wings of the Saturniid moth in detail in the margins. Then he practiced the guitar a bit more, playing some songs he knew and attempting to write one of his own. He’d never been a very motivated musician, not like Pater who enjoyed playing and composing both, but with Vale the poet as a potential future audience, he was determined to bring him something beautiful if he could.
He played on, remembering the drifts of loose paper in Vale’s study, the light from the window on Vale’s skin, and the thud of his pulse in his neck. In his mind’s eye, it was a steady rhythm, delicate and yet firm. He played to its beat. Vale was so beautiful. Jason’s fingers flew over the strings, and he closed his eyes, letting the music fill him in a way it never had before.
Another dose of alpha quell was brought up to his room by Father before he left to meet with some suppliers.
“I’ll be home later with some sort of take-out. If you get hungry in the meantime, or if Miner does, go ahead and cook what I’ve put out to thaw.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re a good boy, Jason,” his father said fondly, sliding his hand into Jason’s hair and smiling down at him. “I know you’re overwhelmed now, but I assure you everything is going to be all right.”
“I know, Father.” Not because he trusted his parents, though he did, but because he was determined. He was young, but he wasn’t an idiot. With every second that passed, Jason became more certain. He could be what Vale needed. He’d stand taller, be smarter, work harder. He’d do whatever it took.
After his father left, a knock came at the front door. Irrationally, Jason’s heart leapt into his throat. He knew it wouldn’t be Vale, but it was possible, wasn’t it? He’d said he wasn’t immune to Jason. Maybe he was dying to see him, too?
Jason tried to hide his disappointment when he found Xan on the doorstep with a tin of Woodenhall Candy Store’s famous fudge in hand for Pater and a shy, nervous smile for Jason. “Hey, I brought my notes from school. Thought I’d help you out for a change.”
Jason swung the door wide. Whatever had been stuck in Xan’s craw when he last saw him in the student medical center seemed dislodged now. “Pater loves that fudge. So I guess I have to let you in.”
“Even if I was a jerk the other day?”
Jason smiled and wrapped his arm around Xan’s shoulder, guiding him into the foyer. “Who isn’t a jerk when their best friend goes crazy and attacks an omega in the library?”
“Not me, apparently.”
“Yeah, not you. You jerked it right up and without hesitation.”
The joking soothed the airing of grievances, and the word sorry never needed to be spoken aloud. “Do you want to give the fudge to Pater personally? Or just leave it here on the table for him?”
“Here’s fine.” Xan scooted the box safely onto the marble-topped table next to the coat rack.
“Let’s go upstairs.” Jason peeled Xan’s coat free and hung it up for him. “I’ve got new prepared microscope slides since you were here. Tree diseases this time.”
Botany wasn’t his absolute favorite thing to study, but it was pretty close. He loved learning about plants and how to grow them. The chemical processes within them and their reproductive functions were fascinating. And he enjoyed learning about plant diseases, too, as well as their cures.
Xan, for his part, couldn’t care less about any of it, but he indulged Jason all the same. At least he usually did. Given that he was here to pseudo-apologize, Jason didn’t think today would be any different. “The Cedar-Apple Rust fungus is especially cool.”
“Nerd,” Xan muttered, then laughed and straightened his blue-and-gold printed bow tie.
“The biggest,” Jason agreed, taking Xan’s hand and pulling him toward the staircase up to his room. “Wait until you see how pretty the bacteria is that causes root rot in Old World Japanese Maples. It’s the prettiest bacteria I’ve ever seen.”
While Jason set up the microscope on his neatly organized desk, Xan walked around the bedroom looking at everything like he’d never seen it before and might never see it again. Finally, he sat down on the edge of Jason’s freshly made bed and chewed on his bottom lip.
“They really aren’t going to let you come back to school?”
“I can go back for classes starting next week.” Jason pulled out a few slides from his collection. The butterfly wings he’d ordered at the end of summer were cool, too. He didn’t think Xan had seen those yet. “But yeah, not to live.”
“Ever?”
“Probably not. If I contract with him, then I’ll live with him somewhere. If negotiations get drawn out, then my parents will want me to stay home.” Jason sent him an empathetic shrug. “It sucks. We had a lot of plans, but, hey, look at the bright side. You get a whole room to yourself!”
Xan stared at him, his normally red cheeks pale. “How can you be so relaxed about this?”
Jason chuckled. “Relaxed? If I seem relaxed that’s just the alpha quell.” He slipped a glass slide under the microscope clip and took a look. It was a slide he’d prepared for himself instead of purchasing. It consisted of grains of sand from the shore next to their beach cottage. Under the microscope, they offered up an array of colors and shapes. “I’m going crazy deep down. But if I acted like I feel, it’d just make everything worse.” A small swirl of translucent shell sat at the center of the slide, amongst, red, blue, and green coral, minerals, and rock. “Look at this one first,” he said. “It’s fantastic.”
Xan didn’t move from the bed even when Jason beckoned him with a smile. Instead, his fingers curled into fists and his tear-filled gaze met Jason’s.
“What’s wrong?” Jason asked gently, his heart twisting. “Why are you so upset?”
“What about me?” Xan’s voice broke.
Jason gaped at him, mind turning over and over. “You’re going to be all right.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Sure you will. I know we always promised to live together, but it’s not like I planned it like this. And, unlike me, you have a lot of friends at school. People who’ll be happy to keep you entertained now that I won’t be there to make you study all the time.” Jason abandoned the microscope and slides and sat next to Xan on the bed.
“I need you.” Xan’s mouth worked. “Why can’t you come back? They’ve let him go from his job—your omega. I heard it this morning. So you’d be fine there. Say you’ll come back.”
Jason’s heart clenched as Xan leaned against his shoulder. “I wish I could. I really do. But they say I’m not trustworthy. They think I’ll go to him in the night and won’t be able to control myself. They think they can watch out for me better at home.”
Not to mention, home was about five miles closer to Vale’s house, so maybe he didn’t want to go back to school all that much.
Xan’s blue eyes slowly rose up to Jason’s. A storm brewed in them, though Jason didn’t know why, and it made his stomach ache.
“What’s it like?” Xan asked, his voice pitched low and his tone a trembling mix of anger and hurt. “Do you still…?” He shook his head.
“Do I still what?”
Xan sat up straighter. His eyes darted around the room, like he couldn’t bear to lo
ok at any one thing for very long. “Is finding your Érosgápe as amazing as they say?”
“It’s awful.”
“Why?”
“Because I want him so much and I can’t have him.” He tried to think of the words to explain it. It was just so big. “I don’t even know him. It’s weird and intense and I have to take alpha quell now just to act like a normal person. I haven’t seen him in over a day and I don’t know when I will again, and that makes me feel sick deep down. Like I might be dying. It’s awful.”
“Do you only want him now?”
“What do you mean?”
Xan’s jaw set. “You know what I mean, Jason.”
“Oh!”
Shock rocked through him. He hadn’t spared a thought for the games he and Xan played. Not since he’d met Vale. It hadn’t occurred to him that Xan might miss them already. He tried to untangle his tongue enough to reply.
“Is it so hard to answer a simple question?” Xan’s hand shook as he brushed a dark lock of hair away from his imploring eyes.
Jason’s heart squeezed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Xan. It was just that he wanted Vale more. And wanting Vale—the glint of his smile, the fan of lines by his eyes, the shivery way he said Jason’s name—was a constant underlying itch that he couldn’t scratch. It didn’t leave room for much else.
Xan’s voice trembled. “Do you still want me?” He tilted his head, one hand working on the buttons of his shirt to reveal his pale, hairless skin. He leaned in close, his breath ghosting against Jason’s lips. “I still want you. Nothing’s changed for me.”
His kiss wasn’t undesirable. It was good even, sweet and slick, greedy and somehow scared, waking Jason to the very real possibility of immediate sex. It was also just weird, because he wanted it, but he didn’t, but he did.
Blood raced to fill his dick; it pressed between his thigh and pant leg. He shivered, arousal flooding him. It mixed strangely with the alpha quell, making his insides burn cold instead of hot. An ocean breeze against a sunburn.
“I woke up this morning wanting this,” Xan groaned. “And you weren’t there to give it to me.”
“I’m sorry.” Jason’s head spun and his cock ached as he was pulled in two directions, even as he tilted his head to let Xan suck a kiss onto his neck.
“Give it to me now,” Xan commanded, before claiming Jason’s lips.
The kiss deepened and Jason went with it, curious about the split inside him, the way his mouth on Xan’s felt so much less intimate than simply standing outside Vale’s house, talking to him through an open window.
“You can pretend I’m him,” Xan whispered wetly against Jason’s lips, as though sensing the direction of Jason’s thoughts. “Pretend anything you want.”
Jason closed his eyes, but there was no way he could mistake Xan’s scent for Vale’s rose-and-musk aroma. But what was the harm in playing one last game? For all he knew, Vale was currently indulging in physical pleasure with that alpha he’d been with at the library. Jason knew what they did together. He’d smelled it on him that first day.
A hard ball of jealousy ached in his gut, and he clenched Xan closer. If Vale could have previous lovers to be forgiven for, then Jason could, too.
Xan’s kisses became more desperate. “Don’t stop,” he moaned. “Please don’t stop.”
Breaking free of the kiss, Jason gazed into Xan’s eyes. “You want this?”
“More than anything.”
“Suck me.” Jason deepened his voice, making it a non-negotiable command. “Get my dick out and make me come.”
Visible relief rocked Xan’s body as he scrambled to unbutton Jason’s pants. He opened wide to get Jason’s cockhead into his mouth, sucking and moaning, letting saliva roll down the length and pool in Jason’s tightly curled, blond pubic hair.
Jason played with Xan’s dark, sweaty hair, and moaned softly. Xan knew what he liked. He gazed up at Jason with wide eyes, whimpering, and twisting his tongue around Jason’s dick. Strength and command filled him as he thrust into Xan’s open mouth.
“Take it,” he grunted, gripping Xan’s hair. “Suck me.”
Xan groaned and quickly unzipped his own pants, jerking himself off with one hand while he tried to swallow Jason’s cock.
Holding Xan’s head down, pumping up into his gagging throat, Jason’s eyes rolled back. The air around them seemed to grow crisp in a strange shift of consciousness he’d never experienced before. This wasn’t the way they usually did had sex. There was no laughter, no fun. He was dominating another alpha and getting off on the power. It had nothing to do with Xan.
Realization dawned.
Alpha expression. A power fuck. The same kind of fuck that alphas in the past had engaged in to punish or acquire, to make another man submit. Triggered by exposure to his Érosgápe, the urge to conquer and control was intense. He was tempted to revel in this new, brutal arousal. But it felt wrong, too. It had nothing to do with friendship and nothing to do with his omega.
He shuddered and released Xan’s head. “Off. Stop.”
Xan pulled away, wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand, and stared up tremblingly at Jason. “Why?”
Jason stared down at his hard, wet cock, beating with his heartbeat and pointing directly up at him. “This is wrong.”
“Because of him?”
Jason frowned. Yes. But it was more than that. “I’m being rough with you.”
“I like it.”
“My exposure to Vale triggered alpha expression.”
Xan’s eyes went wider and—was it possible?—even more aroused. “Oh.”
“This isn’t how we’ve done this.” Jason’s cock didn’t seem to care, though, and a pearl of pre-come glistened at his slit. He still wanted to dominate and force Xan to submit. An unknown cruelty pulsed inside him. He closed his eyes and wrestled it down. “Before. It was never like this. It was for fun.”
“I don’t care how it is, Jason. I just want it. I want it so bad, and if you leave, if you’re not there…”
Questions Jason had never let himself entertain about Xan’s future crowded his mind. What if Xan never found an omega? One he could trust with his secret needs? Would he really stop wanting to be fucked once he found his Érosgápe—if he found his Érosgápe? Or worse, what if Xan trusted the wrong man?
“I need it,” Xan whimpered, gripping his own cock hard, and pulling the foreskin down to expose the head. “You give me what I need. Only you. And I’ll help you, too. You can’t fuck him yet, but you can fuck me. I’ll be yours, Jason. If you’ll have me.”
A possessive thrill raced up Jason’s spine.
Xan wasn’t Vale, he wasn’t enough, and he could never be, but Jason could take him. He could give him what he needed and own him for a time, be the alpha to make him scream and come. He could bring his beautiful friend the pleasure he needed. Alpha expression was natural. It existed for a reason.
“Yeah.” Jason nodded. “Okay.” His balls were tight and hard, and he didn’t know how long he’d last, but Xan wanted what he had to give, and even if it wasn’t right, Jason wasn’t backing away. “Get your clothes off and your ass up.”
Stripping down, they stared into each other’s eyes, challenge given and received. By the time Jason was naked, the thudding of his cock obliterated rational thought. Consumed by a need to grab and take, to prove who was best between them, he would show who was the stronger alpha.
Their scents mixed in the room. Two alphas in lust and need. Rising above their mixed musk, though, he caught a whiff something else. Something true and right. Something he needed more than air, and he ripped his gaze from Xan’s to search for the source of it.
He shoved Xan to the bed. Submission replaced the challenge he’d been giving off, and Jason’s blood sang in victory.
“Yes, get your ass up,” he muttered, still seeking the source of the scent that flitted around him, just out of reach. “Get yourself ready for me to fuck you.”
Then his
eyes fell to his bedside table.
There.
Jason grabbed the strip of blue fabric, the bookmark Vale had given him, and pressed it to his nose. Yes. Deeply embedded in the material was the scent of Vale’s house—old papers, dusty books, and the sharp lead scent of pencils. On top of those deeper scents, Jason could just make out a trace of musk, a hint of mint from the garden, and the rose-scented sweetness of Vale’s skin.
He groaned, his cock throbbing with blood, hard and aching.
Muddled thoughts rose. His omega was out there, just a few streets away, maybe being fucked by another alpha at this very moment, maybe not. It didn’t matter. There was nothing he could ever do about the past or the present.
Just the future.
And in the immediate future, Jason was going to fuck the daylights out of Xan. He’d make another alpha mewl and cry and come. He’d make him beg.
Jason’s cock swelled harder.
On the bed, Xan was naked and in position. Reaching back, he held his ass cheeks open. His tight hole glistened with his own hastily applied spit.
“Hurry,” Xan whispered. “Fuck me.” His blue eyes burned urgently over his shoulder, and his red lips parted with each violent exhale of breath.
Jason tossed the ribbon aside, the scent of Vale’s house and skin clinging in his nose. Spit wasn’t nearly enough to slick the way, but Jason pushed his dick against Xan’s hole. It gave a little, but he couldn’t press inside. A shot of frustration zipped up Jason’s spine, and he pushed harder.
“Please. I need it.” Xan arched his back, presenting like an omega.
“Take it then,” he said, gripping Xan’s hips and pushing in past the resistant ring of muscle.
Xan cried out, his asshole spasming hard. Jason groaned, yearning to shove in more, but he didn’t want to hurt his friend. He rubbed Xan’s back, bending low to take in the sweet scent of Xan’s sweat. It filled his nostrils, replacing the scent of the ribbon and Vale.
