Page 53 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
Ren closed his eyes. Pride was a towering wall inside him, built brick by brick over twenty-one years of resisting what his body demanded, of denying his nature, of proving that an omega could be more than a biological function. And now that wall was cracking under the weight of something greater and older than any conscious decision.
“Fuck me,” Ren murmured, and the word came out rough, torn from somewhere where pride could no longer protect him.
The word fell between them like a stone in still water. Brody didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
“No suppressant is going to work,” Ren continued, his voice trembling but his words clear. “I haven’t taken them in too many days. My body has already crossed the threshold. I can feel it. I know it.”
“You’re wrong.”
Brody let go of his hand. Ren felt the absence of contact like a reverse burn, as if his skin were being torn away instead of touched. He groaned. He couldn’t help it. The sound humiliated him to the core.
Brody crossed the room to a built-in cabinet on the back wall. He opened it. Ren heard the metallic sound of a safe, an electronic beep, the click of a lock. Brody returned with a black box the size of his palm and placed it on the nightstand.
“I have an emergency suppressant. I keep it for situations like this.”
Ren looked at the box. Inside was a syringe pre-filled with an amber liquid.
“It’s injectable. It works in minutes, not hours.” Brody held the syringe between his thumb and index finger. “But I need your permission.”
“Yes.”
“Ren.”
“I said yes.” Another contraction. Ren bit his lower lip until he tasted the metallic flavor of blood. “But fuck me anyway.”
Brody stood motionless.
“The suppressant will reduce the pain. You won’t need…”
“You’re not listening to me.” Ren opened his eyes and looked at Brody from the bed. Crystal clear blue eyes against bloodshot grays. The omega against the alpha. Pride against instinct. Everything Ren had fought to keep separate was converging into a single point. “I’m asking you to take me. Not because my body demands it. Not just for that. Because I’m asking you.”
Brody’s jaw clenched. His whole body tensed like a bow ready to fire.
“The pain is unbearable, Brody. The suppressant will do what it has to do, but right now I’m dying. Do you understand? I’m dying in here.”
Brody sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank under his weight. He carefully rolled up Ren’s t-shirt, exposing the inside of his right arm. The skin was flushed, hot, and covered in a thin film of sweat.
“This is going to sting.”
The needle went in cleanly. Ren barely felt it amid the tangle of pain that occupied every cell. The amber liquid coursed through his veins with a coldness that contrasted with the fire of the heat. Brody withdrew the syringe and pressed his thumb against the insertion point.
“A few minutes,” he said.
Ren nodded. The coldness of the suppressant spread through his arm, his shoulder, his chest. It didn’t extinguish the fire. It contained it. Like a dam that holds back the flood but doesn’t dry up the river. The pain receded enough for Ren to breathe without every inhalation tearing at his insides.
But the need was still there. Intact. Clearer now that the pain wasn’t masking it.
Ren raised his hand and placed it on Brody’s cheek. The alpha closed his eyes at the touch. A tremor ran through his shoulders. Almost imperceptible. Almost.
“Come here,” Ren whispered.
Brody opened his eyes. The gray had darkened to a shade Ren didn’t recognize—dense, liquid, hungry. But beneath thathunger lay something else. A question. One last chance to back out.
Ren didn’t take it.
He sat up on the sheets and kissed Brody. Not like the first time, which had been an accident, an inevitable collision between two bodies searching for each other blindly. This kiss was deliberate. Ren’s mouth against Brody’s with intention, with determination, with the clarity the suppressor had restored to him. He bit his lower lip. Brody growled, a sound that originated somewhere deep in his chest and that Ren felt vibrate against his own ribs.
Brody pushed him back onto the mattress. Not violently. With weight. With the absolute gravity of his body covering him, surrounding him, trapping him in a cage made of arms and legs and heat. Ren should have felt trapped. He should have felt panic. But the only thing he felt was relief.
