His throat a little tight, Jules hugged Liam, pressing their cheeks together. “Sorry,” he murmured, inhaling his brother’s familiar scent. Liam was a Vos omega, so unlike Jules, his scent wasn’t suppressed. He smelled nice, even to Jules’s suppressed senses. “I didn’t know you were worried about it.”Liam sighed and pulled back. “Of course I worry. Someone has to.” He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Now you understand why our family can’t afford a scandal right now, right? I have to get married first.”Jules considered it. “What if… What if we free the Xeus and take him far away from here so he can’t lead the authorities to our house? I don’t think he knows Uncle Wayne’s name. He isn’t exactly rational right now. I doubt things like names even register to him.”“That could work, maybe.” Liam sounded skeptical. “But how will you take him far away if he doesn’t want to go? Xeus alphas are much stronger than normal alphas, much less omegas.”Jules wrinkled his forehead
Jules moistened his lips with his tongue, his heart thudding against his ribs. “Rude,” he said with a shaky smile. He felt hot. And shivery. In his defense, he’d never had a naked alpha on top of him. “I’m trying to help you, big guy. Don’t you remember me? And we really, really have no time for this. Let me go.”The Xeus inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring. Gauging Jules’s sincerity? Was his sense of smell that good, even despite Jules’s suppressants?Jules forced his body to relax, emanating safe-nonthreatening-omega. It seemed to be working, because the predatory glint was fading from those glowing eyes, some rationality slipping back into them. Some being the key word. There was still something distinctly primitive about the way the Xeus was looking at him. A different sort of primitive.Jules swallowed, becoming increasingly aware of the heavy, naked body on top of him. Of the hard hip between his thighs. Of a strong scent that was pure alpha—a scent that was starting to do terr
A giggle left Jules’s mouth, and then another, before turning into laughter. He’d somehow managed to lose his virginity to a Xeus alpha—and had a knot in him—and he still hadn’t even been kissed. It was kind of hilarious, in a way.The alpha on top of him made a questioning sound, his face still buried against Jules’s neck as he scent-marked him lazily. His teeth were still—Jules’s smile froze on his lips.Fuck. The alpha had bitten him. And knotted him. Did that mean… Did that mean they were bonded now?He focused and listened to his senses, but it was difficult. His body still felt too mellow and satisfied, the knot in him making him feel almost high on the feeling. He couldn’t tell if the mark had taken. But the fact that he still had no desire to shove the alpha away despite feeling sated was probably worrying. In fact, the mere thought of being apart from this alpha caused a panicky feeling in his chest, and Jules found his arms tightening around the alpha’s back.Fuck.They wer
For a moment, he thought the Xeus didn’t understand him, but then Jules heard the rustle of clothes and exhaled in relief.Then he went back to worrying. What were they going to do now?Jules was snapped out of his thoughts when a hand gripped his arm and none-too-gently pulled him toward the door.“What are you doing?” Jules said, looking at the alpha. He was dressed, thank fuck, but the strange, disturbing effect he had on Jules’s body was still there. Fuck, he smelled amazing. Like everything good in the world. Jules could barely stop himself from shoving his face into the Xeus’s neck and breathing.No. He needed to get a grip. He needed to get his brain to focus on their course of action, not to keep fixating on his base, primitive wants.The glowing green eyes flicked to him for a moment, the alpha’s nostrils flaring.Jules blushed and cleared his throat. “There are guards outside,” he whispered urgently. “We can’t just go out and—”The Xeus leaned down and sucked hard on his nec
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath, and started the engine. Please.He did manage to take off.And the aircar didn’t drop like a rock, which he counted as a win.Jules’s tentative smile transformed into a grin as he realized that this part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. Finally something had. He had intended to sneak the Xeus out of the mansion under the cover of the night, not allowing him to see anything he might identify later, before getting him as far from their lands as possible, choosing complicated routes and taking numerous turns to confuse the Xeus—and any potential pursuers. It seemed his plan was finally going as it was supposed to.When Jules landed the aircar in the forest an hour later, there was no way the Xeus could possibly identify where they had traveled from. The Blake house was seven hundred miles away. They were now closer to the Kadarian border than to any Pelugian city. They were safe, in every sense of the word. Even Liam would be pl
Or…For a wild moment, he was tempted to stay. Stay with this alpha, help him return home—wherever it was—and then maybe—Then what? his rational side said. Kerosvarin had no cure. Was he really ready to bind his life to a feral alpha Jules would never even get to know for real? A feral alpha who would never love him for real, for the person he was? Pheromones and great sex didn’t make a relationship; that much Jules knew. Even if by some miracle his Xeus managed to shift back into a man, he would be disappointed to find himself bound to an unattractive omega like Jules. They had no future either way.So this… this tight feeling in his chest was stupid. Irrational. It was the mating mark’s doing. It wasn’t real.But it felt so very real.Swallowing around the tightness in his throat, Jules took one last breath of the alpha’s scent and whispered, “Go.”The arms around him didn’t loosen.Jules bit his bottom lip hard. “Go,” he repeated, looking into the Xeus’s glowing eyes.The alpha st
Sometimes Jules really envied how well Liam could lie when he wanted to. His scent didn’t betray him at all, remaining steady, with an undertone of confusion. Jules had never been that good of a liar, but thankfully his suppressants made his scent faint, which made reading him difficult.Eric was the one Jules worried about the most. Although Eric didn’t know everything about the Xeus, there were other things Eric did know, and Jules wasn’t sure he could trust his baby brother not to betray them with a clumsy lie.So Jules cut in hurriedly, “If there was anything stolen, we didn’t hear a thing, Uncle. Eric and I were playing video games in his room until early morning—you know we get carried away when we play e-sports.”Eric nodded and, thankfully, remained quiet.“What happened?” Jules said, because it would have been stranger if he didn’t ask.Uncle Wayne gave him a long, scrutinizing look.Jules held his gaze, hoping his face didn’t betray him. He knew he would be his uncle’s main
It took him a while until he was able to focus enough to realize that the faint sense of another person he’d had since the Xeus’s escape was now gone.Jules froze, his eyes going wide, before he scrambled off his bed and ran out of the room.He couldn’t even remember how he ended up in front of their butler’s door. He pounded on it before he could think twice.Harrison looked sleepy and confused when he finally opened it. “Master Jules? What is the matter?”“Order me to do something,” Jules blurted out. “Use your Voice on me.”The butler froze. “Pardon?”“Use your alpha voice on me,” Jules repeated. “Now. That’s an order.”Harrison blinked in obvious bewilderment before saying, “Jump.”Jules didn’t jump—Harrison was neither his relative nor his bondmate. But he did feel the compulsion. He felt it.His knees suddenly weak, Jules turned and wandered away, ignoring the butler’s questions.The mating bond was gone.It was gone.Gone.Mating bonds could fade if neglected for a long time, b