Page 4 of Forbidden

Aksel wrinkled his nose in distaste, and Lucien laughed a little, his eyes sparkling.

Aksel couldn’t look away from him. The boy really was the prettiest thing ever, but when he laughed, he was ethereal. It was like he shone with light from the inside, exuding warmth and wholesomeness and everything nice and good.

He couldn’t imagine anyone hurting that.

But he could imagine people wanting to possess that.

“We can ‘not care’ together,” Aksel declared.

Lucien laughed again, but this time his laugh lacked genuine amusement. It wasn’t fake. Just sad. Aksel hated it.

“Do you want a hug?” Aksel said. “The baby—my baby sister—stops crying when I give her a hug.” The baby really did. Aksel’s father had explained that it was the pack bond calming her down, but Aksel hoped it would work on Lucien too, even though they obviously didn’t share a family bond.

Lucien blinked a few times, his eyes a little shiny.“I’m not exactly a baby,” he said with a fragile, strained smile. “And I’m not sad.”

Liar.

“I’ll hug you anyway,”Aksel said with a scoff, wrapping his arms around Lucien’s chest.

Lucien stiffened.But after a long few moments, tentatively, he hugged back.

And little by little, the sour undertones receded from his scent. It became sweeter. Like flowers or something. Not the nauseatingly sweet kind, but the kind that made Aksel think of the sun on his face in the early summer. Aksel breathed it in greedily, rubbing his face against the scent gland on the boy’s slim neck. He was only vaguely aware of the low sound coming from somewhere until Lucien suddenly chuckled.

“Are you growling?” he said.

Blinking, Aksel lifted his head and looked him in the face. “I’m an alpha,” he said, puffing up his chest. “I’m comforting you. You’re an omega of our pack. Alphas take care of omegas.”

A sad smile curled Lucien’s lips. “They do,” he whispered, some unidentifiable emotion flickering over his face before his smile became more genuine. “You’re adorable, sweetheart.”

Aksel frowned, deeply unimpressed. “I’m not! I’m an alpha. Alphas aren’t adorable.”

Lucien giggled. It was the prettiest sound Aksel had ever heard. He wanted to bottle it up and listen to it forever. He wanted to make Lucien laugh again. Force him to laugh all the time.

The feeling—the greed he was feeling—was too much. Aksel growled in frustration and buried his face against Lucien’s scent gland, scent-marking him aggressively. He knew his alpha pheromones weren’t strong yet—that would happen only when he was old enough to present—but he was a Xeus. Everyone knew Xeus alphas were very stinky from birth. For the first time, Aksel was glad that he was stinky.

He was going to make Lucien stink of him. So that his laughter belonged to him, Aksel. Only him.

Only him.

Chapter Two

Lucien was having a nightmare again.

Aksel frowned, watching him toss and turn in his sleep. Lucien kept whispering no, no, no.

Aksel’s hands curled into fists. He wasn’t stupid. In the year since Lucien had joined their family, Aksel had found out what had happened to him. The adults didn’t talk about it in front of the kids, but most people didn’t realize how much better his hearing was than theirs. He’d overheard his parents’ conversation.

His mother wasn’t pleased about his father’s decision to take a second spouse, and one with a tarnished reputation.

“What happened isn’t the kid’s fault, Vagrippa,” his father had snapped. “Do you not feel sorry for him? He’s just a child! His family disowned him and kicked him out of his home for something that wasn’t his fault!”

“I do feel sorry for him,” his mother said stiffly. “But it’s none of our business, Garrick. Why did you have to be the one to rescue him? Why couldn’t it be someone else?”

“I never thought that you lacked empathy, Vagrippa,” his father said. “Just imagine one of our children in his place. Imagine them being rapedby a bunch of Pelugian soldierswhile in heat, and then being thrown out of our family when they started increasing.”

“Our boys are alphas,” his mother said.

“But Belinda might be an omega,” Garrick said. “What if the same happened to her? Would you not help her? Or would you disown her too?”

---