Page 39 of Rivers and Roads

ORION

Icouldn’t decide if Zane’s silence made it easier or more difficult to deal with the thoughts in my head. He wasn’t avoiding me, at least as far as I could tell, but he hadn’t said a word since our conversation that morning. Part of me wanted to believe it was his recovery, but I knew better.

He had already been coming back to himself at the river, and by the time he was pushing inside me, he was mostly himself. Even if he’d been monosyllabic, it was still Zane there with me, at the mercy of his rut thanks to the heat.

I took some reprieve in the fact that I was exhausted, and I spent half the day dozing in the far bedroom. My dreams were fractured and fragmented, a mixture of a nightmarish figure chasing me as I ran at human speeds and the echo of Zane’s knot filling me. I woke confused, feeling a little feverish and desperately alone.

I watched the sun sink lower onto the horizon for a while, but eventually my need to eat drove me to the kitchen. Zane was there, sitting at the little table by the window, a mug of freshly brewed coffee in his hands. His face was as blank as ever, his heartbeat steady, and the fact that I couldn’t read him was making me want to tear my skin off.

It felt wrong—which was strange because he and I had never shared so much as a pack bond between us. But now the silence was a screaming void in my head, and I was close to cracking.

I distracted myself with cooking up spaghetti. It was dried noodles and a jar of sauce, and the fridge was devoid of anything resembling meat, but it would fill me up. My wolf was crying to be nourished and released, but I wasn’t about to suggest some domestic trip to the supermarket and a shift run with the moon for dessert.

Glancing over my shoulder, I caught him staring, and I swallowed thickly. “Are you uh…hungry?”

“I ate,” he said.

I nodded and turned away, letting out a rush of air. “Do you…”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

I dropped the spoon onto the counter and spun, unable to stop myself. I was out of control of the emotions raging through me, but even if it was the last surge of hormones from this fucking change, I couldn’t stop it.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

At that, I saw the first flicker of emotion in Zane’s eyes, and for a second, I swore I could feel an emotion that wasn’t mine, pulsing behind my ribs. His brows rose, and he leaned forward. “You’re sorry?”

“I know that doesn’t mean shit. Not when…not after everything they put you through, and then to have this fucking heat send you into a rut? It probably makes me just as much of a monster as they were. But if we can’t attempt to discuss what I did, we can’t stay here together, and I…”

He was on his feet before I could get the rest of the words out, backing me up into the counter. My nostrils flared, filled with the very lifeblood of him, and I almost whined when he laid a hand against the side of my neck. I submitted like it was the only thing I was capable of doing, my head tilting as he leaned in to nose me, sharing his Alpha scent.

“Orion,” he breathed out.

I shook my head, trying to find the strength to push him away, but I was helpless against him. It was terrifying, only because I knew Omegas didn’t submit to just any Alpha. Not like this. Not unless they were…

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Why are you apologizing to me?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that rippled across my skin. He pulled away just far enough to look me in the eye. “I pinned you down in the throes of your heat and knotted you.”

I dragged my tongue over my bottom lip. “I caused your rut.”

He opened his mouth, maybe to argue, but he had to realize the truth of it.

“The humans ripped you off the street, tortured you…did things that only the gods could see,” I went on, my voice shaking. “And it doesn’t matter if I couldn’t control it, because it shouldn’t have happened. Not after all that.”

He let out a long, slow breath and shook his head. “No. I didn’t want it to be like that.”

The admission was both pain and relief, and I sagged forward a little. I was hoping he would take a step back, but he pressed against me harder. “And I know you. I mean,” I stopped on a bitter laugh, “you didn’t exactly make your feelings about Alpha and Omega bonds a secret. And I’m not an Omega.”

He pulled back and lifted a brow at me, almost like a challenge, his gaze flickering to my eyes.

“This isn’t going to last,” I snapped. “Your brother might have fucked me up, but I already feel more like I did before.” I ran a hand down my face in frustration at the half-lie. I wasn’t entirely myself, not yet—but every day, a bit of this change ebbed away. “All I could think about when you were—” I swallowed and forced myself to say it, “knotting me, was you biting me. And I wasn’t about to let you wake up from all that, stuck with some fucking Beta as a mate.”

“Orion,” he growled, and my jaw snapped shut. Zane took a step all the way back, but instead of breaking contact entirely, he pressed a palm to my cheek. “I have wanted you for a long fucking time. At first, I…I don’t know,” he blew out a puff of air, “I admired you. Your drive, your fight. But the more I got to know you, the more I realized it was something else.”

My ears rang a little, and I wasn’t sure what the hell to say.

“You were engaged, though,” Zane went on, finally dropping his hand. I felt the loss of his touch keenly, and I wanted to chase it, so I grabbed the counter and made myself hold still. “And by the time she left, we were so entrenched in ending this corruption, I didn’t let myself even think about having a chance with you. So, if anyone took advantage here, it was me.”

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