Page 43 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

Johannes noticed. “What’s up with you?”

“Dmitri, he was… thorough.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” said Johannes, nostrils flaring.

I sighed heavily. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Johannes, look at your face. Don’t go attempting to defend my honor.”

“He hurt you?”

I shrugged.

Johannes turned back to his phone, determined. He began typing.

“Are you texting Dmitri?” I said.

“I’m not trying to get into a fistfight about it,” said Johannes to me. Back to the phone, “And send.” Back to me, “But he needs to understand that he can’t use you like that without any thought. He needs to try a little harder not to be a jackass, that is all I am saying. I know you make all these allowances for him that you don’t make for me, but let’s just be clear that I have never knotted—”

“He didn’t knot me,” I said. “He kept that out. It was just quick.” Quick and brutal, and he seemed like an unhinged savage thing inside me. It had been… maybe it should have been hot, maybe it even was. Mostly, it was kind of frightening, though.

“I don’t like the way he is with you,” said Johannes. “I don’t like the way he is with the omega. I don’t like anything about that, and I just let him know that.”

Johannes’s phone beeped. He glared at it.

“What did he say?” I said.

He shrugged.

My phone beeped. I pulled it out to look at it. It was from Dmitri.

Nik, you can talk to me, you know. You don’t have to go to him.

I didn’t. It’s fine. He’s taking it out of context.

Are you in pain?

I hesitated.

Nik, do I scare you?

No, I texted back.

Hey, I’m sorry, he sent.

I started to type something back, telling him it was fine, but he was typing something else. I gazed at the three little dots and waited.

I love you, too, you know? he had typed.

My heart skipped painfully. My breath caught in my throat.

Sorry, really, he said. I’ll do better. The omega is fucking with my head, but this won’t be this way forever.

“What did he say?” said Johannes, annoyed.

I shook my head. I wished he hadn’t said it the first time in a fucking text message. Sometimes, Dmitri was kind of idiotic about relationships, I had to admit.

Still, he’d said it.

That was progress, right?

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