Page 6 of His Prodigal Alpha

He shouted in surprised ecstasy as the landing brought him down hard, pushing my cock impossibly deeper inside him. I was convinced I was going to pass out from the intensity of the pleasure that caused. Then he experimentally bounced in place, not seeming to care that my fingernails were digging into the exposed flesh of his hips.

“Yes,” he whispered as he moved, exhaling the word with every bounce. “Yes, yes, yes,yes.”

Despite being freaked out, I couldn’t deny that my body craved every single jerk to my…knot? Was that what he’d called it? It was as though every nearly painful bolt of pleasurecooled the burning ache to fuck him hard and raw just one fraction at a time.

“R-rex,” Damon moaned my name, practically hissing the ‘x’ into six sibilant syllables. “I can’t…can’t get enough.”

I knew how he felt. Some part of me demanded that I fuck him and fill him over and over again, and it wouldn’t be satisfied until…until…

Whatever thoughts had been on the edge of my consciousness fled me as Damon let out a keening cry and I felt the tell-tale convulsions around my cock. I bit back another gravelly bellow as his body milked my balls until they ached.

Damon slumped back against me, his head rolling into the crook of my neck. He nuzzled the underside of my jaw and I fought back the instinct to kiss the top of his sweaty head.

“So…we just wait it out?” I asked into the strangely tense silence that descended.

“Yeah, I guess. Your knot should deflate after a while. At least, I would assume so.” He yawned. I tried not to focus on how cute the squeaking sound that accompanied the yawn was. “Alphas and omegas couldn’t possibly stay tied together forever.”

With no other alternative than to try and relax and let the whole bizarre situation run its course, I just nodded.

An hour later, after another short, impulsive, irresistible burst of fucking and coming, we were separated. I hastily cleaned myself up and ignored the sounds of Damon doing the same behind me. I’d never experienced a more awkward parting than that one. I wished him well, ignored his attempts to try and discuss what my being able to knot him meant, and I fled the bar as though the hounds of hell themselves were at my heels.

Some inner part of my soul whined to turn my truck around and head back to him, a voice in my head telling me that I would regret my choice to run away. I ignored those instincts.

Whatever that had been, I had no intention of repeating it.

That didn’t stop him from becoming the only thing I could think of day in and day out, though.

* * *

My senses changed over time. It happened so gradually that I barely even noticed it. But, one night, sitting in a roadhouse bar in Mississippi, I realized I’d been listening in on a conversation being held clear across the crowded room.

My ears pricked at words I hadn’t heard spoken aloud in months.

“…shifters. Potential alphas, they said,” one man was murmuring lowly as he nursed his beer. His companion was seated across the booth from him, a worn Stetson on his head and a dubious expression on his face.

“Come on, now. That’s gotta be just another fairytale,” the second guy said on a sigh. “I know that mess in New York was shifter related, but I reckon the alpha thing is just a story they’re making up to save face.”

The first guy shook his head. A lock of thick, red hair fell across his forehead. He pushed it away impatiently. “No. My cousin…you know, Mindy? Anyhow, she’s got a friend who lives in Iowa, andtheysaid that there really is an alpha. Startin’ a whole new pack ’n everything.” As though he could sense me listening, the guy looked over both of his shoulders cautiously. I lowered the brim of my own hat and pretended to fiddle with my phone. Seemingly satisfied, the first guy spoke again. “They’re spreadin’ word that there might be more alphas out there like him. Guys who didn’t know they were shifters until they started to change.”

The second man snorted. “Please,” he rolled his eyes and sat back against his seat, chewing on a toothpick. “These ain’t nothin’ but urban legends, Beau.”

Beau huffed impatiently. “But what if they ain’t? What if these potential alphas are out there? It could mean that we omegas might start bein’ treated right again. We’d have value again.”

I sat up a little straighter, frowning. In my bid to forget that night, I had studiously avoided all talk of shifters and their secret societies. I hadn’t Googled. I hadn’t read any of the news articles that were still circulating following the mess in New York. I hadn’t gone on a deep dive to find any of the shifter communities or packs that I suspected were littered across the country.

But, in that moment, I realized avoidance had been a mistake.

What did Beau mean when he said that omegas would have value again? The implication that they didn’t have value as things stood was upsetting. They shouldn’t need these mythical alphas in order to be treated as equals. They were people, damn it. All people had value.

The thought that omegas weren’t treated right among their own damn species because of something outside of their control made me feel sick. It came too close to reminding me of the way I’d felt when I’d come out to my adoptive parents and they had told me they didn’t accept it. Over two decades later, it still stung like hell.

Was that why Damon had been so skittish when he’d told mewhat he was? When he had asked me not to hurt him? Was he so used to being considered little more than an object that he had expected me to treat him poorly?

I wasn’t proud of the fact that I’d essentially panicked and run away after my own body had changed, and after hearing Beau’s words, I felt worse. Guilt ate away at my insides. Had I treated him any better than his own people had? Than other men had?

He’d been just as into our little-more-than-anonymous hook-up as I had, but then shit had gone down and I hadn’t even stopped to ask if he was okay. I mean, sure, my body had changed, but he had been just as stuck as I was, his ass stretched and impaled on my knot, experiencing something that —if the conversation I was overhearing was to be believed— was completely unexpected for him, too.

And I just ran away with my tail between my legs.

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