Page 56 of Alpha Hunger

Raven slaps his palm on my desk. “How long do you think you can resist, hm?”

“For as long as I please.”

“It is not so.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. “I want to go home.” Tears prickle my eyes. I blink, trying to chase them away. “I quit, okay? There. You win.”

“Thank you.”

“Fuck you.”

“When and where, Omega? I’m ready. I was born ready to breed you. Bring it on!” He thumps his chest.

“I want to see my family.”

“After I’ve bred you, you can do anything you like.”

“Anything?”

“Anything. Now is a bad time to make the journey to your home.”

“But you are Hunger. Who would stand in your way?”

Raven purses his lips and leans in as if he’s gonna tell me something, then steps back. “We shouldn’t leave the Stronghold.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he holds up a palm. “For one, your heat has come. Every Alpha on the ground will scent it, and I will face challenges for the right to serve you. I will kill them all. One, two, twenty, the entire Horde if I have to. For two, your family’s home is marked. Nobody will bother them. I guarantee it.”

“I feel like a prisoner here.”

“You’re not a prisoner.”

“I am. A prisoner of my own dynamic and surroundings. It’s devastating for me.”

Raven paces the room, glancing at me, at the Pacific, back at me again. “Your calm seas bother me. Signs of doom are everywhere.”

I turn around in my chair. “It’s usually not this calm.”

“Exactly. Which is why we should stay put.”

Hm. He rarely usesshould. It’s always been a firmer word.Shouldtells me he might negotiate. I’ll take it. “We should stay here, but we can leave. Right?”

Raven grunts. “You don’t wish to nest in my quarters?”

I shake my head.

“Because?”

“Because I have a dirty secret.”

Raven’s eyes positively light up. “I love secrets.” He approaches, and the proximity of all his maleness makes me want to jump him.

I restrain myself, digging my fingernails into my palm. “I have nested elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“In the shed.”

He purrs the way a rattlesnake might wag its tail while it eats its catch. Happy.

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