Page 80 of Broken Ice
He shoved Emilio away hard enough to make the Alpha topple off the bed.
“What thefuck?” Emilio yelped.
Beau stumbled to his feet on the other side of the bed. He gathered the sheets up, covering himself up despite the fact that he was still wearing his underwear and shirt. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Beau spit out, voice trembling, teeth bared.
Emilio climbed to his feet, eyes wide and bewildered. “What’s wrong withme? You’re the one that pushed me!”
Beau could feel panic claw up his throat, but he wasn’t going to let it take charge. He needed Emilio out of his fucking apartment and out of his fucking life, teammates be damned. “You think you can hand me over to some other Alpha because you’re mad at me?” he demanded.
Emilio reared away. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“All this fucking time—you got me good, huh? Had me all convinced you weren’t a fucking psycho. If you don’t want to spend my heat with me, you fucking tell me. Trying to force me to let some other Alpha fu…fuck me when I’m too addled with heat to say no?” He hated the crack in his voice, the despair that spilt through. “That’s fucked up, Emilio.You’re fucked up.”
Emilio’s gape turned to stone in an instant. “I’mforcingyou? You can’t seriously be asking me to spend your heat with you after wearing his pre-collar all morning,” Emilio hissed.
Beau, primed to tear Emilio apart, was stumped by that. “What the fuck are you talking about, pre-collar?”
“You want to talk about fucked up?” Emilio snarled. “How about letting me make a fucking fool of myself formonthswhile you gladly got courted by someone else?”
Beau choked on nothing. “What? Seriously, what thefuckare you talking about?”
Emilio let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. “I don’t even understand what this whole act is right now. Pavel told me about the chocolates, and I didn’t believe him, and then there you go, strolling in with a Tying Gift around your neck. And don’tfucking play stupid—I asked Freddy. Since fuckingDecember, Beau?”
Beau truly,trulydidn’t know what was going on right now.
Emilio didn’t let him speak, voice trembling over Beau’s attempt. “You should have told me. I know you never promised me anything…but you should have fucking told me. And you shouldn’t have asked me to come here today when you know…when you…”
Beau watched Emilio shut down, trying to catch up to what Emilio was telling him. “Emilio…I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody is courting me. I didn’t even know courting was athinganymore, except in, like…movies and stuff.”
“Beau,” Emilio began, voice exasperated, but Beau cut in.
“Emilio—at no fucking point has Freddy ever asked to court me. Like, yes, he’s been giving me presents, and I guess now that you mention it, that’s a thing in some parts of the south here, I don’t know. But I have not accepted any sort of advances from Freddy knowingly. Zero.None.”
Emilio stared at him. “Are you bullshitting me right now?”
Beau made a cutting motion with the hand not holding onto the blankets, wincing as that made the pain in his abdomen flare. “Why would I do that? I just fucking…I don’t know what’s going on,” Beau pleaded. “I’m in heat, and I called you because you’re my fucking Alpha,” his voice wobbled, “and you told me to let some other guy in here and…and…” Humiliatingly, tears burned Beau’s eyes.
“That’s not…Beau, you were wearing his pre-collar,” Emilio said, but his voice was thready, lost.
“I didn’t know what I was doing!” Beau exploded. “I don’t fucking know about these things, okay? I don’t fucking know. I’m only fucking…twenty-four and I’ve had one boyfriend and now suddenly I’m being fucking courted without anybodytellingme? We haven’t even kissed,” Beau shouted, perhaps a little hysterically.
“You don’t kiss during courting,” Emilio reasoned.
Beau narrowed his eyes, ready to fucking rip into that dumb rule, but Emilio held his hands up.
“So you and Freddy aren’t…a thing.”
“No. We’re friends. Or, I mean, I thought we were friends.”
“Okay, fuck. Okay. Can we sit? You’re really pale.”
Beau, who had valiantly been trying not to let the pain show on his face, nodded in the most dignified and not at all desperate way he could.
They climbed onto the bed, sitting a foot apart.
“I didn’t know, Beau. I thought…” Emilio trailed off.
“Why didn’t youask?” Beau demanded. “Fucking telling me to spend my heat with him? Without even talking about it with me first?”
