Page 42 of The Alpha: Part Two
I distribute the cucumbers next to the wheat crackers and hummus and put the little plates on the little kid’s table beside the kitchen table. I’m not a fan of hummus, but after the amount of candy these alphas gave the three food regulated toddlers I’m glad Talia has more healthy options than anything else in the house. She’s going to kill these men when she gets home and finds her children mid-sugar rush. “Eight or ten. I want a bunch of them. I want sweet ones like Iris, loud ones like Dutch, and I’ll even take a tiny adult like Zetty. But just one, though. I swear, she’s older than I am. The way she looks at you…” I let out a whistle. She judges you. The whole time that little girl looks at you, she’s sizing you up. She’s beautiful, though. And smart.
“But can I tell them? That’s the important part.”
He’s so full of himself. “You just want to be mean.”
“Yeah, I do. Can you imagine Seth’s face?”
Trent comes in carrying the girls and wrinkles his nose when he sees the ultra-healthy snack. “What are you going to do to Seth? I hope it’s awful and that I get to watch it.”
“You’re as bad as he is,” I shake my head.
Ben reaches down and pulls the end of Zetty’s ponytail and winks at her when she scowls at him. “I’m going to tell Seth about the ten kids Desie has planned.”
“Holy shit, let me be there,” Trent laughs. “His freckles might fall off.”
That would be a tragedy. “You’re both terrible. Do you guys want any of this before I put it away?”
They both give me a disgusted, “no.” There was a silent impliedhellin front of it but there are little ears in the room. I’ve heard Dutch say a fuck or two so they don’t need anymore swear words added to their vocabulary no matter how funny it is.
An hour later, the front door opens and a crowd of people having a tense discussion arrive. Seth’s face is set in tight lines and Michael keeps flicking glances from him to Kaleb. Talia looks like she’s had about enough of all of them.
“It would be a smart move, Pratchett,” Devon argues.
“The information you’d have access to,” Nathan says softly. “I know it would be hard, but it would really help.”
“You can do it, Seth. It’s a perfect opportunity.” This encouragement from Kaleb.
All at once, Michael, Talia, and myself all say a version ofleave him alone.
“Give him time to breathe, for fuck sake,” Talia hisses. “This isn’t a decision he can just make. Corso still has his seat on our council, this is asking too much of him.”
Anxiety, frustration, shame, and too many other negative emotions are twisting up Seth’s bond. “Stop,” I say, loud and clear. “Stop. Seth, I need you. Right now.”
His gaze snaps to mine and I reach for him. When he gets close enough to me, I grab his hand and haul him out of the kitchen and into the bathroom down the hall. The second I shut the door behind us, he falls to his knees and wraps his arms around me. “What happened?” I rake my fingers through his hair and tug on the ends.
He swallows, his throat clicking audibly. “Nothing bad. The meeting went well.” He closes his eye and drags in lung-fulls of air, his nostrils flaring as he deeply takes in my scent.
“Okay. Good. Why are you upset if everything went well?”
He swallows again. “Minos wants me to have a seat on the West Coast Council.”
“That won’t work. You’re already on the East. He can’t ask you to give that up.”
“They want me to do it,” Seth’s fingers dig into the backs of my thighs. “They say it will help everything. And it would. I know it would. But I haven't even stepped fully into the seat my father vacated with his death. I haven’t been ready. Corso is sitting there until I get there.” He takes a few breaths, then whispers, “I think he should keep it.”
“Then he will,” I pull his hair back to make him look up at me. “You don’t have to sit on either or any council. I don’t care what any of them say. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. They can try to force the issue, but I won’t let them. I’ll take care of you.”
“Desir’ee,” he says softly, his blue eye brightening. “I think I just fell in love with you.”
I laugh and bend down to kiss his forehead. “Good, because I want ten kids.”
“Oh god.” If he wasn’t already on his knees, I’m confident he would have dropped to them from the tide of shock and worry I feel crashing through him.
I laugh again. “That’s something you can stress yourself out about instead of this council nonsense. And as far as you loving me goes, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you when you shared your dinner with me the first time I met you. I’ve just been afraid to let myself feel it. Now, let’s go back in there and tell them you’re not ready to make any council decisions, okay?”
“Okay.”
When we get back to the kitchen, we find a verbal free-for-all waiting for us. Some of them are arguing that we need Seth on the West Coast as a point of contact or influence, some of them are arguing that the East doesn’t need to mix itself up with the West’s bullshit any more than it already has, a couple of them aren’t saying anything at all, and Michael and Ben are just making sure that everyone remembers that Seth is a person and not a tool.
