Page 19 of Prodigy & Tybalt
“No,” she spluttered.“No.Shut the fuck up,” she growled when I kept laughing.
I kicked up the stand and brought my bike to life, and despite her snark, her arms locked tighter around me, aligned her body to mine. I tried not to notice all her softness pressed against me, tried not to imagine how it might feel to have her against my back and Tyb pressed up against my front.
I failed at both.
I was so screwed. She wouldn’t stay in the compound, so getting attached was an error. Some day, probably soon, she would leave. And if I wasn’t careful, she’d take half my heart with her.
10
Miraya
Irealised my standards for men were a little too low when Prodigy driving us to a bookshop made me swoon. This was the sweetest thing a non-blood-relative had ever done for me, and it made me weak.
You’ll leave the clubhouse as soon as the heat’s passed, and then you’ll never see him again. There’s no point starting anything with him.
The hormones insisted I could spend my heat with him and Tybalt. They’d both made their interest clear, which was dangerous to both my hormones and my sense. Not only did they smell amazing to my omega and make her literally preen with satisfaction at all their care, their touches, their insistent attention, but… they made me laugh. And when I laughed, the acid burn of rejection didn’t hurt as much.
Plus, there were those muscles I’d felt under Prodigy’s tight T-shirt, the impression of them burned into my palms.I swallowed, my mouth annoyingly full of saliva. My stomach cramped, but I ignored it like I’d ignored all the other cramps. I knew my underwear was drenched in slick, but at least it wasn’t a torrent of it like there’d be in the middle of my heat. I still had a day left.
I clung to that day like a life raft as Prodigy’s hands found my waist and helped me off the bike. I bit the inside of my lip, fighting the natural fluttering of my eyelids as they wanted to close. His touch feltso goodon my waist, his hands broad and possessive and soothingly warm without being too hot.
“Okay?” he asked, because I’d been too silent, fighting back a wave of need and desire so strong that I nearly buckled under it. I forced a nod, wavering towards him when his hands left my waist.
“Talk to me,” he urged gently. “Tell me what you need.”
You, knot deep inside me.
No. Bad hormones. Bad.
“I’m fine,” I rasped, shaking my head like that would clear out the fog of lust. I sucked fresh air into my lungs, the crispness of it working a little.
His green-hazel eyes were steady on me, not judging, not pressuring, just… calm. Concerned. “More contact? Less?”
“I’m fine,” I bit out, pushing dark curls back from my face. “I don’t have any money, so it was pointless bringing me to a bookshop.”
Prodigy scoffed. “As if I’d bring a woman to a bookshop and expect her to buy her own books.”
I gave him a wary glance. “If this is a ploy to guilt me into having sex with you, I’d like to remind you of the knife in my pocket.”
“I would very much like to hunt down whoever made you so distrustful of alphas, and use that knife to stab them in the eyeball.”
I blinked. “And here I thought Tybalt was the violent one.”
“Come on.” He brushed his hand over the small of my back, there and gone in a moment. “It’s going to rain, we’d better get inside.”
I stayed right where I was when he took a step towards the small, charming bookshop. Its front was in need of a repaint, and forest-green paint flaked off the door in places, but the arrangement of books and orange autumn leaves displayed in the window was appealing. It looked warm, and charmingly old, like a warren of secrets and hidden treasures.
“Why?” I asked. A part of me screamed to just follow him inside, let him spoil me if that’s what he wanted. But I’d been cynical and distrusting for too long to let someone in so easily.
Prodigy sighed, the sound a little… sad. “It fulfils a part of me I usually ignore,” he admitted, both hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his shoulders a little hunched. “The natural urge to care and provide for an omega. I usually ignore it, but this week it’s been… insistent.”
I digested that, and found it a little easier to accept his kindness since he was getting something out of it, too. “Why don’t you provide for Tybalt?”
“I do, in our own way, but he’s—well, you’ve met him.”
“A dick?”
“I was going to say resistant to softness, but sure, let’s go with that.” He smiled a little, not entirely looking at me, soft drizzle catching his hair and turning it frizzy. It was satisfying to see that one flaw in his physical perfection, even if it was less satisfying to realise my own hair suffered the same fate. “And he’s not a dick. Well, he is, but he’s also a good person. He feels strongly, and loves intensely, and once he decides to keep someone—as a friend or otherwise—he doesn’t let go.”
