Page 62 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
Another three seconds of silence. Ren looked up and met Jax’s expression, which wasn’t one of mockery or amusement but of genuine incomprehension. As if Ren had spoken to him in a language that didn’t exist.
“Wait. Let me get this straight.” Jax leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Yesterday you were the one who went to his office to ask him to help you with your heat. You slept with him in his bed willingly, sealing the bond between you. And today you’re telling him you don’t want to sleep in his bed because fucking doesn’t mean being together.”
Put that way, it sounded awful. Ren clenched his jaw.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple.” Jax ran a hand over his face. “Ren, do you know what it means to an alpha when his destined omega seeks him out during his heat?”
The wind rustled the magnolia leaves.
“I’m not his omega.”
“You are. You know it. He knows it. Everyone in this damn house knows it because you two reek of each other in a waythat gives me a headache.” Jax looked him straight in the eye. No amusement, no mockery, just a gravity Ren had never seen in him before. “When a destined omega seeks out his alpha during his heat and asks him to take him, for the alpha, that’s an acceptance. Not of sex. Of the bond. Of everything. It’s the holiest thing that exists between fated mates, and you gave it to him and then ripped it away as if it meant nothing.”
Something snapped inside Ren’s chest. Not with a crash. With a dull crack, like an old branch giving way under the weight of snow.
“I didn’t know…”
“What didn’t you know? Haven’t you read that book I saw you fiddling with in the library about fated mates?”
“Apparently I didn’t get to that part.”
“Well, you should have read it before you went and climbed into the bed of an alpha who’s been tearing himself apart inside for days just to keep from touching you.”
The words landed on Ren like stones. One by one. Precise. Necessary.
He remained silent. The birds kept singing. The jasmine kept smelling. The world kept turning as if it hadn’t tilted on its axis.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Jax.”
“I know.”
“I was dying of pain. I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t think.”
“I know.” Jax softened his voice by half a degree. Just half. “But he doesn’t know that. He only knows that his partner came to him, gave himself to him, and this morning walked out of his bed without saying a word, and now he’s telling him that fucking isn’t the same as being together.”
Ren lowered his feet to the floor. The gravel pricked through the thin soles of his borrowed shoes.
“It’s not that I don’t want…” he started, then fell silent.
“It’s not that you don’t want what?”
“A relationship with him.”
Jax raised an eyebrow. He waited.
“It’s just that I don’t know what to do with my life, Jax.” Ren rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. They stung. “A week ago I was at home thinking my father had sold me for one more night, like always. Then it turns out he’s sold me for a year. Then they auction me off like cattle. Then a stranger hands me a piece of paper. Then I run away. Then I end up here. Then it turns out I have a partner who smells like everything I’ve ever wanted and never had. And my body says yes, but my head doesn’t even know where I am or who I am or if I’ll still be alive tomorrow or if they’ll sell me again.”
His voice cracked on the last sentence. Just a little. Just enough.
Jax didn’t touch him. He didn’t come closer. But his presence grew denser, more solid, like a wall blocking the wind.
“Tell him that.”
“Tell him what?”
“What you just told me. That it’s not that you don’t want him. It’s that you don’t even know who you are right now.”
