Page 70 of Alpha Heat

Janus only stood there with his pecan pie, smiling like he had the upper hand.

“Stop!” Caleb’s voice cut into the room again. “No fighting. No dueling, either. He’s not worth it, Xan.”

“Who says I wouldn’t win?”

“Me,” Janus said, laughing.

Caleb went white as a sheet and stalked to him, took the pie from his hand, and shoved it into his face, smearing the butter and syrup concoction all over his flushed cheeks and up into his hair.

Janus gasped, his eyes wide. “What—but, why—and—”

Caleb kicked Janus in the shin. Hard. Then he elbowed him in the back of the head, felling him to the floor.

“Never insult my alpha again,” Caleb hissed. “Or I’ll murder you in your sleep, you sorry, pompous, self-absorbed, lying, manipulativeprick!”

Xan blinked in shock, staring as Caleb spun on his heel again and stomped from the room. Janus struggled up from the ground, his hands clutching his shin, his face smeared with pie. He sat back on his haunches, blinking dazedly after Caleb through the sticky goo. “Wow. Maybe he is immune to my charms after all.”

“You think?”

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

Xan almost commanded Janus to go tell Caleb himself, and on his knees at that, but he bit it back, not wanting Janus to upset Caleb any further.

Janus huffed and said with a surprising earnestness, “I didn’t mean to upset him, Xan, I swear. I thought with our history, he’d take my comments in the vein I meant them, but I guess he still holds a grudge.” He rose slowly to his feet and wiped his hand over his face, gathering some of the pie goo before sticking his fingers into his mouth. “Delicious.”

“Get out of my sight.”

Janus rolled his eyes, but then seemed to remember that he was talking to the irritated alpha of the omega who’d just taken him down several pegs. He bowed his head. “Don’t mention this to your father, all right? Give me a chance to make it up to Caleb.”

“Is that all you care about? My father?” Xan didn’t know if his father would even believe him if he ratted out Janus. However, a call from Caleb would do the trick. He chewed on his cheek, trying to breathe through the urge to sock his cousin in the face.

“Of course that’s not all I care about.” Janus’s wide eyes made a good show of regret. “Truly, I’m sorry. For today, and for anything I said to hurt him since he arrived here.” He hesitated before his eyes dropped to the carpet. “And, most especially, for what happened in the past. Tell him I said that, and I sincerely mean it, all right?”

Xan gritted his teeth and tried to imagine what his father would say if he called and told him,“I brained Janus with a candlestick in the middle of the dining room for flirting with Caleb.”He cleared his throat and pointed at Janus. “Let this be a lesson. Don’t mess with Caleb again or give me any reason to come at you. Don’t speak of whatever happened in the past. Never make him unhappy for even a second. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Xan turned on his heel, his blood boiling, and an itchy, rageful desire to dispatch his cousin to the great wolf-den beyond still aching in him. Instead, he headed upstairs in search of Caleb and answers.

Xan found Caleb in his room, his windows open, letting the frigid ocean air pour in. He stood facing out the sash, his shoulders trembling and his hands clenching the windowsill.

“I should have told you the first day,” he said miserably.

Xan said nothing, his usually fast-running mouth fused shut. He sat on Caleb’s now-volumous bed, and the soft cushions and blankets cradled him. He tugged one blanket up over his shoulders to keep his shivering at bay.

He waited.

Out the window the clouds scattered across the sky, the setting sun shone on the water, and the rush and fall of the waves rose like a soothing whisper. The anger leeched out of him, and he waited some more, an inhuman patience settling over him. He’d wait as long as it took for Caleb to tell him.

Eventually, Caleb turned from the view.

“I loved him,” Caleb said as he walked slowly toward Xan and took hold of his hand. “Philia love, of course. As always. Brotherly love. But not as profoundly as I love you.”

“All right.”

“But, at the time, I thought I might grow to care for him as deeply.”

Xan tugged him onto the mattress and cuddled him close, both of them stretching out and getting under the blankets. Caleb shook against his body, chilled from the window and clearly rattled by old emotions.