Page 21 of Bewitched

H er mother had called her a whore. Screamed it in front of everyone. They all knew what she was now. Omega. Whore. Homewrecker. Nothing changed. Nothing for the better. No. Everything was infinitely worse now.

Layla stared into the blank space in front of her. She couldn’t see anything — just sort of colors. Maybe she was crying, but she couldn’t tell. Everything was numb like she was floating.

She stepped forward, and big hands gripped her arms, jerking her backward. She hit a wall behind her, warm — near burning — Alpha.

She tipped her head back, but she couldn’t see anything there either, just a dark blob surrounded by light. She couldn’t make it make sense, so she stopped thinking about it.

She was too focused on her father. She could remember warm winter nights by the fire, listening to Aslin purr happily as his pups played on the floor, Roan sitting at his feet, and her mother knitting in her chair. It was a picture-perfect family… except for all the cracks. But Layla had thought… she had always thought that her parents were happy together. Her father always smelled happy.

“Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person?” she asked. She didn’t think they were supposed to, not when they were mated.

The wall moved, and so did she. The hands around her arms shook her roughly. It hurt her head, but she only frowned. “Ow.”

“Layla!”

She flinched from the sound. Loud and aggressive and unnecessary. Damn rude alphas. “What?”

There was pressure on her face, and her eyes were tipped up. The dark blob in front of her shifted and swirled. “Do you know where you are?”

It was Jaxon’s voice. Of course, he would be the rude alpha. She leaned forward into his hands, glancing at the bright hazy light. “Your den.”

“No,” he said, his hands now tight on her cheeks.

She grimaced. She reached for him, and by the second grab, she caught his shirt and squeezed.

Ding!

She turned toward the sound.

“Look at me, kitten.”

“I am.” He was blurry and wavy, like looking through an unfocused lens. Her whole body sort of hurt, like her muscles were too tight. She hoped she could lie down soon. Alpha might take her somewhere quiet to sleep, but there were all sorts of things that needed to be sorted. Maybe that’s what was wrong with her parents. They didn’t talk about what they expected for their lives with each other. “I was thinking. I want to go back to school. Not right now. Next semester, I think. I want to get my degree.”

“Okay,” Alpha said slowly.

Layla smiled. She liked it when he agreed with her. “I can move my stuff from the omega dorms… if there’s room.”

“There’s room,” Alpha said. “Layla, do you know where you are?”

She blinked and looked around. The blurry room came into focus for a moment. She was in the den bedroom. It was sort of dark, with a small sliver of light shining through the curtains. “Oh… are we in the den now? I think I got lost.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s get you into bed.”

Jaxon tugged on her shirt until she lifted her arms and let him strip her bare, down to her underwear, and then he took those, too. She tried to grab at them, but she still couldn’t see very well, and he tossed them aside. She grumbled as he shooed her under the blankets, lifting them until she was between the sheets.

They were cool and smooth, and she hated it a little bit. It wasn’t a nest, but it smelled a bit like one. And they hadn’t finished talking.

He pulled his own shirt off and dropped it on top of the blankets, then his pants and boxers, leaving him bare and hard before her.

She shied away into the blankets. They hadn’t talked about this. “I don’t want to have pups yet.”

Her alpha grunted and then said, “Okay.”

Jaxon slid under the covers and reached for her, and she cautiously let him wrap her up in his arms. He was warm, near scorching, but she was shivering.

His hands were on her neck, on her scent gland, but she was too cold to feel it. She swallowed against his palm. “My dad loved my mom,” she said.

“I know,” he said, stroking his hand down her side and pulling her leg over his so he could bring her closer.

“No, listen,” she said. “He was an alpha, and she was a beta. He never bonded with an omega because it was true love. It had to be because every alpha wants an omega. But my dad didn’t because he loved my mom.”

Alpha sighed, his hands brushing through her hair. “Layla—”

She stroked her hand down his chest, absorbing his heat, feeling the tickle of hair on her palm. She had to make him understand. “But there was this one omega. She was everything that Mom wasn’t. Everything she couldn’t be. She was a whore that seduced my dad and tried to steal him away. He was an alpha. He was weak. They’re all weak. But Dad loved my mom so much that he came back because he knew what real love was. You know? But he’s responsible and honorable, and he brought Roan back with him. That whore’s pup.”

Jaxon cupped his hand over her belly. Something in his scent was sad. “That wasn’t true.”

Layla shivered because it was true. It had to be. She had built her whole life on it. “Omegas are awful. They steal good alphas from good marriages.”

“That’s not—”

Panic rose in her chest. She had to make him understand. Her mother wasn’t wrong. Not really. What she said wasn’t a lie. Layla, the omega, was a whore. “No, listen to me. Omegas are monsters. They eat up every alpha that looks their way. They can’t escape. Alphas kill each other over omegas.”

Jaxon flinched, looking up and away from her. “I didn’t want to think she twisted you up that bad, but here we are.”

Her heart sank. “It’s true.” He had killed for her. He’d threatened to do it again.

He growled, and she cringed down and buried her nose under his chin. “Fucking hell. It’s not. Take everything your mother ever told you about omegas and throw it in the bin. Betas don’t know shit, and that includes you. You think I didn’t know what I was doing? You think I smelled your magical pussy and went insane?”

Layla laughed, but it was pulled from her bitter and tired. “Alphas are stupid. Ruled by their libidos.”

He grunted, and she could smell the burning rubber of his frustration. “I knew. Every step, I knew. That night wasn’t the first time I thought about putting my hand around your neck and leading you away. Keeping you in my den for the rest of your sad, miserable life. Keeping you naked and fat and pupped until you’re wasted away to nothing. Just an omega hole you keep accusing me of wanting.” He hissed in a breath, and his hands gripped her tighter. “I saw another alpha threatening you. He wanted to take you. I couldn’t have that. You belonged to me or no one.”

Fear and elation bloomed in Layla’s chest. Alpha wanted her, but he would have her completely. Nothing left behind for herself. No will of her own. And that continued to be frightening. “Oh.”

Jaxon snarled again, teeth sharp and breath hot. “Your mother wasn’t wrong there.”

Layla glanced up at him. His glare was mighty and stern, angry like when he had first found her in the forest. Her core throbbed at the threat in his eyes. “About what?”

He pushed her onto her back and slid overtop of her, knees on either side of her hips. She pulled her arms close into her body as if he would strike out if she didn’t make herself small. He hovered above her, a growl vibrating in his throat. “I can be your nightmare, kitten. I can be the things your mother called me. Be the animal in your bed.”

He licked a stripe across her chest, leaving a long line of saliva to prickle cold across her body. She grimaced and thought maybe she should be more afraid than she was. “No.”

He growled, and Layla turned her face from his angry breath. It only revealed her neck for his teeth. “Or I can tell Damian to put me in a cage, bury me deep until I can control myself. Until we’re both broken and bleeding, but we’ll be free. You’ll be free.”

“Jaxon, don’t be cruel,” she begged.

He bit down on a tender scent gland, flooding her system with another rush of endorphins. She gasped and moved her legs restlessly, but they were trapped closed under his body. She could feel his hard cock on her belly, threatening to invade her again.

“Alpha,” he grunted a correction and pressed himself closer, laying his weight on her.

She sighed. She did like this. When his whole body was heavy on her, she could forget when they were like this. She only needed to concentrate on her mate.

He licked her neck and down her chest to her breasts. He snuffled at her nipples before taking one into his mouth and suckling. She moaned and arched her back into him, tangling her fingers in his hair.

But he didn’t stay there long, licking her belly, pressing his teeth into the soft swell, leaving behind a wandering trail of saliva and scent. Marking her as his.

It still felt strange when she was sober. No heat making her crave. But it still felt good, tender despite his words, drawing arousal from her with every swipe of his tongue and teeth. She kept her eyes closed, blocking out the swirling, dizzying sensations.

He spread her legs around him as he licked and nipped at her inner thighs. She jumped as he found a ticklish tendon. He did it again, and Layla squealed, trying to clamp her legs closed around his head, but he held her down, focusing on the tender spot.

“Jaxon,” she breathed, begging for relief.

He nipped her thigh harder. “Alpha.”

“Alpha,” she said.

“Good girl,” he praised and licked directly through her wet folds.

She gasped.

Layla tried to bring her knees up, hide herself away, protect her body from the relentless sensations, but she could barely struggle as he sucked on her clit. She arched into his mouth with a cry. It wasn’t the all-consuming hunger of her heat, but it felt so good. She squirmed and gasped as his tongue flicked over her, reaching inside her. She grabbed his hair, and he grunted but kept his face pressed to her core, wrapping his arms over her thighs, keeping her spread and vulnerable.

She couldn’t say where she was at that moment. In their bed, in their nest, on the conference room table? She had no idea, but she knew Alpha would take care of her.

Everything sounded so sloppy and slick, carnal. The sensations pooled in her belly and in her clit, making her core leak. Alpha slurped it away like a man dying of thirst. She itched, and he scratched, dragging her higher and higher until she burst, like a shower of stardust sprinkling back to earth.

She shuddered and trembled, and Jaxon was over her again. He pressed her down, staring into her eyes. His mouth tasted like her musk and slick as he kissed her, and she tentatively savored her own flavor.

Alpha pressed his cock against her belly, shifting his hips against her.

She flinched, releasing his mouth and turning her face from him. She didn’t know if she could take more rutting. She would, for her alpha, but her body ached.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he said, putting his hand around the back of her neck. “Good girl, just this.”

He rubbed his cock against her stomach and took her hand to wrap it around his cock. He held her hand steady as he pumped himself into her fist. His skin was sticky, wet, and soft over hard, blood-filled muscle. Her fingers couldn’t close around his girth.

She chirped at him, the worried sound pulled from her instinctively.

Alpha nuzzled her cheek, licking her before finding her mouth again, and she settled into letting him fuck her mouth with his tongue while her sore center remained empty.

“Omega, good girl,” he whispered between kisses. “Mine.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

His rutting stuttered, and he gasped into her mouth, spilling over her fingers and onto her stomach. His whole body trembled over hers, and she wanted to hold him in that instant, crawl inside her skin, and never leave.

But he left her, falling to his side of the bed and purring blissfully. She turned her head to watch him. He pushed his damp hair out of his eyes, ignoring the scars it revealed. He laid his hand over her stomach, rubbing his seed into her skin, over her womb, where he had filled her days ago. The smell was weirdly comforting, their scents mixed and raw.

He scooped up some of his spend and brought it to her core, mixing it with her slick. She watched quietly as he followed some base instinct that eluded her.

Jaxon sighed and laid his hand on her thigh. Whatever he was thinking was beyond her understanding. Her chest ached where his emotions sat, but they tumbled too tumultuously for her to catch them.

He was quiet, though, and so was she. She stared at the ceiling and listened for the refrigerator, the only idle sound in the apartment. She couldn’t hear the traffic far below or the thump of neighbors. It was almost like it was just the two of them in all the world. She liked it — just the two of them forever.