Page 18 of Broken Alpha (Unwanted #1)

“B it is!” I grinned at him before pulling out of the restaurant parking lot, ignoring the curious and confused look Aidyn gave me.

I was having fun. Maybe a little too much fun, but it’s been amazing.

I enjoyed planning out the date locations and being with him.

We didn’t have to worry about anyone knocking on my office door or Harllow coming home early and catching us.

I got to be in the moment with someone I liked and felt like my heart would burst from overjoyment.

Pulling into the bookstore parking lot, I checked the time on my watch to ensure they didn’t close soon before stepping out of the car. Aidyn was already out of the car again before I could open the door for him, but he moved to my side, sliding his hand into mine.

“B for Bookstore. Clever. What was C?”

“Cat Cafe.” I smiled. “I love animals, and I thought it would be fun to pet cats and drink coffee after dinner.”

“Either way, I would’ve walked out with something. This way, we didn’t have to make any unplanned stops for pet supplies.”

A deep laugh rumbled through me, briefly picturing what it would be like to raise a cat with Aidyn.

The images brought on an odd warmth that blossomed through my chest, and I had to shake it from my mind as we entered the bookstore.

As children, we grew up being told to whisper in libraries, and I feel this carried over to bookstores as well, noise dampened by the pages of books.

As long as you’re not being obnoxious, you can talk at a normal volume level, but you forget that when you see how quiet bookstores are. You feel you have to whisper.

“Alright,” I said, looking at him. “I assumed the books in your apartment belonged to you, so I thought we could come here. But the idea was, I could pick a book out for you, and you pick a book out for me.”

Aidyn’s eyes brightened at the idea. “But what if I pick something you hate?”

“Judging by your bookshelf, that’s not possible. But if you do, I’ll still love it because you picked it out. I have no trigger warnings to avoid, and I read everything.”

“Same, but I am a sucker for a good dark romance. No triggers here either.”

“Sounds good. Let’s meet at the register in twenty minutes?” I suggested.

He smiled. “Make it thirty. I want to take my time.”

Before he could run off among the stacks, I stepped into his space, lifting his face to mine.

I couldn’t resist the urge to scent mark him, dragging my nose along his cheek, down his neck, and down into his hair.

The scents of the forest mixing with the daisy in his hair caused my Alpha to release a pleased sound from low in my chest. Somewhere along the way, my eyes had closed, and I opened them to find Aidyn had closed his as well, enjoying my marking.

With his eyes still closed, I leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on his soft pink lips before stepping away.

He opened his eyes, slightly unfocused as he glanced at me, and I headed for the romance stacks with a wink.

Over the past few years, the romance genre had blossomed, making other sections a little smaller so that romance could take over.

Despite this, outside of Pride Month, when certain titles were pulled from the shelves to display, it was rather hard to find gay romance readily available.

Not to say I read only gay romances, but it was something I easily identified with and enjoyed the romances that I never thought I’d have.

It was a way for me to explore my sexuality.

I never feared coming out to my parents.

Bringing home a man was treated the same way as if I had brought home a woman.

However, I was forced to have a conversation with my parents upon entering adulthood, that it was expected of me to set aside my preferences for the sake of duty.

Male Omegas were rare, and in our social circle worthy of my parents’ status, they were practically nonexistent.

Glancing up to search for Aidyn, I located him by the blue daisy still tucked behind his ear as he wove through the fiction shelves.

We had known each other less than a month, and I felt like I had known him my whole life, as if I had been waiting for him.

Internally, things were progressing quickly for me, yet something was drawing me toward him.

When we were apart, it felt like there was something missing inside me.

But I was also afraid. Of him, of myself.

He had the power to destroy me, and I was often irrational and obsessed with him, so I wondered if I was going insane.

My Alpha was sure he was ours, our mate, our everything.

My Alpha cared little about the timing and pace of a relationship, eager to mark him, form a Mates Bond with him, and tie us together for the rest of our lives.

My Alpha was ready for that bond the moment Aidyn stepped into my classroom.

But what if he didn’t feel the same way I did?

What if these feelings were one-sided? He mentioned he was worried about rushing us, but that didn’t quite mean he felt the same way I did.

My parents wouldn’t accept him. Keller wasn’t a name I had grown up hearing, so I knew he didn’t run in the same circles we did.

The size of his apartment, with the addition of a roommate, meant that wealth wasn’t in his background, unless they didn’t want to offer too much financial support.

But none of those things mattered to me.

I love him for who he is, but I knew telling my parents that I might’ve found a partner would be a pain in the ass.

I didn’t need them to like it, just to accept that I can make my own choice.

Shaking away my thoughts, I return to the books before me.

Instead of just pulling the books out to look at them, I tilted my head, straining to see the titles as if that was easier.

If a title catches my attention, I’ll pull out the book anyway, checking out the cover before reading the description.

Some people have said not to judge a book by a cover, but it’s a window into that world.

However, I personally will pass on a book due to character names.

I once found a book where the love interest was a man named Jason who was enraptured by his best friend, Teagan, and I couldn’t help but gag at the thought.

Not interested in the trauma that would be handed to me by two characters sharing the same name as my dad and sister.

The title caught my eye first, but it was the cover that kept my attention once I extracted it from the shelf.

A shirtless male surrounded by pine trees covered in fog stared back at me, the faint outline of a wolf's paw print in the background.

It was dark blue with the title ‘Fated Alpha’ in scripted font.

It appeared to be a wolf shifter romance about a lower member being kicked out of her pack for refusing the advances of her pack leader and running into another pack that was traveling through the state.

The summary alluded to some big secret the visiting pack was hiding and if the female main character could handle it while things heated up between her and the leader of the visiting pack.

While I thought Aidyn would devour this, I wanted to double-check if the book was part of a series.

The only trigger I truly had was that I hated books ending on cliffhangers, so I always double-checked in case I needed to grab the second book.

Pulling out my phone, I entered the book's title into the search bar.

The reader community never fails to let me down, and I instantly found that it did not end on a cliffhanger and that there were also several spicy scenes that readers went crazy for.

Apparently, the visiting pack leader was ‘amazing and a big cinnamon roll’ in regards to the main female lead.

However, another tag caught my eye as I was about to put my phone away.

Fated mates .

When you’re a kid, you often fantasize about finding your one true mate, your fated.

They were your mate, but the bond was supposed to be stronger and unchanging, and you couldn’t fight the pull you had on each other, an instant attraction that neither could fight.

I looked up at that moment to see Aidyn walking toward me, flower still in his hair, a smile on his face as our eyes met.

But fated mates were fiction, right? No way something like that existed. Right?

“Find something?” Aidyn asked, reaching out to me.

I realized then that even if it were fiction, it explained my pull toward Aidyn.

Why I had been feeling the way I did. I may not be his fated mate, but he was mine.

I looked for him first in a crowded room before giving it my attention, sought out his touch often because it calmed me, and I loved the feeling of his body against mine.

Maybe that was why I could scent his pheromones, despite the neutralizers, but not that of other Omegas.

I wasn’t broken; I was waiting for my one.

He is my mate, and I have to hope I am his.

The second I thought about it, it felt like the last puzzle piece had been slotted into place.

“Yea, did you?” I smiled at him, sliding my hand into his, and moved toward the register. He showed me the cover of a rather thick volume with a tall stone tower and an elf and human standing at its base.

“Apparently, they have to save the world from a high-elf wizard who believes that humans are less than the bugs beneath their feet. The human on the cover displays magic, but mages died out eons ago, and this elf is sent to kill him but can’t for reasons he doesn’t understand.”

When Aidyn talks about something that excites him or interests him, his eyes change to a bright meadow green, and I love that elated expression, how bubbly he gets.

It’s addicting. I showed him the cover of the book I grabbed for him, and he snatched it from me instantly, practically bouncing on his toes in excitement, explaining that this had been on his ‘Tbr’ pile for a while.

I wasn’t even aware that the book community had its own set of acronym code words until he explained that it's a short way to say ‘to be read’, and that it is simply never-ending for voracious readers like him.

I wondered briefly if getting him an e-reader in the future would be a smart investment.

We made our way up to the front counter, greeting the sales associate kindly, where Aidyn refused to hand me the book he picked out for me, stating that there was no way in hell he would let me buy my own gift.

All I could do was laugh at him until the sales associate stared at her computer dumbfounded.

“Sir, you have roughly $80 in rewards, but you can only use $35, did you—”

“No, I’m saving it, but thank you!’ Aidyn said, blushing when he caught my eye. “I read, sue me.”

“Saving them for what, though?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Sometimes I use them for textbooks, but honestly, I enjoy gifting books at Christmas, and that’s when I use the points.”

I was flabbergasted and also kind of in awe of him as we exchanged books before getting in the car.

For someone who reads as much as he did, I couldn’t imagine the level of self-restraint not to use the discount for books.

His eyes held such excitement as he flipped through the pages, listening to the soft shuffle they made as they flipped into place.

His happiness was so visible that it warmed me from the inside.

But then reality crashed into me as I realized the night was over.

I had an idea of one more place to take him, but then what?

I couldn’t keep him with me the whole night, and I was worried that proposing that he come to my place would be too much.

“What’s the matter?” His voice dragged me from my thoughts.

“If I’m honest, I don’t want tonight to end, and I don’t want to take you back to your apartment.”

“Who said you had to take me to my home?”