Page 50 of The Omega's Fake Mate

“C'mon then. Into the living room,” the alpha-asshole said, leading us there. Once we'd taken seat on his red leather couch, he asked, “So how long have you two been married?”

“Oh, not too long,” Zander answered for me. “We're still newly-wed. Still crazy about each other.” With that, he leaned in to give me a kiss. Just a quick peck on the lips, really. It shouldn’t have roused me, but for some reason, it did. Heat crawled along my spine and down to my groin. I stared at Zander as we broke.

What was going on?

Zander didn't seem to notice there was anything wrong and resumed talking to Jeremiah. “You must know what that feels like. You and Rhys haven't been married that long either, have you?”

“No, true.” Jeremiah glanced in the direction of the door, as if wondering why Rhys was taking so long with the coffee. “We've been together long enough to have settled into our lives together, though. Long enough to have told our families that we're married.”

Oh, that was definitely a dig at me. I tried to shake the odd feeling Zander’s kiss had caused in me so I could speak. “Well, the two of us eloped,” I said, intertwining our fingers and making doe eyes at Zander. “We just couldn't wait.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “Some things are worth the wait. We want to do everything the proper way. Engagement, then marriage, then kids, then—”

“You're thinking about having kids?” I cut in, feeling something cold run down my back. Kade had told me once that he had to escape the Vinist community before he had any kids. If he hadn't, he would have been tied to his husband—and the Vinist community—forever.

I didn't want that kind of fate for my brother. Even if it was his own stupid choice, he didn't deserve that. I needed to figure out what had gotten into him and get it out of him, and fast.

“Are you okay?” Zander rubbed my back. “You've gone kind of pale.”

“I'm fine,” I said, even though I really wasn't. My brother was an idiot and my fake husband made me feel like I was getting a fever.

“What's wrong with wanting to have kids?” Jeremiah asked. “Of course, we want kids.”

“Uh...” I didn't have a reply for that. As much as I wanted to tell him exactly why I didn't want my brother to have kids with him, I didn't want to get thrown out of the house yet.

Before I could stumble my way through a response, Rhys came into the living room, carrying a tray with coffee mugs. Like a good omega, I jumped up to help him. “We need to talk in private,” I whispered to him before I lifted two mugs off the tray for Zander and me.

“In the morning” he whispered back.

I gave a subtle nod and sat back down beside Zander, a fake smile plastered on my face.

The morning couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

After dinner—a chicken casserole my brother had prepared, served and cleaned up entirely without his mate’s help—Rhys showed us to the guest room so we could settle in for the night.

“It’s not very big,” he said as he opened the door, “but I think it’s kind of cozy.”

“The whole house is very cozy,” Zander responded, stepping inside with both my bag and his own. I had to agree with him; the house was nice. I did have a problem with some of the interior decoration, though. There was so much religious stuff here it was ridiculous. Oppressive, really. I didn’t need my lord and savior smiling at me from every corner of the house. Even the guest room had a painting of Jesus. Hung above the king-size bed, of all places.

“Thank you,” Rhys said. “Have a good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I caught myself thinking again that morning had better come here soon, because now I was realizing that I had to spend the night here in this bed with the alpha I was developing an unhealthy crush on.Great. I’d only thought about getting here, but not much further than that. Looking around the room again, I tried to find something to distract me from the inevitable, and maybe Zander was doing the same thing, because he spoke up first.

“This house has alotof Jesus paintings, doesn’t it?” He was looking at the one above the bed, which depicted God’s son in white robes.

“The Vinists believe that he was alpha, did you know that?” Kade had told me about the Vinist belief system once. It ran contrary to the popular belief that God’s son existed outside the alpha/beta/omega system, loving all people the same, just like his father did. “They claim Jesus was alpha and all his disciples were betas.”

“Aside from the one who betrayed him,” Zander added. So he was familiar with the story.

I shook my head. “One hormone crazed omega betrays Jesus and we all have to be second-class citizens forever. Damn convenient, isn’t it?”

“It’s not a belief system I would put a lot of faith in,” Zander said, digging through his bag. Was he going to change? In here? I licked my lips, unable to decide whether I liked that idea or not. I was in enough trouble sleeping in the same room as him without seeing him naked first.

But I did want to see him naked.

To my relief and my dismay, Zander left for the bathroom with his bag in hand. Well then. I stripped down to my shirt and boxers before my fake mate came back wearing a light blue pajama. He’d obviously put a little more thought into preparing for this trip than I had, showing no skin. Part of me was relieved, and part of me was disappointed.