Page 89 of Trust No Alpha

When he got to the basement door, he forced it open so hard it banged against the wall.

Abruptly, he turned.

“Do not follow me down here!”

I had never been in the basement before. I’d never had any need to go down there.

Now I wondered how I could not have been somewhat curious. What was down there? An Alpha Burn lair? A nest full of scorpions upon which he tortured himself during his Burns to stave off his precious guilt?

I had to see.

Of course I didn’t obey his command to go to my room.

He tried to slam the door in my face, but I caught it hard and yanked it back. He stumbled.

Ignoring me, he flew down the stairs two at a time.

I followed.

When I reached the bottom step, I saw only blackness. Fumbling my hand about the edges of the wall, I found a light switch and turned it on.

A haze of dim orange filled the room.

I saw a neatly made bed on the floor. It wasn’t dirty, but it looked cold and uninviting and it wasn’t on a frame. Beside it lay ribbons of sparkling silver and as I peered closer I saw they were chains with cuffs. The chains themselves were attached to an o-ring imbedded in the hardwood floor.

“Thorne.” I choked out his name. “Do you chain yourself down here every two months?”

No answer.

“Thorne!”

“I have to be sure I don’t wander during my blackouts and do something I can’t control. This is the only way to be sure.”

My mouth gaped open. “You think you’d hunt Omegas in your fever and not remember? That you’d actually take victims and rape them?”

“It’s been known to happen with the wilder, less controlled dangerous Alphas. It’s why we’re marked. Why there are special farms for us go to. But I refuse to use them.”

“Oh, Thorne.”

“Get out! Before I do something to you I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”

Thorne stood alone in just his robe in the center of the room and threw the blanket and the bag of toys on his mattress. He tore the robe from his body as if the material were burning his skin and threw it at the foot of the bed.

I saw a small fridge by one wall. I realized he probably stocked it with food and water for his days spent alone down here in the dark, raging and hot and hard with no one for company, no one to comfort him.

Tears sprang to my eyes.

“Did you not hear me?” He was turned away from me, naked and beautiful, his back flexing and gleaming with muscle, his hands fists at his sides. “Get out! Go lock yourself in your room now!”

“I won’t.”

He turned with a feral look. “You will!”

“You knew I wouldn’t leave you if it got this far from the first moment you decided to bring me back into your home. You brought me to stay, Thorne.”

“I was helping you!” His voice rose.

“You saw me through my Burn. You did things for me I never imagined another could do for me. You brought me awake. You made my heart full. You made me feel like I wasn’t the oddest misfit burden to ever walk this planet.”