His eyes shoot open then squint in question at me.
“Did you…?” I swallow hard. “Did you hear that?”
Zephyr seems to concentrate on something, his whole face growing taut as he sits up on his knees and peers down at me. His teeth sink into that plump bottom lip again, and he blinks before scooping his hand beneath my back, pulling my chest to his, and flipping us so he’s on his back, and I’m straddling his hips, sitting on him fully.
His expression is serious as he peers up at me, one hand gripping my hip, the other grasping my fingers. When he speaks, it’s airy and quiet. “I don’t think I can control myself with you.”
I tilt my head at him, brows furrowed. “Why would you have to?”
He groans, his hips pop up against my core, then fall back down to the mattress. “I’m not…” He swallows, takes a deep breath. “I’m not like other male Omegas.” His voice is pained as he says it, and pressure builds in my chest. I run my other hand down to cover his on my hip.
His head tilts back, revealing his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m big,” he whispers. “Tall, muscular, and—” he cuts himself off, pulling me into his hips and grinding against me with a groan that ends on a sigh. “For all those traits, I’m still an Omega.”
I wince, finally able to voice the question that’s been hovering in the back of my mind. “Do you… do you wish you weren’t an Omega?”
He stills beneath me, and a moment of panic overtakes my form, but he sighs and lets his head fall to one side as he looks across the room at the vacant bed that once belonged to Mira. “I never questioned my designation until I came here. I’d never been around others so freely. Anyone I interacted with at length in Tenebrosa was a Beta. Any of the other prisoners…” his head shakes, lips purse. He looks back up at me. “Being an Omega doesn’t bother me as much as the thought that I can’t give you what you want. What you need.”
“What do you mean?”
His silence feels like an eternity. Then: “I can’t produce life.”
I do my best to school my reaction. These monsters took his uterus, and as an omega, he has no sperm. But he has no idea...
“Can I confess something?”
“Anything.”
“I’ve never wanted children.”
He blinks.
“It’s true,” I say, head shaking. “Even before I found out I was Cursed, I never wanted children. I wanted love, sure, but motherhood never appealed to me.” A bitter laugh bursts from my lips. “I never told anyone that before. As a Cursed, it was never expected I’d have children unless forced to in a lab setting—” My words cut off, and I turn my fearful eyes down on him.
“It’s okay, darlin’. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me.” His hand rubs my hip. “Go on.”
Swallowing hard before continuing, the words just fall from my lips. “I never confessed this selfish desire to just be with a male who loved me forever. Just… us.”
My vision swims at the confession that my family would have said was ridiculous if I’d never discovered my power. Theywould have chosen an Alpha mate for me, went to the local Council for approval, and married me off to him, making me someone else’s financial burden.
Zeph pulls me down to him, rests my head beneath his chin as he wraps his arms around me. In his tight embrace, tears slipping from my eyes to his bare chest, he says, “I can give you that. I will love you forever. Just us.”
I sigh without meaning to.
He stills. “What’s wrong?”
“It may be just us, Zeph.”
His fingers run along my spine, up and down in a soothing motion. “What’s the issue with those two?”
I huff, rub my face into his sternum, take in his scent and let it wash peace over me. “Erich is a stubborn man. Always has been. And I guess Laurant is, too, in his own way.”
“Tell me about them.”
A humorless laugh builds in my chest. “Erich is a pyromancer—but I think you knew that already. And Laurant, he’s empathic but can also sometimes wordlessly share his thoughts.”
“I meant, tell me about them as people. What are they like?”
Ah. I hug Zeph tighter. “Erich has basically been my stalker since I arrived at the juvie facility,” I whisper. “He’s watched me, never getting too close, but always… there. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it until he was moved here ahead of me, and I was without him for a couple of years.” Heaviness builds in my chest at the memory of him no longer following in my shadow. The pain of realizing how much I’d missed him. “When I finally caught up to him, I thought for sure he’d be happy to see me. Maybe even talk to me for once.” I huff. “I wasn’t asking for him to mate me, just…”
