Underneath the surface, my Alpha is tearing apart the walls.
The possessive satisfaction thrumming through my bloodstream is nauseating in its intensity because my Alpha doesn't care about motivation or that Kit's attention comes wrapped in spite rather than affection. It only registers the result: an entire evening of Kit's focus, energy, and presence, aimed exclusively at me. The rest is noise.
"Are you going to tell me where we're going, or is the mystery part of the punishment?" I call out, Kit's shoulders tightening further without him turning around.
"You don't get to ask questions. You lost that right when I swiped my card."
"Technically the card hasn't been charged yet. You could still return me. I think they have a satisfaction guarantee."
He stops walking and turns on his heel, his dark eyes snapping to mine. His cheeks are flushed, the pink creeping down his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of that cream sweater, his hair windblown from the walk, curling against his temples. The pearl necklace shifts against his throat as he breathes and I track the movement before I can stop myself.
"There is no universe in which you satisfy me," Kit growls, his voice clipped but it’s still soft, which is both amusing and adorable. "Let's get that clear right now."
"And yet here we are." I close the distance between us with three easy strides, watching the way his chin lifts to maintain eye contact as I get closer. He doesn't step back and I both admire and resent him for it. "You could have bid on Marcus. He's nicer than me. Devon's got a better GPA. Terrell can actually dance."
"I didn't wantnice." The words come out sharper than I think he intended because something flickers across his face right after, a brief awareness that he's said more than he meant to.
"No," I agree, my voice dropping lower. "You didn't."
Kit starts chewing on his bottom lip before turning away, resuming his march across the quad. I follow, because that's apparently what I'm doing tonight, and the silence between us is so charged I can practically taste it.
Kit clearly thought this through, probably mapped out the least romantic location on campus and made a beeline for it. Inside, the commons is mostly empty, a few students scattered across the main floor with laptops and headphones, the cafe counter staffed by one bored Beta scrolling on their phone. Kit claims a table in the far corner, dropping into a chair and crossing his arms over his chest before nodding at the seat across from him.
"Sit."
I raise an eyebrow. "Did you just command an Alpha to sit?"
"I paid thirty-five hundred dollars for the privilege. Sit down, Easton."
The way he says my name shouldn't do anything to me. It's two syllables, nothing special, and he's said it a hundred times before, each time laced with varying degrees of contempt. But something about the way it sounds right now, all authority and control from a five-foot-nothing Omega with his arms crossedand his chin up, hits a place in my chest that I wasn't prepared for.
I pull out the chair and drop into it, not because he told me to but because watching Kit try to dominate this situation is the most entertaining thing that's happened to me all semester.
"Here's how tonight works." Kit leans forward, his elbows on the table, and I notice that his hands are trembling. He’s doing his best to hide it by lacing his fingers together. "You do what I say. All night. No arguments, no comments, no smirking."
"I'm already smirking."
"Stop it."
"Can't. Biological response."
The flush on his neck deepens and his scent spikes, the black cherry thickening in a way that tells me his body is responding to this dynamic more favorably than his words suggest. He doesn't realize what he's broadcasting, or maybe he does and he's hoping I won't notice. I noticed everything about Kit from the first moment I caught his scent in that stairwell six months ago, and that's the whole goddamn problem.
"I'm going to give you a list of tasks," Kit continues, his voice holding steady even as his scent betrays him. "And you're going to complete them without complaint. Think of it as community service for being a terrible person."
"What kind of tasks?"
"Degrading ones. Embarrassing ones. The kind that make you wish you'd been nicer to me for the last six months." His eyes glitter with satisfaction as he says it, and I'd be lying if I said the look wasn’t one of my favorites. "You're going to carry my bag across campus. You're going to buy me whatever I want from the cafe with your own money. You're going to sit through an entire movie of my choosing, no complaints, and when we're done, you're going to walk me back to my dorm and thank me for the evening."
"Thank you for the evening," I repeat, letting the words sit between us. "You want the Alpha who's been making your life hell to thank you for the privilege."
"That's exactly what I want."
I lean back in my chair and study him. Kit thinks he's in control right now. He planned this, rehearsed it, and probably practiced the speech in his mirror. And the plan is solid, humiliating enough to sting, and petty enough to satisfy. If I were the person he thinks I am, the one-dimensional bully who shoves Omegas into lockers for fun, I'd be furious.
But I'm not that person. Kit just doesn't know it yet.
I lean forward, matching his posture, my face close enough to his that I can see the way his pupils dilate when my scent reaches him.
