Silence. The air between them grew tense. Brody didn’t move, but his scent changed. It grew denser, darker, the sweetness of raisins crushed beneath something wild and hot. Ren took an involuntary step back, his body seeking distance while every nerve ending begged him to do the opposite.
Brody took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a register Ren hadn’t heard before, a rough, animal whisper that vibrated in his eardrums.
“You’re mine.”
Ren stopped breathing.
“I’ve known it since I opened that door and you fell to your knees. I knew it before I saw your face,” Brody didn’t move closer. He didn’t move a muscle. But every syllable fell on Ren as if it were caressing him. “And you know it, too. Whatever you’re feeling, that pull you can’t explain, is the bond. And it’s okay to acknowledge it, because I already have.”
Ren opened his mouth, and closed it.
“But I will not do anything about it for the moment.” Brody lifted his chin. His expression hardened. “Not unless you want me to.”
Chapter 6
Ren clenched his fists at his sides. He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw himself at Brody and beat him until he stopped saying things that tore him apart inside and, at the same time, he wanted to sink into that scent of raisins and walnuts and the warmth of home and stay there forever. That duality made him so sick to his stomach that he had to rest his hand on the windowsill.
“I’m not yours.”
His voice came out broken. He hated that fragility. He cleared his throat and repeated it.
“I’m not yours. I don’t belong to anyone.”
Brody didn’t react. Not a blink. Not a shift in posture. Just those intense gray eyes watching him with infinite patience, as if Ren were a wounded animal that shouldn’t be startled.
“I’ve said what I had to say.”
“Well, you didn’t have to say any of that.”
Brody shrugged. A minimal gesture that shifted the muscles beneath the black fabric of his t-shirt. Ren looked away.
The problem wasn’t what Brody had said. The problem was that every cell in Ren’s body agreed with him. Every damn cell. He could feel that churning in his gut, in his fingertips, in that softspot behind his knees that went weak when Brody looked at him for too long. His body was a traitor. It had always been that way—second gender, omega nature, biology designed to submit—but never to that extent. Never with that intensity that erased his thoughts and filled his head with white static.
He didn’t love Brody. He didn’t know him. He didn’t know who he was beyond an alpha with a mansion that was too big, a distant relative of a man who organized omega auctions, and a friend of a guy named Rocco who stepped in from time to time to rescue some of them. That wasn’t enough to trust him. That wasn’t enough for anything.
But his body didn’t see it that way, and that made him want to tear his own skin off.
The silence stretched on until it ceased to be awkward and became something else. A wordless agreement. Brody stepped away from the dresser, and the tension between them seemed to vanish.
“Have you seen the mansion?”
Ren blinked.
“No.”
“Good. Come.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He headed for the door and walked out. He hadn’t closed it when he went in, and Ren realized then that the gesture had been deliberate. Even now, by leaving it open again, he was giving him the choice to follow him or stay. Ren chewed the inside of his cheek and followed him.
The hallway was long, with high ceilings adorned with plaster moldings and a dark wooden floor that creaked under his bare feet. Brody walked ahead, two steps ahead, close enough for hisscent to reach Ren in bursts rather than a constant wave. Ren didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose. He probably was.
“This is the library.”
Brody pointed to a double door on the left without stopping. Ren glimpsed floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves, worn leather armchairs, and an unlit fireplace.
“You can use it whenever you want.”
They turned a corner. The staircase, wide and with a wrought-iron banister. They went down to the first floor. Brody’s scent mingled with others: furniture polish, fresh coffee, something that might be toast. Ren’s stomach was empty and aching, but he wasn’t sure he could swallow anything.
