Your alpha is finally waking up.
My alpha has always been awake, I threw back at my dragon.
You call being angry and shallow alpha behavior?
Malinekan rarely insulted me. Shallow I might cop to.Angry?
Most of the time,he replied.Anger is easier to deal with than grief.
Stop trying to sound like my therapist.
I moved through the mall toward the parking lot. Cassius lagged behind me. It had been a lot for him. A big day. A day of life-changes. The same could be said for me.
He looked good in his new clothes but he was still unsure about everything. So was I. Buying him whatever he needed killed some time. Soon, there would have to be some sort of conversation. A settlement between us.
After some silence, Cassius spoke. “I’m not sure what’s expected now. That makes me nervous.”
“Isn’t this better than where you were?”
“I don’t know that yet.”
“I’m not going to put you in solitary, drug you or rent you out or make you have a hundred babies until you’re fifty years old. How’s that for starters?”
“Uh, having a hundred would be impossible. But the rest is good. I guess.”
“You guess? Shouldn’t you be grateful?” I didn’t need him to sing my praises, but I thought I’d been clear. I had, after all, saved him.
Ah, that should make him trust you. Sweeping in as his savior.
Malinekan could be irritating when he was right.
“Okay. I get it. You’re facing something very new. So am I. I don’t have expectations except for the fact that you have nomeans to leave. I suppose that means you’re still a captive. But anything has to be better than where you were. You won’t have to see the ugly mugs of Jonah or Klonis again. That ought to be something.”
He sniffed, then let out a strange sound. Almost like a laugh. “The looks on their faces when you came up with the money…. I’ll never forget that.”
My cheeks tightened. My mouth shuddered into a smile. I didn’t do that a lot. Smile. It was like using muscles long left dormant.
“They looked like they’d just eaten shit. Both of them.”
“But now they have your money.”
“True. They shouldn’t have gotten a cent. It’s like rewarding bad behavior.”
Cassius looked at me. “You really believe that, right?”
“After looking up Brimstone yesterday, yes.”
“You really didn’t have an idea of what the ranch was?”
I winced. My ignorance was on purpose. “I had an idea.”
“But not experience.”
“Not the facts.”
“When I found out I was a set, I was ashamed. There were times I thought I deserved to be sold because I wasn’t good enough to be more than a brood slave.”
“And the rest of your pack was made up of people better than you?” I was disgusted he was taught this.
