Page 80

“Please,” I whispered, and I started to undulate in the other seat again, the frenzy coming back for me. “Please, alpha, please.”

“You don’t need my permission to do things, Leo,” he muttered.

Oh, that felt bad. That felt cold. That felt like rejection. “You called me omega,” I said. It was an accusation. “You took charge for me.”

“You needed that,” he said. “But I am not your alpha.”

I moaned, and it hurt. His words felt like violence. I cried out at the force of it and then sobs began to rack me. “Let me out then,” I said, as tears streamed down my face. “Let me go find my alpha.”

“What? No, don’t talk crazy, Leo,” he muttered.

I began to scrabble at the door handle.

Vincent clicked the doors locked from the driver’s side. “Stop that.”

“Let me out!” I screamed. “If you’re not my alpha, I need to find him. I’m in heat. I need an alpha.”

“No, you do not. You were fine a little while ago. Nothing has changed.”

I sobbed. Did he not understand how heat worked? As time went on, it intensified. Then it peaked and ebbed out.

I tried the door handle again.

Locked.

I unlocked it.

Vincent locked it again. “Leona, do not be a child.”

“I don’t have to do what you say,” I told him. “You’re not my alpha.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said.

Actually, wait. Damian was following us. I could just call him on the phone and tell him that I wanted to ride with him now. I fumbled around in the car, looking for my phone. It was in one of the cupholders. Triumphant, I pulled it out.

“What are you doing with that?” said Vincent.

“Calling Damian,” I informed him.

Vincent reached over, took my phone, and hurled it into the back seat. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’m your alpha. Now, be a very good omega and sit up straight and stare out of the front windshield and do as your alpha tells you.”

I obeyed him. It felt good to obey him. But I was still annoyed with him. “Please, Vincent, please. Don’t be like this.”

He only sighed.

A few moments of silence passed.

I tried to talk a few times, but I turned to look at him, and his expression was stony that the words died in my throat. I whined and bucked into the seatbelt a little.

Eventually, he said, “What do you need right now?”

“To see your knot,” I said immediately.

He glanced at me. “When did you start getting like this? You were fine when I got in the car.”

“It intensifies,” I said. “I’m in heat. I can’t help—”

“No, of course you can’t.” His voice was gentle again. “Okay, look, Leo, I want you to look at my knot as much as you want to look at it, but we’re not doing that. However, uh, if your clothes are really tight and uncomfortable and you need to take them off—”