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“Thank you for teaching me.”
“You’re very welcome. You’re a natural at it. I’m glad to see someone else take over.”
Adar slowly came to, as if that thick mist was dissipating and sunlight was forcing its way through. Small beams for now, but his head was getting clearer by the second. He lay on his side, wrapped in a blanket, his head on something soft and warm. Someone was caressing his hair, and it felt amazing. Adar had no desire to move or open his eyes.
“You don’t miss it?” Delton asked.
“This? No. It was never something I did for myself. Well, the sex part, yes, that was for me. But the pain? That was for him.”
“Gotcha. Obviously, sex is off the table in this case.”
A long pause. “Oh, that’s why… I wondered why you’d volunteer, but I get it now.”
Adar frowned. Get what? What was Isam talking about? His brain wasn’t lucid enough to connect the dots.
“Please don’t say anything.”
That was Delton. What was he referring to?
“You have my word.”
Adar blinked a few times until his eyes focused. Isam was sitting across from him, his eyes warm and kind as he talked to Delton. Oh. Delton was holding him, then. Not Isam. He should have known because the lap his head rested on was much softer than Isam’s hard muscles. Not quite the softness of an omega but not strong enough for an alpha. And Delton was rubbing his head, threading his hand through Adar’s hair with a calm, soothing motion.
“He’s back,” Isam said.
Delton’s hand stopped and rose. Adar missed the contact. “Don’t stop,” he croaked.
Delton’s whole body tensed under him.
“He wants you to continue with the head-scratching,” Isam said with a grin. “But Adar being Adar, he voiced it as a command rather than a request.”
Delton relaxed and chuckled as he put his hand back on Adar’s head. “I see you’ve grown wise in that aspect.”
“Courtesy of my mates and Sivney, though the latter more than the first. I gotta tell you, I’m more scared of Sivney than I am of my mates.”
“I think most alphas are intimidated by him, to be fair. Even Rhene.”
Why was Delton only resting his hand on Adar’s head and not caressing him like he’d done before? Adar moved, and Delton laughed again as he scratched Adar’s head. A wave of warmth rolled through Adar’s stomach. He had such a melodious laugh, the beta. Delton was a serious man, and Adar loved to see him relax and hear him laugh.
“What do you know? He does like aftercare when you’re doing it,” Isam said. His voice held a strange edge Adar couldn’t place, as if he was saying something else, something more.
“That’s because you never rubbed my head like that,” he said hoarsely. “It feels amazing, okay?”
Isam held up his hands. “Not criticism, bro. Just glad to see you relaxed.”
He was, wasn’t he? He was still a bit out of it, but his body had that deep sense of relaxation, of lightness and rest he craved. That was the whole reason he needed these sessions. Without them, he couldn’t get to this point.
“I feel great.” He blindly reached for Delton’s hand, pulled it toward him, and pressed a kiss on it. “Thank you,” he said and promptly fell asleep, still holding Delton’s hand.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Oliver had lain awake most of the night. Not by choice, obviously, and at first, he’d been frustrated to no end. After years of being afraid to even close his eyes with the Murphys, he hadn’t experienced sleeping issues since arriving here. Kinda hard to relax when consciousness wasn’t a requirement for the Murphy alphas to have sex. Oliver had woken up more than once with a cock shoved into his mouth or halfway up his ass.
But from the day he’d arrived here, he’d felt safe. He hadn’t been able to explain why because it wasn’t like he’d known no one would harm him. The omegas who’d fled the Murphy clan all agreed it had almost sounded too good to be true, this whole Hightower pack, but they’d had to try and see for themselves. But Oliver had known deep down that he was safe, as if his subconscious had been way ahead of his rational brain. And he’d slept and slept and slept.
But last night, sleep hadn’t come. His mind had kept pondering the problem he’d become aware of. Delton was in love with Adar. In hindsight, Oliver couldn’t believe he’d missed it. It was all so obvious now.
He was almost one hundred percent certain Adar had no clue. Bless him, but the man was a bit thick when it came to things like that, though he wasn’t the only alpha by far. How could Oliver blame him when he’d only realized the truth himself the previous day?
