AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had an erection, of course, from sucking him off, but the truth of the matter was that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for our interactions to be one-sided. He would often demand I service him and not offer to do anything for me, and I never complained about this. If he realized the unfairness of it, he didn’t let on. I got it. Being an alpha, sometimes, you sort of were entitled. You took various advantages as your due. It was a fault.
“This isn’t over,” he said to me, fixing me with a gaze. “I can’t give you up. Not even for her.” He rubbed his forehead. “Give me time, though, because I need time to figure it out.” He looked up at me. “Please?”
“Whatever you need, Devlin,” I said. Because that was what I always said.
6
eleri
I POKED MY head into the hallway to look at Maguire.
He did not acknowledge me in any way.
“Maguire,” I said.
He turned to me. “Ma’am.”
“I thought we establish you’d call me Eleri, unless we’re in some formal situation.”
“Eleri,” he repeated. His expression was blank, but something changed when he said my name.
I bit down on my lip, because his scent had changed, and he smelled like Devlin. Well, not like Devlin. They had completely different scents. But it was the same kind of overwhelming scent, and it made my body wake up, and—embarrassingly—it made me have a rush of slick between my thighs.
His jaw tightened imperceptibly, but I knew he scented it. “Something I can do for you?”
I narrowed my gaze. “You’re an alpha.”
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I can’t be an alpha, ma’am. I’m a commoner.”
“I’m a commoner,” I countered. “Come into my room.”
He had an internal debate that I could read in his expression.
“Your job isn’t really to protect me from danger, is it?” I said. “It’s to protect me from Devlin’s bite. So, you can do that even better from inside my room.” I walked back inside, not even waiting to see if he’d follow.
The door shut.
I didn’t look up, because I knew he was in here with me. I went across the room and ran my fingers over the back of one of my easy chairs. “How long have you known? Do you think there are more of us amongst the commoners and we simply are in denial about what we are? Do you think that maybe the royals have suppressed knowledge of commoner designations to keep whatever aura of grandeur they think they need to present to the world?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know, but I just presented tonight, for the first time, when I saw you. Or smelled you, maybe. I don’t know.”
I turned around then, to look at him. “Tonight?”
He nodded. “I… I’m terrified, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know what to do. Do I go to a doctor? If the royals are suppressing this sort of knowledge, should I hide it? Would they hurt me?”
My eyes widened. “You’ve been working for them for much longer than I’ve had any interactions with them.”
“The Queen is…” He shrugged. “The Queen is the Queen, but I don’t get the impression that she’s a violent person. I don’t think she’d order the deaths of her subjects.”
“That’s reassuring,” I said.
He was trembling, I realized.
My heart went out to him. I went over to him and ran my hand reassuringly up and down his shoulder. I had to reach up to do it. He was tall.
“Y-you probably shouldn’t do that,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“I definitely should,” I said. “Come over here and sit down.” I tugged on him, bringing him over to one of the seats.
