He sighed. Uh-oh, what the hell did he have to tell me right now? Was it going to spoil the mood? He didn’t want to wait?
“In the haze of my rut and knotting you, I claimed you. By accident.”
My breath stopped for a moment, and the icy drip of fear froze my spine. I wanted to say I heard wrong, but the somber look on his face told me otherwise. “What the actual fuck?”
What did it even mean to be claimed when I wasn’t an omega? This very thing had happened to Billie, although she kind of consented to it during sex. I had very much not. I punched him in the chest. “I thought alphas were supposed to be strong. You couldn’t control yourself?”
Yosef’s eyes went from apologetic to angry in a split second. Seemed telling an alpha he had control issues put him on the defense. However, I wasn’t scared. I was the one who should be pissed. He was so lucky I couldn’t move away from him right now.
He ran a hand over his face, suddenly looking very exhausted. “I felt like I lost a part of time for a moment. Only a matter of seconds, but then when I got myself together, I saw that you were already bitten. You didn’t feel it?”
That part. I touched my shoulder, and the mark seemed to buzz over my skin and right back to my core. My eyes closed, and I tightened around him again, vibrating. I was just shy of coming, and the feeling felt amazing. This was as erogenous as my clit or my nipples. If I wasn’t so mad at him, I might be enjoying it. Still, that didn’t explain why I wouldn’t have felt his freaking teeth in me. How hard did an alpha need to bite to claim? Did he even break skin? I could see myself being so caught up in things that I didn’t notice pressure from his teeth. His canines were almost as sharp as a vampire’s.
But I had felt Xander bite me. His teeth were razors. With Yosef’s being blunter, it would have been painful if he broke skin. I didn’t feel any wound, but Yosef had healed me. Could I have blacked out, too? Were we drugged? Maybe things worked differently when he was in his rut?
I looked up at Yosef with skeptical eyes. “So, we both just had out-of-body experiences for a few seconds and came back claimed? Shouldn’t I have felt myself being bitten and claimed?”
He nodded, looking visibly frustrated. “Yes. Full disclosure, I have claimed another, Luca.”
“Your roommate?”
“Yes.”
“Against his will as well?”
He cringed. “No. We went into it purposefully. We are…more than friends.”
I rubbed my forehead, thinking. I had no issues that he and Luca were lovers. Clearly, they weren’t exclusive. Every time he talked about the guy, there was a tenderness in his voice. However, I was pissed that he’d given this guy the benefit of consent before claiming him. “Is Luca an omega?”
“No. He’s a beta and dragon shifter.”
“So, you’re just claiming all the betas.”
He growled. “That’s not true, Lila. I can accept full fault. I was already in my rut. I disregarded the warnings, assuming a beta could never make me this unrestrained. It never had with Luca. I was very wrong.” His eyes softened again, and a sad smile pierced his face, tugging at my unwilling heart.
What did this even mean for us? “I don’t know if I believe the whole ‘I blacked out’ thing, but if you think being claimed by you is going to mean I’m stuck here, you have another thing coming. You can claim me a thousand times, but I’m still going back to my realm.” I shoved a finger in the center of his chest. “I’m not an omega. I won’t go into heats or get all freaked out if we get permanently separated.”
He rubbed a hand slowly up and down my back, and I hated that my body instantly relaxed beneath the calming touch of his fingers. Was it the claiming bond or just the fact that I was damn into this guy? I wanted to shake him off me, but yet, I didn’t.
“Lila, I can nod my head and make you believe what you’re saying, but I think you would want the truth from me. I’m no expert in the alpha and beta bond, but from what I have with Luca, I know a few things. No, our magic won’t enhance or change, but we can draw a level of strength from each other. There isn’t a heat, but I will still be drawn to you even more than before. I will go at your pace, but you are mine now. There isn’t any going back. I’m sorry.”
I tapped my forehead to his chest. When he told me I was his, my stomach did flutter. I could be pissed as hell and still want the guy. Nevertheless, he didn’t sound so apologetic. It wasn’t his life that would be uprooted. “What exactly does being yours mean? Nothing you said means I can’t go back home.”
“You’re right, you can, in theory, but you would feel the pull of our bond.”
“I could use magic to help that. I’m assuming that you wouldn’t have claimed Luca if he was going to suffer being apart from you. He’s a soldier who had to go on missions, so I’m sure you factored that in,” I grumbled.
He tightened his arms around me. Was he even angry or bothered? “So desperate to leave us?”
I snorted. He had some nerve to sound so hurt. “So desperate to keep me here?”
He was silent for a moment, his hands pausing, arms loosening around me. Was I giving him something to think about? Perhaps he would admit that this was all his plan. And then he wrapped me tighter to him.
“I do want to keep you here, Lila, but I would not sink to such lows as to knowingly claim you. I should have known this could happen, but I won’t doubt that I wanted it.”
I wiggled him off me and tried to pull away. Surely, the knot would be down by now? Just the pressure of him at my opening sent me back in his arms. Why did I say yes to getting knotted? Maybe this was my fault, too. Just like when Billie told her alpha, Ty, to bite her. I knew she hadn’t fully known he would claim her with his vampire bite, but some part of her accepted it, and she took full accountability. She didn’t get angry at all with the guy.
That didn’t mean I agreed with how she handled things. I had the right to be angry. He knew I was not an omega and never had an expectation of being claimed one day. I was also in an unfamiliar setting against my will and still getting to know him. The circumstances were very different between Billie’s and my claiming. Even if he had done this subconsciously, he still let it happen. No apology would make up for it. Some part of me felt he wasn’t really apologetic. For him, this was probably a happy accident.
