“If it was meant to be a secret, I would have cleaned you up and made sure you woke without being able to figure it out. But no, these two things don’t have a correlation.” Sarangslipped his hands into his pockets. “Are you upset that I took advantage of you?”
“You can fuck me whenever you please,” Shiloh stated. “Though it would have been nice if you’d woken me up so I could also enjoy it.”
Clearly he’d been drugged. There was no way Shiloh would have slept through taking the alpha’s cock otherwise, but he didn’t bother bringing that up.
“If I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” the alpha drawled, “that means I can stop bringing you marbles. Stop bringing you cake.”
“No,” Shiloh said tersely. “You can do what you wantwithin reason.”
“And bringing you sparkly, useless baubles is somehow reasonable? You can’t even do anything with them. They just sit there in a jar. You don’t need them to survive. They can’t feed you or bed you. They don’t provide oxygen to breathe. Just because they make you feel good—”
“They make me happy,” Shiloh told him. “Who cares if they’re virtually useless? I like them. I want you to keep giving them to me. And it’s really unfair of you to suddenly change your mind when you’re the one who started giving me them in the first place!”
“You said you didn’t believe in love.”
“What?” The change in subject baffled him. “What does that—”
“These marbles are like that.” Sarang reached into the jar and grabbed a handful, seemingly unaware when that caused Shiloh to tense.
He wasn’t going to take them back, was he?
“Each of these symbolizes my love for you.” He dropped one back into the jar. “They symbolize a day spent together. A memory made. A connection built.” Three more clanged intothe jar. “You’ve come to expect them from me because they bring you reassurance that I still care. They confirm that this intangible, invisible thing between us exists. The second I stop offering them? That’s doubt you’re feeling right now, omega. Apprehension.”
Shiloh pressed a hand over his heart and frowned.
“When love gestures suddenly end, it’s disappointing and confusing,” the alpha continued. “Everyone feels that way.”
“It’s not about the marbles.” Shiloh eyed the jar, and the remaining ones in Sarang’s hand. Even knowing this was an elaborate ploy, he couldn’t shake the heavy feeling. “Put them back.”
“I don’t want to give my heart to someone who might wake up one day and stop giving me marbles,” Sarang said.
“This has got to be the dumbest way to prove to someone love exists.”
The alpha chuckled, dropped the rest of the marbles back into the jar, and then pulled a new one from his front pocket and held it up. When Shiloh reached for it, however, he pulled it away.
“You said you didn’t bring one,” Shiloh accused.
“I lied.”
“If I have to be good, you have to be good, too. That’s only fair!”
“Fair?” The alpha grunted. “I’m giving you marbles as a physical representation of my love. What have you given me?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to point out he couldn’t exactly get anything while locked in this room, but Shiloh caught himself. He’d never been particularly interested in picking apart his own emotions. So long as he could learn to mimic them, that was all that mattered. But it was obvious that’s what the alpha was insisting he do now.
Sarang wanted him tofeel.
And he wanted him to define that feeling.
Why?
Love?
“I can’t prove to you that love exists,” Sarang interrupted his thoughts then. “Only you can make that decision. But I can show you what it feels like when you’ve come to expect something nice from someone, only for them to suddenly take it away. I will never have another mate. You’re going to be it for me, omega, and if you wake up one day, bored with me, and make me feel the way you’re feeling right now…”
“A lesson and a threat.” Shiloh understood. “I don’t want you to be unhappy, Rang.”
“Remember this, that way if, in the future, you change your mind, you’ll sympathize.”
