But it wasn’t working.
Sarang emitted a low growl before he could help it.
“Hypocrite,” Shiloh said under his breath, so quietly that Sarang might even be mistaken.
“What?”
“I said ‘forget it’,” he replied.
Oh.
“I’ll tell you if you want to know so badly.” Shiloh took an exit, but Sarang had long since lost interest in where they were going. “But I’ll only answer one of your questions. What’s more important to you? Finding out who I was with that night, or who you were?”
Sarang opened his mouth to demand he tell him the name of the alpha he’d supposedly slept with, but caught himself.
What right did he have? What would he do even if he did find out? It wasn’t like he could forbid Shiloh from seeing someone else, especially when he wasn’t willing to put his name in the running.
He couldn’t.
As badly as he wanted to claim the infuriating omega at his side, Sarang’s conscience wouldn’t allow it.
Shiloh deserved better, and if he believed he’d found that at the Wardrobe, then Sarang needed to respect that choice.
It wasn’t right to selfishly keep him trapped in a trauma bond.
And he was being a hypocrite. Hadn’t he just spent an entire day searching for someone else to bite?
“The omega I was with,” Sarang forced himself to say, each word tasting like ash on his tongue, “What was his name?”
“Was he really that good?” Shiloh asked.
“Was the alpha?” He was a child. Good Light, how pathetic.
“Yes,” he said. “He really was.”
Sarang growled again.
“What’s wrong?” Shiloh teased. “Didn’t you just ask me for the name of the omega so you could find him again? What? Going to claim him or something?”
“Yes.”
The prince lost some of his luster. “What?”
“I’m going to find him and offer him the bite.”
“Because of the sex? That’s it? That’s all it took to win you over?” He suddenly seemed lost in thought. “Was it really that easy, all this time?”
“Sexual chemistry is the most important thing for our species,” Sarang said, even though that wasn’t something heactually believed. “Aren’t you always saying that?” For Sarang, love and understanding were the most important aspects of any relationship, but if he could convince Shiloh that he’d fallen hard enough for this omega after one rut, he had to do so.
They could end this trauma bond once and for all, a thing created the day he’d discovered Shiloh bleeding out. The omega had latched onto him because he was the first person to protect him without selfish intent. He’d mistaken comfort for feelings. Anyone put through what he had been would. Shiloh’s brain rewired itself to associate Sarang with safety and security.
But that wasn’t love.
“You’re always boasting about the importance of romance,” Shiloh pointed out harshly. “Now all of a sudden you’re willing to admit that’s all pointless? Because of mediocre ass?”
“It was hardly mediocre,” he corrected. “It was the best breeding I’d ever experienced.”
“Breeding?” Shiloh blinked.
