For whatever the reason, Shiloh wanted to take him as his alpha. He wanted Sarang to pin him down on the regular, dominate him and fuck him deep and brutally. Hurt him like he’d done on Den Night. Make him scream and beg for it.
Reduce him to nothing but raw sensation.
Push him into that state of being where emotions didn’t matter and the truth was irrelevant.
Shiloh could forget all about the life-bond and its possible effects on them both then. Could go back to simply wanting, without what ifs hovering over his head like a guillotine. He wouldn’t be dwelling on the hypocrisy then. On how it was one thing for the life-bond to have altered his perception, but another for it to have instigated the alpha’s.
He could at least accept the end results. If all of this was because of the bond, so be it. As long as Shiloh continued to want, and got what he wanted, that was all he cared about.
But Sarang was different.
The alpha was fighting it specifically because he believed none of this was real. He’d bought into the excuse that these feelings, this connection, was fake and brought on by their shared well of qi.
Diogenes thought he understood Shiloh. Believed that was why he’d make a better match. But he had no clue.
Understanding, connection, love. Those were things for children. Wishes the naïve made before the harsh realities of the world were thrust upon them and they were forced to face the music.
Shiloh pressed a hand over his heart, felt the steady beat, and pursed his lips. This was just an organ meant to keep him alive. Like any other. What the head perceived as the heart’s longing was little more than a chemical reaction in the brain.
A reaction Shiloh had not, and most likely would not, experience.
Unless…he somehow was being rewired because the alpha’s lifeforce inside of him…
“I’m not broken,” he muttered to himself. The rest of the world was.
And the whole lot of them could take their “normal” and shove it straight up their asses.
If Sarang was refusing the bite because of this life-bond, because of the uncertainty it brought them—and if this bond really had affected Shiloh and unlocked an emotional range he would have much preferred remain dormant—then that left him no other option but one.
Shiloh would find a way to sever it.
Then he’d claim his alpha’s teeth in his throat and bind the man properly to him for eternity.
* * *
“Forgive me, Prince, but didn’t you say you didn’t need his affections?” Bishop’s smug tone came through the earbud attachment as Shiloh entered the Velvet Brew Café.
“I said I didn’t need his love,” Shiloh corrected as he walked up to the counter and ordered the cheesecake latte and a slice of triple chocolate cake with caramel swirl. “And I still don’t,” he continued as soon as he was done and waiting for his order. “But it’ll be a lot harder to control him, even with the claiming bond, if the guy can’t tolerate me.”
“You think he dislikes you that much now?”
“I think he’s working himself up to it, yeah.” Sarang kept saying the two of them needed to talk, but what the alpha really meant was he wanted to sit Shiloh down for one of his infamous lectures.
Hard pass.
Shiloh wasn’t a child who needed reprimanding, or a reframing of the way he viewed the world. Just because he and Sarang didn’t see eye to eye about everything, didn’t mean he was the one who needed to change.
The alpha was.
But since it was nearly impossible to alter a person’s core beliefs, he’d work on playing to the alpha’s emotions.
“I don’t want his charity or his pity,” Shiloh stated. “His fondness from before might have been false, but that’s more of a reason for us to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.”
“And you think severing the life-bond is the way to do that?” Bishop asked.
His order arrived and he collected his tray, heading toward a corner table. “So long as it exists, he’ll continue to think our mutual attraction is fake.”
“You share a bond. A biological response is to be expected.”
