Page 21 of Fighting the Alpha

I pause, my mouth suddenly dry. “There are other alphas, you know. Alphas who are not your rivals. With normal jobs.”

He frowns. “Maybe I’m not interested in alphas with normal jobs. Are you?”

“God, no,” I breathe. “Although I still think you would make a good accountant.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Fuck off. Just think about it.”

“Okay,” I nod, meaning it. “But it would be on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Our wager still stands. Every time we spar.”

Dylan laughs, his nose scrunching, and I’m in so over my head it’s not even funny. “So, if you win, you fuck me. And if I win—”

“I fuck you. Yes.”

His grin widens. “I can live with that.”

I pretend to spit in my hand, and we shake on it. I try not to let the hope rise too high in my chest. It could still be the rut hormones talking. The fog could clear tomorrow morning and everything could be different.

I spear another hunk of creamy vanilla on my fork, pushing it into his mouth forcefully so he can’t say anything else that pushes me closer to the edge of the precipice I’m already teetering on. I don’t stop there, feeding him until he looks like he’s about to fall into a sated, sugar-induced coma, and he has to push my hand away as our shoulders shake with laughter.

By tomorrow morning, his rut will be over, but for now I’m happy to stay as long as I can in the caramel soaked bubble of his apartment.

When his rut flares weakly an hour later and I drag him back to the bedroom, pulling one final, shuddering orgasm out of him with the agonizingly slow drag of my cock against his sensitive insides and the tight circle of my fist around his length, the taste of sugar and cream is still sweet on his lips.

Dylan

I lean against a pull-up bar, surrounded by The Foundry’s familiar haze of chalk, old canvas, and stale alpha pheromones. The dull, repetitive thud of fists on leather thrums in the background. I’m between sets, my hands wrapped but un-gloved, watching my phone screen.

It’s a recording from three days ago—a local streamer had tried to corner Levi after his most recent fight, digging for a malicious angle on our recent match instead of the one he’d just won by a country mile, implying my victory was a fluke driven by a momentary lapse in his focus.

Levi’s voice is sharp as it echoes through the tinny microphone speaker.“A fluke? Dylan Long is a force of nature, and you insult us both when you use this word—fluke. The only lucky thing about that match was the audience getting to watch me look so good while losing—which will not happen again, bien sûr. Only a world class alpha could have bested me in the ring. Look at his record and keep his name out of your mouth, connard. Ta gueule.”

He’d delivered it with that classic, obnoxious tilt of his chin that makes sweat break out on my brow.

“How many times are you gonna watch that video, kid?” Marcus’s rough voice barks from behind me.

I jump slightly, turning off the video quickly. Marcus gives me a wry look, his familiar scent flaring with a hint of amusement. I haven’t told him anything about Levi and I, but he’s been giving me subtle, knowing looks every five minutes since the interview came out. It’s unnerving.

Beside him, Max and Jed are leaning over a clipboard, pretending to log inventory but watch my expression with blatant, unhidden curiosity. Even Cassius—our silent, six-foot-six heavyweight giant—is standing near the free weights, his massive arms crossed over his chest, his unreadable gaze fixed on the front doors.

The gym is quiet today, mostly cleared out for a private tour. A tour I’d had to spend the last forty-eight hours begging Marcus to allow.

Everyone’s head turns to the front doors as they swing open.

The line of defense forms naturally. Marcus straightens up, his shoulders broadening. Max drops the clipboard onto a stool with a clatter. Jed stops chewing his protein bar, his eyes narrowing, and Cassius shifts his weight, his presence expanding until he looks like a mountain carved out of stone. It’s like watching alphas prepare for battle, their reaction to the unfamiliar, warm linen scent permeating the space the polar opposite of mine.

Levi steps into the gym.

Levi took much less convincing than Marcus; he’d called me out of the blue a week after my rut ended to ask me about setting up a meeting, sounding strangely uncertain, like he completely expected me to shut him down despite me being the one to suggest it. It’s one of the only times I’ve not heard him be entirely confident about something.

It had made me wonder… if maybe I wasn’t the only one that had spent the week after my rut dissecting every conversation we’d had, searching for scraps of possibility in every interaction.

Levi stops a few paces inside the door. He shrugs off his jacket, his green-flecked eyes sweeping over the line of hostile, unblinking trainers before landing on me. A lazy, familiar smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, though I can see the slight tension in his shoulders. He knows exactly what kind of den he’s walked into.

“Salut,mes amis,” he says brightly, his accent thick and smooth as he saunters over to us. “Did somebody die? You all look like shit.”