Page 57 of Alpha’s Conquest

The smaller woman rocked her baby on her hip. She seemed the most pleasant ‌of the three. “I like it. It’s really nice here. Quiet. Lots of plants.” The man’s baby looked to be the same age as hers, so much so that I wondered if they were twins.

They paused outside the bakery, and the man noticed me staring as he glanced in my direction. I quickly looked away and took a large bite of cinnamon roll. Great. Now they would think I was being rude.

“Hi.” His voice was suddenly above my head. No pheromones. He was marked, and so were the women. Marking suppressed our pheromones, and only the one who marked us could smell them.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”

“It’s fine.” His cheerful smile was almost dazzling. I hadn't seen someone that happy in a long time. “I’m Jace. This is my sister, Sue, and her wife, Alice.” The women nodded to me with equally bright grins.

“I’m Casey.”

“We’re on a road trip and we stopped here for gas, but this town was so pretty we had to look around. Do you live here?”

“No. Not really.” Not yet, is what I really wanted to say. “It’s nice here, though, you’re right. Quiet, like you said. It feels like… home.” I didn’t realize how true that was until I said it out loud. It did feel like home here.

“As pleasant as this place seems, we have lives back in Hanford,” Sue said as she gave her brother a knowing look. Clearly, they’d had this conversation before.

“I’m from Hanford, too,” I told her.

The baby started fussing, and Jace quickly found a pacifier in his bag. He plugged the baby’s cries mid-screech, and he instantly calmed down. “Oh, no way! You here for family or something?”

It didn’t really matter how I responded, but my insides twisted just thinking about what to say. “Kind of,” I settled on. “It’s complicated.”

An eyebrow raise passed between the three of them before Jace turned to his sister. “You guys keep walking. I think Preston needs to rest for a bit.” He took the seat in front of me and waited for his sisters to leave, his hand patting Preston’s back until he calmed down. “I had a feeling you might need someone to talk to about…” He gestured towards me and my half-eaten pastry. “...whatever is so complicated.”

I didn’t realize how much I needed to vent until he offered. My friends knew nothing, and even though Devon was an omega like me, he wasn’t the kind I could really share things with. Jace felt different. We looked about the same age, but he had this wisdom about him that wasn’t from the baby he held or his swollen belly.

“I’m fucking my boyfriend’s dad,” I blurted out.

Jace’s eyes widened in surprise, and he continued giving the baby gentle pats even when Preston fell asleep. “Ahh… well, I wasn’t expecting that, but… that’s on me, I guess.”

I fiddled with my cinnamon roll and set it back on the saucer as my appetite dissolved. It was equally humiliating and cathartic to finally talk about this with someone. Despite that, I still felt the shame I’d carried with me from the beginning. “I didn’t want to. It was like being consumed.”

“He forced you?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing like that. He was just… irresistible. His pheromones are like a drug. I was addicted the day we met.”

“Addicted,” Jace repeated, his eyes fixed on the table in thought. “I know what that’s like. When I met my husband, we just couldn’t stay away from each other. It wasn’t physical at first, but when we got to that point… it was like drowning. Being utterly consumed by a hunger you can’t sate. Even with our second little one on the way, we’re still like that. I don’t think it will ever change. My sister is the same with her wife.”

It was a relief to hear someone else describe the exact emotions I’d been feeling for over two months. This whole time I felt like no one would understand. Jace didn’t just understand. He knew.

“I’ve never felt this way about an Alpha before. It’s like being tortured.”

Chuckling, he leaned back in his chair, patting his belly with one hand and holding a sleeping Preston with the other. “It feels that way sometimes. Desmond was a first for me, too. One minute, I was fine without him, and the next, my entire life seemed meaningless if he wasn’t in it. I’ve never seen a relationship like that before. It made me wonder if anyone else had ever felt something similar. I’m glad to see I’m not alone.”

A peaceful quiet settled over us as I helped Jace place an order from the coffee shop. I went to retrieve it for him while his son slept peacefully on his shoulder. He tore off small bites of his bear claw and took a sip from a hot cup of coffee before continuing our conversation.

“Okay, you’re dating an Alpha and secretly sleeping with his father at the same time.” I nodded with a slight frown. That pretty much summed it up. “And you haven’t ended things with your boyfriend because…” He trailed off, giving me time to fill in the blanks.

“I wanted to from the beginning, but I kept telling myself it wasn’t serious, and then it was serious, and I can’t break up with Marshall without him noticing I’m going straight to his dad’s bed. He could probably forgive being cheated on, but cheating with his dad? A little less forgivable. I’m telling him tonight either way. I’ve been trying to type out what to say, but… I just can’t seem to phrase it the right way without making him hate us.”

Jace was slow to respond, and I felt a knot in my stomach as he thoughtfully ate more of his pastry. “Is it really about him?”

“What?” I asked, my stomach churning further.

“Did you put off breaking up with the son because you don’t want to be hated, or is it about you?” His emphasis on that word made me flinch. “Seems like your boyfriend is a safety net, someone you think won’t hurt or betray you, and your Alpha is the opposite. He consumes you, as you said. And finding love like that is terrifying. Someone made you afraid of genuine feelings.”

Jace had known me for all of ten minutes and could already read me better than almost everyone I knew. With one sentence, he unearthed thoughts and feelings I wasn’t even aware I had. He was right. Of course, he was. I’d convinced myself that I was keeping Adam safe from heartache, when really, I was the one keeping myself safe. Marshall was my safe choice, a man I had never truly given my heart to, so he could never break it. But Adam had more than my heart. He had all of me.