Page 14 of Healing the Alpha

I snort a laugh.

“Look,” he continues, shaking his head. “I’m just saying that before I met Alex, I didn’t know exactly what I was or what I wanted—gay, straight, omegas, alphas, whatever. I don’t even think it matters anymore. This sounds corny as fuck, but Alex just felt right. Once I realized that and took the gigantic stick out of my ass, all the reasons not to be with him stopped mattering.”

Something complicated twists in my stomach, and I sigh heavily. You were always the best option. “You make it sound so fucking simple.”

Marcus laughs, a little bitterly. “Being with Alex is simple, sure. But I won’t lie to you: the world hasn’t made it easy for us. We get a lot of shit when we don’t hide, and you know Alex—he’s not one for hiding.”

I chuckle. “No, he’s not.” I take another pensive sip of my drink, and Marcus does the same. “I’m sorry you get shit, that makes me… it’s terrible, man. It must be worth it though, right?”

“Fuck yeah,” he says, without hesitation. “I’d take ten times more abuse if it meant coming home to him at the end of every day. Not being with him was never really an option for me, once I figured out what I was feeling. Look, I’m not gonna ask why you’re bringing this up, because it’s none of my business, but… don’t shy away from what you want, dude, not if it feels good. And right. You can’t hide from this shit, trust me.”

I nod, slowly. “When did you get so fucking cerebral, man? This is an exceptionally un-Marcus level of self-reflection.”

“Hey, I can do emotions. I read,” he says with an offended scowl. “And it helps that Alex is the fucking end-boss of emotional maturity.”

I laugh, but I feel like someone’s put all my emotions in a washer-dryer and turned it up to the highest setting. And unfortunately, I don’t have my own personal emotional guru to help me work through them.

“Okay, so what about taking a dick up the ass?” I say, needing to shift the mood to something less… confronting. It works—Marcus nearly spits out his beer, giving me a horrified look.

“Okay, I think we’re done here,” he says grimly. “Let’s talk about sports until we’ve finished these, and then I’m going home, and we’re going to pretend you never asked me that, okay?”

We manage to get through the rest of the game without any more dick-talk, and by the time we part ways, I feel… not clearer, exactly, but lighter. Like maybe it’s okay not to have everything figured out in my own head yet.

But I’m certain of one thing: I need to talk to Kyle.

I open my phone to let him know I’m on my way back to his apartment, only to find a text from him I must have missed from about half an hour ago.

Kyle: Hey man, take the night off tonight. I’ll be fine. See you in a couple of days.

My stomach practically drops through the ground when I read it. It would be a weird text to get from him under normal circumstances—there has never been a time in our nearly thirty year friendship when either one of us has considered time away from each other ‘a night off’ —but considering what happened last night, it’s even more alarming.

Kyle doesn’t want to see me. We crossed a line last night, and he’s freaking out and doesn’t want to see me. Or he’s pissed that I left while he was asleep this morning, and thinks I’m the one freaking out. Or—

I stop myself. This isn’t me. This isn’t us.

Max: I’m coming over, dumbass.

Then I put my phone on silent, shove it into my jacket pocket, and high tail it to Kyle’s before I let my anxiety get in the way.

—

I know something’s wrong as soon as I open the front door.

The apartment is quiet: no music blasting, no hum from the television, not even the creaking of floorboards as Kyle moves around in another room. Just silence. Silence, and the overwhelming thickness of Kyle’s scent.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, locking the door behind me hastily as my heartrate picks up. The alpha part of my brain rears its head instinctively as I’m hit with a thick wave of Kyle’s hazelnut scent, so strong it’s practically dripping down the walls. It’s deeper and darker than I’ve ever smelled before, but my biology still recognizes it for exactly what it is.

He’s in rut.

In all our years living together, our rut cycles were both regular enough that one of us could make ourselves scarce when necessary—staying with friends, the occasional omega or even a rut hotel was never a problem, a minor inconvenience compared to the consequences of being around each other’s rut pheromones. We’d get territorial, aggressive, probably end up trying to tear each other’s throats out.

At least, that’s what we always assumed. Why wouldn’t we? We’re both alphas, and the last thing an alpha wants is to be anywhere near another alpha when they’re burning up from the inside and trying to fuck everything in sight.

But that’s not what I’m feeling right now.

When I go into rut, every primal instinct I have goes into overdrive: I’ll protect my space at all costs, my teeth itch to tear apart anyone who gets too close, and my brain interprets every knock on the door or invading scent as a direct threat. It’s a violent hyper-vigilance meant to protect me and my mate from the outside world.

What’s fucking with me right now, is that my body is reacting with that same aggressive urgency—but I don’t feel a shred of competition toward Kyle. There’s no urge to bare my teeth and assert my dominance. Because my brain isn’t interpreting him as a rival alpha in rut; it’s interpreting him as me.