Unnatural - Alessandra Hazard Page 0,18

of levelheadedness around me, either.”

“That is irrelevant,” Royce said stiffly.

“Is it?”

Royce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I concede that there might be levelheaded Xeus alphas. Do you honestly believe Devlin is one of them?”

Haydn pulled a face. He couldn’t lie: levelheadedness was the last word he associated Devlin with. Devlin was aggressive even by Xeus alphas’ standards. He was one of those Xeus alphas that could partially shift into their animal forms outside of the full moon. That was one of the reasons there was so much prejudice against alphas like Devlin: people thought they were more animals than men.

Haydn sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told him without asking you first.”

Royce’s hard expression softened slightly. “Why did you?”

“He wanted to send for you, so you could help me during my rut. I had to tell him why you couldn’t help me.”

Royce’s shoulders stiffened. “He was with you during your rut?”

Haydn snorted. “Not with me, don’t be silly. He’s a Xeus—I want to rip his throat out during my ruts. We communicated through video calls.”

Royce seemed only slightly mollified.

Haydn smiled, amused despite himself. “Is this the ‘my stuff’ thing again? You don’t want another alpha around your stuff?”

A faint flush appeared on Royce’s bronzed skin. “Shut up,” he said gruffly, turning away, his shoulders still tense.

“Come here,” Haydn said with a long-suffering sigh, tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t need it,” Royce said tersely, his dark eyes on Haydn’s throat. His jaw clenched. “I can control myself.”

“I’m not saying you need it or that you can’t control yourself. C’mere.”

Royce didn’t need to be told again. He was in Haydn’s personal space in an instant, shoving his face against Haydn’s bared throat.

Haydn forced himself to relax. That initial moment of submission was always the hardest, his instincts telling him that this was wrong, but then it became easier. Better. After a few moments, the enforced ease became natural, his body going pliant as Royce’s heady pheromones started doing their work. Why did he need to be strong when someone else could be for him? It felt good, in a weird way. Although there was a part of him that insisted that this was wrong, that he should be fighting for dominance and making Royce bare his throat to him, that part became quieter with every moment. It felt so good. His mind was blissfully empty. There was only Royce and his heady, wrong, wonderful scent.

By the time Royce pulled back, his muscles looked loose and relaxed. Even Haydn could tell how much like Royce he now smelled.

“Better?” he said with an amused smile.

“Yes,” Royce said with a vaguely sheepish look.

Smiling, Haydn patted him on the shoulder. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. Just tell me when you need this instead of biting my head off, all right?”

Royce gave a clipped nod and turned toward the door. “Let’s go rescue my mother.”

“Devlin isn’t that bad,” Haydn said with an eye-roll. “I’m sure you’ll be friends eventually.”

“Right.”

Haydn could only laugh at Royce’s skeptical expression.

It was nice to be back.

Chapter Nine

Torryn’s full-moon phase was approaching them rapidly. Haydn had never been so aware of a moon’s cycle in his life. He had never paid much attention to Torryn before. He only vaguely registered it when his father disappeared for a day or two.

He’d always been more aware of Xeus’s cycle, since it was far more dangerous and disruptive to his life than the Torryn one. There were a lot of Xeus alphas in the army, and it had always been a struggle to arrange safety protocols during their ruts. Controlling feral shifters in rut was a lot more difficult than arranging discreet rut leaves for Torryn alphas among his troops, after all. The rare Dainiri and Vos alphas were even less of a problem than the Torryn ones, since their ruts were barely more than spikes of heightened libido.

But this full-moon phase of Torryn made Haydn more than a little anxious as it approached a few days after his and Devlin’s arrival at Cleghorn.

He wasn’t sure how Royce’s behavior was going to change.

“Should we leave?” he said the afternoon before the full moon.

Royce was pacing his study, and Haydn tracked his movements warily. There was already an aggression in Royce’s body language, his scent thicker and sharper, completely overshadowing the artificial scent of his beta implant.

“I want your cousin to leave,” Royce gritted out, his eyes flashing. “But he will not take you with him.”

Okay. It clearly had been a bad