time ago. He was no longer the teenager who used to hide from Yurev’s mind-numbing lectures all the time. He was an adult. A war general. He shouldn’t have been still terrified of one old, arrogant man. He should have been stronger than this.
But Haydn was honest enough with himself to admit that he’d rather take on an enemy platoon by himself than face his great uncle’s disdain. Even his father didn’t scare him as much as Yurev did. Hell, even his father respected the old coot, and his father didn’t respect anyone. Uncle Yurev was the ultimate Alpha, alpha with a capital A. Haydn could only cringe as he imagined Yurev’s reaction to the press conference: the look of disdain on his haughty face, the derisive sneer on his lips, his cold, biting remarks. That boy has never been strong enough, Stefan. It’s a shame you don’t have a better heir.
His heart beating in his throat, Haydn leaned back against Royce’s chest. Royce wrapped an arm around his middle, probably to steady him, but it also had a curious grounding effect on Haydn: his nerves settling, his breathing evening out.
The last of his anxiety faded when the person who entered the room spoke. It wasn’t Yurev.
“Come here,” a male voice said. It took Haydn a moment to place it. It was Aksel.
Haydn laid a hand on the closet’s door, intending to open it—
“No, Aksel,” another man said, his voice sounding shaky. “Your mother is just outside.”
“She’s busy with that Pelugian ambassador,” Aksel said.
And then there was an unmistakable sound of… kissing.
Okay.
Haydn let go of the door. Opening it now would just be awkward.
Behind him, Royce was very tense.
Haydn sniffed the air and realized that there was a hint of anger in Royce’s scent.
“It’s Lucien,” Royce murmured into his ear.
Lucien and Aksel?
“I should stop it,” Royce said, laying a hand on the door.
Haydn grabbed it. “They’re adults,” he whispered. “And from the sound of it, consenting adults. Let them be, Royce.”
“But Lucien is—”
“Not in heat,” Haydn snapped, getting annoyed with Royce’s weird overprotectiveness. Was Royce actually jealous? The thought made his stomach clench unpleasantly. “He can stop Aksel if he wants. We’ll interfere only if it looks like Aksel is coercing him.”
Royce went silent, but it was a tense silence. He clearly disagreed, his aggressive pheromones quickly overwhelming Haydn’s senses and clouding his thoughts in the small space they were in.
“Cut it out,” Haydn bit off, his eyes slipping shut involuntarily. The urge to bare his neck and just concede that Royce was right was growing irresistible. Royce smelled so good. So wrong but so good.
“Cut it out,” he repeated, his voice fainter.
“Not doing anything,” Royce muttered, sinking his teeth into Haydn’s neck and sucking. “It’s your fault. You’re so…”
Haydn’s eyes snapped open when he felt a hard bulge against his ass.
Royce let out an irritated sigh. “Just great.”
Haydn licked his lips. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed Royce getting aroused when he scented him—or the first time he’d gotten aroused himself, for that matter—but normally they both ignored it by an unspoken agreement. He never knew what to make of Royce’s arousal, since Royce hadn’t indicated that he wanted them to have a sexual relationship when he wasn’t in rut. Haydn wasn’t sure that he wanted it. All right, that was a lie—one didn’t daydream about another alpha’s cock and remain in denial—but Haydn had no idea what to do about it.
His own hangups aside, Royce wasn’t a beta or an omega. Everything Royce had said indicated that he was annoyed by this strange, unnatural attraction between them, that it fucked with his head. So Haydn didn’t want to break the status quo and risk their friendship by being too pushy and forcing Royce out of his comfort zone. Unless the other alpha made the first move, Haydn wasn’t going to, no matter how badly he sometimes wanted to fuse them together. So they danced around each other, their friendship on the verge of too much and too intimate without crossing it. It was immensely addictive—and immensely frustrating.
Right now Haydn was so hard it was starting to become uncomfortable. The sounds outside the closet weren’t helping the situation, either. It was quickly becoming obvious that Aksel and Lucien weren’t just kissing.
“God, I love your tits,” Aksel said hoarsely. “No, don’t hide them from me—they’re beautiful.”
“They’re off-putting,” Lucien said, sounding uncomfortable and breathless. “No, stop—ah…”
Worried that Aksel really was pressuring the omega into doing something he didn’t want, Haydn