“What is it?” Kilian asked.
Oscar didn’t say anything.
“I need her scent.” Mikel stopped at the end of the bed, holding out both hands. It wasn’t a request.
Oscar lifted to his knees, bundling Carter into his arms. “The fuck for?” he asked quietly, his chest rumbling with a warning.
“Kilian filled you in.” Mikel crooked his fingers, fixing Oscar with a cold, steady, demanding gaze. He wasn’t asking a question, but Oscar nodded anyway. “I need information from Tilda.”
The two of them stared at him for a moment, Kilian’s pale eyes widening, Oscar’s dark eyes narrowing tightly.
“Now.” Mikel’s tone turned low and velvety, almost a whisper, his power flexing out and expanding across the room. He didn’t bother with Alpha voice.
Oscar knee-walked to the edge of the bed and Mikel reached out, carefully taking the sleeping girl from his arms.
“I don’t think that will work,” Kilian said gently. Hesitantly. “Mikki, I don’t think you can just trick your system like that.”
“We’ll see,” Mikel rumbled out, keeping his voice soft so as not to stir the Sigma.
He held his breath, carefully rearranging her to drape across his front, held up by his arms banded across her thighs and back, her head falling into the crook of his neck.
“You can’t get hard with Tilda anymore?” Oscar asked, confused. He was scratching his neck, his attention roaming over Mikel and Isobel.
Kilian shot out a leg, kicking Oscar in the thigh. Oscar ignored him, staring hard at Mikel’s arm.
Mikel tried to keep his breath short—when he was forced to draw one—and he blocked out the scent that tried to curve cloyingly around him, just like he was blocking out the sensation of the soft body pressed up against his. She had lost weight. He didn’t like that.
It also had nothing to do with him.
“She’s desperate for me to Dom her,” he said quietly.
“So Dom her.” Oscar shrugged.
Kilian rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it isn’t that simple.”
“It’s not.” Mikel gave Oscar a disparaging look. Isobel shifted like she was waking up, her nose brushing against his neck. Her hands drifted up his chest, resting at his collarbones, her fingers curling in against the collar of his shirt. Her legs shifted up, like she was trying to cling on to him, and he considered quickly handing her off, but then her legs parted, twisting around his waist, her thighs squeezing with a contented sigh. He could feel the warmth of her everywhere, suddenly, and he forgot to resume his shallow breathing, accidentally pulling in a lungful of her contented scent.
Warm, wet, sticky cherry. It was like she had turned to syrup to drip over his skin. It was simultaneously exactly what he needed and everything he didn’t want. He closed his eyes, forcing all the sensations down. When she settled again, her breathing returning to soft little puffs against his neck, he opened his eyes.
Kilian was wrong.
He could definitely trick his system.
“Tilda is inherently unhappy.” He resumed speaking like nothing had happened, his voice perfectly composed. “That’s why she was such a good target in the first place. She was vulnerable enough for me to slip right in and give her everything she needed, but that was last year. I should have cut her off and moved on to someone else, but I got lazy and nobody else caught my interest, so we’re stuck with her. I’m not a sadist.” He let his eyes rest on Oscar for the briefest moment. “I’m an experienced Dom. I don’t like lording my power over people and seeing them suffer. I enjoy women submitting to me.”
“Are you asking me to subdue her for you?” Oscar asked, relaxing back against the headboard, ignoring the second kick Kilian aimed at his legs.
“Stop it,” Kilian grumbled.
Oscar smirked—he loved to tease Kalen and Mikel for their lifestyle. It was a pity. They could probably teach him to harness and control some of his more savage urges, but he wasn’t interested in rules and structure, and the kink community was all about rules and structure.
Mikel snorted, his lips lifting into half a smile. “Tilda doesn’t enjoy fear. She enjoys control, and that’s the problem. Even bound and blindfolded she still never hands over control, and I’m finding it harder and harder to convince my dick that we still need her.”
“Why bother playing, then?” Kilian asked. “Just have normal sex. Think about something else.” He managed to keep a straight face and not look at Isobel as he said it. Barely.
“She gets it when I need something from her. It’s transactional, and we’re both aware of that. I ask for something of her, and she gets something of me that she knows I don’t want to share with her. It’s how she feels in control.” Mikel’s skin wanted to crawl with disgust, but it seemed to be an impossible endeavour with his little mate curled around him like a kitten.
And he meant that in a purely scientific way. She was his mate. She was genetically predisposed to soothe him, to calm him, to make him hard enough to bend other women over pieces of furniture in exchange for information. He hadn’t slept with Tilda since finding out about Carter, but that couldn’t last forever. There were only so many ways he could please her and appease her ego without fucking her before she started to get suspicious, and he could never admit to why he wasn’t fucking her. He wasn’t fully bonded to Carter and he had no emotional connection to Tilda, so sex wasn’t likely to harm the bond in any way, but he owed Carter some consideration. He was certain that if there were any repercussions through the bond, they would likely skip him and flow straight to the Sigma.
“Dump her,” Oscar grunted, perhaps reading something on Mikel’s face. “It’s not worth it, Mikki.”
“I’ve been in here too long,” Mikel muttered, gently peeling Carter away and passing her into Kilian’s arms.
Kilian took her gently, but his attention scoured Mikel’s face, taking in his body language. “I agree with Oscar,” he ventured. “You’re clearly not enjoying yourself anymore. You shouldn’t be doing this if you don’t want to.”
Mikel ignored them. He did have to.
He owed them.
He owed Kalen.
He wasn’t contributing to the game the same way they were.
He needed to do this.
Grabbing Theodore’s laptop from the desk, he left the room and dropped it off in Elijah’s room, delivering them a distracted excuse about needing a reason to go into Theodore’s room to speak to the others, and then he made his way out of the dorm.
He should have known that Kilian wouldn’t leave it alone.
That boy was a bleeding fucking heart.
“Time to end it,” Kalen grunted, appearing out of no-fucking-where with those silent footsteps of his. He fell in beside Mikel as they approached the stairs leading down Alpha Hill.
“No.” Mikel didn’t break stride.
Kalen caught his shoulder, fingers digging in, forcefully spinning him around. “Go and see her, but break it off, Mikki.” His yellow-amber eyes assessed Mikel slowly, carefully, reaching some sort of conclusion as his lips hardened. “You’re done.”