I wasn’t sure what it was about my scent that he liked so much, but I wasn’t going to complain.
Not when it bought me endless orgasms for the next few days.
We must’ve sat just like that for an hour. When the movie hit a slow part, I nudged Bo lightly.
He grunted, and I realized he must’ve been asleep.
“Huh?” His voice was heavy with exhaustion.
I’d noticed earlier that it didn’t look like he had slept last night, so I guess I should’ve expected that.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep,” I murmured.
“Tell me.” His forehead pressed against mine lightly, and it felt so comfortable that I closed my eyes.
“It was just a question. It can wait.”
He squeezed my bare hip. “Ask.”
I swatted his hand, though I didn’t actually want him to let go. It felt too good to be held like this. “I was going to ask what you meant earlier. About Artie. You said he cares more than I think.”
Bo went quiet.
“He didn’t even invite me to hiswedding, Bo. You know taking a mate means forever for supernaturals. He didn’t invite me to meet the girl he’d chosen or to celebrate their bond. He definitely wasn’t coming to my wedding, either. He didn’t stand up for me with dad, and he was a complete asshat through my entire childhood and all of my teenage years.”
The more I talked and thought about it, the angrier I got. “The onlybrotherlything ever he did was scare off any guy who showed any interest in me in the first half of my high school experience, and he only did that because my dad told him to so I would bepurefor the alpha. And the alpha didn’t even want me pure! Artie was way more of a brother to you than he ever tried to be to me.”
“You’re not wrong about any of that,” Bo admitted. “But from his perspective, he was at the bottom of the skulk’s rank ladder. You were at the top. Your dad told him over and over not to ruin your chance at moving up in the world, so he tried to stay out of your life.”
He added, “A lot of the guys he scared off were actually sent by your alpha for various reasons. He tried to buy you as much privacy as he could while staying out of the way so he wouldn’t affect your chance for a better life. When he was old enough, he left to find his own version of that.”
“Being forced to spend forever with an asshole is notbetterthan being at the bottom of a stupid social construct like the skulk. I could’ve left too, if he’d just stood up for me,” I shot back.
“Obviously, he didn’t know about the list of requirements that asshole would send you.” Bo’s voice lowered. “But most of the time, he was still a kid too. If he’d stood up to the alpha for you, there’s a damn good chance he would’ve been killed. The alpha wants a kitsune mate, at any cost.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m the one who’s been told my whole life that I exist just to be his wife. That my only purpose is to grow babies for him.” I pushed away from Bo’s grasp, needing to stand. My fists clenched, and I started to pace the living room. The spy movie was still playing in the background, but it was the last thing on my mind.
“Do you know what that’s like? To be raised being told that your only value is in your fucking womb? I don’t matter; the bucketloads of children I’ll have for him do. My future mate matters. The fact that I can shift into a fox matters. Not my personality. Not what I want, what I like, or who I want to love.”
I went on, “Everything I am can be summed up in what I’m expected to do: mate with the alpha and grow him a litter of kitsune daughters to sell to the rest of the pack. Which will solidify our position for all of time, of course. Because that’s all that matters to the skulk. Status. Attention. Money.”
I was naked, but Bo’s attention was fixed on my face.
He looked sort of… pale.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I stated. “Because you were born with a cock, you had freedom. You had the opportunity to turn down the marriage your clan arranged for you. The clan wouldn’t give you any of their money afterward, but you didn’t need it. You could go to college. You could work wherever you wanted, do whatever you wanted, and become whatever you wanted. I didn’t—and don’t—haveanyof those options.”
“There’s no one to take my place. The only way I can avoid a life that’s my literal definition of hell is if I run away and find another mate before the alpha can force me to be his. And if I do that, I know he’ll do his damndest to try to kill me afterward,” I finished.
There was a beat of silence.
A long, tense one.
“Fuck,” Bo finally said. His voice was low, and his face was pale.
I dropped onto the couch across from him, a humorless laugh escaping me. “Yeah, fuck.”
“I won’t let him take you.”
