| |
It was really happening.
Zach couldn’t quite believe it. A beta had come in as he’d been bellydancing in front of a small audience and had barely waited for Zach to finish his small striptease before telling him that the Dean wanted to see him urgently.
At first, he’d panicked, almost tripped over his feet as he hurried backstage to get dressed. Too worked up to take his time, he just put his robe back on, fastened the belt under his belly, shoved his feet into his shoes leaving them unlaced, as he usually did these days, and hurried out of the building.
What had happened? What was wrong? Had the Dean decided he’d had enough of waiting for Val to pay up and had given Zach away to some random alpha?
Fear was an iron clamp around his chest, around his belly, cutting his breath off. He waddled as quickly as he could across the academy yard, between trees and benches where omegas sat in small groups, chatting, two Blossom Boys practicing a piece of dance, past the small summer pavilion where sometimes events took place, to the administration buildings.
He arrived panting and huffing, earning him openly curious looks from passersby. A heavily pregnant omega in a dance robe, rushing as if his life depended on it.
He felt like it did.
Stopping to catch his breath didn’t bring much relief. His lungs felt too small. He couldn’t get enough air.
Please, dear God, please don’t let them give me away.
Please don’t let Valerian give up on me.
Please, please...
“Zachary? Come on in.” The Dean had opened the door to his office, startling Zach. “We have important matters to discuss.”
Oh, crap.
As if through a dream—one of those thick-as-molasses dreams where you try to move but can’t, even though you know something terrible is about to happen—Zach stepped through the office door. His feet felt heavy like rocks as he dragged them behind him. His head spun.
“Sit down!” The Dean beamed at him from behind his massive desk, his eyes shining behind his small round glasses. “I have good news.”
“Good” was a relative word, Zach had found out since he was a kid, and good news for the Dean meant money, which didn’t necessarily mean it was in Zach’s interest.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“You have had a Claiming proposal.”
Oh, shit. One of the alphas who’d been watching him dance had proposed? “Who?” he managed through a closed-up throat. “Who is it?”
“A very well-to-do alpha from a good family.” The Dean looked inordinately pleased. “He seems fond of you, said you’re the prettiest omega he’s ever seen... and he came by to pay this morning. Paid in full, too. All has been arranged.”
Zach’s mouth was dry. “Who is it?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention he’s the alpha father of your babies, so I suppose you’ll be agreeable to the Claiming.”
“The father... Valerian?”
“Of course it’s Valerian. Who did you think it was?” The damn Dean sat there, grinning like the cat who ate the goldfish, as if this was the best joke ever, the best prank he’d ever played on anyone.
And by God, it was.
Had to be.
“Can you please repeat that?” Zach whispered, feeling faint. Good things didn’t often happen to him—well with the exception of the babies, which he’d never considered a mistake, hell no—and this... this was too glorious to be real. “Did you say it’s Valerian? Valerian de Chateau?”
“Yes. Why do you look so shocked, boy? Didn’t he win your auction, and chase away your suitors? Didn’t he tell you he would Claim you?”
“He did,” Zach whispered, leaning back in his chair, his hands on his belly. “He did, but...”
You didn’t believe him. Not because of what he did, of vanishing for months on end, not because of him.
But because of yourself. Because nothing ever ends up right, not for you.
Because nobody wants to keep you around.
Except for Valerian.
Oh God, Valerian had asked to Claim him. He’d paid in full. Zach was free.
Free to be with the alpha he loved.
The world had just changed, tilting on its axis to a better angle, a brighter side.
The future was here.
***
The knock on his door that evening didn’t reveal Valerian, sadly, but a beta from admin with a big box in his hands and a faint smile on his face.
“Ah, thanks?” Zach took it, after some maneuvering since his frigging belly kept getting in the way, and closed the door with his bare foot before waddling back to the bed where he’d been resting and still trying to absorb the news of his Claiming.
A Courting Gift. Just like Valerian, to continue with the gifts after paying and putting a Claim on him.
His alpha had a sweetness to him that only Zach saw, it seemed. A kindness that Valerian rarely showed to others. With Zach, he was always gentle, not a bully asshole. It seemed to him that the bully was a façade Valerian presented to the world, a reflection of who he was told he was when he’d been the one abused.
A ripple of warmth and tenderness went through him at the thought of his alpha getting hurt as a child, carrying that guilt and pain inside him. Who wouldn’t have lashed out with such a burden on their shoulders? Besides, Kai had told him that the boys—Alex, Val, and Luke—had worked more on maintaining the reputation than actually hurting anyone, which was a relief. Val was good. A good person, he’d known it in his bones from the start, and he was glad to hear he hadn’t been wrong.
A small note fluttered to the floor when he opened the lid, and he sighed, annoyed, because getting down to grab it wasn’t an option.
But then he realized it was right side up and he could read the few words written on it:
‘Wear this for me tonight. Can’t wait to Claim you.’
Signed, ‘Your Alpha.’
Zach grinned so widely his cheeks hurt. Then he lifted the nipple clamps from the package, along with a sheer gold lace lingerie piece, and his face flamed.
He was so happy. And aroused. But above all happy.
Am I making a mistake?
A mistake in being so happy, that was, since he’d never had much of a choice than to do as the Dean said.
He carefully pulled off his robe and briefs, toeing them off, and shivered, staring down at the nipple clamps. His nipples were swollen and achy, supersensitive. Wouldn’t it hurt to put these on?
He tried and winced.
Then a flare of arousal shot down to his cock and he gasped, shocked. Whoa. The clamps were not too tight, not like the ones he’d had to try on during sex classes, probably made on special order for pregnancy. They were golden, with small chains swinging when he moved.
And every movement brought another gasp to his lips.
He put on the lingerie—a sort of loose, long top made of fine, glittering lace that fell over his belly and hid absolutely nothing, snagging lightly on the nipple clamps, making him hiss with discomfort and arousal.
At this rate, he’d orgasm long before Valerian made an appearance. He shifted on the mattress, his hole wet and aching to be filled, his heavy belly making everything below feel tighter and hotter.
By the time Valerian finally pounded his fist on the door and Zach struggled to get up and open, he was shaking with the heavy need coiling in his gut.
“Val,” he hissed, rubbing at the side of his belly, trying in vain to ignore his throbbing hole and cock underneath it. “What were you thinking?”
Those amber wolf eyes widened, then dipped to Zach’s nipples caught in the clamps, his belly, and lower, darkening and narrowing. “Did you like my gifts?” he purred.
“Damn you.” Zach smiled and shook his head in exasperation, his face burning.
“You did like them. Those clamps...” Val smirked, then reached down to adjust his pants over a very prominent hard-on. “I’ve been hard all day, imagining them on you. And that lace.”
“Have you?” Zach lifted the lace to look down at his swollen nipples, caught in the golden clamps, the tips dark and throbbing. The sight sent another pulse through his hole and cock, so that he bit back a groan. “God...”
“Fuck, you’re a tease.” Valerian grabbed his hand and guided him to the bed, then helped him up so that he got on all fours on the bed’s edge. “Need to be inside you.”
Zach produced what he hoped was an encouraging noise, words evading him as Valerian climbed behind him and pushed the flared head of that massive cock into him.
“Oh shit,” Zach managed, the orgasm he’d been keeping at bay suddenly rolling through him as his abused nipples in their clamps slammed on his big belly with Valerian’s thrust. “Oh, God!”
He shuddered and gasped as Valerian thrust again, his cock jerking and shooting cum on the bed, his whole body seizing with the force of it.
Holy shit.
“You’re so hot,” Valerian whispered in his ear, holding still for Zach to clench around his length. “So tight and hot. I can feel you coming.”
Zach panted in reply, the pleasure still rolling through him, his nipples aching, every pulse going through them shooting straight to his cock.
“I want to see you,” Val said, pulling out and helping him turn. He pulled off the lacy top, leaving Zach bared with his nipples throbbing madly inside the clamps. “So damn sexy.”
Zach sat back a little awkwardly, his heavy belly settling between his legs, rising and falling with each breath. “What do you want to do?”
“This,” Valerian whispered, spreading Zach’s legs and lifting them around his hips, then thrusting into him again, and again, reaching with one hand and removing one clamp, then the other.
Zach screamed as he came again, the release of his nipples triggering an orgasm that threw him back on the bed, shaking and rocking and clamping around Val’s cock. Distantly he felt Val come, filling him with heat, and if dying was like this, and if heaven existed, this had to be what it felt like.
Flying above the clouds, pleasure everywhere, warmth and relief and soft darkness seeping under his eyelids, drawing him under where he could rest.
“Damn, Zach.” Val thrust inside him again, his voice strained. “Can’t believe this. How excited you make me. I came to tell you that it’s all been arranged, the payments, the Claiming.”
“The Dean told me,” Zach panted, opening his eyes with an effort to look at his alpha. “You did it.”
“I’d do anything for you, babe.” Val’s smile was full of happiness. “And for myself, because I’m very selfish and what I want is to spend my life with you. So if you accept my Claiming proposal...”
“Is this a joke?” Zach tried to get up on his elbows to glare at Valerian but failed and just lay there, panting. “You know there’s nothing I want more.”
“Then it’s settled,” Valerian, said, as if it hadn’t been settled the moment he’d won Zach’s auction—or earlier still, when he’d given Zach his omega father’s pendant. “One thing left to do.”
“What is that?”
“Decide on the date. The date when you become officially mine.”
“Name the date and time,” Zach breathed, “and I’ll be there.”