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 idea to use “we.” An alpha’s possessiveness was very heightened during a rut.
“Devlin and I will leave separately,” Haydn said. “We will go to different hotels.”
Royce shook his head. “You can’t leave. People will talk if you spend Torryn’s cycle at a hotel. It wouldn’t be hard to put two and two together.”
Haydn frowned. “How did you deal with this before? With your ruts?”
“I used omega companions who signed NDAs.”
Haydn nodded slowly. That made sense. There were discreet omega services in Pelugia, too.
“Just use a companion again,” he said. “I’ll stay at the other end of the house.”
Royce stared at him, his dark eyes almost scarily intense. “And you wouldn’t mind?”
Haydn gave a laugh. “Why would I? You’re my friend. I don’t want you to needlessly suffer.”
Royce sniffed the air. “You’re not being entirely honest.”
Suppressing a grimace, Haydn looked away. It wasn’t that he wasn’t being honest: Royce was his friend, and he really didn’t want him to needlessly suffer because of an unfulfilled rut. But.
He shrugged with an uncomfortable laugh. “I guess it’s just a little weird.”
“You spent your rut alone. It’s only fair if I do it, too.”
Haydn shook his head. “It’s different. I told you: my ruts with a partner are just a little less frustrating than without one, while I presume it’s different for you.”
Royce didn’t deny it.
“Arrange for a companion to come,” Haydn said, looking him in the eye. He smiled a little. “It’s not like I’m jealous or something, Royce. It doesn’t matter that we’re married. We’re friends. I want you to do it, I promise.”
Royce was still looking at him strangely, but finally, he nodded.
Haydn forced himself to keep smiling and ignore the twinge of discomfort in his stomach.
Maybe the problem was that he’d started thinking of Royce as “his stuff,” too. Alphas were notoriously bad at sharing what they considered theirs, and Haydn was no exception. It didn’t matter. He could overcome it. They had to be practical. They could hardly be expected to be celibate for the rest of their lives. They needed to work out a practical solution to the problem, and an omega companion for hire seemed as good as any.
They had to give it a try.
***
Royce couldn’t remember the last time his rut had been quite this bad. The presence of strange alphas was probably to blame. Although Devlin had removed himself from his house—for now at least—Haydn was still there.
Haydn.
He could still smell him, even an entire house away. Royce gritted his teeth, running a hand over his face in frustration.
He wanted to throw Haydn out of his house.
He wanted to chain him to himself.
Both wants were completely contradictory and yet they somehow coexisted. It was beyond frustrating.
The full moon was still an hour away, but he already felt like crawling out of his skin, arousal, frustration, possessiveness, and anger creating a horrible mix of desires that he couldn’t quite align.
Even the presence of the omega the companion agency had sent failed to settle his worked-up state, which was unusual for him. Usually the presence of an omega was enough to soothe him, since the animal in him understood that his mating drive was going to be sated.