Illicit (The Wrong Alpha 3)

“What is it I hear about you marrying the Duke of Westcliff?” he said with a playful frown, laying a hand on Jules’s shoulder.

Jules grinned, his face lighting up. “That’s what you get for being away for fifteen years!”

“You’re still a midget,” Anthony said with a teasing smile. “It’s weird.”

“No, I’m not! And it’s not!”

Liam listened to their easy banter and felt… something not unlike envy. He envied the ease between them, envied how relaxed Jules looked. Jules didn’t look torn or confused. He was talking to Anthony as if the fifteen years of separation hadn’t happened. It was kind of baffling. And annoying.

Liam looked at Eric, hoping he shared his confusion, but Eric looked relaxed, too. He already seemed to have lost interest in their eldest brother, his gaze fixed on his phone. Nothing new there: Eric preferred electronics to people.

Suppressing a sigh, Liam followed his brothers into the house.

However, he was detained by Uncle Wayne in the hall. “Liam.”

“What is it, Uncle?” Liam said.

Uncle Wayne watched his brothers disappear into the living room before turning to him. “Don’t you think he looks very different from how he looked at sixteen? You’re the oldest—you remember him better than Jules and Eric do. Look at his photograph here.”

Uncle shoved the photograph in front of him.

It was a picture of a teenage Anthony holding a blond toddler—Liam—in his arms.

Liam wrinkled his forehead. “Uncle, I understand that you’re upset, but please stop entertaining such thoughts. You saw the documents Anthony provided. Is it not enough?”

Uncle Wayne scowled. “Yes, but he looks different—”

“You can’t expect a man of thirty-one to look like he did as a teenager,” Liam said in his most patient voice. “Some people change a lot as they mature, especially alphas.” Although in Pelugia alphas were considered of age after their first rut, everyone knew that they reached their physical maturity closer to the age of twenty-five. After that, they looked pretty much the same until the age of fifty before slowly starting to age.

“Perhaps,” Uncle Wayne said, still frowning at the photograph. “Except I’m sure he smells different, too.”

Gods give him patience.

“Uncle,” Liam said gently. “You didn’t live with us back then. Anthony left right after his first rut, so you have never had the chance to smell him after he presented as an alpha, correct?”

“Yes,” Uncle Wayne conceded with obvious reluctance.

“See? You simply have no point of reference. You can’t expect a grown alpha to smell like his prepubescent self.”

Uncle Wayne frowned. “Are you saying you recognize his scent?”

Liam hesitated. “Yes,” he said at last, though he wasn’t being entirely truthful. Anthony just smelled right. That had to mean he recognized his scent, right?

He was still mulling it over as he left Uncle and joined his brothers in the living room.

Jules was talking Anthony’s ear off, chattering non-stop about his fiancé.

Anthony seemed to be listening to him attentively enough, but his eyes shifted to Liam the moment he walked into the room. It was oddly gratifying.

The urge to be closer to his brother was back, but the feelings of disquiet and confusion were back, too. Liam wasn’t even sure why he felt so on edge, why Anthony unsettled him so much.

He sat down next to Jules on the couch and tried to listen to what Jules was saying, but it didn’t seem to be working. His attention kept straying to the older man seated in the armchair. Anthony’s blue eyes caught his again, before the alpha quickly looked back at Jules.

Liam frowned.

Chapter 3

A week later, Liam came to a startling conclusion: Anthony was avoiding him.

It hadn’t been obvious at first, but after a few days, Liam started to notice that Anthony suddenly had some urgent business to attend to every time Liam entered the room. During meals, he barely spoke to Liam, giving all his attention to Jules and Eric—heck, even to Uncle, if he was around.

It was confusing. And it hurt. Liam couldn’t help but wonder if there was something disagreeable about him. Maybe he didn’t live up to Anthony’s memories of him. Maybe Anthony had expected him to grow up into a different person.

Liam was aware that he wasn’t very… interesting. He wasn’t bubbly and snarky like Jules. He wasn’t geeky and endearingly awkward like Eric. Liam was mild-tempered and more reserved than his brothers. People would probably find him boring and uninteresting if it weren’t for his physical appearance—it was the only thing people seemed to notice about him. And truth be told, sometimes Liam thought it was the only interesting thing about him. He was used to people always commenting on his appearance and nothing else: it had been that way since his early childhood. When he had been a small kid, people always cooed and remarked that he looked like a little angel, and Liam had grown up used to it. Jules sometimes jokingly called him vain, but Liam didn’t consider it vanity. It was the simple truth: people liked looking at him—even if it was the only thing they liked about him.