“Here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath, and started the engine. Please.
He did manage to take off.
And the aircar didn’t drop like a rock, which he counted as a win.
Jules’s tentative smile transformed into a grin as he realized that this part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. Finally something had. He had intended to sneak the Xeus out of the mansion under the cover of the night, not allowing him to see anything he might identify later, before getting him as far from their lands as possible, choosing complicated routes and taking numerous turns to confuse the Xeus—and any potential pursuers. It seemed his plan was finally going as it was supposed to.
When Jules landed the aircar in the forest an hour later, there was no way the Xeus could possibly identify where they had traveled from. The Blake house was seven hundred miles away. They were now closer to the Kadarian border than to any Pelugian city. They were safe, in every sense of the word. Even Liam would be pleased—this debacle shouldn’t ruin his social season.
“Well,” Jules said, killing the engine. “This is it.” He stared at the dark woods outside the aircar for a moment before finally turning to the silent alpha.
He found the glowing green eyes trained on him with unnerving intensity.
“Go,” Jules said. “You’re free now.”
The Xeus didn’t move. He cocked his head to the side, his nostrils flaring. Was he smelling Jules’s emotions again?
“You’re free now,” Jules repeated, ignoring the uneasy, tight feeling in his chest. It was fine. Just a side effect of an ill-advised mating mark. It would pass. It wasn’t a real attachment. These… emotions… they weren’t real. “Go. You need to go. I think you might be a Kadarian. The Kadarian government is looking for a feral Xeus. Maybe they’ll help you.” And maybe not, Jules thought, his stomach clenching in sudden fear. “Be careful, all right?”
The alpha finally moved. But not toward his freedom—toward Jules. Strong arms dragged him into the alpha’s lap and tucked Jules’s head under his chin. A low, guttural sound left the Xeus’s throat, and Jules found himself relaxing, his body instinctively responding to the comfort offered to him. He breathed in greedily, inhaling the rich scent of his alpha—no, not his alpha. What was he thinking? He was being stupid, letting hormones and pheromones rule him.
But his body didn’t care, melting into the alpha’s embrace. He didn’t want to let go. He couldn’t imagine letting go, not ever. This was his. His. His alpha.
Jules sank his teeth into the alpha’s scent gland, needing to put his mark on him, even though rationally he knew the futility of it. Omegas couldn’t mark alphas, much less Xeus alphas with their superior regeneration. But he wanted it. Wanted it so badly he was shaking with it. He’d heard the stories of it: of omegas being madly possessive of their alphas, but Jules had always scoffed at those stories, not believing that omegas could be as possessive as those knotheads. Well, the joke was on him now. He felt nearly feral with that need to mark, to claim his alpha for his own, so that every omega knew who he belonged to. Maybe it was an instinct awakened by the prospect of being parted from his alpha. Maybe it was something else. But he couldn’t control it. He didn’t want to let go.
Jules buried his face in the alpha’s neck and closed his stinging eyes.
It was stupid. He didn’t know this man. He hadn’t even seen his real face, for fuck’s sake. But something inside him—probably something that made him an omega—was incredibly sad that he’d never get to know him.
People didn’t believe in one true mate anymore, and Jules was no exception. It had been scientifically proven that mating compatibility was just a matter of compatible pheromones. An omega could have up to ten “mates”—compatible alphas whose scents and pheromones appealed to the omega enough to easily form a mating bond. This alpha was just one of them. There was no reason to be so upset.
Except finding even one truly compatible alpha was rare enough. Jules hadn’t actually thought it would happen to him. He wasn’t a dreamer like Liam. He was the pragmatic one. When the social season started, it was unlikely he’d find a compatible alpha. It was just statistically improbable. He knew he wasn’t a beauty. Alphas wouldn’t come close enough to him for Jules to smell them. Jules had told himself it was fine. He’d told himself marriage could be good even without perfect compatibility. Not that he had expected to find someone willing to marry him anytime soon.
Since he’d already resigned himself to that, finding a match in a feral Xeus he’d never see again just seemed like a bad twist of fate. A bad joke at his expense.