Bound to the Alpha

by D. J. Heart

  “What did Mike—”

  “No! This is about Scott. I don’t want him at the office until he’s under control, do you understand?”

  Derek did not like Jacob talking about Scott like this. Not without telling Derek specifically what Scott had done, and even then it would still piss him off. Scott was his, and for the past few days he’d been behaving exactly like Derek wanted him to. Jacob had no right to barge in like this just because he was having a problem with his omega. It was unacceptable.

  “I don’t know what makes you think you get to talk about my omega like that, but you better watch out Jacob,” Derek warned. Who the fuck did Jacob think he was?

  Jacob stalked forward, aggressive, and tried to loom over Derek. “I won’t have your little bitch putting ideas—”

  Derek shot out of his chair, pushing Jacob back with a hard shove against his chest. Jacob stood his ground, growling as he swung his fist toward Derek’s face.

  Derek narrowly avoided the oncoming punch, responding with his own jab. He hit Jacob straight in the solar plexus, knocking the breath out of him before spinning him around and putting him in a headlock. Jacob was a formidable alpha, but he had nothing on Derek.

  “You don’t talk to me that way, Jacob. Ever,” Derek snarled, choking the impudent alpha that had dared challenge him over his omega.

  Jacob struggled, face turning red as Derek waited for him to calm down. When he finally stopped struggling Derek pushed him roughly to the floor. Jacob gasped for breath, coughing and choking as he tried to get to his feet.

  Derek kicked him down, knocking him back to the floor, wanting to humiliate the other alpha for daring to act like this. Derek planted his foot on his chest, pinning him to the floor and looming over him.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Mike, but Scott has nothing to do with it. Do you understand?”

  Jacob looked like he wanted to argue, but they both knew that he was no match for Derek in a fight, not if they both went all out. He stared up at Derek with fury in his eyes.

  “Whatever,” Jacob mumbled, humiliated. Derek removed his shoe, Jacob’s shirt now bearing a large stain shaped like Derek’s foot, and stepped away while Jacob got to his feet.

  Fuming, Jacob marched out of the office, slamming the door behind him so hard it rattled on its hinges.

  Derek was shocked. It wasn’t often he and Jacob disagreed, and he didn’t think they’d ever had a real fight before. Not one that got physical.

  Derek’s good mood from earlier was gone. What could Scott possibly have said or done that would get Mike to misbehave? Scott wasn’t bad at all.

  It made no sense.

  ***

  The rest of the day passed quickly, but Derek couldn’t stop thinking about Jacob’s accusation. It was just so startling. Everything with Scott was going so well. The last thing he expected was for Jacob to start complaining. To start a fight.

  Jacob was probably just mad that Mike had misbehaved and decided it was easier to blame Scott than to take responsibility for his own omega.

  Either way, it left a sour taste in Derek’s mouth. Jacob should be able to handle Mike without blowing up like that. Derek hoped Jacob never talked to his omega like that. Derek was an alpha, he could hold his own, but Mike had nothing to bolster himself against Jacob’s temper.

  Pushing his chair away from his desk, Derek leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling. His neck hurt and he was getting a headache.

  He wanted to go home.

  Calling his secretary into the room, Derek sat up straight and forced himself to smile as she entered. She looked wary, but not nervous. It occurred to Derek that the whole office had probably heard him and Jacob fight.

  “Patty, I think I’ll call it a day. You need anything before I go?”

  Patty looked surprised, but then she checked her phone and shook her head with a small smile. “Everything is fine. You need to get back to Mr. Grossman about the review of his financial division, but there’s no rush. As long as you get back to him by Friday you should be good.”

  Derek nodded. “Thanks, Patty.” He packed up his briefcase and pulled on his suit jacket, bidding her goodbye. She stopped him on his way out the door.

  “Is everything all right? I couldn't help but overhear… I mean, everyone heard…”

  Derek wanted to groan. Patty was great, but she gossiped. Whatever he said now would be the story everyone heard.

  “Jacob and I had a disagreement over how we should handle our omegas. It’s been settled.”

  Patty looked disappointed not to get something juicier, but she didn’t push. She knew Derek well enough not to.

  “I’m glad you settled it. Have a good night, Derek,” she said, heading back to her desk.

  Derek bid her goodbye, heading out.

  ***

  Derek made it home without any problems, but he was dismayed to see that Scott’s car wasn’t in the driveway. He’d been counting on sex with Scott to cheer himself up, and to prove to himself that Jacob’s accusations that Scott was bad were unfounded. Knotting Scott was a sure way to make him feel awesome, no matter what was going on.

  What Scott needed was a cell phone. Derek knew the omega probably had one from before they bonded, and that he’d most likely retrieved it when he visited his parents, but Derek had never thought to get the number. Besides, he wanted Scott to have a phone Derek had paid for. Not his parents.

  Annoyed with himself, Derek grabbed a beer from the kitchen and sat down in the living room to wait for Scott to come back.

  ***

  Scott parked his car, hopping out and slamming the door shut as he headed up toward the front door. He was in a good mood, his day with Jackson and Ellie making him feel like himself for the first time since he and Derek had bonded.

  “Derek?” he called out as he opened the door. Derek’s car was in the driveway, so he knew that his alpha was home. It was weird. Scott had thought that if he made it home before five p.m. he would be back before Derek, but that obviously wasn’t the case.

  “Scott, I’m in the living room. Get your ass in here!” Derek yelled back, voice funny. He didn’t sound angry, just weirdly impatient. Scott shuffled off his shoes and put his car keys in his pocket before heading into the house.

  He found his alpha in the living room. Derek was slouched down on the couch, still dressed in his work clothes, his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular forearms. He looked up when Scott entered the room. A grin bloomed on his face.

  “Hey, Derek,” Scott said, stopping in the doorway. Derek smiled even wider, patting the couch next to him with a few hard little slaps.

  Scott imagined Derek’s broad hand landing on his backside, big palm crashing down on his sensitive skin, and he was surprisingly aroused. Add that to the list of things that apparently turned him on.

  “Scott, come, sit. I missed you,” Derek said. There was a slight slur to his words, and Scott noticed that there were five or six empty bottles lined up on the coffee table. He’d never seen Derek intoxicated, and he just hoped that his alpha was one of those happy, jubilant drunks. So far, much to his relief, that seemed to be the case.

  He moved into the room, sitting down next to Derek on the couch. He left a few inches between him and his alpha, but Derek was having none of it. Wrapping his arm around Scott’s shoulders, Derek dragged him in close so that he was almost sitting on Derek’s lap.

  The alpha smelled amazing, the unique scent of alpha musk and something that was pure Derek mixing in just the right way had Scott’s libido turning into overdrive. He shuffled into his alpha’s chest, loving the feeling of being held tight. Muscular thighs made for a comfortable seat, the bulge in Derek’s pants pressing into his ass with tantalizing firmness.

  All the trepidation and self-doubt he’d felt when Jackson ranted against the omega box fell away. He and Derek were bonded. If anything had changed him, that was it.

  D
erek buried his nose in Scott’s hair, breathing him in like he wanted to drown in Scott’s scent.

  Scott was enjoying it. Derek’s hands curled around his waist and came to rest over his crotch, when suddenly Derek went stiff beneath him like a switch had been flipped. The arms around his waist felt like steel bands, tense and unmovable.

  “What the fuck have you been doing?” Derek growled into his hair, sounding coldly furious. Scott froze, wondering what Derek was talking about. He hadn’t done anything. Had he?

  “What do you mean?” he asked, hating that his voice sounded so small. Derek had no cause to take that tone with him.

  “What do I fucking mean? I mean, why does my omega smell like he rolled around in bed with another alpha? That’s what I mean!”

  Derek pushed Scott out of his lap, landing him on a heap on the floor between his legs. He grabbed him by the jaw and squeezed his cheeks so hard his face hurt.

  “I didn’t—” Scott tried to defend himself, words muffled by Derek’s fingers pushing into his jaw, but the alpha cut him off.

  “Who was it?” Derek growled, puffing out his chest angrily as he stared down into Scott’s face. He looked half feral, no traces of mercy in his expression.

  “I haven’t been with any other alphas, Derek. I just hung out with my friends…”

  Jackson. Derek was smelling Jackson.

  “I can smell him on you!” Derek growled, squeezing his jaw harder. His fingers were pushing into Scott’s cheeks, Scott’s neck bent as Derek forced him to stare up into his eyes.

  “My friend Jackson is an alpha, but we just hung out. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Scott explained, feeling scared. He’d done nothing to deserve this, he thought angrily. The way Derek was treating him right now was wrong.

  He wasn’t going to let Derek hurt him, and he wasn’t going to let himself get put back into the box. Not without a fight.

  “You didn’t say you were going to be with an alpha, Scott. You thought I’d be okay with you being friends with an unbonded alpha? Are you fucking stupid?”

  “He’s not a strange alpha, he’s my—”

  “That’s it, it’s back in the box,” Derek growled, letting go of Scott’s face and stomping out of the room. Scott could hear the sound of the door to the basement being ripped open, Derek heading down the stairs to retrieve the evil box.

  Well fuck that.

  Scott got up, feeling shaky and unsteady, and walked out of the room. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t seem to make his legs cooperate. Walking faster and faster, Scott made it to the front door and bent down to pull on his shoes. He could hear Derek down in the basement, the sounds of boxes being knocked over in frustration echoing up the stairs. Feeling scared, hand slipping into his pocket to curl around his keys, Scott opened the door and ran to his car as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Adrenaline coursing through his veins, Scott pushed the button on his key to unlock the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. He started the ignition, putting the car in reverse and started backing out of the driveway.

  The door to the house was open, and like a bolt of lightning Derek was charging toward him. Scott froze for a second, then he pushed the button to lock his door just in time to prevent Derek from ripping his door open.

  Derek looked feral and crazed, teeth bared as he stopped by the driver’s side window. Scott should just keep backing out of the driveway and drive away, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Not with Derek standing there looking at him.

  “Get out of the fucking car!” Derek yelled at him through the window. His eyes were practically glowing with rage, the expression on his face chilling Scott to the bone. Scott jumped in his seat when Derek’s fist landed on the window, his foot accidentally pushing down on the accelerator so that the car zoomed back and into the road. Derek followed, running at full sprint, trying to open the door as he banged on the window of the moving car.

  “Stop the fucking car!”

  The worst thing was that there was a part of Scott that wanted to obey, that wanted to do as his alpha ordered. Was that the part Derek was cultivating using the omega box? Was he breaking down Scott’s will, leaving only that part of him behind?

  Scott grit his teeth. He hit the brakes to prevent himself from crashing into the neighbor’s car, staring Derek right in the face. Feeling unexpectedly brave, he put the car in drive and shouted, “No!”

  Hitting the gas, he shot down the street and away from his alpha.

  Shaking, car going faster and faster, Scott turned his head and looked behind the car to see Derek running after him at full speed. Derek stopped abruptly, a look of horror on his face.

  Before he could turn his head back to the road, Scott heard a crash and everything went dark.

  Part Seven: A New Course

  Derek sat in the chair next to Scott’s hospital bed, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, feeling strangely detached. His fingers itched to reach out and touch the sleeping omega, to make sure he really was unharmed, but something held him back and kept his hands from reaching out like they wanted.

  Scott could have died, and it would have been Derek’s fault.

  The scene of Scott crashing his car into the big oak outside Mrs. Hendricks’ house kept replaying in his mind over and over. Scott had been looking over his shoulder, not at the road, car veering off to the right and accelerating wildly down the street before coming to an abrupt and loud stop. How it could have gone loomed in Derek’s mind like a reproachful specter.

  “Derek?”

  Derek looked up, surprised to see his mom looking down at him with a concerned expression on her face. He hadn’t heard her enter, and he got the feeling it wasn’t the first time she’d said his name. She smiled gently when she saw that she had his attention.

  “Mom?” he asked, a lump in his throat making it hard to push the word out.

  “Oh, honey,” his mother bent down and wrapped her arms around him, fingers threading through his hair as she squeezed him tight. “It’s going to be okay,” she murmured, stroking his head, “Scott is going to be just fine. Don’t you worry.”

  Derek started to cry, his mother hugging him tighter as he let it all out. She seemed surprised by his breakdown, but she held him through it, muttering soothing words into his ear. Derek let himself be comforted.

  “It’s not your fault, Derek. It was an accident,” she said, like Derek being at fault for what had happened was inconceivable.

  Her words had the opposite effect of what she’d intended. It was Derek’s fault. Scott was trying to run away from him, to escape him, and had injured himself in his blind panic to get away. If Derek had kept his cool when Scott came home reeking of another alpha, and he had managed to deal with the situation calmly, then none of this would have happened.

  “Derek, what is it?” his mother asked, noticing how he’d tensed up at her words. She pulled away, sitting down on the chair next to him, taking his hand. She held it tight, looking into his eyes with a concerned expression.

  Her concern—the fact that it didn’t even occur to her that Derek was at fault for Scott’s condition—made him feel guilty and ashamed.

  Derek couldn’t tell her what had really happened, that Scott had been scared of him and hurt himself while trying to run away. He knew his mother well enough to know what she would think of that. What she would think of him. He forced a smile.

  “Nothing. I’m just… I don’t know. I should have stopped him from getting into the car,” he said, looking away from his mother and over to Scott, again wanting to make sure he was still okay.

  Scott had hit his head in the crash and passed out, coming to in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. At first Derek was relieved, thinking Scott was okay, but on waking the omega had panicked at the sight of Derek sitting next to him and the paramedic had been forced to sedate him.

  The dose had been too high for an omega, and he was still knocked out four hours later. The doctor had assured Derek t
hat Scott would be fine, but the way she looked at him had made him feel like scum.

  Derek couldn’t understand how it had come to this. All he wanted was for Scott to behave like a respectable omega. He didn’t beat him, starve him, or abuse him. He was fucking lenient. It didn’t make sense.

  It all came back to the stupid omega box. It had been a godsend, doing exactly what it advertised, but Derek was starting to think it may have been too good to be true. Maybe it messed Scott up just as much as it made him better.

  Moving over to the bed where Scott was sleeping, his mother sat down on the edge of the mattress. She brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead, fingers ghosting down to his neck to touch his collar. Derek tensed, but she didn’t comment. He didn’t know if she thought Scott wore it willingly, or if she was postponing the fight for a day when Derek wasn’t so on edge and vulnerable. Either way, he appreciated it.

  “Did the doctor say when he should be waking up?” she asked after a few seconds.

  “Another couple of hours, maybe sooner. It depends on his metabolism,” Derek replied.

  Derek got out of the chair and stood next to her, looking down at Scott’s sleeping form. He wondered what he would do if Scott woke up now and freaked out again. What he would say to his mother?

  “Have you called his parents?”

  “No. He’s fine, I don’t want to worry them.”

  His mother frowned, standing up. “Derek, you need to call them. They have a right to know when something happens to their son.”

  Derek didn’t reply. Technically, Scott’s parents didn’t have that right. Everything was Derek’s decision. But he didn’t think that his mom would react well if he told her that. It was one thing to argue about hypothetical omegas, riling his family up with his traditionalist views, but doing it with Scott lying there—knocked out because Derek’s mere presence had sent him into a panic attack—was a different thing entirely.