Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Control

DISCLAIMER: This chapter might be triggering for survivors of sexual assault. Please use discretion.

Asher

One foot in front of the other.

With one foot in front of the other, I make my way home after an enchanting evening with Rose. It felt like a breath of fresh air, a much-needed retreat into fantasy.

And I’m glad I had the opportunity to apologize for what I did. It’s been weighing heavily on my heart, and I didn’t want her to go another second thinking I didn’t care. Or that I didn’t regret running away.

What I didn’t tell her, though, but what is most salient in my mind is…

Running away wasn’t my biggest regret that night.

I regret not -

“Shit!” I hiss, the mark on my neck searing with crimson pain. “Are you kidding me?”

Cato growls.

I’m taken aback, a little shocked by the sound in my chest rumbling with rage. It’s a feeling Cato hasn’t brought to the surface in a long time.

Our mate is cheating, and you are walking as if taking a Sunday stroll!

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, only a few minutes from the house now. “She could be inside with him. Might as well give them time to finish so I don’t have to deal with her if we catch her in the act.”

No! Catch her in the act! She won’t be able to lie and tell us it’s all in our heads then!

Are you serious? Do you not remember what she did to us? If we catch her, who knows what she’ll do in a fit of embarrassed rage? That is if she even is embarrassed.

She won’t harm us with someone else present. It wouldn’t look good for her.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, as if her boy toy would give a shit what she does with me.”

Please, Cato begs. I need to see it with my own eyes. I need confirmation. I need to know we're not crazy.

I frown, feeling a pang of sympathy in my chest. Is he still not convinced? I feel his sense of betrayal, his hurt. The questions whirling in his head all at once.

What did I do to deserve this? Am I not good enough?

All the same things I felt at first. Sentiments I believed with the vigor and assuredness of religion.

I don't need confirmation or to see it to believe it. I have faith in my instincts. My faith in myself has surpassed my faith in her.

But maybe this could finally knock some sense into Cato?

I pick up the pace, the fire in my belly burning as our rage flickers together for the first time in years, and I can feel my eyes glowing. Glowing with dominance, rage, and a will to beat the ever-living shit out of whoever thinks it’s okay to put his hands on the Alpha’s mate.

I bound up the stairs, the sounds of moaning wafting down the stairs in ignorant bliss. Except she can’t be so naive. She knows my mark is burning, but she doesn’t care.

Let’s see how she’ll talk herself out of this one, how she'll call me crazy and act as if what I'm seeing isn't real.

Oh, Asher, you just need contacts! We weren't fucking, just pretend wrestling!

I swing the door open, her legs spread and her breasts on display with her back arched, gripping the sheets with white-knuckled fervor.

And, wouldn’t you know, her trainer’s face is between her thighs, kneeling at the edge of the bed. His hands run up her thighs, my presence not yet registered by either of them, so caught up in the throws of passion.

As if Genevive could feel anything close to real passion. I'll bet he thinks she loves him and wants to make him Alpha but can't because of what society would think. And he eats her words up as if it's from the mouth of the Goddess Herself. I know because that used to be me.

But I know better now. She can't love anyone.

A low guttural growl resonates in my throat, not from me, but from Cato.

At this point, I couldn’t care less. She’s transgressed with far worse sins than this; cheating is the least of my worries.

Besides, you have to love someone to be jealous that someone else has them.

And I do not love Genevive, nor do I care if this poor bastard does.

“A-Asher!” She whispers harshly, as if I’ve done something wrong, her eyes hooded and glowing wildly. “What’re you doing here?”

“My mark was burning, dear mate,” I hiss as the trainer stands, gathering his clothes from the floor quickly.

“No, don’t leave,” Genevive commands, and he looks at her with his brows raised in shock.

“I-I,” he stammers, turning toward me. “I’m sorry, Alpha. It’ll never happen again! I swear!”

“Yes, it will,” Genevive counters before I can speak. “You will stay here and finish what you were doing, Carter.” She pauses, smirking as she faces me. “And Alpha Asher will watch.”

I scoff. “You think I’m going to stand and watch you cheat on me?”

Her eyes flash to the extension cord, sitting in plain view on her bedside table, before she says, “You know, this is happening because you wouldn’t give me what I wanted this morning. I tried to let you scratch my itch, but you couldn’t fulfill your duties as a mate.”

She sighs, shaking her head solemnly. “I do not want to attack your manhood in front of someone else, but the only reason I’ve cheated on you is because you simply don’t have the…” She licks her lips, eyeing Carter up and down deliberately. “...Same tools as other men do.”

I roll my eyes, my hands resting on my hips in disbelief. “So you want to rub it in my face? You want me to watch, even though you’ve been denying cheating on me for months? Now you're suddenly totally okay with admitting it out loud?”

“No,” she retorts. “I don’t wish to torture you. I’m simply saying this is the reality of our situation. You can’t satisfy me, so maybe our intimacy should involve another person? I’m trying to keep you involved because you’re my mate, and I want you to be happy.”

“Happy?” I chuckle. “Happy?”

What an insult to the word.

“Come,” she commands, gesturing for me to stand beside her and for Carter to return to his post between her legs. “Continue what you were doing, baby.”

Baby! Is she seriously calling him baby?

Carter seems hesitant, eyeing me for my reaction, but I only hang my head, ashamed.

What can I do? Fight him? For what reason? What’s the point anymore in doing anything? It's not going to change the situation. If I attack him, the whole pack will know I've been a cuckold to Genevive for months.

What would that do to my family? My image? The respect my pack members and other Alphas have for me?

Rose would hear about it. She'd know.

I don't know if I could handle that. The pity in her eyes that would surely follow.

Yet, she's all I want right now. If I could teleport away from this hell and into her arms, I'd do it. Fuck the consequences.

I stare into Genevive’s eyes. The woman I used to love and thought I’d spend the rest of my life with.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper, but I don’t know if she heard me over her moans; Carter is back at work with his face buried inside her.

I remember when our sex life was out of this world. We seemingly couldn’t get enough of each other, hungry and lustful.

Maybe that’s all I felt for her? Lust. She used sex and passion to make it feel like our connection was stronger than anything I had ever felt before, giving me whatever I wanted whenever. And I did the same for her. She made me feel on top of the world.

I felt like an Alpha for the first time in my life. I went from a poor boy living in a tiny house with too many siblings for one home to being in a mansion with the mate of his dreams in a position of power—a position to make real change and have control over his life.

Then she took it away. She gave me a taste just to make me watch her eat the meal.

Even dogs get table scraps, yet…

Here I am, starving. Emaciated, a shell of my former self, wondering how I'll ever feel normal again.

“F-Fuck!” She cries. “I’m close.”

Within seconds, she fakes an orgasm. I know it because, despite what she said, I know what a real one from her looks like.

She wants me to feel like shit thinking another man could do it in mere minutes when it takes me much longer.

Not that I even care. She can get fucked by every dude in the pack one by one, for all I care. Just as long as it’s not me. Never again. I never want her to see me in that vulnerable, intimate state again. That's for someone I love and who loves me. Not just for anyone.

It's the only thing that belongs to me anymore—my expression of love, care, and genuine affection.

It's mine.

“Asher,” she instructs, snapping me out of my anger. “I’m going to thank Carter for his good work, and you’re going to eat me out while I do it.”

“You seriously want me to go down on you while you suck off another guy?” Cato growls through my lips. “After you went on and on about how shit I am in bed?”

She grabs my face, pretending to kiss my neck for Carter’s sake, but whispers, “You don’t have a choice in the matter, mate. You wanted to embarrass me in front of our lead patrolmen by barging in here as if you’d actually do something about it, but you’re too much of a pussy. You're a pathetic excuse for an Alpha, and your only way to save face is to pretend like you're into this whole threesome thing.”

“I don't give a shi-”

She wraps her hand around my throat, putting pressure on the bruise on my neck.

“I have no problem finishing you off, too,” she says loudly as she leans back, and Carter’s eyes are glowing, waiting for his reward eagerly as he strokes himself. He went from scared of me to seemingly aroused by double-teaming the Luna.

Except he doesn't hear the veiled threat.

But I do.

It's as if she could read my mind. As if she knew I was holding onto the last card I had to play, the last bit of myself I could keep.

And she wants me to know she can take that, too.

How could she?

My lips tremble as she wraps her mouth around him, positioning herself for me.

I don’t want to do this.

I don’t want…

But we can’t say no, can we?

“C’mon, Alpha,” she spits. “Don’t keep your Luna waiting.”

I take a deep breath, gulping down the lump in my throat.

I hate her.

My heart aches with a pain so deep I don't know if I'll ever crawl out. My eyes brim with tears I can't shed, my hand shaking out of control.

"Me too, Cato," I whisper under my breath as I inch forward. The breath from my words must tickle her skin, but I know she can't hear me because I can barely hear myself.

"I hate her."