Rejected by Alpha, Collected by Dragon

Chapter 5. Second thoughts

Dominick

I slam the front door of my apartment shut when I get home. Seeing Chloe on the path by the river had been bad enough, but seeing that she was with Duncan MacElroy? How the f*ck did that happen? How could she possibly have gotten mixed up with the infamous Black Dragon? Sure, I had business dealings with him. What alpha didn’t? He could hack into any computer system, so it was a lot safer to keep him on the payroll rather than wait for him to attack us with some sort of ransom ware. He’d been in charge of pack cyber security for years. Much better to keep him on our side instead of waiting for him to extract our information to use it against us.

I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with my mate being anywhere near him, though, let alone naked and sweaty like he was obviously implying. I know I rejected her, and I really can’t complain about who she turns to now, but did it really have to be Duncan f*cking MacElroy? He’s a psychopath when it comes to extracting information the old fashioned ways.

I’m a dominant alpha wolf, I don’t shy away from getting my hands dirty, but even I vomited a little watching one of his interrogations. I’d watched him peel the skin off a man’s arm so slowly and precisely it came off in one piece. Then he’d asked the guy if he wanted to preserve it to save the tattoos. He offered to send it to the guy’s mother, for f*ck’s sake! I shudder at the memory.

I stretch my neck and crack open the bottle of bourbon, pouring a generous amount in a glass before taking it and the bottle with me to the couch. Indira, the she-wolf I’ve been dating for too long now, is sunning herself out on the balcony, and I scowl at her. She’s beautiful, of course. Her long blonde hair always gleaming and healthy, her smooth tanned skin the epitome of beauty standards. Women practically kill themselves to try to obtain her athletic figure that she comes by more or less naturally. It helps that she was born with a proverbial golden spoon in her mouth and spends most of her time primping and preening. Her meals are fixed for her, her workouts designed by the top physical trainers, and anytime there’s even the slightest flaw in the mirror, she has a slew of doctors ready to nip and tuck it back into submission. Not to mention the fleet of personal shoppers, stylists, and make-up artists that flit around her like a hoard of hummingbirds working every day to make sure the image she presents to the public at large is exactly what our advisors want it to be.

I sigh, knowing I’m being too hard on her. I come from a long line of Alphas, and even though the position comes with a certain amount of responsibility, everything has pretty much been handed to me on a platter my entire life.

Until Chloe.

She’s the one I wish was sunning herself naked on my balcony right now. All those luscious curves, and her expressive face. I can imagine what she would look like underneath me, the way her gorgeous blue eyes would darken as she screamed my name.

With a groan, I shove the thought aside and drink half the glass of bourbon in one massive gulp.

“You could’ve had her,” Victor, my wolf, growls at me. He’s been driving me nuts for the past few days. Keeping me up all night, and being moody during the day. “If you want to sleep, take the rejection back!” he grumbles.

“It’s not that easy and you know it,” I snap at him.

“You should have listened to me,” he snarls. “I told you not to reject our mate. I told you to ignore those i***t advisors.”

“And I told you I didn’t have any other choice!” I yell back. “You know exactly what they wanted to do with her! They would’ve broken her spirit! It wouldn’t have been fair to her.”

“You’re an alpha!” he shouts. “You could act like it and actually stand up for yourself and your mate!”

I rub a hand over my face, tired of fighting with him, and drain the alcohol in my glass before pouring more.

“It’s eleven in the morning and you’re already drinking?” Indira sneers at me as she walks in. She’s wrapped a sarong around her waist, but her chest is bare. Her breasts aren’t small, but they’re nowhere near as impressive or as tempting as Chloe’s. I find myself staring at Indira’s dark pink n*pples wondering what color Chloe’s are. If Indira notices me looking at her, she doesn’t mention it. I’m pretty sure she’s never really liked me, but dating the Alpha came with perks she was after, and she’s good at pretending in public.

“I would’ve started earlier, but we ran out and I had to go buy more,” I grimace at her, running a hand over my face to try to pull my thoughts back to the here and now. When this whole charade had started, she’d been a hot body I was only too happy to add to my list of conquests. She’d said all the right things as she’d flirted and rubbed up against me, and I was an i***t that fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Now I just want to tell her to go ruin someone else’s day for a while, but I’m too dependent on her father’s money. We’d needed investments to upgrade several of our facilities, and he was only too happy to loan funds to his daughter’s meal ticket.

She rolls her eyes at me. “I can’t believe you’re still crying over some little flea bitten, mangey-“

I’m up in an instant and have her by the throat, my eyes flash dangerously at her and I’m satisfied to see the flicker of fear cross her face. “Don’t you talk about her,” I growl, Victor presses forward to add more weight to my warning. “Don’t ever think you can disrespect her! Watch yourself!”

Her eyes turn hard and she tilts her chin up. “No, you watch it!” she hisses. “You are a weak alpha, Dominick. How long do you really think the pack would back you up if they saw you like this? Whining about some little nameless she-wolf and drinking yourself to oblivion before lunch? You need me! You need me to make you look good, so they think there’s still someone to fight for. One word, Dominick. One word is all it will take for Daddy to show everyone just what a loser you are.”

I drop my hand, too tired to fight anymore, and turn away from her. “Can you just give me a break for a while?” I say, feeling defeated. “Just, go shopping or something.”

“I was going to,” she scoffs. “Or would you rather go to the gala tonight on your own? I’m sure you’d make a great impression!” she laughs cruelly. “I can just see the tabloids now, ‘Loser Alpha Drunk and Alone!’ I’m sure the pack would love that!”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can’t afford to take her bait and lash out again. She’s right. All she has to do is go crying to her father and he would demand we pay him back every cent we owe him. Money we don’t have. “Indira, please,” I sigh, crumpling back onto the couch. “For a few hours can you just pretend you’re not an evil harpy?”

She sniffs at me and I hear her feet pad into the kitchen. She comes back with a water bottle and sits gracefully on a chair studying me. For the first time in a long time, she doesn’t look like she loathes me. It makes me nervous. When she’s acting like a total b*tch, I know exactly what to expect. It’s the moments that are coming less and less frequently when she acts like we could actually be friends someday that I feel like I need to cover my nuts with a steel shield. She twists the top off the bottle in her hands and takes a dainty sip, her eyes staying on me the whole time. “You could’ve kept her, you know,” she says softly.

It’s like she drives a spike into my chest. “Don’t start again.”

“It’s not like it would’ve been a big deal,” she shrugs. “I’d still be there for your public appearances, and she could’ve stayed your dirty little secret. Plenty of alphas do it.”

“She deserves better than that,” I say, the tightness in my chest is making it hard to breathe.

“She was mated to you,” Indira scoffs, “I don’t think that speaks very highly of what she deserves.”

I clench my hands into fists trying to keep control of my emotions. I know she’s just doing this to get a rise out of me. I can’t let her win again.

“How long has it been, Dom?” she grins, knowing she’s already won this fight. “Can you even get it up anymore?”

“F*ck off, Indira,” we haven’t been intimate in years. She’d strung me along until her father got what he wanted, and then she showed her true colors. By then it was too late, and I was trapped in this sham of a relationship. She has lovers that she likes to flaunt in my face, but I'm always a little worried that she would destroy any woman I tried to have a relationship with. It's been years since anything but my own hand has brought me to climax.

“I’m just saying,” she smiles, her eyes twinkling with the knowledge of how badly she’s hurting me right now. “Maybe you need to get laid. It might help your attitude.”

“Get out,” I say between gritted teeth. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to lash out against her. To bite back like the wounded beast I am. But I’m tired of fighting with her.

She shrugs, but stands up and walks out of the room. “Just trying to help,” she purrs over her shoulder before she goes.

Victor is quiet, but I can feel him pacing as he thinks. I figure he’s going to say something nasty about Indira- he’s never liked her- but instead what he comes out with surprises me. “She’s right, you know.”

“That I’m a total f*ck up?” I sneer. “Gee thanks. Love you, too, buddy.”

“No,” he rolls his eyes but thankfully, stops pacing. “We could keep her.”

“So, you’ve been drinking, too, I see,” I sigh. “We’ve been over this. You know Indira would see her as competition no matter what she says. There’s no way Chloe would be happy here with all the back stabbing that goes on. Besides,” I point out stubbornly, “she’s with Duncan now. Or had you forgotten?”

“You could ask him to share,” he shrugs. “It’s not like it would be the first time.”

“That was a one-time deal,” I growl. “And it didn’t involve my mate!”

“Still, you could ask him,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe he’d be open to a better deal? Sharing the Luna would put him top ranking for business opportunities.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually suggesting this,” I shake my head at him. “You’d actually be ok with sharing our mate?”

“Better to share her with him than lose her completely,” he shrugs again. “And, he could help keep her safe from Indira and her minions.”

I shouldn’t be considering this. It’s crazy. Besides, there’s no way Duncan would ever agree to it.