Beta Bully (M/M) - Chapter 21 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Priors & Permissions

“Five minutes,” Darcy repeated, closing the classroom door behind him. They were alone in the room.

Luca stepped back, giving him a few feet of space, and tucked his arms behind his back. “I just…” His expression was sheepish. “I wasn’t sure if I made you uncomfortable this morning.”

Darcy’s body freeze-framed. “What?” he sputtered.

“I thought I was being funny and…” Luca shrugged awkwardly. “Flirting. But you ran away and I figured I’d done it again with the teasing. Are you okay?”

“Um, yeah,” Darcy eventually managed to squeak out. “It was too much.”

Luca’s pointed brows scrunched inwards and his perfect lips pulled down. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded so sincere, it actually hurt Darcy’s heart to hear him so remorseful. Stupid soul bond. “It wasn’t meant to be rude. I kept going cause your scent was-”

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted with a raised and trembling hand. His face was on fire. The worst part of being a werewolf was the super-strength nostrils. Only Luca would have been close enough to smell the horny teenager hormones on him, but it was still horrifyingly embarrassing. “I was just… surprised. And wary of everyone else around. And I never know how genuine your threats are, so also a little afraid.”

“I wouldn’t really make you cry,” Luca reassured him, a little too quickly. “I mean, unless you’re one of those guys that cries when they cum.” A golden glint hit his eyes and Darcy’s entire body heated a few degrees. His hand drooped. Luca kept going. “And I would definitely eat your ass if you were cool with that-”

“Luca, I am begging you to stop talking,” Darcy gasped.

“New topic?”

“Anything but this, please.”

Luca took a single step forward and bent his head down a little, until he was only a few inches above him. “Why don’t you want to come to my birthday party?” he asked with a tilted head and a friendly tone. Darcy could sense a trap. There was no solid excuse for him to draw from the deck. So he improvised by doing what he does best: becoming flustered and rambling.

“Well, you see, the thing is-” Six words deep and he already wanted to kick himself. “My dad is very protective over where and when I go out, because I’m an omega.” Starting off with a bold-faced lie. Fantastic. But it’s not as though Luca had any means of fact-checking him. Best to double-down on it since he hadn’t called him out. “It’s dangerous out there. Other packs are dangerous. I could get lost. And then eaten.” Luca didn’t react to any word so far. He simply stood and stared at him. It made the babbling even worse. “And if I get found, I won’t know who found me. I don’t know anyone in your pack. I’d spend the party all alone. I have nothing to wear. And this is probably all just a prank anyway.” A deep-rooted insecurity bursting to the surface. Apparently Darcy hadn’t brushed off as many vulnerabilities as he’d thought in the last few weeks. But it was too late, his motor-mouth kept running. “You’re only inviting me to laugh at me with your stupid friends. Even if I came it would just be as the butt of your joke. You’re so cruel to me, but you pretend to care and it seems so real and that makes it worse. It’s not real for you, you’re just playing house!”

Luca listened diligently until he finally ran out bluster, clinging onto his dignity by a thread. Darcy had barely kept himself from bursting into tears. It had felt cathartic to let the last of his bubbling insecurity out. Luca closed the remaining gap between them, only a mite of air between their bodies.

He gave a Darcy a pause, checking that he had nothing else he wanted to spew at him.

Then, he spoke incredibly softly. “First of all, it’s my mate maturity birthday, so my mate is staying with me the entire time. I won’t lose you, especially if I’ve bought your outfit. Although, as for being eaten, I may take a taste.” Luca winked and poked the tip of his tongue out, a sharp tooth blinked out of the corner of his mouth with it. “Secondly, your friends are already invited. One already even RSVP’d.” Darcy knew without needing to ask that it was Melody. “Thirdly, I’m more than happy to meet your dad for him to grill me all he wants about how I intend to take care of you.” His expression slipped to a sad and gentle yearning. “And finally, most importantly,” he whispered, coaxing Darcy to inch up onto his toes, the only way he could physically get any closer. “If anyone laughed at you, at my birthday party, I would drown them in the pool.” Darcy sucked in a surprised breath, but Luca’s desirous eyes held him silent. “You don’t have to believe me when I say I care about you so much it hurts, and you have every right to ignore me after our beginnings, but I’ll still speak my truth. And after this summer, we’ll get to play house every day, forever.”

Darcy was a fool. As much as he told himself he didn’t, he believed his mate deep down in his gut. Absolute moron. He stumbled back a step, watching him warily.

Luca watched him with kind eyes as he processed his words. After a few moments he lifted his arms, beckoning Darcy into them. His body moved without permission, slamming back into him and earning a winded sound from his mate.

“My dad won’t grill you,” he mumbled into his chest.

“What?”

“That part was a lie,” he admitted. “He’s a massive softie. And pro omega independence. He’d never tell me I couldn’t go somewhere I wanted to, unless it was actually unsafe.”

Luca ruffled one hand through his waves while the other pressed into his lower back. “I promise you’ll be safe with me,” he said.

“I can’t believe I’m stupid enough to believe you,” Darcy sighed. He nuzzled his face into his shirt. Luca smelled incredible. He pulled Darcy in just a little tighter and he could almost feel his scent soaking into his skin and clothes.

“I know I have priors, but I’m trying to do the possible rights now. Cause it’s impossible to change the wrongs that have already happened.”

Darcy tipped his head up to pull a disbelieving face at him. “Did you get that off a cat poster?” he teased.

“No,” Luca laughed. “I wish the things I said had that kind of credibility.”

Darcy dropped his head again and laughed into his shirt. Luca scrubbed his hand through his hair deeper, tickling his scalp. Clutching Darcy’s head against his heart.

After a minute or two in comfortable embrace, Luca asked, “so, do you really not have swimming trunks?”

“I haven’t gone swimming since I was a kid, my old ones won’t fit any more.” A half-truth. His swimming shorts were old and he did get them when he was younger… but they definitely still fit, unfortunately. The style of them was not the kind an eighteen-year-old wanted to be seen in, though. Especially at a pool party where he was to be hanging off the beta birthday boy’s arm.

“I’ll take you shopping after school one day this week, we’ll get you something waterproof and a cute outfit to wear over it.”

Darcy flushed. He wouldn’t class himself as materialistic by any means, but the thought of his mate buying him cute clothes to wear and show off by his side… it made him feel warm and nervous inside.

“Does that mean you’ll get the final say on what I wear?” he asked, half-joking.

“You can have whatever you want, I’ll just be there to hype up everything you try on.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, dropping his eyes submissively.

Luca groaned into the top of his head, bumping his nose against his clip. “Can you do me a favour and try to look less fucking adorable? You’re getting me ha-”

The bell for the next lesson rang and Darcy stumbled back, skin burning red. He pretended not to see the tent pitched in the front of Luca’s trousers.

“S-see you later,” he called over his shoulder and dashed out the door to his class.