Defy The Alpha(s) 2: Rebel Beast

Maverick’s voice suddenly boomed through the quiet room, and Aria startled so badly she nearly knocked the photograph from the shelf.

She spun around, then swallowed. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

After the dream she’d just had, the least the universe could’ve done was make Maverick look slightly unattractive today. Apparently, that was asking too much.

He was dressed casually in a fitted black long-sleeved shirt and dark pants, managing to look indecently good in something so simple. The shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and chest, outlining the strength in his arms before tapering neatly over his narrow waist. It certainly didn’t help that the black made his purple hair more striking and drew even more attention to those slitted gray eyes.

She must have been ogling him far too obviously because her wandering gaze eventually lifted and collided directly with his.

Aria’s soul nearly left her body.

Fuck!

Maverick thankfully didn’t comment, although something about the way he looked at her made Aria suspect he had noticed every embarrassing second of it. She cleared her throat and forced herself to look away, desperately trying to regain some semblance of control.

"Ahh, yes." Aria gestured toward the photograph. "I just met them. Not physically, though..."

Perhaps it was the slight raise of Maverick’s brow, or perhaps her brain had finally caught up with her mouth, but Aria immediately realized how that sounded.

"Not that I’m planning to meet your parents," she quickly added. "Because that’s totally not normal. That’s the kind of thing people in relationships do, and we’re obviously not in a relationship yet." Her eyes widened. "No! I don’t mean yet like I’m expecting us to be in a relationship eventually. I mean, yes, you snuck into my room and kissed me, but that doesn’t mean—"

Aria stopped herself, painfully aware of the awkward expression on her face as she stared at Maverick, whose expression remained so unreadable that it only made everything worse.

"Okay, I’m rambling now." She pressed her lips together and gave him a small, embarrassed nod. "I think I’ll just shut up."

While it looked like Maverick wasn’t capable of much expression, the truth was that he was dying with laughter inside and barely holding it together.

"You can meet my parents anytime you want. Although I should probably warn you that they’re more than a little invasive, and they’ll definitely have questions about us," Maverick told her.

"Oh, us..." Aria muttered, refusing to think too deeply about that particular word. This conversation was becoming more awkward by the second, so she looked around for something, anything, to steer it in a safer direction.

"How is this possible?" she asked, gesturing toward the snow.

"Ice magic. Water manipulation. I am—"

"Half-Fae," Aria finished for him. "Yeah, literally everyone who lives in the United Dorminia Federation knows your roots, Professor."

"You don’t need to be formal around me, Aria. Just call me Maverick."

Aria pursed her lips, having absolutely no idea how to tell him that being formal with him was currently one of the few defenses she had left.

"Professor" put a respectable distance between them, while "Maverick" was the man who somehow found his way into her dream wearing nothing but an apron. She needed that distance for the sake of whatever remained of her dignity and sanity.

"But you’re still my professor—"

"I insist," Maverick said firmly.

For a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other, until that familiar stubborn glint appeared in Aria’s eyes. If he wanted to make a point out of his name, then she could make one too.

"Fine, Maverick." She deliberately emphasized his name. "And if you don’t mind, Maverick, I’m curious. Why aren’t your ears pointed? I thought even half-Fae inherited that."

Maverick immediately caught the challenge in her tone. The corner of his mouth curved as he realized exactly what she was doing. "Because I hide them, Aria." His smirk deepened. "Would you like to see my Fae ears, Aria?"

There was something about the way he said her name that made the question sound far less innocent than it should be.

Aria was confused. How the hell had they gone from arguing over what to call each other to sounding like they were flirting?

That had definitely not been her intention.

"No." That was the answer Aria had in mind, but what left her lips was, "Yes."

A quiet breath escaped Maverick’s lungs. He had wanted Aria to become comfortable enough with him to ask for something like this, but now that she actually had, the reality of what she was asking quickly caught up with him.

Pointed ears were nothing remarkable in the Fae lands, but they weren’t in the Fae lands. They were in the human realm, where anything visibly different had a way of becoming a spectacle.

His Fae features weren’t something Maverick revealed for people’s curiosity. Allowing someone to see them required a degree of trust he rarely gave, and although Aria didn’t know it yet, she was his mate. Her opinion mattered far more than he wanted it to. This was part of him, something he could hide but never change, and the possibility that she might look at him differently afterward made the moment unexpectedly vulnerable.

Aria must have sensed some of his hesitation because she immediately began, "You don’t have to do it if you—"

"I’ll do it."

"Okay." Aria straightened slightly, bracing herself.

Maverick took a deep breath, then focused entirely on her, never once looking away.

Aria became increasingly uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny. It felt as though he were peering straight into her soul, stripping away every defense she had until she was standing before him with nothing to hide behind. Just when she decided she couldn’t endure another second of that unnerving attention, he began to change.

Almost in slow motion, Aria watched in disbelief as his ears lengthened, their rounded tips gradually sharpening into elegant points. But that wasn’t all. The transformation subtly altered the rest of his features, making his face more angular and his jaw almost unnaturally sharp.

Purple slowly bled into his slitted gray eyes until the color became luminous, giving them an otherworldly glow beneath his dark lashes. Even his skin seemed different, impossibly smooth and clear, without a single blemish to disturb its perfection.

Aria’s mouth fell open.

At that moment, it became painfully clear why Maverick never walked around looking like this. If girls already went completely gaga over him in his mortal form, there was only one way they would treat him if they ever saw him like this.

A god.

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