The Exiled Alpha's Human Male Mate.[BL]

It had been a week since Bryce had been forced to confront truths about worlds he had never known existed, truths he had apparently never been considered important enough to know.

Every revelation seemed to expose another layer of the life he had thought he understood, leaving him increasingly unable to distinguish between what had been real and what had merely been constructed for him.

Leaning that his boyfriend, or rather, his ex boyfriend whom he was pretending to reconcile with simply because he needed somewhere to live, was secretly wealthy beyond anything Bryce had imagined after all those years they had worried about rent, counted their money before buying food, and struggled to make ends meet, Dave had possessed more wealth than Bryce could have comprehended.

And that was not even the worst of it.

Dave came from a Mafia family.

Not merely as a distant member of the family business, but as someone deeply embedded in its operations.

The youngest of the family’s sons, yet somehow the most formidable despite having older brothers, and apparently, his father’s favorite.

But even that was not what kept Bryce awake.

The worst truth was that Dave had manipulated him. He had lied to him, concealed entire parts of his life, and used Bryce’s feelings.

Now, after finally confessing everything, Dave seemed to expect Bryce to simply accept that his love had eventually become genuine.

Bryce knew he could not do that.

Maybe one day he could believe him. Perhaps after years of honesty and proof. Right now, though, the damage was too deep.

Dave’s behavior had changed since telling Bryce the truth, and it unsettled Bryce greatly. His possessiveness had intensified into something Bryce could no longer dismiss.

Dave refused to let him go anywhere alone. He drove him to work every morning and was there waiting when it was time to leave, as though Bryce’s movements had become something that required his constant supervision.

And there was something else Bryce could not understand.

Whenever Dave changed for bed or came out of the bathroom after showering, he seemed constantly aroused, making little effort to conceal it.

Everyday.

Each and every time.

Bryce no longer undressed around him, nor did he walk out of the bathroom wearing nothing more than a towel, so there was no obvious reason for Dave’s reaction.

He continued insisting that he would not touch Bryce without his consent, but Bryce found it difficult to believe that restraint would last for long.

The constant tension made him uneasy, especially because he had no intention of becoming intimate with Dave again.

Every evening he returned to that house, the possibility of Dave eventually crossing that boundary remained at the back of his mind, tightening the anxiety already weighing on him.

Besides, his own body still felt as though it had not recovered from what had happened after Vincent’s rejection.

Lately, he had been exhausted for no apparent reason.

Nausea had become a constant nuisance, and he had even lost his appetite for certain foods, including some he had once loved.

At the same time, he had begun craving things he had never particularly wanted, sometimes in combinations that made absolutely no sense to him.

_

It had also been a week since Bryce had slept with someone else, someone who wasn’t Dave. Not willingly, though. Nothing about him and Vincent had been willing.

It had also been a week since Bryce discovered that he wasn’t entirely human. With every passing day, his anxiety over what Vincent had called the ’full moon’ grew more difficult to suppress.

He still had no idea what would happen to him when that day came, what his body would become.

And he still had no plan to escape Dave.

That was perhaps what frightened him most.

He couldn’t simply walk away. Dave had made it clear that he wouldn’t let him leave, and the Sinclair family was powerful enough to make disappearing from their reach nearly impossible.

Worse, once they discovered Bryce’s secret, he couldn’t imagine them simply allowing him to walk away or kill him.

The Sinclairs dealt in money, and if they discovered what he truly was, they could see him as something valuable.

The thought of being locked away somewhere, subjected to government experiments while strangers analyzed every part of him, made his stomach twist.

What was he supposed to do?

Perhaps he could make a deal with Vincent.

The thought alone was difficult to swallow.

He hated Vincent.

At least, that was what he believed. But Vincent possessed enough power to keep Dave and his family away from him.

He could ask Vincent for protection.

In return, Bryce would find a way to repay him, whatever Vincent demanded.

It wasn’t a solution he liked, but at this point, he wasn’t sure he had the luxury of choosing one he liked.

"Bryce?"

Bryce physically jerked, his attention snapping back into the room.

He blinked and looked around.

There were four people in the office: Bryce himself, Adam, another man and a woman. A large layout occupied Adam’s desk, displaying the design of the trophy they had been developing throughout the week.

The atmosphere in the room was tense.

The three designers looked increasingly anxious because today was the presentation. Their design was scheduled to be presented to Vincent, and if he approved it, the final version would be presented to FIFA officials the following day so production could begin once it received approval.

Bryce had contributed a substantial portion of the concept. Even he was surprised by how naturally the ideas had come to him.

The design was intricate, technically demanding and far more sophisticated than anything he had expected himself to produce so quickly.

The three designers had spent hours refining the concept and preparing exactly how they would present each element, while Bryce’s attention kept drifting toward problems that had nothing to do with the trophy sitting in front of them.

"Zoning out again?" Adam asked.

"Just tired," Bryce replied.

"Please don’t be, at least not today. If Mr. Walker rejects this design, we’ll have to start over and work through the entire night if we’re going to have something ready for the FIFA officials tomorrow."

The anxiety in Adam’s voice was impossible to miss.

"It’s time," Lara, the woman in the room, announced. "We’d better go now before we find him already settled."

Adam and Carlos drew in deep breaths before standing.

"Stay here. The meeting should only take about twenty minutes," Adam said.

"Okay," Bryce answered.

He lowered his head onto the desk, resting it against his folded arms as they left.

He could only hope the design would be accepted. Working through the entire night was not an option, especially when he knew Dave would never allow him to stay out at night.

More importantly, though, having the design approved would be one good thing in a life that had seemed determined to give him one disaster after another.

He needed something that could remind him that he was still capable of accomplishing something despite everything weighing on him.

It would restore at least some of the confidence he had been steadily losing. Adam had promised to pay him well for his contribution, and if Bryce ever found a way to escape Dave, having money of his own would give him something he desperately needed: a means to survive without depending on anyone.

That thought had barely ended before another slipped in.

Vincent had said that Bryce still felt the pull because he had developed feelings for him, but lately, that pull had almost disappeared.

Had his feelings for Vincent finally faded, or was Vincent still using the suppressants to keep Bryce from being overwhelming?

The mark was still there.

Did that mean he still had feelings for Vincent, even though the suffocating urge that had once dragged his attention toward him had quieted?

He couldn’t deny the other feeling that remained despite the silence.

He wanted to see Vincent.

It had been days of being in the same building without crossing paths.

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