“What if I don’t want to go?” Daniel asks and moves over a step so he can see past the counter to the large bulge tenting Liam’s sweats. Why doesn’t he just breed Daniel? He clearly wants to. Especially if he’s feeling close to rut.

Liam cuts him a sharp look. “I’d like for you to go to your nest, Daniel.”

Oh. His voice is firm. Overly calm. What exactly might Liam do to him if he says no?

“Maybe you should ask me what I want,” Daniel says, leaning against the counter.

Liam huffs in amusement. “Absolutely not. You have no idea what you want. It would be wildly unprofessional for me—your Dominant who you desperately want to please, and who is edging towards rut because of your sweet ass—to ask what you want me to do.” He shakes his head. “Go to your nest, Daniel. I need an hour.”

That pisses Daniel off. Hell, that’s just as invalidating and mean as what his father and doctors have said to him for years.

Daniel’s eyes fill with tears. So much emotion and grief wells up within him that it makes it easy to speak up for once. “I’m yours. I’m here to be yours. You know you’re the only Dominant I’ll ever get to have, that I want everything with you while I can have it. Why would you deny us this? I thought… I thought you wanted me?”

But obviously he doesn’t if he can shut Daniel out and deny them both. Close to rut and able to say no, able to choose suppressants when Daniel is constantly wet and eager to be used.

It’s awful.

“Daniel, that isn’t what this is.”

“Bullshit. Why did you give me a nest? Are you gonna take my nest away?” he asks, and he’s sick at the thought of it, swallowing down bile. “Is this real or not?” Realization dawns. “It was because of the rut. You don’t mean it. I’m not special,” he says, wishing he’d never met Liam at all. It turns out this is the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. “You gave me the nest to have space from me. To buy yourself time—” His heart is breaking.

“No! That is not true,” he snaps.

Daniel whimpers and turns to run. Out the door, into the woods, anywhere. He doesn’t care where he goes, or where he winds up, but the urge to flee is overwhelming.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Liam growls, his voice as heavy as death. “Do not run. Do not even think about having me chase you down. If you care for me, at all, you will not do that to us.”

“I—I need to run,” Daniel whispers. “If I go, you’ll chase me or you won’t. But I’ll know.”