Learning To Love The Alpha Successor (mxm)

Chapter 14 - The Thought Of Losing You

It wasn't easy to love somebody. Definitely not for Theo. Not when he had grown up knowing that people around him treated him the way they did because of his position as Alpha Successor. They treated him that way because they wanted something out of him. They wanted his support, his power, what his future promised. They wanted recognition and rank when he takes over as Alpha. He had learnt to become cautious of the goodwill and concern around him.

He learnt the hard way that not everyone that treated him well, did it out of pure intentions towards him. In fact, most of the time, they did it for their own sake, not his. He had learnt that for werewolves, their human side to them were too dominant, they learnt greed too quickly, applied it too easily.

He sighed quietly as he stared at the face in front of him. An ache in his chest made him close his eyes for several moments to calm his inner wolf, before he glanced at Ciel's sleeping face again.

This person, he didn't understand. How Ciel could possibly be still here, laying right next to him, after all that he had put Ciel through? The guilt hit him in waves and Theo tensed.

He remembered the first time he had heard about the treaty. He was only sixteen then. Hot headed and stubborn, thinking he knew everything there was to this world. Thinking he knew everything there was to know as Alpha Successor. Almost three years later, he realised that he didn't. In this moment in time, he finally realised what a child he has been.

Three years ago, he had threatened to kill his own father for even suggesting an arranged marriage in their era. He mocked his father's sanity, insulted his father's ability to lead the pack. He had been awful and rude to his parents for wanting to keep their end of the treaty. He didn't understand what was so important about it, some paper written between two supposedly important people from hundreds of years ago. Why did they still have to uphold something as old as this as though it was normal? Why didn't everyone just forget about it after all these time?

The worst of it all, was when Theo found out that the tribe had no more eligible women for him to marry. They, in their crazy minds, decided that a male was as good an offering as a female. They were out of their minds, Theo was sure he was surrounded by desperate idiots. He scoffed at them, telling them that they would have to kill him first before he would let them tie him down to another man. It was disgusting to even think about it. To touch a man intimately. To share a life, for the rest of his life, with a man. It was impossible for him. He would rather chop off his arms, his legs, he would rather not be Alpha. He was going to choose who he loved, his bride, his future. It was surely going to be a beautiful woman, soft and gentle, bending to his wishes and needs.

Theo's hands itched to reach out to touch Ciel's face, knowing that the skin that he would caress would be soft. He resisted it. He didn't want to wake the poor, tired teen. Although he knew that Ciel was probably so far gone in his sleep that a tornado crashing through their territory would not wake him, he kept his hands to himself.

When they had suggested that Ciel was to spend two years with their pack so that they can get to know each other better before their marriage, Theo threatened that he would make Ciel's life a living hell so that they would never get what they wanted. He vowed that they would never make him do what he did not want to do, that he would never in this lifetime marry someone he did not pick for himself, most definitely not a man.

When Ciel arrived at their house, Theo could only see him as the person who was about to rob him of his freedom to choose who to love, to marry, to spend the rest of his life with. He saw a weak tribe werewolf that had to resort to an old treaty to protect themselves. He saw a desperate, weakling that didn't even deserve to breathe the same air he did. He looked down on Ciel.