Decisions were getting tough, the new election year was bringing all kinds of problems for Alpha. She didn't choose her boss, but she knew that there was more than one candidate that would destroy her reputation and even bring down the American Empire. She spent her days pacing, doing long hours of work, speaking with her current boss, continuing the fight side-by-side with her brave soldiers. For the first time in her new state of being, Alpha was tired. The constant stress was wearing on her, she was just like her people in these moments, fearful and angry. She felt herself burning as the people rose up, as they protested, as they died. She was strong, she reminded herself, she was the ever boisterous America, but she felt so empty.
Like a shadow from the night, he silently moved through the house, ever drawn to her. Their bond was ununbreakable, she wasn't the same America he knew, but he couldn't leave her if he tried. The further he got, the more it hurt. He spent his days watching her people with disgust, growling at what they were doing to her. He couldn't stand to see her look so pale and wrung out, the burn in his core twisted like a knife. That was his bonded one, he could feel her pain, her fear, her loneliness as if they were his own. Such was the nature of bonded ones, she didn't know how to keep from projecting her emotions to him, and he kept his hidden from her. He felt hate toward her just as strongly as he felt love. He was always caught between wanting to rip her apart and wanting to hold her, his current middle ground was fucking her senseless and leaving his marks all over her so she was sore for days after. But this was different. She needed him, her fëa cried out to him so loudly that his ears ached with the noise.
Alpha looked up to see glowing red eyes watching her from the darkness on the other side of her room. She stared numbly, she didn't think she could handle his hate right now, or whatever the hell he called his using and leaving her. Some intense hatefucking bullshit, she was sure. She rubbed her hand over her eyes, where dark circles had formed, and found the strength to speak.
"If you've come to torture me again, just go ahead and destroy me. Cause I've been through hell so many times that I must admit you kinda bore me." The red eyes widened for a minute before he stepped from the shadows, quiet as kitten's breath.
"I haven't come to do that." He said, voice low and soft. Alpha sneered at him, baring her teeth.
"Don't you fucking lie to me." Her voice was hard, but it was easy to tell she was exhausted. When he walked up to her, she didn't attack him, as he expected from her at this point in their sick excuse for a relationship. Pain twisted in his chest with the thought that she was so worn down she didn't find him worth her energy. That was his own fault, too. He's been acting so cruel to his bond mate in a way not even his father acted that she no longer cared if he hurt her. What kind of monster had he turned into just because America was no longer Alfred?
"I'm not." Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders, carefully so as not to surprise her. Her skin burned his hands in a way nothing else could, it was always so right to touch her, like everything in the world fell into perfect place. He craved it like nothing else. Her normally bright blue eyes were dull and grey, she sighed.
She leaned into his chest, seeking his warmth, wrapping her arms around him with all her strength, and buried her face in his chest, a few tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. His arms slid around her, strong and warm, comforting and gentle. She felt him rest his cheek on top of her head and start to rumble deep in his chest, like a cat.
"It's okay, it's all going to be okay." That's all it took for her to break down and start crying. He carried her gently to her bed and curled around her beneath the covers. He stroked her hair and told her it would be okay as she bawled out all the stress she'd been going through. He kissed away the tears on her cheeks and eventually, she fell asleep feeling warm and comforted.
In the morning, he was still there, watching her with red eyes more loving than she'd ever seen. He kissed her forehead, but all she felt was anger.
"This is what you do? Be an asshole and then come to me when I'm weak and think comforting me makes it all better?!" Alpha growled, burning with rage, "You make me feel like I'm the one who has to change to get your affection and expect me to be okay with the hell you've put me through?!"
Her words are like knives, eyes like fire, face like stone. Her anger had gone dry, just like her love. He winced at her anger, feeling it in his chest like hot irons in his lungs.
"No, I expect none of that. I know what a monster I have become, I know how badly I have hurt you." He swallowed on venom rising from his fangs at her anger, "I only came to help." He couldn't bring himself to admit he loved her with every fiber of his being, that he hated himself more than he'd ever hated her. His claws grew sharper in response to his desire to claw her until Alfred came from her corpse. Perhaps he was the mad prince.
Alpha was silent for a moment, torn between wanting to beat him to death and wanting to kiss him, to take him roughly as he had taken her.
"Get out. Out of my bedroom, out of my house, out of my life! Do me a favor and go back to hell!" She shouted at him, wanting to hurt him.
"As you wish." Lucius disappeared. Neither party had ever felt worse.
