Help! Five Beast Alphas Want To Breed Me!!(BL)-Chapter 289: I Don’t Need A Mother

Zethar;

"He’s so small," Zephan whispers as he stares at Elián, who’s fast asleep in the coil of his tail.

I smile as I stare at the little bud, and I take my fingers to his cheek.

I pinch lightly and smile as I notice the obvious addition of fat there.

"One wouldn’t believe something so fragile can cause as much chaos as he does," I whisper, and Zephan chuckle softly as his tail curls firmer around Elián.

The boy said he wanted to be held. He was very adamant about it.

When Zephan carried him in his lap, Elián insisted that Zephan wrap his tail around him.

In his words, it was "what the baby wanted". Not long after Zephan granted these wishes, Elián dozed off like the proximity was all he needed to feel peace.

To make matters more peculiar, we’re all on the floor, and the bed is just there. Staring at us.

Watching Elián sleep like this makes something old stir. Something dangerous. Something dangerous that I think Zephan might feel too.

A certain feeling that Eliàn’s dependency on us can awaken.

I look back at my brother, and every thought in my mind slows when I see the look in his eyes.

This... sadness and quiet fear that the Zephan I know will never willingly expose.

What is he thinking? Why is he staring at Elián like a treasure he’s grown to love but might have to give someday?

"Zep—"

"He’ll survive, right?" He questions out of the blue, cutting me off, and I freeze.

"What?" I question in confusion, and he looks up at me with misery and fear.

"Labour... he’ll survive it... right? His... his baby will grow to know him, get all the love from him. He... We won’t have to say goodbye to him when his baby greets the world, right?" Zephan whispers, and my heart skips a beat.

He slowly returns his gaze to Elián, and I do so too.

He gently brushes off the hair blocking the boy’s eyes, and we just stare at his peaceful, sleeping face.

Zephan doesn’t say it at first, but I hear it. He doesn’t need to speak his heart before I hear it, and the heaviness that settles between us is how I know that the ache in his heart is dangerous.

He has gone quiet in that way he gets when his thoughts start turning inward instead of outward. That descent into what ifs and could haves that shows in how his breathing goes too even... Too controlled.

I hate this silence more than his screaming. AndI know finding out what he’s thinking may break me, but I have to snap him out of it before he dives deeper.

I roll my shoulders, restless, tail flicking once before I force myself to speak.

"You’re going to burn a hole into his face if you keep staring at him like that," I speak, but Zephan doesn’t look at me. He just sighs.

"Do you ever..." he starts, then stops.

I glance at him, and swallow when I see his jaw is tight. His hands are gently brushing Elián’s hair, and his eyes are distant.

"Ever what?" I ask, deciding to stomach my fear because it looks like he needs to be heard.

He exhales slowly.

"Do you ever wonder what it would’ve been like if she were here? If we knew her love?" He questions, and the words lanheavilyvy.

Too heavy. He doesn’t need to elaborate for me to know who he’s talking about, and my first instinct is irritation.

Sharp, instinctive, protective... irritation. I scoff lightly before turning away from Zephan.

"That’s what we’re doing now? Digging up corpses?" I ask, and he flinches. Just a little, but I see it.

I hate myself for the cruelty of my words, but this cruelty is what has helped me carry on.

"She’s dead," I continue, shrugging like it doesn’t matter. It does.

"She’s so dead she didn’t even bother to live on through her sister. Wondering won’t change anything." I add, and Zephan finally turns to look at me.

Reluctantly, I turn to him too. His eyes aren’t wet, and somehow that’s worse.

"I know that," he says quietly.

"I’m not trying to change anything. I just... I don’t know. I... felt her absence today. More than usual." He adds, and I blink at him.

I feel that absence every day.

However, I don’t say that.

Instead, I snort.

"You’re feeling it because you’re placing your hopes on Aunt Selthía. That’s on you. If you accept the fact that we would never get mother in this lifetime, moving on would be easy..." I speak coldly.

Maybe too coldly, but it’s too late to take it back.

This is it. The wall, the blade... the fade that has met me from breaking all these years.

He studies me for a long moment, then he nods. "Maybe." He says as he turns back to Elián, and silence stretches again.

I can feel an apology pressing against my ribs, trying to claw its way out. I don’t let it. I won’t let it. Apologising is giving him permission to be weak, and I will not watch my brother break.

"You don’t miss what you never had," I say finally. It’s a line I’ve said a thousand times. A line I hope would help him as much as it helps me.

I stare at my scales and move my tail gently— watching as each one catches the light individually.

"You can’t mourn what you never knew," I add, and Zephan’s voice follows in a whisper.

"That’s not true." He says, and I stiffen.

Then he continues, softly.

"You feel the space where it should’ve been. You miss it every time you see someone else have it." He continues, and my tail twitches violently before I can stop it.

I stand abruptly. Bad idea.

My chest is tight, and heat is coiling low in my guts with that familiar pull toward anger I accept instead of leaning towards my pain.

"You’re romanticising it," I snap, and Zephan looks up at me with wide eyes.

"Don’t wake him!" He scolds in a whipser and I struggle to keep my cool.

"She would’ve ruined us anyway. Made us weak. We’re better off without her! We’re not babies. We don’t need a mother!" I respond in a harsh whisper, and Zephan blinks at me.

It’s a lie. I know. And he knows it too. So, he hit sighs.

Zephan rises too, slower, as he carefully cradles Elián.

I watch him slither to the bed and place Elián there before coming back to face me.

"Zethar," he says gently, and Light, I hate that tone. "You don’t have to pretend with me." He whispers, and that’s when the emotions hit me.

However, not like grief, but rage.

I laugh, sharp and humourless, as I move and look away defensively.

"Pretend? You think this is pretending? This is surviving." I reply, and he sighs.

"You’re not surviving, you’re burying it." He snaps, and I turn to him so fast my vision blurs.

"And how’s facing working out for you?" I demand, and his jaw drops.

The words are cruel. Targeted. Effective.

He flinches again, more noticeably this time, but he doesn’t pull back.

"Not well," he admits... and that breaks me.

"But neither is your method of breaking your knuckles on walls and throats... or burying it." He adds, and the room goes still. Very still.

My hands curl into fists. My scale ripple faintly along my arms before I can stop them, and my vision blurs with tears.

I don’t trust myself to speak for a moment, so I hold on.

Zephan smiles at me, but I won’t give in to this weakness.

Finally, I exhale through my nose.

"Violence is clean," I whisper.

"It doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t linger. It helps. It always has." I add, and Zephan steps closer.

"You’re not violent because it’s who you are. You’re violent because it’s loud enough to drown out the hurt." He says, but I don’t answer.

Because he’s right...

I learned early that pain has a shape. If you don’t give it one, it will choose its own. Mine chose fire. Teeth. Blood... and I accepted it.

His pain chose silence... and I think that’s worse.

"I can’t afford to feel it," I say finally, quieter now. "I’m not as strong as you are. I miss her, but I can’t... dwell on it. I won’t." I add, and his eyes soften, and that nearly breaks me.

"You don’t have to do it alone." He whispers, and I scoff.

"I’m not doing it!" The words come out harsher than I mean.

"I won’t dwell on the past and let it hurt me. Let me... question if my omega will survive labour or not. He will survive it. And he will live. I’m not going to dwell on this topic, it is unimportant!" I rage, and his mouth falls open.

The truth I refuse to admit sits between us, heavy and undeniable.

I didn’t harden because I wasn’t hurting. I hardened because he was.

Because if one of us shatters, the other has to be iron. That’s the rule.

"I never wanted you to carry this much hurt." He speaks with his voice trembling, and I scoff, turning away.

"Too bad," I reply, and he reaches out, stops himself, then lets his hand fall.

"You’re allowed to miss her, too." He whispers. The sentence makes my throat close violently, but I ignore it.

"No," I reply, shaking my head in disagreement.

"Yes."

"No," I repeat, more forcefully.

"If I let myself want something I never had, I’ll tear everything apart trying to get it." I spit, and he stares at me in silence.

I don’t know how to be gentle with this ache.

I only know how to destroy it.

And if pretending I don’t care is what keeps my brother breathing, keeps him standing, keeps me whole...

Then I will wear indifference like armour.

I will be chaos.

I will be teeth and fire and fury.

Anything but a man who admits he wanted a mother... One who still wishes to know what it’s like to have a mother tend to your scraped knee.

I step closer to him, forcing a crooked grin.

"You’re the thinker. I’m the weapon. It’s how we work. How we’ve always worked." I say with false jolliness, and he just... looks at me.

Not wait go another word from him, I step forward and pull him into a rough embrace, one hand gripping the back of his neck, forehead pressed to his temple.

"I’m fine," I lie, low and steady.

"I really am," I add.

As long as he believes this... I can survive anything.

If I ever stop being fine, I don’t know who will protect him.