A big problem

Moni stared at her best friend as he turned away from them, dropping the mask he had so carefully pulled across his features. She could feel the tremble of his hand and could see the clenching of the muscles of his arm as he gripped her hand. She had never seen him like this; he was always so controlled and so strong whenever he faced an impossible situation, but this? It had been a long time since she had seen him lose any of his rigid self-control, and she had never seen that look on his face before—that gut-clenching look of absolute desolation.

She knew the others in the room would see an unfeeling, cold exterior, thinking him unaffected by the situation, but she knew better; she knew him like nobody else. Seeing the rigid way he held himself, the way he wouldn't look the Omega in the eye, the shake of his entire body as he held himself back, it made her want to take him in her arms and hug the pain away, something she had never felt the need to do before. She would usually just tell him a joke or a funny story, and he would snap out of his funk and move on. But this look of agony on his face made her want to hold him close and protect him from it all. She wouldn't, though, not in front of them; she wasn't sure he wouldn't be able to stop himself from crumbling.

"How about we all take a moment to collect ourselves?" Jordon asked, watching everyone in the room. Even as an Alpha, he felt like flinching at the tension rolling through the room in waves between Clary and Damon; they had managed to put everyone on edge. He could see Clary's agitation as she paced up and down, something she would never do in front of Royal Blood in any other situation. He didn't miss the silent shake of his mate's head as she watched her sister.

Clary couldn't stop the whine that was building in her chest, her Omega instincts pushing it out of her mouth, calling to the Alpha. She should be on the other side of the room with her mate, who was still turned away from her. She wanted to run over there and pull Damon's hand from the grip of his friend, Moni, whom she remembered, and take it on her own. It was like a physical need; she could almost feel the hand in her own. The feeling pushed the pitch of the whine higher.

Damon almost broke at the sound the fairy Omega was making, his head starting to turn off its own volition before he managed to reign himself in. The sound clawed at the inside of his head—the sound of his Omega in distress. It was the worst sound an Alpha could hear; he should be the one protecting her from whatever had her making it, not the one causing it. He stared at Moni beseechingly, silently begging her to do something—anything—to make it stop when he couldn't do it himself.

Clary took another step towards her Alpha, unable to stop herself. She stopped when she saw the tension in his shoulders and the way he flinched as Clary got closer to him. He watched as his mate spun on his heel to look at Jordon, at Adira, and at the fucking curtain! Anywhere but at her. It had her blood boiling; her Alpha wouldn't even look her in the eye.

"LOOK AT ME!" Clary screamed when she could take it no longer—the tension she could feel from her mate, rolling in waves across the room to sweep over her. "Look at me, not them. Stop acting as if you don't care, as if this isn't affecting you just as much as it is me," Clary said, wiping the angry tears from her eyes as she glared at her Alpha.

Damon flinched as the sound of his mat... the Omega scream tore through him. He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and locking his body down to look at the woman. He wasn't prepared for the sight that met him—the shake of her entire body, the tears she was trying to wipe away, the angry flush that had spread across her beautiful face. The pain, devastation, and anger she saw there. It was too much! The sight of her like that pushed all his frustration up through his body in a furious growl that erupted from his mouth before he could stop it, making them all flinch again—everyone except his Ome.... Clary.

Damon could see the muscles in her neck straining and the clench of her jaw as she held her head up high, refusing to back down. A fierce pride welled up in Damon at that moment; Clary was strong! He clamped down on the feeling. If he wasn't going to let himself give in to his own nature and to every instinct that was trying to push him towards the woman, then he would not allow himself to feel the pride that stirred at his mat... the Omega wins. He didn't deserve to!

"We need to talk about this," Clary said, stalking forward, finally giving in to the instincts that were pushing her forward. "We need to talk about us," she cut off when she saw her Alpha take a step back, a terrified look on his face. The look scraped at her chest; her Alpha looked scared of her.

"We can't," Damon said, wanting nothing more than to take a step forward, to sweep his ma... to sweep the woman up in his arms and hold her close, to never let go of her. But he couldn't, so he took another step back, terrified of what he would do if the fairy got any closer, fighting his entire body to take the step. The frustration welled up in him again as he saw first the hurt, then the anger that swept across the Clary features.

"Don't tell me you don't want this, Damon," Clary said angrily, taking another step forward when she saw her mate flinch again. "How can you deny what there is between us? We both know that this is meant to be," she choked out when she saw the shudder that ran through Damon's beautiful body as she got closer. She wanted to run her hands over that body, to wrap herself up in her Alpha's arms and scent—the scent that was reaching out and caressing every inch of her. "You won't be able to fight it forever; we both know that we are mat..."

"Don't. Don't say it, Clary," Damon cried, wincing at the sound of his tone as he growled out the name as the Alpha in him emerged, wanting to take the Omega. He trembled when he saw the shudder run through Clary at the sound of her name, his hands clenching as the pupils of those mesmerizing eyes blew up, dilating in an instant. He almost shrieked in frustration when the scent of his unmated Omega hit him again, scraping at his lungs. It made him want to push the woman down and claim her.

"You know we can't be together." Damon growled out, frustrated beyond belief, "Seriously! Do you think I don't want this? That every single cell of my entire body isn't fighting to get to you? That it does not tear my soul apart and rip my heart apart, causing me to turn away from you? What could we be? We.... can't.... Were from two different worlds?" he growled angrily, yanking at his hair with frustration, hating himself, hating what he was, what Clary was. "Do you think I haven't waited, prayed, and begged for a mate? We can't!" he said. He wanted to scream out his pain and loneliness as his Ome.... the fairy, had.

"You won't even try?" Clary muttered angrily, "You're going to turn away and pretend it's not happening because I'm a mixed blood om...?"

"No, it's because I am a royal blood Alpha and came from the original's family; you know it is not allowed. I am sorry, Clary." Damon said brokenly, turning away and dragging Clary towards the door. He needed to leave, barely able to hold himself back any longer.

"Then you should know, I will not give up on you on this," Clary said, watching as her Alpha stopped in his tracks, his back ramrod straight and shoulders shaking. "You can't run from it, Sebestian. I am your Omega, and you are my Alpha," she said as the tears welled up, the pain of seeing her Alpha with his back to her crashing through her in an uncontrollable wave.

Damon had to force himself not to turn around at the statement his mate, his Omega, had made. The Alpha in him needed to turn and claim the Omega who had called him his Alpha. "We can't I Damon Will the Royal Blood Alpha reject you, Miss Clary." Forcing himself to walk through the door was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

Adira ran forward when she saw her sister collapse. She threw herself onto the floor next to her and pulled her shaking body into her chest, stroking her hair back as she sagged into her arms and sobbed into her neck. She wanted to scream right along with her when she could hold the high-pitched keening no longer. She had no words for her as she screamed her pain and loneliness out. So, she just held her tighter, rocking her back and forth.

Clary felt like her gut had just been ripped from her, like somebody had dragged her beating heart from her chest and was scraping the hollow, empty space left behind with a blunt knife. She could barely breathe as she screamed out her pain, clutching desperately at her sister to keep herself from falling over the edge of the abyss her Alpha had left behind as he walked out of the door.

Sebestian made it as far as the alleyway at the end of the street before he lost it. He felt physically sick. He sank to the ground, barely able to see from the tears that filled his eyes, and curled up into a ball, folding in on himself. He couldn't breathe! He lay there shaking and sobbing, unable to stop himself from trying to fight her off, when he felt Moni's arms come around him.

"Stop!" Moni commanded him. She might not have been an Alpha, but she was still a powerful Alpha in her own right, so she commanded him to stop fighting, pulling him in when he stopped. She almost cried when his arms came around her. She clutched him tightly, letting him cry it out. She didn't know how to comfort him; she had never seen him lose it like this. She had never wanted a mate, so she did not understand his need for one, but it tore at her to see her strong, powerful best friend so broken.

"What k..k... kind... of... Alpha am... I... Moni...? I rejected her.... I rejected my ..m.. m..ate" Damon gasped out, desperately trying to breathe through the gaping hole in his chest as the tears poured down his face. His Omega was his mate, the mate he had so desperately needed.

He rejects her for the sake of his legacy.