“I thought you were righteous and didn’t want to follow idiot leaders.”
“Yes, you have the last part right. I had to make a living, and I had a certain set of skills. We didn’t do evil. I prevented him from killing people. Well, innocent people. We did what we had to. Made smart investments. Then we found Lance living in the woods, almost feral, still in wolf form. His pack, not alphas, just regular werewolves, had kicked him out too for being a menace.”
Lance wrinkled his face in disapproval but remained silent. In fact, he hadn’t talked the whole time.
Billie shot him a nervous smile, and he looked away.
I shook my head. We were going to have to talk to him. Lance was always slow to relax around strangers, but an omega was even harder for him. It almost took magic to get him to agree to having another omega. If Billie felt uncomfortable around him, I didn’t see how she would agree to join us. It was possible that she could be the omega to three of us and he just be a platonic part of the group. However, that didn’t feel right.
Daniel raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, my friend, but it was the truth. Anyway, Lance became the head of our fighters. By that time, we’d become a whole organization. We had allies and enemies. We did good as well. Gave to the poor. Were a place for wayward alphas before they became a recluse in the woods. Showed them how to thrive even without an omega while getting the bond they needed from being in a pack. Then Ty came in.”
I raised my shoulders, jumping in to tell my own story. “I was good with growing our profits. Kai found the missions, Dan was good about plotting them out, Lance was good at getting through the fights. I came in at the end with making sure we had an out by knowing how to grow our profits in a more non-violent way. I actually approached them to join after they stole from a vampire group I hated. I was bored, forced into work I didn’t want to do in my town, so leaving was easy. They had me do all the physical work because I was an alpha. And I was pretty sure the leader was racist. I was out.”
Billie seemed to relax, no longer giving us dubious eyes. “So, you were essentially a diverse supernatural alpha-led mafia.”
Kai slouched down in his chair. “That’s pretty accurate. It was fun.”
“Until it wasn’t,” I whispered.
* * *
The ride to Billie’s place wasn’t as awkward as I feared it would be. She asked a lot of questions, but nothing I minded answering. When we got to her apartment, a little wave of electricity ran through me. I wasn’t expecting anything, but it just felt surreal to be living with her.
She stood in her living room area and looked to her couch. “It’s not much, but it’s comfortable.”
I put my duffle bag on the floor beside it. “It’s fine. I’m a vampire, I can sleep on the floor.”
“Do you sleep during the day like other vampires?”
“Yeah, just not as long.”
“Well, you can have my bed when I go off to work next week.”
I sat down on the couch. It was comfortable, like she said. As tempting as it was to sleep in her bed and take in her scent until my heart was content, there was no way that was happening. “Beautiful, I’m not letting you go to work alone. You can stick me in an office, and I can nap and work on my writing.”
She sat down beside me, eyebrows raised in surprise. “But I’ll be around people.”
I took in a breath, inhaling her sweet scent. I really wanted to touch her again. “Unless it’s one of us, we won’t be satisfied. We don’t mean to be pushy, we just—”
She gave me a lopsided smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Want to make sure the lady you don’t really know, despite your spying, doesn’t die.”
I already figured out how she was feeling. She thought we were only interested in her because she was an omega. Did she think she was that interchangeable? Of course, she did. Why would she think a bunch of men who she never knew wanted her for any other reason?
She looked away from me. “Don’t feel the need to say anything. I’m not upset. Plus, I’m very aware of the vulnerable position I’m in. I’m just annoyed.”
She was right, but it hurt my heart that she looked almost defeated. I wanted her to know why I liked her. That I found we had shared interests like horror movies and anime. That I loved her thoughtfulness to her patients, family and friends. I was intrigued by her being so self-sufficient and hard-working.
She looked down at her hands, fingers wrung together so tightly I could see the nerves binding her. “I feel alone. Lila’s the closest person to me, but she doesn’t understand what I’m going through. I don’t even understand what I’m going through. My body doesn’t feel like it’s mine, and now I have to rely on strangers to help me not spread my legs in the street like a cat in heat.”
I scooted closer to her until my thigh was touching hers but I made no other move to comfort her. I wasn’t sure my touch would make her feel better, and if it did, it would only be because I was an alpha. That would further prove the point she was making. “I have an idea of how you feel. Becoming an alpha is an out-of-body experience as well. We get these growth spurts. We become overly violent and full of rage. And we may not have heats, but we have what we call ruts. It all takes a lot of self-control, and one typically becomes an alpha between sixteen and eighteen. Not the best age for controlling yourself. It’s why a lot of alphas get banished or at least sent away for a while until they learn control.”
She looked up at me, and the pain in her doe eyes lessened. Her scent was brimming slightly, and I inhaled deeply, reveling in her sweetness. I could lay beside her and hold her all night. It would be heaven for me. I was thankful that I was able to bring her some comfort despite what the guys thought about me being too forlorn.
“All the things you fear about alphas started out as truths. I was a nerd growing up, so when I started changing into an alpha, I actually got sick to my stomach. I just thought they were a bunch of primitive Neanderthals. I had plans to be a scholar, and just like that, my leaders made me a laborer and a fighter.”
Billie looked at me with sympathetic eyes. She reached over and clasped my hand, giving it a light squeeze. I sucked in a breath from the contact of her soft, warm skin. Her hands were so tiny over mine. It reminded me of how small she was. I wasn’t even sure she cleared 5’4.
“I never thought about what it would be like to change into an alpha. That doesn’t sound fun,” she said.
