I stand beside my parents, scanning the packed ballroom of one of the city’s best hotels.
“Aren’t you dancing?” Mom asks me, sipping from the same glass of champagne she’s been holding for the last twenty minutes.
She’s not much of a drinker. Neither am I, but tonight I wish I were. It might be easier to ignore all the stares as people wonder why I’m with my parents instead of my alphas.
I’m in a midnight-blue velvet dress. It has off-the-shoulder sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a flowing full skirt. I paired it with my great-grandmother’s gold bracelet, which I almost never take off. While my dress draws some lingering looks from a couple of alphas nearby, the three men I spot on the other side of the room when a couple walks past don’t so much as look at me. I no longer exist to them. Not when we’re in their mansion, and not while we’re at this party.
“Not tonight, Mom,” I say, looking away from them.
Mom nods and turns to ask my dad something. As long as I’m not making a scene the way I did at my mate bonding ceremony, I doubt she cares what I do, or if I’m even happy. When my mom finally has enough of my dad’s complaints about being bored, and they leave early, I stand alone.
People have been staring ever since I arrived at my first party as a newly mated omega, and my alphas haven’t spoken one word to me. They were more subtle about staring and whispering while I was with my parents. Now that they’ve gone, the whispers are getting louder.
The ballroom is hot and stifling; the scents from alphas and omegas are oppressive. The night feels endless. I’m bored out of my mind, but I have no interest in making small talk with anyone. I just want to be alone where I can pretend I don’t have three scent matches who hate me.
The first server who offered me a glass of champagne was easy to refuse, especially with my mom standing next to me, giving me a look that said not to even bother. The second is a little harder. But I shake my head, and he moves on with his tray of champagne flutes to the couple beside me.
Thoroughly bored out of my mind and needing a distraction, I take a champagne flute from the third server and sip from my glass, tiny bubbles bursting on my tongue as my gaze sweeps the room.
My glass is empty far too soon.
With my mind a little hazy and my mood slightly brighter, I hand the empty glass to a passing server and start looking for another as a dark-haired alpha approaches.
He flashes a mouthful of straight white teeth. “Would you like to…” His gaze dips, and his voice trails off.
He stares.
Three claiming bites on my throat mark me as taken.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” he says as he quickly walks away.
He retreats, alert and wary as he glances around, wanting to make sure no alphas are about to tackle him for daring to approach me. Alphas are too possessive of their omegas to leave them alone for long, especially in public. He needn’t have bothered. Callum, Archer, and Torin have barely looked at me all night.
My alphas don’t want me. The claiming bites on my skin mean no other alpha would want me either.
I take another glass of champagne from a server, drain it, and pass off my empty flute. The world feels a little brighter. One more couldn’t hurt, could it? Tonight almost feels like fun now.
I’m lifting my third glass to my mouth when a hand grips my wrist and a male voice whispers harshly into my ear. “You’ve had enough.”
Torin.
I turn to look at him, but he avoids my gaze. None of them ever wants to look at me, yet they don’t seem to want to let me go either.
He takes the glass from me, passes it to a server, and walks away. Leaving me alone.
Again.
“Torin…?” I follow him.
The champagne has made me brave. If I hadn’t had two glasses of it, I wouldn’t be following him through the crowds to get him to understand that he has no reason to hate me.
The couple on my right turn when I call out loudly after him to slow down. Torin pretends he doesn’t hear me, plunging into the crowds and disappearing from view. My steps slow, and my cheeks burn as yet more people turn to stare at me.
More minutes pass, and I lose sight of Torin, Archer, and Callum.
Maybe they’ve gone without me. It’s easy to imagine they climbed back into the limo we arrived in, went back to the house and haven’t even noticed they left me behind.
An amused female voice, pitched high enough for me to hear it over the band playing behind me, says, "Your omega is looking a little neglected."
