And the Ashbourne Pack is a huge part of that.
“Bubbles?” Grieves inches closer, eyes scanning over my face with a hint of worry. I’ve taken too long to respond. “You okay?”
I blow out a soft breath and take another sip of the perfect cup of coffee to buy myself time.
“Did I overstep?”
“No!” I blurt out so fast, I choke on my coffee and then cough and cough and cough. Grieves takes the cup from me as I bend over, trying to dislodge the liquid from my trachea, one hand rubbing soothing circles between my shoulder blades.
When I can breathe normally again, I straighten. I’m sure my face is bright red and I must look like a mess, but the alpha in front of me doesn’t seem to care. His grey eyes are warm and soft and sweet as he hands me back the cup and urges me to take a small sip. It helps.
“You didn’t overstep,” I say, finally. “But I… I know how this is going to go. It's been clear from the start and I don’t think-” I bite into my lower lip as I consider my words. “I need to have some boundaries.Iknow how this is going to go, but my omega… she thinks-”
I cut off the thought abruptly, because he doesn’t need to know she thinks of this pack as hers, that a part of me has claimed them as mine.
Grieves cups the side of my head, his hand so big he all but spans the entire thing. “What does your omega think, bubbles?”
I grit my teeth and tilt my chin up, refusing to say it. But as it turns out, I don’t need to, because he shifts the tiniest bit closer, until there’s the barest amount of space between our bodies and he’s hunched over me, bringing our faces close together. “Does she think of me as hers? Of the Ashbourne Pack as hers? Does she want to claim us?”
My throat bobs with a swallow and I have the insane urge to cry.
Grieves sees it and somehow his gaze goes even softer. “It's okay, Ren,” He murmurs, thumb stroking my temple. “It's okay, because my alpha sees you as mine, too.”
The air punches out of my lungs in a sharp exhale. And those tears I’d been fighting off? They swell and hover along my bottom lashes. “Shh, baby, it's okay. Don’t cry.”
I blink rapidly, trying hard to make the moisture disappear. “You can’t say things like that to me,” I croak. “You can’t. It's not- It's not fair.”
“I know. I’m sorry, bubbles.” The soft press of his lips on my forehead makes the mug still clutched in my hand wobble dangerously. His nose presses against my hairline and he takes a deep inhale like he’s trying to catch my scent, before he sighs and steps back, his hand dropping from my head to hang loose at his side.. “You’re on my team today.”
I almost stumble while I’m standing still at the abrupt change in subject. “What?”
“You haven’t been on my team yet. That changes today.”
It's true. “I also haven’t been on Forsythe’s team.”
He shrugs like that’s not a problem. And when I glance in the prince’s direction I find Isadora perched on his lap like she belongs there.
So maybe it's not.
The challenges on this show are designed to bring out the worst in people, I swear to god.
On the surface they aren’t. On the surface it's all about teamwork, and pack dynamics and learning more about each other. But really, what are they expecting when they pit twenty omegas against each other, battling out for the affection of one pack?
This pack in particular.
The Ashbourne pack.
Jesus.
I’m competitive. I always have been, but this is just insanity.
Omegas are hurtling around the field of play, yelling out war cries and tackling each other to the ground, snapping up flags left and right from the waistbands of other omegas’ shorts.
Grieves and Courtland are hovering closer to me than any of the other omegas. Watching all of this unfold with an amusement that bleeds over into me.
I laugh when Petal all but eviscerates Tristan, snatching his flag and waving it in victory as she darts back to lock it safely in our treasure chest. It's a strange combination of capture the flag and flag football. Each player has at least one flag tucked into their pants. And each flag is worth a varying number of points. We won’t know the points assigned to the flags by the other team until the end.
Which means strategy matters almost as much as speed.
