“Scouts honor.”
Carver snorted. Tex had been kicked out of the scouts when he was twelve, with strict instructions that neither he nor anyone in his family should ever try to join again.
“I’m still pissed at you,” Carver said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. His anger was fading, heartless anticipation taking its place.
If someone had told him just an hour before that he could be made to go along with something like this, he wouldn’t have believed them. It felt awful to realize that deep down he was just like all the other bastard alphas who cared more about having an omega than they did for the omega themselves.
Tex winced, taking another sip of water and wiping his chin with the back of his hand.
“About what I said… I’m sorry.”
Carver shrugged, uncomfortable. They both knew that Tex was right about why no omega had chosen them, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful. Carver was a natural sadist—he liked to hurt people—but he didn’t want to hurt anyone who didn’t want it.
“At least the omega won’t know,” Carver said, looking for a bright spot.
Tex grimaced, and Carver’s stomach fell.
“What?”
“They gave him our file after I chose him. It’s standard procedure.”
Carver closed his eyes.Fuck. His file made him out to be some kind of sex-crazed dungeon master. Any hope Carver had of the omega coming to them relaxed and relatively at ease were dashed.
“So, I’m fucked.”
Tex shook his head, coming up to him and standing between his legs and putting his hands on Carver’s shoulders. He kneaded Carver’s tense muscles through his leather jacket.
“He might be a little scared first thing, but then he’ll see that you’re really a big teddy bear and he’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Carver leaned into Tex’s body and closed his eyes, burying his nose in the juncture between his husband’s throat and shoulder and breathing in the scent of him. Clean and rich, nothing calmed him down like the heady scent of his mate.
“I just want you to be happy,” Tex said, holding him and stroking the back of his neck. “And I think this will be good for us.”
“You’re a dick,” Carver mumbled, enjoying the feeling of his mate’s ministrations. “You never should have done this.”
“It will all work out,” Tex said, not the least bit repentant.
3
Peter
Peter leaned his head against the car window, blank-eyed and in a state of shock, numbly tracking the changing scenery as they left the city behind and drove into the suburbs.
He’d beenchosen.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Everything had gone so fast. Just three days after arriving at the matching center, the administrator had come into his room with a file tucked under his arm, his mouth set in an artificial smile, and congratulated Peter on being matched to a pair of mated alpha werewolves.
Sold, more like it. Peter didn’t know why they bothered to pretend—framing everything like Peterwantedto be there—but then again, he supposed it made everything more palatable to the alphas involved.
After all, no one liked to think of themselves as the bad guys.
“We’re here.”
Peter jerked, startled out of his dark thoughts by the sound of his driver slash guard speaking. The man was a werewolf, older than Peter by about a decade, and the way he looked at him gave him the creeps. The wolf stared like he wanted to eat him, his gaze tracking Peter with the predatory interest of a cat watching a mouse.
The house they’d stopped at was at the end of a one-way street, with a long driveway that curved left, hiding the house from the main road behind a thick cover of trees. It was about as private as you could get without actually moving into the woods.
Peter’s guard got out first, moving around the car and opening the door for Peter. The blast of cool night air hit Peter in the face, bringing with it the fresh scent of pine and nature. It had been a long time since Peter had smelled anything so good, but he wasn’t able to enjoy it. He knew what was waiting for him on the inside of the house.
