“Let me ask you something, Dylan. Do you know why omegas are created?” John leaned in, his presence a looming thing that had Dylan shrinking back into his chair.
“I thought it was random,” Dylan said. His answer made John laugh. The alpha leaned back, lifting his foot so that it rested on his knee. Dylan stared at the oversized boot, wondering why it was familiar and then realizing that Steve had a pair just like it.
When he glanced up at the alpha’s face, the man had lifted his brow, his expression contemptuous.
“It’s wolf magic,” John said, cupping his palm down over his knee. “There’s nothing random about it. Omegas are created to bring together alphas who otherwise might not have known they were meant for each other. They’re a tool for making the pack stronger.”
That was very similar to what Annie had hypothesized, though the fact that the focus of the theory was entirely on the alphas and that the omega seemed incidental was a little offensive.
“Ryker’s pack?” Dylan asked, not really thinking before he threw the taunt out there. He was not expecting John to leap out of his seat and grab him by the front of his shirt and violently wrench him into the air like a sack of potatoes. Before Dylan could figure out what was going on, he was dangling off the ground with John’s snarling mouth just an inch away from his face.
“I’m sorry!” he cried, clutching at John’s arms and flailing his legs. He didn’t understand what he’d done to warrant such an extreme reaction.
“If you weren’t important to my son, I would throw you into that wall so hard that your skull caved in.” John shook him, tearing his shirt and grabbing him under his arms when he was about to fall. He turned him around and showed him the wall to their right. “Do you understand, you little shit?”
Dylan nodded, his heart racing and adrenaline making him hyper aware of his body. There was wetness leaking down his leg, and Dylan realized that his earlier threat to pee in front of Steve’s alpha had come true.
John tossed him back down into his seat with a disgusted snarl, the impact with the chair knocking the breath out of his lungs. As he tried to start breathing again, his mind a white static of panic, John sat back down, lifted his boot back up to his knee, and smiled.
“Don’t be smart, okay?” he said, his voice back to being friendly. “I don’t like it.”
Dylan stared at him, eyes wide, and realized that Bruce had just been trying to be helpful when he warned him to be polite and respectful. If this was the kind of thing John’s pack had to deal with, Dylan felt sorry for them. It didn’t matter how nice your house or neighborhood was if you were ruled by a crazy tyrant.
“Okay,” he mumbled, his voice shaky. He was holding back tears, and his racing heart only seemed to be going faster the longer John sat there and smiled.
“Ryker Sterling and August Schaffer are connected to my son.” John spoke like he was listing out facts. “Now I acted foolishly when I issued my son his ultimatum, I admit that, but sending him away for a bit was for the best. It gave us all some time to think and calm down.”
John looked at Dylan like he expected some sort of response. Dylan nodded. His wet jeans and underwear were sticking to his skin, the denim getting colder and more uncomfortable by the second.
John continued as though they were having a normal conversation. “And that is where you come in. Now I’m not going to judge you for sleeping with every alpha you could get your hands on – I’m sure you’re a very nice young man – but a result of your slutty behavior is that I have two headstrong alphas that I need to incorporate into my pack, both of whom outrank my son. Do you understand what that means?”
“No, sir,” Dylan said. He didn’t have a clue what was going on.
John smiled, the expression charming and accompanied by a blankness behind his eyes that left Dylan chilled to the bone.
“Alpha.”
“What?” Dylan asked, confused.
“You don’t call mesir, you call me alpha.”
Dylan almost peed himself again.
“Yes, alpha.”
“Good boy. Now, I’ll tell you what it means. It means that Ryker Sterling could try to take over my pack.” John’s easy smile gave way to an expression that was cold and hard. “I don’t want Ryker Sterling in charge of my pack.”
Dylan pressed himself back into the chair, John’s gaze boring into him and making him wish the ground would open and swallow him up.
“William says that Sterling is considerably less dominant than I am,” Marcus said, his voice carefully neutral. “He’s somewhere right between me and Steve.”
Dylan was relieved when John’s attention was redirected to his son.
“William, though I love him dearly, is a beta. He doesn’t know these things. There’s no telling who will come out on top until you actually fight,” John scoffed.
Dylan didn’t think that Ryker would want to take over a pack, much less the Alaska pack. After his last comment was met with such an extreme reaction, however, he decided not to voice his opinion.
Marcus crossed his arms and met his dad’s gaze head on. “You’re being a hypocrite.”
