Rhodes excuses himself, and I take a seat next to Dominic.
“Where is the form?” Dominic replies in his no bullshit tone. In the short time since we’ve met, it’s clear he’s got zero patience for games.
“I am not speaking through an interpreter.” Reid leans back and tries to mirror Dominic’s posture and presence. The rise in aggression causes an instant headache between my eyes.
I shake my head. “Fine. Why, Reid? Why all these delays? You could have fixed this years ago and signed the forms like I asked.”
He smiles and the look on his face makes my skin crawl. His expression is condescending, and narcissistic to say the least.
“Haven’t you figured it out? The way you fucked up my family with your scheming, you needed payback. Every time your lawyer called or emailed; I pushed the forms further down the bottom of the things I needed to do. Honestly, you’ve been on the bottom of the pile for so long, I’m embarrassed for you. We didn’t want you then, so there’s not much point wasting time on you now.”
His words are clearly meant to incite a reaction, and they do, but the medication I’m taking keeps me from screaming in his face. Omegas use suppressors or blockers, to suppress their reactions to alpha and in some cases betas. It helps keep your emotions and physical responses even keeled so you can protect yourself. They also work best when you’re not in the middle of a fucking heat spike, apparently.
Coming here I wanted answers, being in the same room as Reid and his ego for more than a few minutes has me happy to live without hearing his excuses. Besides, I’ve got better smelling alphas to confront and a rising heat spike to manage. And Reid does not need to be privy to either of those things. Without question, the situation would turn from bad to shitastic in an instant if he realised I was speaking with his brother, Talon, and Hayes or if he knew I was an omega. All I need ishissignature on the form and since he’s conceited enough to show without legal support, I’ll use that to my advantage.
“Do you have the form?” I ask in my most timid voice, focusing on his eyebrow as opposed to staring into his eyes.
“I did ask all our pack mates to be here to sign, but they couldn’t be assed.”
And the fucking idiot is a liar too.
Raising my hand politely to call for Rhodes’ attention again, he squats next to me, his back to Reid and the drama. “I want that form, then you can rip him to shreds. But I’m going,” I whisper quietly to him, being careful in the volume I use but making sure Dominic can hear too.
Reid watches down his nose as he swings back on his chair, his superiority complex adding more weight to the offensiveness of his presence and scent. “At least have the grace to speak loudly. Look, we’re here now, let’s sort this out.”
“Pass the form then,” Dominic says, smiling at Reid. It’s not a sweet and fluffy smile, it’s patronising, arrogant, and ugly.
Reid ignores Dominic. Unsurprisingly. He moves fast, flicking something over the table at me.
Dominic jumps up in an instant, his hand catching it before it lands on the table. But I move fast as well and grab at the form he also sent sailing our way.
“A cheque?” Dominic laughs.
“What?” I scoff, absolutely stunned this idiot just gave me the perfect smokescreen. I sit back into my seat and shove the form into my boot while shrieking better than any award-winning actress. “You’re buying me off?”
Reid ignores me, drilling his attention at Dominic as he jabs his whole hand in my direction. “I want her word that she stays away from our family. No bullshit civil suits, today or tomorrow. No selling little sob stories to the media. Not one word about our past.”
I laugh at the ridiculousness of the meeting and his pathetic demands. Clearly, it’s the wrong thing to do in his eyes, because Reid drops all pretence of being nice and barks something in my direction.
Dominic counters.
And then it’s on. Their control vanishes and these two fritz my head as the room fills with more aggression and volume. I’d probably do okay if I hadn’t been on the edge of a heat spike but add in the relief of finally getting the form, and my spike bounces headfirst towards a full-blown heat.
Physical touch from a ‘good’ alpha would help settle me, it might even guide me back to a spike instead of a full-blown moment. Clearly, I’m not going to interrupt Dominic arguing with Reid to ask. Although even if I did, Dominic would probably be more worried about Koz finding out we’d touched, and that makes me laugh.
Employing all the practice and methods of putting a lid on my omega responses I get a moment before I descend into a mindless madness and realise how fucking pointless it is I stay in this meeting. I just need to figure out how to escape, and where to go.
Someone places a bottle of water in front of me. And I nearly drop the bloody thing because my hand shakes so much. I close my eyes not giving a shit what it looks like to Reid. Instead of getting a moment to figure out where I need to go, the room spins. And one rotation spins into another, leaving me feeling like I’ve drunk way too much, while confirming I’m past the point of stopping my heat.
“Let me know how things end up,” I offer flippantly, surging to my feet and knocking into the chair like I’m half drunk. Shit, even my words sound like I’ve been drinking. And I have the sassy attitude you get from drinking cheap vodka too. Flicking my middle finger up at him, I tell him, “Shove your cheque up your ass, Reid.”
I wait for no-one as I find my way to the door. Finding the goddamn doorknob is going to be difficult as those headspins accompany me. Since all my senses are over-stimulated, the rush of movement near me has me alert but I also know I’m pretty well protected so I don’t freak out too much.
“Raney, it’s Andrea, your new security. Can I help you out to the car?”
It’s nice she asks but also a bit redundant because walking without aid is pretty much impossible now. The slippery slide to my heat has hit terminal velocity.
“I need to get out of here,” I say, although it doesn’t come out like that. Thankfully she gets the gist and slings my floppy arms over her shoulders to hoist me along. “Once we’re in the lift, it’s an easy ride down to the garage, and we can get you somewhere safe.”
