“Not fucking likely,” Koz retorts. Immediately, you can hear he’s getting his head back in the game.
And then the car descends into an awful, weighted silence when we pull up to the first surprise. I guess Koz’s anxiety is warranted because all of a sudden my stomach gets full of jitters like before I play a game. This is a big part of Raney coming out as an omega. And a real important one for us as her alphas.
We all wait, none of us even taking a breather. Lew gets out of the car quickly and stands at Raney’s door while Rhodes follows immediately and climbs out his side of the car looking hyper vigilant. Ibis and Twinkles are next, from a different car, and they surround the car like security guards do. I think if anyone fumbled out the gate on watching over her, we’d all be out there blowing up.
“You go, Puck.” Koz flicks his chin up without looking at me.
“I was going to go and do the test,” I remind him because he’s got a lot on his mind.
“If I watch her, I’ll be in there when I said I wouldn’t. I promised the girls this time alone with Raney, without any of us hovering. No, you have to go in there, Puck, I just know if I see her, I’ll be spilling the secrets about the rest of our day. It’s better this way. I’ll take Ayden and have a chat with him at the same time.”
It makes sense. Plus, it’s not like it’s a hard task at all. The opportunity to spend any time with Raney after not seeing her for so long, I’d be a right dick not to jump at the chance.
I shuffle over the seat on my way out the car. “You’ve got the address, right. It’s no more than ten minutes each way, we’ll still be here. Have you seen the size of this shop?”
“Exactly. King and Joker stay here too,” Koz snaps out. His alpha making his voice drop dangerously low as his words rush out like a barked command, more than a suggestion.
King blows up in a flash. “Yeah, don’t need you telling me how to protect my daughter.”
“Today she is not your daughter, and we’re entrusting you with our omega. So, if I tell you to fucking do something, King, I expect it without argument,” Koz explodes.
And this time there’s nothing to misinterpret what he says and how he speaks.
King’s alpha takes offence, and the mood of the car descends. Despite me promising Koz no one would be dying today, I’m questioning my choice of words.
“I don’t need your bullshit today, King. The last twenty fucking years I have known you, I’ve bent over backwards, gone above and beyond. Today you will return the fucking favour,” Koz snarls over the noise King makes.
“You’re being a little disrespectful,” Joker growls from the front passenger seat.
And we go from one to sixty in the tension stakes in one goddamn heartbeat. Koz is quick as fuck. Seriously, I’ve never seen someone move like he does. Before King or Joker can think an apology, because yeah, they fucking owe Koz one, he’s got the nozzle of the sweetest Ed Brown 1911s I’ve seen, kissing Joker’s temple.
Koz’s eyes are black, shimmering with rage, but he manages to hold it together. “You know, King, we’ve got a lot of history. Yet old mate here is the one suggesting I’m being disrespectful on today of all days. I’m not sure if you’ve figured it out yet, but I’m not feeling myself. And for the sake of all of us, let’s not see how out of character I’m feeling. Get out of the fucking car and watch over Raney, not as a father but as a man who owes one of his longest and most loyal friends more fucking favours than is allowed in our world. And teach the clown next to you some fucking manners.”
The merry-go-round is going to keep going the longer we all stay cooped up in the car. It’s inevitable, and it’s what happens when there’s stressed out alphas confined in a small space. And it doesn’t help one bit that King, Koz, and myself have the extra zing in our designation, marking us as head alphas, or pack leaders. I seriously wasn’t lying to Raney when I said she was going to have to balance two strong alphas in her life. Even with all the fallout from Raney’s accident and my life being flipped upside down, it wasn’t hard to figure out that my alpha was a little extra.
Not that it matters—that side of my winning personality is completely besotted by his omega. Later, having two similarly levelled up alphas mindless about the same omega might be a problem, but I doubt it. All we need to focus on together is keeping our omega safe and in a constant state of bliss. I get out of the car, because no shit, I’ve got way better things to do than defend Joker.
Leaning against the car, I watch closely as Lew, Rhodes, Ibis, and Twinkles become an impenetrable wall around the Scorned Girls as they rush towards the entrance to Birdie. It’s sad that these women understand how to be a part of a security detail. They shouldn’t need protecting to this degree, but they do. Much like Raney’s got issues from her past, I got a quick run-down on each of her Scorned Girls.
Heidi is the only granddaughter of the scientist who found the disease, and the only child of the man who found the cure, making her the sole benefactor for a crap tonne of money. Tristan’s face and body graces billboards and magazines around the world, making some think she’s theirs to own. And Simona is probably the greatest contradiction out of all of them—she comes across as mild and meek, but she’s got a voice on her, or more accurate, her content does. She’s big on giving the suppressed a voice, and apparently not everyone in our society likes her doing it. She’s got a stalker hell bent on silencing her.
The girls each have their own way of handling things, which is lucky because the only thing I can focus on is Raney. And right now, I’m obsessed with watching her reaction as she walks inside Birdie. Her face is awash of amazement and surprise as she does a slow spin, taking in the entire shop. It’s like I can feel her excitement building as she soaks in the walls, shelves, and displays crammed full of nesting supplies. Her girlfriends look equally in awe, holding her hand and pretty much acting as excited as she is. They drag her laughing and smiling towards the front counter, and her head swivels and her glittering green eyes find me in an instant.
I never questioned the way an alpha gets struck when they meet their mate. In a way, I was a little surprised when King explained it to me, but then the others I spoke with said the same, life changes in the blink of an eye. A tease of their matched scent, a glance in their direction and something inside you gets owned. Everything before that moment falls away. For me, it wasn’t one moment because it was only ever her which is why I didn’t realise it had a name to it. It doesn’t mean our connection isn’t like two magnets colliding back to each other, time and time again.
Her blossoming wisteria scent is like a visceral punch to the chest when I barge my way into the girl’s version of a bridal shower, and my eyes tunnel until it’s just her as I get completely fixated with a need to kiss the living shit out of her.
The hiss in warning that falls from her lips whacks me into a vicious mood until she placates the rising of my alpha and makes me fucking hard as hell when she barks an echoing ‘mine’ for the room to hear.
“Only yours,” I get out before my lips slam against hers. I watch her emotions shoot like meteors over the green of her eyes while I taste how true her bark was. I’d like to make her mine in more than words, and I will soon, but a kiss reminds me why we’re here. Before we get too carried away, I pull away from her. “I’m going to sit right there and watch.”
She touches over her lips, looking flushed as she tries to remember what was going on before. Yeah, I fucking like that a lot.
“Watch what?”
“You.” Spinning away to put some distance between us, I go to jump up on the shop counter before I realise how fucking inappropriate that is. “Excuse me, where can I sit?”
The omega that stands behind the counter points to a waiting area. And then she makes me fucking laugh when she suggests I try some of the Soothe Your Alpha scent spray.
