"With all due respect, Mr. Nolan, we cannot hold people here against their will. Please open the door, Mr. Gessler."
"Okaaaay, fine!" Storm snaps. "Yes, I paid him just to get him to come here at all, because he, just like you, Salt, doesn’t believe you’re True Mates. I had to convince him somehow!" he blurts out desperately, looking at Salt, then at me. "But please, before you leave, do what I asked. Shake his hand, Eliano."
I look at his face. There is a kind of wild determination there, a stubbornness that makes me hesitate.
In a sudden impulse, I am not even sure why, maybe some shared recklessness mirroring Storm’s desperation, I turn toward Salt. A strange flicker of alarm, maybe even fear, flashes across his face, but in a lightning-fast move I grab his slender hand.
Bam.
I feel the strangest, most pleasant shiver of my life shoot through my entire body. A short gasp tears from both my throat and Salt’s at the same time.
We both tilt our heads back slightly, as if struck by a strange electrical discharge.
Slightly dazed, I immediately let go of his hand and step back, as everyone stares at us.
"Well?" Storm says, grinning with wild satisfaction. "Somebody said something about my incompetence. You’re gonna walk that back."
"It was just stress. Or emotions!" Salt blurts out defensively, almost fearfully. His jaw is clenched, his expression strange and as dazed as mine.
"Don’t tell me nothing happened, because we all saw it!" Storm’s tone is sharp, but triumphant.
"Probably the air. It’s dry and charged," I mutter, echoing his denial, because I do not want to believe it either.
Things like thisdo nothappen, especially not with betas. Finding True Mates among alphas and omegas has about a six percent chance, and involving betas is most likely a microscopic fraction of that.
On top of that, Salt is not the kind of person I would want to deal with. His provocations and in-your-face behavior are not my thing, even if I have to reluctantly admit there is some chemistry hanging in the air.
Still, Storm does not back down.
"And yet something sparked between you two, no matter how badly you both want to deny it."
Salt clenches his jaw even harder.
Silence falls. The cop and the case handler look stunned. After all, they both saw us jolt. You can’t exactly simulate that with perfect simultaneity.
Salt looks away. The silence stretches on, and I still cannot make sense of it in my head.
"I don’t know why you’re fighting this so hard," Storm says to the beta. "Would you really rather have your contract boughtby some old bastard instead of a young, attractive guy? You’d prefer a prick who will throw you on a bed on day one and fuck you brutally just to get the thrill of bedding the famous Alpha Slayer?"
The words land heavily in the booth.
Salt stares at Storm with almost tangible hatred. His lips pale slightly, then press into a hard line. Then he shoots me a brief, assessing, intense look, like a pinprick.
"Whatever, dude. Do what you want. If you’re so convinced it’s a great idea for him to get my contract, fine. I give up. You’ll find a way to get rid of me anyway so Fate’s Choice gets a nice fat cash injection from Second Chance."
Those words echo just as strongly. All faces turn toward Salt, and I cannot deny that his statement surprises me as well.
"Hey, don’t I get a say in this?" I protest.
"Work it out among yourselves," Salt says with a contemptuous curl of his lips. He drops back into his chair, and only then do I notice that the stack of papers beside him contains tattoo designs.
"Exactly," Storm says eagerly. "Let’s step outside and talk about this now that we have the green light from our dear Alpha Slayer." His tone is sour, and he is barely keeping himself together.
Mr. Gessler swipes his card through the reader, and the three of us leave the booth.
Each of us wears a different expression, but none of them looks happy.
In my head, thoughts whirl like a furious flock of crows circling carrion. What the hell just happened? I should get out of here as fast as possible. This feels like some kind of farce or a scene from a madhouse.
