As I got older, it began to gnaw at me. Fun, meaningless hookups blended together and lost any real excitement. A lack of fulfillment that grew from a pinch of discomfort into an ache that I couldn’t soothe.
Companionship, it seemed, was more complicated than code.
What online matching made up for in practicality and convenience, it entirely lacked in romance. Besides, it wasn't like an omega looking for a respectable pack was going to list anything on a public profile that would catchmyattention.
My tastes were… eclectic.
Niche.
Instead of the trove of horny to the point of frothing at the mouth bachelors I’d expected, the bar was filled to the brim with packs that seemed to be waiting for their omegas to be finished with dancing and ready for a ride home.
Jealous stronzos. Can’t you let your partner go out alone for one night?
It was a little pathetic, needing to be up your omega's ass every possible second.
That would never be me.
I found a free stool in the corner of the front window, a thin wooden ledge that was really just a ring-stained two-by-four nailed into the window frame to rest glasses on. Taking a single-use alcohol wipe from the pocket of my jeans, I gave the stool and my segment of the board a quick wipe. Usually, whenI was in public, I simply suffered through the indignity of other people's germs, but the stickiness of the floor kept me from looking at any flat surface too long. Even my grim acceptance of discomfort had limits as I settled in to wait for Eva.
Of course, I wasn't here because I was worried about her safety. Tara and Jesse were more than capable of wrangling an unruly omega.
But I hadn't seen or heard from her since the Halloween Packtacular, and that didn't sit right with me. She was mine, and this game of hardball was starting to lose its polish.
I wasn't a patient man, my limited ability to wait quickly finding the end of its time.
Not when Eva could be the solution to my pack's problems.
Courting her for the purpose of acting as our surrogate would solve everything. Creating a timeline that I was comfortable with.
I wanted a pack.
I wanted a family.
A baby.
And the longer that I waited around to find somebody who was ready for that, the harder it was going to be. I’d seen no less than five articles this week alone about how an alpha became less potent after thirty, losing more and more of their virility as time went on.
I still had a few good years left, and I wanted to make sure I capitalized on them, securing at least one heir to my sizable fortune before I kicked the bucket.
Plus… I spent so much time on the dead. Life was calling to me. Something more than myself, a legacy that'd walk through the world in a way that zeroes and ones couldn’t.
A life outside of work and duty. A home.
It was almost exciting, the measured uncertainty of when she'd appear through the doors. The eagerness of when I'dfinally catch another glimpse of the woman that'd invaded my thoughts since Halloween transformed into a slow thrum of adrenaline in my veins.
A surly waitress appeared with a coiled notepad in hand, and I ordered a beer that I had no intention of touching while I waited, allowing the sounds of the bar to wash over me as I lost myself in thought. When she brought it over, I used the empty wipe package as a coaster.
I wasn’t a fucking animal.
The overpowering scent of cigarettes was just starting to give me a headache, the last of the new bubbles in my pint glass rolling to the top of the amber liquid, when there was movement at the door, a familiar omega storming onto the pavement, armed with his phone in hand.
Mine.
The thought radiated with surprising force, lifting me from my seat.
At this distance, I didn't have Joon's scent to clue me into his mood, but the hard press of his mouth, tightening his lips into a frustrated pucker, was all I needed to know that my omega wasn't fucking happy.
Suddenly, the alphas staking out the club to wait for their omegas and I were on a level playing field. If I'd known that he would be here…
