Page 19 of Zodiac Beasts

“Hey. Hi. Over here.” The woman across the table snapped three times, like she was correcting an animal, and I immediately recalled exactly how much I didn’t like people who weren’t Lila. “Are you seriously just going to sit there on your phone the whole time? Am I boring you or something? Or do you just have another girl you’re talking to?” Her tone was brutally sarcastic and accusing, but she was, in fact, correct, so…

“Yes and yes. Very observant of you.” I didn’t bother to be cordial. I could admit that I was actively sabotaging my match sessions. It was one thing to attend my appointments and show up on the required dates. It was another to actually make them successful. The shifters I was paired with were likely lovely people—at least based upon a general standard of societal acceptance—but I didn’t care if they were. Love was a dangerous game for an Omega half breed. Everything was a dangerous game, really.

“This is ridiculous. I don’t care how high and mighty your family line is. I’m not going to sit here and be disrespected.” Her face contorted in a snarl. Well earned.

“Then leave, so I can disrespect you at a distance.” I waved my hand, and she got up with a huff. “Thank you for your time. I hope your next match is more successful.” I spoke idly while I continued texting Lila. It would be a waste of both of our time to be anything but firm with this woman. If I didn’t discourage a second meeting, most would attempt to continue this engagement as long as possible just for a chance at my family name. I’d already learned that the hard way. I used to be entirely too nice. Being cruel accomplished the task more efficiently and with less bother.

This was better. Safer. For everyone involved.

The woman whose name I never bothered to learn stormed off, leaving me alone in the restaurant. I got the check, then stepped out into the cool spring night. It wouldn’t be long before summer. Though first I’d have to brave this picnic.

Chapter 9

Saturdays and Sundays were small torture, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about all of this uncomfortable tension. This whole adventure had gotten away from me, and I didn’t know where the hell I stood at this point.

But I also didn’t want to cause a scene and ruin the school picnic, so I just slaved away like a little worker bee. I really was impressively diplomatic, if I do say so myself. I should get an award for this.

“Can you carry the wood?” The Omega Armadillo shifter asked me from the other side of the storage shed, batting her eyes as a manipulative tick. That probably worked on most shifters. Omegas were always desirable, no matter the breed. While like shifters typically preferred like shifters, it ultimately didn’t much matter what kind of shifter she was once an Alpha chose to implant on her. The dominant species would always win out in the womb. I didn’t envy her position at all.

But Lila was just a Beta. I never had to worry about getting her pregnant, presumably. To be honest, I didn’t know if I could. Neither Alphas nor Vampires were great candidates for breeding. I’d never asked my father exactly what ritual was required for him to sire me, but I knew it wasn’t as simple as making cream pies.

My mind wandered towards the last Omega I’d been involved with. One who happened to work at the same store that Lila did. That was still a questionable situation I’d one day have to address. Though when I burned bridges, I typically did so with a flame thrower and race gas. It was unlikely Ceto would be in any rush to make amends, considering he’d been pretty clear about his feelings in the end. My only question was: What exactly is his relationship with Lila like, and how much of a problem will that be? I’d been so focused on Adrian that I forgot she had a life outside of the two of us.

As always, no matter what I was doing, my mind got stuck on her and the mundanities of her existence, and I was getting to a point that I was going to have to actually examine that. The game wasn’t a game at all anymore. I might even worry that I was smitten. The dichotomy between being a complete psychopath and pathetically hyper-fixated was a fine line in an avalanche, and I was not a fan of the violent tumble I was stuck in.

And yet, I hauled the wood into the courtyard for the Armadillo girl, and I wasted no time sitting in the mud with Lila to help her build her little garden. I could feel the stupid, offensive, humiliating grin on my face that was increasingly difficult to get rid of, and I would resent it if it didn’t come with weird, warm butterflies in my stomach that tittered every time her hand brushed mine. I had to keep reminding myself that she was in love with my brother. That she absolutely was not picking me.

That I’d somehow been borderline friend-zoned with benefits, which was confusing and had literally never happened to me before. I was usually the one telling women that I wasn’t relationship material. Lila seemed to be the first to actually think that was accurate. She enjoyed our full moon nights together, and yet I could literally finger her in class until she came all over her seat, and she still sat there thinking about fucking Adrian.

I was torturing myself. And I was not a man to be passive. It was time to take more initiative. There was only one week now before the picnic, and I needed to solve this before I ended up eye to eye with my brother again.

“Lila.” I started, with an unfamiliar and difficult to identify sinking feeling in my chest. “Are you free this week? I was hoping we could talk before the full moon.”

“I have work most this week to make up for all the weekends I’ve been missing, so I’m a bit busy.” She frowned. “Maybe the Friday before the picnic? I’ll have the afternoon off that day.”

“Friday works.” I confirmed. “I can pick you up when you get off.”

“It’s a date,” she said. Though the word date didn’t give me any special hope these days. “If you need to feed before the picnic, we can do that too.” The words were tinged with sweetness, but she was offering it as a favor rather than as anything of intimate implication. My teeth in her artery and my lips on her inner thigh could have been as uneventful as picking up toilet paper with how blandly she’d said it.

“I’d like that.”

With a nod, I resumed watering the sunflowers. The tall and bright yellow summer flowers were considered the flower of the Leo. Maybe that was why I’d always been so fond of them. The pink chrysanthemums beside them, the flower of the Virgo, were dwarfed by their towering height. Though whether that shadow was one of a protector or one of a demon had yet to be seen.

Friday afternoon, less than twenty-four hours before the picnic, I waited impatiently for Lila outside of Threads of the Magi while she finished up her shift. She’d had class with Adrian in the morning, but she was only working until 2:00, giving me the full afternoon to sway or reject her.

On one hand, I wanted to get this “date” over with, on the other hand, I knew as soon as I was in her orbit, I was going to get sucked right back into her natural tractor beam of an existence and lose the whole plot.

I didn’t know why I struggled so much around her. I wanted to be mad and bitter, but then she’d sit next to me, talk to me, make jokes, and act like we were genuine friends, and I’d melt like a fucking chocolate bar in a volcano. It was almost as if I genuinely liked her, down to my bones. As if her personality complimented mine, and she made my day better and more fun every time she was around. The more I chose to engage, the more I had to wonder if it was just her bloodline that was drawing me in, or if it was some sort of feelings. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t get over the last full moon.

Even though she’d happily been with the both of us, I couldn’t shake how much she seemed to want him. How much she made him the priority, just like every other fucking person always did. I didn’t know what sort of curse or manipulation instilled a sense of fear in me, but this treacherous thought in the back of my mind was terrified of losing her completely. No one ever stuck around for very long, and I didn’t know how to cope with the realization that she wouldn’t either.

I was at odds with my intentions and my soul, and I’d never experienced such turmoil on such a miserable level.

An especially pathetic part of my brain just wanted to know, with absolute magical certainty, if she wanted my mark on her body, or if she would reject it as soon as she had a choice. I’d fucked her and marked her without her consent, while she was completely unconscious and incapable of decisions. As an Alpha, I could make a one sided bid for a mate that way.

But all it would take would be a single instance of her honestly rejecting me while trying to complete the pact to dissolve the mark. I’d never slept with Lila while she was in her right mind. I hadn’t even been right-mind-adjacent in a majority of the times I’d been with her.

It would probably be for the best that I let her remove our connection while dissolution was still easy and potentially temporary. As much as I enjoyed provoking Adrian, he was right about the impending moon of the Taurus. Neither of us knew what triggered that transformation, and the last thing I wanted to do was have both us spit roasting her for the school BBQ. For all of our sakes, it would be best to get this settled now. We could always revisit so long as the mark was still one sided.