2
Chapter 2 Alek
I glanced backone last time, just to see Karly purse those perfectly red blow job lips of hers. Her hands ran down her perfectly curvaceous body and rested on her narrow waist, then her wide hips, which were all captured amazingly in that figure hugging dress of hers. I might as well have been salivating over her, the animalistic side of me rising to the surface a little too much. I couldn’t seem to satiate how badly I wanted her, even after she’d completely drained my balls…
“Plenty of room?” I snapped my head around to face Lance, who was staring at me like I’d grown an extra head. “What did you think was going to happen with me sitting right here?”
Oh yeah, that was a good point. Maybe it was for the best that Karly turned me down, because we just couldn’t seem to keep our hands off of one another no matter who was around. That would have been a very awkward limo ride to the arena. I smiled at Lance, appreciating his little half joke of a comment, but my fingers curled around the door handle beside me until my knuckles turned white. I was feeling something, definitely more than I was supposed to be feeling for Karly. We’d always been friends with benefits. Not even that really…fuck buddies, maybe? Something that didn’t have a label. Once we’d screwed, I didn’t stare out the back of limo windows at her needily. What the hell was happening to me?
“I cannot wait to get there,” Lance said while cracking his knuckles excitedly. The rapid subject change was a very welcome one. “To the arena. I’ve only ever been in the crowd before. This is the first time I’ve qualified. Top two of the clan, huh?” His eyes twinkled; he really was into this. I was as well, I just needed to shake off the current distraction. “We’re the best Gemini. Pretty cool.” He side-eyed me. “I think you might be my biggest competition though. How am I going to take you out?”
This was the sort of challenge I would normally jump on because Lance had no way of taking me out. Not a chance in hell. I was the best of the best, about to shred this competition, even the guy in my own clan. I had to take out everyone in my path to win. But I couldn’t find the motivation to shoot the shit with Lance right now. All I could think about was the woman I’d left behind, standing at the airport with her news team. The goddess who I had known for most of my life, but who had bloomed into a sex bomb. But it didn’t feel like it was just a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am type thing anymore. Fucking Karly was deeper, more emotional, passionate because there were more emotions involved. I could have even gone as far as to think feelings might be involved, which scared the living shit out of me. I mean, I couldn’t actually fall for Karly. Could I?
“Hey, buddy.” Lance nudged me in the side, snapping me back to the present moment. “Did you hear me? I said I don’t know what I’m worried about. We both know I can take you out.”
“Pfft, alright, fourth place,” I laughed, a little mirthlessly. “You didn’t even beat Jason, the Aries, at the qualifying stages. I’m not worried about you.”
“Well, you didn’t beat Drew, did you? That Unaligned asshole might be a real issue for you.”
This was the distraction I didn’t want, but that I needed. My fists curled angrily as I thought about that piece of fucking work. And not just because he beat me to the post and got the first spot. Yeah, I was fucking fuming about that. I was always the number one person, I never lost, but my anger toward Drew was much bigger than that. “Drew is not going to be an issue for me. The Unaligned clan can’t be an issue for any of us.”
Fucking Sly and his bullshit. His Unaligned clan nightmare brought Drew into the competition. There was also Sladen, but since he came in eleventh place, I wasn’t worried about him. Not that either of them should have even been considered for the Astro Games. Their clan shouldn’t exist.
Nothing made me angrier than thinking about the Unaligned clan and the way it threatened to completely upend the system the bear shifters had lived by for centuries. Nearly a century ago, when Sly first started his petition for the creation of an Unaligned clan where shifters and humans could choose to join and be part of a clan that had no rules about how the members should live, act, or present themselves in public, everyone thought it was kind of a joke. No one took Sly and his demands seriously. The zodiac system had been working just fine, thank you very much, and there was no reason to change things. I guess everyone thought that eventually it would all just blow over and be forgotten.
But Sly wouldn’t let it go, so years of protests followed. Protests that almost verged on an all-out war on more than one occasion, which eventually led to the petition being considered, and eventually accepted. Much to the surprise of pretty much everyone. The Unaligned clan became the thirteenth clan, with Sly as the alpha. Although it continued to remain a bit of a joke until life changed and it actually grew in size. To date, the Unaligned clan was the third largest clan in the Empire, after the Gemini clan and the Virgo clan. It was a real, genuine threat, especially with Drew in poll position.
“I won’t let him win,” I said determinedly, to myself as well as Lance. “We can’t have an Unaligned guy marrying Azariyah and dismantling the clan system forever. That just isn’t possible.”
“You really think that will happen?” Lance asked me with a frown on his face. “You think it can be changed?”
“Hey, someone who’s fallen under the spell of Sly will want to destroy everything. It will be anarchy.”
I hated thinking about it. Chaos and confusion, life as we knew it being ruined. All because one man had decided not to fall in line like the rest of us.
“You know, I actually visited the unaligned clan territory not too long ago, and I witnessed the unruliness they live in there. It’s nothing like the rest of the bases.” Lance sighed heavily, as if the memory was a hard one for him to cope with. “No order, no structure, it’s no way to live. They live in actual disarray, with trash everywhere. Even the clan police don’t give a shit about the rules. They all just think they can do as they please, which, I agree, won’t be good if Drew is Bear King.”
I straightened at that remark. “That isn’t something we need to worry about. No Unaligned will win and become Bear King. We can’t let that happen, we can’t let anarchy win.”
Ineeded to ensure that I wasn’t distracted, even by Karly. I had a plan in place here, a goal that I needed to achieve. This wasn’t just about me becoming the Bear King and letting the clans exist under the order of Gemini rule for the foreseeable future, which was an ideal situation as far as I was concerned, it was also about order winning. None of us wanted chaos, only Sly and his band of merry men. The title was mine, control was mine; I wouldn’t be able to relax in life if I didn’t have that power in my hands.
The anger remained, firmly sizzling through my veins as the limo finally turned the corner and the Astro Games arena came into view. Wow. Even though I had been to this oversized bright yellow domed stadium many times in my life, it never ceased to amaze me. Especially when it was time for the games, because that was the time everything would be lit up with colored lights bursting from the ceiling, the atmosphere buzzing with everyone having fun, and the whole place came to life. This stadium had to be massive to accommodate spectators from all the clans who wanted to come and see the games. Since this only happened once a century, it was always a good time, but that didn’t make it any less impressive. Lance and I fell into silence for a little while, just admiring where we were and accepting what was about to happen.
This was it now, it was real, we were really doing this. This was the moment I had been planning for my whole life. I always intended to win the Astro Games, no matter what happened. Even when I was starting my liquor business, it didn’t matter. This was the end goal.
“We should go in, right?” Lance asked, a little awestruck as the limo came to a stop. “There’s a welcome reception once we register. We don’t want to be late for it.”
I nodded, unable to find the right words to say, and I slipped out of the car to join Lance. Within a second, arena workers had joined us at the limo to take our luggage to our rooms for us while we went to sign in, to officially announce ourselves. It seemed that now that we were competitors, we were going to get a taste of being treated like royalty. Maybe to make us want it that much more. Not that I needed any encouragement. It was all I’d ever wanted. There wasn’t anything that could make me need it more than I already did.
After signing in, Lance and I were led to a giant hall, that from the inside looked as large as the outside of the building. Not that it could really be that big because there was so much more in here. This was just a part of it, but right now it seemed to be where everyone was gathered. Lance and I grabbed some drinks and stood to the side of the room while we took it all in. I wasn’t quite ready to jump in until I’d gathered all the intel I needed. Who was here, what the vibe was, how I could turn everything to my advantage.
“Look,” Lance hissed. “Drew has a fan club around him.”
That had my burning red anger boiling all over again. What the hell was everyone up to? Why were they fawning over an anarchist? It made no sense to me at all. Just because he was number one, for now, didn’t mean he deserved any focus. In my opinion, people needed to be turning their backs on him and the Unaligned clan completely until they properly started to fit in with zodiac society. This was exactly why I should have been the one to get first place. Never again would I let there be a slipup. This competition was mine, and I was going to dominate.
Just as my irritation was about to hit a tipping point, another set of sparkling blue eyes caught my attention. Karly, she was here. Of course she was. I knew we were headed in the same direction, which was why I wanted to give her a ride in my limo, but seeing her still knocked my sideways a little bit. She cocked her head to one side and offered me a sweet, soft smile. I could almost tell that she felt the angst and anger rolling through me, and somehow she managed to make it subside. How did she manage to have such a powerful effect on me from all the way over there? It was crazy.
I was already done with this party. It might not have even started yet, but it was over for me. Now that I’d seen Karly, all I wanted to do was steal her away for a moment and kiss her all over again. So much so that I was just about to take a step closer to her, but before I could make myself, move a tall figure came between us, blocking my view of her completely. My bear scratched at my mind, and immediately I was oddly possessive. The figure was a male one, talking to Karly, leaving me stewing in a brand new feeling that was too close to jealousy for my liking.
What the hell was I supposed to do with this feeling? This was horrible, and I didn’t want to give it even a minute to fester. I had to shake it off before it made this already terrible party so much worse. Quickly I reminded myself that my aim was to win the games and eventually go on to marry Azariyah, which was a part of the life plan I’d always held on to. Karly would be a worthless pursuit. It didn’t matter how much it pained me, I needed to push any idea of us away. It was never going to happen, and my bear really needed to just accept that already.