He’d been about to say something, something sweet or hot, no doubt, but I stopped him in his tracks. His nostrils flared, and he sucked greedy mouthfuls of my scent in. I let out a little purr of satisfaction, feeling the need heavy and low in my hips.
“Can you take us somewhere betas go?” I asked. “No other alphas. We can’t be around any other alphas.”
That, that was the perfect thing to say.
“Kit…” Tris said in a low tone.
“No other alphas?” Len was changing, the vulnerability being driven away in favour of the alpha shouldering forward. He looked over our heads, no doubt checking out James with that steady gaze. “Yeah, I reckon I know where to take you. You’ll be slumming it, though. Not the fancy arse place I had in mind.”
“I’m down to get dirty.”
“Jesus, Kit!” Tris snapped. His spare hand wrapped around my arm as his other struggled to contain the flowers until Len stepped up, his hand moving slowly to grasp the bunches by the stem and take Tris’ burden from him. He stared up at the alpha, moments ticking past, before he looked back to me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Whatever I want,” I said, something free and wild and imminently destructive boiling in me, and why the hell was that? I was feeling cocky, like all my weight was on the balls of my feet, ready to run. But whether it was from something or to something, I couldn’t decide. I turned to Len. “I want to get out of here.”
“You got it, princess. Just this way.”
As I stepped outside of the gallery door held open for me by Len, a great gust of his scent hitting me hard as I passed by, I made a decision.
It’d been a long while since Tristan had responded to an alpha. I’d tried female alphas before, to see if they were what I wanted, but more importantly, what he needed, but he never really seemed to respond to them. I was the only woman that got him leaking. But men? I knew Tris liked to see my cunt stretching around their knots, but I’d always thought there was something more to it than that. I looked back at him as he followed me out, eyeing Len suspiciously, but with a bloody great lump in his pants. And what wicked webs we weave… James stood inside the gallery, watching us go.
“What about Cress?” Tristan asked as we walked over to the most big, beautiful, black, vintage muscle car.
“I’ll text her.” I felt a twinge of guilt, but as an omega, it was often easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission. I slid into the beautifully upholstered backseat, Tristan following hot on my heels, but it was Len who watched us in the rear-view mirror, catching the moment my skirts rucked up. I didn’t bother to push them down.
So Tristan did.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” he hissed, arranging them over my knees like a lady’s maid.
“You,” I said, watching his gaze soften. “Him, them.”
“You’re going into frenzy, Kit.” His voice began to catch, a whine at its edge.
“And you’re coming with me, Tris.”
As the car started, the heavy rumble of the engine making me shiver, Len idled for a moment as if to give me time to enjoy that, which made me smile.
“We haven’t let things tip over in so long. I don’t want to be apart from you when it hits. This is our natural response to each other. To…”
He followed my gaze to the front seat, Len staring so intently at us in the mirror, I wondered how we could stay safe on the road.
“To everything.” I smiled, a wicked, free thing, worse in the face of his concern, but while it was more often Tris leading me down the garden path, I was perfectly capable of dragging him down with me too. “I want everything, Tris, and I don’t want to take suppressants to stop that.”
“Jesus…”
He was so still, so pale, as to appear like a statue as everything I said sunk in, then he addressed Len next, not me.
“Wherever you take us, whatever happens, we’ll need to go to Apothecary afterwards.” He looked at me. “We’ll need somewhere safe.”
“I’ve got somewhere safe,” the alpha replied.
“Yeah, we need to be safe from you too, mate. A place where there’s blokes big enough and strong enough to pull you off us if you go into rut.”
“If you decide you don’t want that,” Len pushed.
“If we decide we don’t want that.”
“Fair enough. No matter what happens tonight, you’ll end up somewhere safe. I’ve got people I can call to get us there if shit gets gnarly, don’t worry. I’ve got you, omegas.”