His eyes darted around. He didn’t want to have this conversation here, but he forced himself too.
“Alphas that can’t shift, omegas who can’t take a knot, people that are stuck in between.”
That was a fairly comprehensive list of my life’s work so far, which made me wonder.
“Is there someone experiencing designation difficulties back at home?” I asked, Colt’s fragile grin making clear my error. “Sorry, in Bordertown.”
“You could say that,” Blake drawled.
“Are we doing this?” Ryan asked, then shook his head, glancing at Janet and Candy for a second, making me feel bad about conducting this interview in the lobby. “Fuck, I guess we are. Riley, we’re the ruling pack at home. We took over after our dads, did everything that was expected of us, but…”
“We can’t find our mate,” Fen said with a long sigh.
“Can’t?” I bit off the word. “Don’t you mean won’t? There were three omegas for the three packs.”
“Cheryl ended up with the Williams, Cy with the Mitchells, and Valerie left when we rejected her too. Last thing I heard, she found a cashed up pack in the southeast,” Fen said, rubbing those big, strong hands over his face.
“But you could have taken any one of them as your mates,” I said, hearing a faint ringing in my ears. “There’s nothing broken. When they went into heat—”
“Our wolves wouldn’t respond,” Haze said with a grin that suggested that this was the best possible outcome. “There were shouts, crying, recriminations, and some very impolite comments made about our manhoods.”
“Fuck, why am I surrounded by complete fucking idiots?” Ryan asked the ceiling as he threw his head back.
“So, what do you want me to do?” I said, hearing the hysterical whine in my voice, and didn’t that grab their attention? They stiffened as a pack, their eyes taking on a silvery cast as they stared. “I’m not a relationship counsellor or a matchmaker.”
“We don’t need them,” Colt insisted.
He reached out then, and the tentativeness in his gesture hurt me physically. Whatever had happened, however shit had gone down, he was my friend. I grabbed his hand, trying to mask the way my body stiffened, the way my lungs had to work to suck air in, and failing. Because touching him? I’d been to plenty of uni parties, gotten drunk, sat up all night drinking red wine and smoking dope, talking shit about life, the universe, and everything before falling into bed with someone, but no one, literally no one had made me feel like this.
It was like touching an electrical current, but instead of a harsh pulsing thing that disrupted all the natural rhythms in your body, this was a gentle throbbing sensation that felt like it set everything humming together perfectly. I remembered then why I’d fought them so hard when they persisted in wanting to touch me and why I’d given in every time.
“We decided to go back to the only woman our wolves have ever responded to,” Colt said in a low voice, his eyes completely silver now, his beast watching me as much as the man did. “You’re our mate.”
“What…?” My voice came out slow and creaky, like a rusty door.
“But you’re a beta,” Candy said, just as bemused. “And they’re alphas.”
“It’s only ever been Riley,” Ryan said quietly, chancing a sidelong look at me. “Our dads made it clear when they were still running the pack that we needed to find another mate, but…” He shook his head then, his lips thinning, but he stared at me, not willing to look away now all of our sordid history was out on the table. “There was only ever you, Riles.”
“What in the star-crossed lover fuck?” Candy hissed, her eyes going wide. I fought the urge to slap my hand over her face because one, I wanted to do it every day and that would create a hostile working environment, and two, I was supposed to be a professional and a visit to HR wouldn’t look good on my resume. Her mouth formed an exaggerated O shape, and then she jabbed a French manicured finger at me. “This is why you’re allergic to hot beef injections of the penile variety!”
Well, fuck.
Part II
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Chapter 7
“You’re our mate.”
I was still standing in the foyer of my workplace with the boys, no, the men now, I’d spent my life growing up with, all staring at me like I hung the moon or something. Teenage me had grown used to their intrusive stares, but adult me had never found anything close to it. I’d dated, even had short-term relationships, but any guy that came along always seemed to pale in significance, nothing he did comparable to them. But I stiffened, because I realised everyone was staring, including my workmates.
“I need—” I started to say.
“Dick, she needs lots and lots of dick, and you five look like just the dudes to give it to her,” my ‘friend’ Candy said. “Don’t let her take no for an answer, either. Well, within reason. No rapey shit, but—”
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to put everything up on the high shelves again and take away all the step ladders, you rabid little troll doll,” I said, fixing her with a steely gaze.