Another hand reached across me, gripping the back of the seat, and in case that message wasn’t made clear, a voice said, “Uh-uh…you know where you sit.”
“Ryan…” I hissed out the name of Fen’s second-in-command. He was an alpha too and so close to Fen in strength, his brother might have to face some dominance fights in the council ring in future, but that wasn’t what mattered now. He was also my former childhood playmate, now the bane of my existence.
“Seriously?” I snapped, and the kids closest to us looked away abruptly. If I was dumb enough to take on the strongest pack in the town, I was doing that on my own. “You guys take that shit Dad said too fucking far.”
“Or not far enough, depending on how you think about it.”
Another voice, and this time, the owner of it pushed past me, forcing me to press against Ryan, resulting in a snicker. Haze Vanguard, Bordertown’s resident bad boy, complete with piercings and full sleeve tattoo he’d gotten the moment he turned eighteen. He looked me up and down with eyes the colour of ice, his dark hair falling in his eyes.
“You bitch about it every fucking time,” Haze said, “but you know where your spot is. Don’t want to make a big fuss?” He opened his arms wide, and now every kid was watching what was going down. “Just go to your seat like a good little fucking beta.”
“Only for two more weeks,” I said, grinding the words out. I couldn’t keep my opinions to myself, something that had always had my dad shaking his head, right up until he died of cancer. “Then I’m out of this dump.”
“Sit the fuck down, beta.”
And then there was Blake. Blake was the biggest of Fen’s crew, with muscle upon muscle few teenage boys could achieve, meaning outsiders would have thought he was the contender for head alpha of the town. He didn’t pull his punches, ever, and right now, he didn’t hold any of his alpha bark back. My legs moved of their own accord, and I found myself sitting in the same spot they redirected me towards every day.
Usually, I didn’t fight it. Usually, I just let myself be herded where the nice alpha boys wanted me to be, sat wedged between the bodies of men with the minds of teenagers, listening to their commentary about the omega girls and boy. Usually, I was just a nice little compliant beta, like most of the others on the bus, and right now, as I perched my books on my knees, I tried to be like that, I really did.
“I’m sitting with the beta,” Fen said, throwing himself down beside me, the hot, heavy weight of his arm going across the back of my seat.
Not you, I told myself furiously.This has nothing to do with you.
“Fuck, I know we’re animals, but do we have to act like it?”
And with that came the last of them, Colt. Pushing past a smirking Ryan and Haze, he was an unlikely member of their pack, and he knew it. He looked like he was made of whipcord and hardened leather, possessing a sinewy build rather than bulky, meaning people often mistook his designation. He was quick to remind them, with his words, then his fists, but the irritated look he shot the others spoke volumes. No easy confidence for him. He was the wolf that no one saw coming, and he wasn’t afraid to flash his fangs when he did.
“You OK?” he asked me, sitting down on my other side. I nodded. “You get all your applications in on time?” I glanced sharply up at him to see his hazel eyes were intent. He’d have my answer, just like the others. I nodded again. “Still thinking about studying medicine up in the big city?”
“Out of state,” I corrected him. “I need to get away…”
I didn’t finish the sentence because he winced slightly, then grit his teeth, the others filing past him or Fen, taking their place across the big broad seat that spanned the width of the bus.
“We good to go?” the driver asked, and Fen waved lazily, a gesture that would not have looked out of place on a king in his throne room. The bus engine roared into life, and then finally, we started moving.
“Only two more fucking weeks of school…” Fen hissed as we watched the streets of the town we were all born in whizz past. “Then freedom.”
I was counting on that, more than he could possibly know. In the city, there were more betas than alphas or omegas. In the city, I could get ahead with my wits and smarts, show the world what I was capable of. No one would care about my designation or my family or anything. All they’d want to see would be what I could do.
And this was why.
Some of us beta girls theorised that Cheryl and her clique got on at one of the later bus stops past her house to make sure there was a captive audience when they got on the bus. Whether that was true or not, they certainly got it. The three of them, the town’s precious omegas, sauntered up the stairs and down the aisle. Two girls and a guy, but each one was a picture of dewy skinned perfection. Eyes the colour of jewels, hair as soft as silk, the girls had those insanely proportioned bodies that just didn’t seem real to the rest of us. Lush tits and hips and wasp-like waists, they were like caricatures of feminine power. And then there was Cyrus.
“He’s a grade A twink,”my friend, Nikki, had said, and she was right.
High cheekbones, impossibly full lips, big luminous eyes, and a lean musculature that just screamedtouch me. There’d be hell if you did, though. I’d seen him take someone who didn’t show him due deference down in a series of lightning fast moves, leaving them lying bleeding on the floor as he strolled away. Omegas were made for mating, our biology teacher had told us, and so they displayed exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics to make that clear, just like a bird might have bright feathers or a deer, a rack of horns.
Well, Cheryl was putting her secondary sexual characteristics right in Fen’s face as she bent down, the already deep scoop neck of her top revealing even more.
“Is this seat taken?”
Her voice was soft and breathy with just a hint of smokiness, and she smiled like this was all too delicious, right up until she turned and placed her well rounded behind on Fen’s lap…
And he shoved her off.
“Riley sits with us,” he told her flatly when she glared up at him from the floor, hissing her displeasure. “You know that.”
“And you know you need to find a mate, and soon. Once school finishes, when Alpha Vanguard calls a conclave…”