“Done.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are, coming near my mate?” Fen snapped.
“Mate?” Mark replied, a mocking edge to his voice. “Didn’t see any marks on her, and she doesn’t smell mated at all. Wanting to be mated? Yeah, we got that the minute she walked in the place. You bring an omega that fucking ripe into a place like this—?”
Mark’s reply was cut off as Fen’s hand went to the other alpha’s shirt, gripping it tight as he lifted the other man up, dragging his face closer.
“She’s not for you,” Fen rumbled, his voice so much deeper and distorted by his beast. “She’s mine!”
“Hey, hey, what the hell is going on in here?” Bjorn asked, having rushed over. “Mark, take your boys and piss off back to your lane or you’re out.” But Mark didn’t respond. “Look, if you two are gonna throw down—”
I was down and off my stool in a second, pushing between the two men in the next.
“I don’t want you,” I said, injecting every bit of anger, irritation, frustration, and yeah, fear into my voice as I addressed Mark. “You’re not the one for me. He is.” Fen jolted as my fingers did what they’d always longed to—they slid up and under his shirt, touching some of that taut, hot skin. “He’s always been the one for me.”
“So why hasn’t he marked you yet?” Mark jerked himself free of Fen’s grip to the sound of my alpha’s growl. The stranger alpha slid his eyes over me so slowly, it almost felt like something I could feel. “Pretty little firecracker like you? Me and my boys, we’d look after you so right.”
But I was pulled behind Fen, his body a barrier between the other pack and me.
“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” he snapped. “You have no fucking idea what she needs or who she is.”
“And you do? How the fuck haven’t you marked her yet? She smells so fucking creamy. She needs tending, and we’re the guys—”
Thud, thud!
Bjorn contravened all the carefully explained rules of the place, slamming two axes down onto the table, forcing the alphas to jump back or get sliced.
“Everyone needs to calm the fuck down and piss off back to their lanes, now!”
For a beta, the guy had an impressive voice on him.
“Riley, did you want to talk to Mark and his pack at all?” Bjorn asked me.
“Say yes, babe,” Mark said in deadly purr. “We’ll—”
“No,” I replied, injecting every bit of scorn I could into my voice. The other alpha narrowed his eyes then.
“So you need to back the hell off and respect her boundaries, or I’m calling the cops,” Bjorn said. “Whatever Neanderthal bullshit you guys pull out in the boonies does not fly here.”
“Fine,” Mark said, but the muscles in my body didn’t relax until I saw them turn their backs on us. When they did, my body began to shake like I’d just escaped some life-and-death situation or something.
Adrenalin was pumping through me, that presence inside me pacing now, whining in my ears, drowning everything else out, but I couldn’t afford the luxury of giving in to my emotions right now.
“What the hell were you thinking, bringing an unmated omega in here?” Bjorn said to Fen.
“She’s not an omega and she’s not unmated, just unmarked,” Fen explained as he grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “Anyway, we’re out of here.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Bjorn said, trying for polite but sounding irritated.
Likely because we’d brought some kind of primitive love rite into his nice, neat establishment without even realising it.
Fen grabbed my hand, yanking me after him, even as he placed a call. He opened the door, then picked me up, putting me in my seat before slamming the door shut.
“Yeah, you need to meet us—” Fen began to say.
“At the lab,” I croaked out, twisting and turning against the seatbelt. It felt wrong, constrictive, and not in a way I craved, my skin so sensitive right now. The fabric of my pants was stiff and artificial, my top coarse and scratchy.
“You sure?” Fen asked me.