“Uh uh!” A bronzed hand pushed through the crush of alphas, grabbing my arm and dragging me unceremoniously out.
Cooper Murphy, who usually went by Coop. His green eyes shone with a wild kind of malice, right before he pulled me close, pressing my back to his chest.
“Don’t go sniffing around this one, fellas,” he informed Brent, his hand sliding up and under my shirt until I shoved it away. My cheeks felt like they burned bright red. “You need to get your own omega, as this one’s ours.”
“Have you made a claim?” Brent asked in a deadly serious tone, coming and keeping on coming, even as Coop dragged me closer to his brothers. “Have you registered your intent with the alpha council?”
“Have you?”
Seb was Brent’s equivalent and probably the most sane one of the Murphy pack, but he didn’t look it right now. He stepped in front of all of us, a wall of big, tall, muscle stopping Brent from getting any closer.
“We’re still—”
“Unless the next thing you’re going to say is, we have identified Charlotte York as our true mate and she has accepted our bond, you need to shut the fuck up and back the fuck off.”
Seb didn’t need to posture or bullshit. He just said a thing, and it was done, like it was right now.
“And you—”
“Were tasked by our father to ensure Charlotte is safe at all times and home on the farm where we can keep an eye on her once schools done. School is done, right?”
Seb asked the other alpha the question like he was a five year old, peering into Brent’s eyes.
This was kinda dick move. An alpha’s gaze could be hard to hold with the intensity that usually boiled there. Just like with animals, staring someone else down was an act of aggression. But Seb did it until Brent finally took a step backwards.
“Run along, boys,” Coop shouted after them as the Hendersons growled something non specific and ambled away.
“What the f—?” I snapped, but my retort was smothered as I was pulled from Coop’s grip into the last Murphy brother’s.
If Lock looked like a fallen angel, Archer looked like an actual one. White blond hair that tumbled over his broad shoulders that contrasted with his bronzed skin and pale blue eyes, they stared into mine for a second before he pulled me into his embrace.
“Arch—!”
I went to push against him, but he just held me where I was, my head buried into his chest, forced to suck his scent down into my lungs and that’s when it happened.
Why couldn’t I be a fucking alpha? Why couldn’t I lurch around the hallways like a damn Neanderthal and force people to obey my whims? Why did I have to feel the moment my omega parasympathetic system kicked in, turning my bones to jelly and forcing me to slump against fucking Archer Murphy.
“That’s it…”
The low rumble of his words washed over me, settling me, forcing me to take longer and slower breaths, right before it happened.
I knew about alpha purrs. Not every one of them had it, but we’d been told about the phenomenon in sex ed, something that was revisited with the three omegas in the school.
“Oh my god, Seb, did you just hand the Hendersons their arse?”
My eyes flicked open. Any feeling of peace was quickly stripped away at the sound of her nasal tones. Archer resisted when I pulled away, but what could he do? Force me to listen to his purrs. I gave him a sharp shove and then managed to stand on my own two feet.
“Aw, were you helping York centre herself?” Madison shot me a saccharine look of sympathy. “I guess you must feel a little frazzled at the end of a long day with all of this stimulus.”
I stared into the other omega’s eyes without blinking. I might not be able to do it to an alpha, but I could her. So I took in the immaculate makeup, the perfect skin, her hair, perfectly highlighted and styled in long, loose waves, like I was looking at a tree or the side of the house or something. Like she was just some thing.
Because that’s what she was to me.
Her bitchy facade faded and was replaced by something much more real. Animosity. If Madison could have conjured lightning from above, she’d had struck me dead on the spot without a thought.
“So are you going to ditch your ‘little sister’ and have some real fun?”
One of the reasons why people never expected me to reveal as an omega was because most of them were like male or female ideals of beauty on steroids. Madison was all big eyes, big tits and a big arse, with the tiniest of waists, whereas me? I’d gone up a few cups sizes but not much more. Right now she pouted those beestung lips suggestively, making clear what she wanted to do.