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“Look at me.” Its bordering on an alpha bark, with enough command behind it that I lift my eyes to his, skimming over the buttons of his shirt, up the strong column of his neck, the straight stubble covered line of his jaw, his full lips, his nose slightly crooked from his brother breaking it when they were kids, and to his gray eyes framed by thick lashes, and two slashes for eyebrows.
Jackson fucking Werth. Prime alpha of the younger Werth Pack.
Dammit. If I’d thought that years and distance would make this easier, that it would lessen my attraction to him, to his pack, I am proven immediately and irrevocably wrong. I may be on suppressants, but it doesn’t stop the omega in me from immediately wanting to arch my neck on offer while I present for him, begging him to bite me, claim me, fuck me.
My panties play a funeral dirge as they drown in a flood of wet, hot slick. The faint scent of honeyed nectarines hits the air around us. Fuck. It’s not unmistakably an omega scent. A lot of betas have fruity scents, and the suppressants and de-scenters are doing enough to keep it relatively mild.
I watch as his nostrils flare, and his eyes go half lidded and a low rumbling purr rolls out of his chest. My omega immediately melts, urging me to sink into him, grab him and hold him, and never fucking let him go. “Fuck. Vee, baby girl.” He presses closer, tips his head toward mine, like he’s going to nuzzle into me or something.
I cannot let that happen.
I narrow my eyes, forcing myself to keep a polite but firm expression, as I forcibly keep him away from my neck. “Nope. Not her,” I say again, this time with a little bite, before looking down to where his hands are curled around my shoulders. “Wanna let go of me, my guy?”
He scowls, but releases me, hands dropping to his sides, before they shoot up again to stall me when I try to go around him. “Vee, talk to me. Please.”
I shake my head, hardening my resolve. “Look. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m obviously not fucking her. Now, if you would kindly fuck all the way off, I would appreciate it. Otherwise I can call the police and you can have a conversation with them about how you like to harass women on the street.”
His mouth drops open, and his eyes widen, like he can’t believe I’d speak to him like that, but really? What did he expect? That he could drop me like a bad habit, go radio silent for fucking years, and I’d just greet him with open arms like nothing happened?
Fucking prick.
His gaze narrows, his hand snaps out and catches my elbows. His mouth opens, but it’s cut off by a voice behind me, thick with an alpha growl. “Everything okay out here?”
I glance over my shoulder and find Whitman leaning out the door of his tattoo parlor, practically bristling with barely contained aggression. His dark gaze flicks to Jackson. “You bothering my girl?”
My face flushes all shades of red, but I don’t contradict him. I’ll do it later when we’re not standing in front of my ex.
“Bullshit,” Jackson growls. “She’s not fucking yours.”
I yank my arms, trying to release myself. This time I must catch him by surprise, because he lets me go. I stumble back a step, right into Whit, who steadies me with both hands on my shoulders. “I’m not fucking yours either. You’ve got me confused with someone else.”
Jackson’s gray eyes move from Whit to where his hands are still clutching me, to my face. A small smirk of amusement pulls at his mouth. “You’ve always been a shit liar, Vee.”
He’s not wrong. In the past I was terrible at it, and maybe this isn’t the best way to handle this situation. But what can I say? I panicked, pretended I don’t know him, and now I have to double down on the lie. Because there is no way in hell I’m going to sit down and actually have a conversation with this asshole.
Gritting my teeth against the swell of nausea that makes my mouth water uncomfortably, I lean back into Whit’s body and tilt my head to look at him. “Walk me to my car?”
He smiles down at me, softly. “Of course, sweetheart.” One of his big hands slides from my shoulder down to the small of my back, coming to a stop just above the swell of my ass. Not so low to be inappropriate, but not high enough to be polite either.
He glares at Jackson. “You stay the fuck away from my girl.” Then he guides me around Jackson and down the sidewalk. I feel my prime alpha’s eyes on me the entire way.
Rule 5: If it looks like your girl and talks like your girl, it's probably your girl... Even if she denies it
The last time I saw Sylvie Grace Benson, she was being dragged away from me by her grandma. It took everything in me and my father’s hand, heavy on my shoulder to keep me rooted in place. Appearances had to be kept up, and seven years ago those appearances meant I had to watch the love of my life shatter in front of me before her grandmother physically removed from the party my father sprung on us only hours before.
If I had known that it was the last time I’d see her, that she was going to run, I would have gone after her. I would have locked her in a fucking room until she gave me a chance to explain. We had a plan on how to handle the situation, how to handle her, how to make her understand she would always—always—be a part of our pack, the most important part of it, that she belonged with us. To us.
Instead, when we went to find her later that night, Mrs. Benson told us she needed time and space. When we gave that to her and went back later, we found out she was gone. Had been gone for a week and we had no way to track her. No way to find her again.
Mrs. Benson seemed to not care in the slightest. And, not for the first time since I met Sylvie, I wanted to kill the older woman. Much like Ford almost did by wrapping his hands around her frail throat and squeezing.
She never treated her granddaughter the way she should. We tried to make up for it, to give Sylvie everything she needed or wanted in a family or a pack. I know exactly what it looked like to her, exactly why she ran. Not one of us blames her, not one of us holds that against her. Hell, we probably would have done the same if the situations were reversed, but it still stings that she was so quick to leave us without any sort of conversation.
But then Vee has always hated confrontation. She probably thought running was the only way to avoid it. The best way to give us what she thought we wanted.
But now she’s back and that confrontation that she’s been running from for seven years is going to happen whether she’s ready for it or not.
I watch Vee walk away from me, the tattooed alpha’s hand on the small of her back, and it takes everything in me not to run after them, rip his hand from her body and then rip his arm from his body to beat him with it.
