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The ride up to the penthouse is silent, but that’s okay. I’d rather silence than have them cut at me with their words. Making me feel like nothing.

When the doors open, I get a whiff of the combined pack scents. I shiver when I realize that to my omega, it smells like home. Though there’s a bitter, frantic tinge to Luca’s spiced pear.

He really was worried when he came home and found me gone.

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. So why the hell is he acting angry instead of worried? Is this how he processes his emotions? Be angry instead of vulnerable and admit to his fear?

If that’s the case, he can fuck right off.

“Sadie,” he growls as I enter the house. “We’re not done talking, so don’t run away.”

I snort a humorless laugh. “Oh, ha. Funny.”

His gray eyes narrow as Ethan and Maddox move to stand side by side with him, shoulder to shoulder, a firing squad intent on intimidating their omega into submission. “What’s funny, omega?”

I motion at them with a hand on a limp wrist. “You accusing me of running away from the conversations we need to have. I was here all fucking day, remember? You all are the ones that left.” I spin on my heel, giving them my back because I refuse to be intimidated by them. Try to glare me into submission, will you? “I don’t even understand why you’re mad at me. I did nothing wrong,” I say to Luca, heading toward the kitchen to get a glass of water. All the dancing and shouting has made me thirsty.

In a blink, he has me pinned to the wall, his hand at my throat, his hips pressing into mine. He leans in close until our noses are almost touching and I feel so small and fucking breakable in the face of his ire. “You smell like another alpha. You let some fuck touch what belongs to me and you don’t see why I’m angry, Sadie? Really?”

I should learn to keep my mouth shut, but that has never been my strong suit. Ever. “If I belong to you, Luca. Maybe you should fucking act like it.”

His eyes darken, and a snarl pulls back his lips. For a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. I think he’s going to give us both what we want… Or at least what I want. I need my bonded alpha. I need him like I need air to breathe, and he doesn’t seem to understand it.

“Luca,” Maddox says, his voice bordering on a bark. “Let her go.”

“No, Luca,” I whisper, pleading. “Don’t let me go.”

Luca’s jaw tightens, his pretty eyes sweeping over my face, his breath puffing over my lips. Please, I think, please prove to me that this isn’t some random fluke, that you want this, want me.

“Now,” Maddox demands. Luca’s fingers uncurl from my throat one by one until I’m only pressed to the wall by his hips. He brushes soft kisses over both of my cheeks, making my eyes flutter closed, tears pressing against them that I refuse to let fall, while I swallow a whine.

He’s letting me go. It’s happening. Biting me was a mistake, and he doesn’t actually want me. But it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want anyone else to have me either.

He steps back from me, but I stay where I am for a moment, breathing deep, lids down, getting my emotions under control. I don’t want to watch him walk away from me.

When my eyes open, I find myself alone with Maddox. Luca and Ethan’s scents fading into nothing. No doubt they went upstairs, as far from me as they can get.

Under the prime alpha’s watchful gaze, I finish what I started, making my way into the kitchen, fetching a glass and filling it from the tap. His regard scrapes over my skin, too heavy, too intense, too full of fucking loathing. I stay where I am, faced away from him, hips pressed into the lip of the sink, and drink the entire glass of water, before I carefully put it into the dishwasher.

When I turn around, he’s a lot fucking closer, having moved on silent feet. He has his big arms crossed over his chest, making his muscles bulge and ripple. I’m sure this is an intimidation pose for him. I can see the threat in his eyes. Me big man. Me have muscles. Me kick your fucking tiny ass.

But I refuse to be intimidated by him. Refuse to revert to the girl in the car, cowering against the door and fighting hurt feelings. They don’t want me? Fine. I can handle that. I can fucking deal with that. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.

But it is a big fucking deal, Sade.

Only if I let it be.

We stare at each other for the longest time, silent, until he sighs and drops his arms, releasing his intimidation pose and running a weary hand down his face. “If you’re going to stay here, we need to set down some ground rules, Sadie.”

My eyes narrow and my head tilts. If I’m going to stay here? He makes it sound like I wanted to come here. Like I made Luca bite me and then forced him into bringing me to the pack house.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. All I wanted was to go home. Luca and Ethan made me come here, promising me the chance to get to know their pack, to make this work, and then they immediately abandoned me.

Assholes.

“You can’t just take off like that. You can’t go out by yourself without protection.” Maddox doesn’t move closer to me. He stays right where he is, his dark green eyes burning into me, like he’s willing me to understand.

And maybe if I was still Sadie the Beta, I would understand. I could look at this whole situation logically. But I’m Sadie the omega, who is hurting from a rejection from her scent matched pack, and I don’t really fucking care about the reasons for him treating me the way he is. The way they are.

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