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Chapter One
My cousin Kienna called it the Boob Dress. With a capital B and a capital D. I blushed redder than the dress itself.
“It shows way too much.” I tried to pull the dress higher over my chest, which was barely covered by the flimsy material. I couldn’t do this.
“It most certainly does.” Kienna laughed, deep and throaty. She was everything Alphas wanted: feminine, sexy, and dirty. Me, I could hardly breathe any time I saw a naked picture of a hot Alpha. Laughter from our friends who we were video chatting with sang from the speakers. She pulled my hands down and grinned at me in my full-length bedroom mirror. “With that dress and the diamond collar necklace on, Carson is going to knot in his pants the second he sees you.”
I gaped at her, not believing she said something like that. Actually I could, but it was still shocking.
On the computer screen, our two friends had opposite reactions. Nicolette giggled. “You look great, Calli.”
Aubrielle gasped and covered her mouth. “Kienna!”
Kienna stuck her tongue out at her, and there was more giggling.
My face heated further. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know that.” Kienna sighed and gave me a hug. “This is your big day, Calli. Be happy. Carson isn’t the worst Alpha you could have been paired with.” Maybe not the worst, but not my type. He was too much like my father, and that’s why my father liked him. “You’ll meet with the senator for the very first time without a chaperone, go someplace swanky, and he’ll state his claim on you. Ta-da! You’ll be set for life.”
That wasn’t what was important to me. Sure, I’d come from a wealthy family, but as naïve as it might be, I wanted to be in love. And while it was illegal to force Omegas to marry an Alpha, my family expected me to marry one who they approved of. Those expectations were way more powerful than any law.
“Life with a politician.” I cringed. “I’ll turn into my mother.” Double cringe.
“I’ll be there to make sure you don’t turn into a chilly bitch.” Kienna gave me another squeeze. “No doubt my dad will pair me off with some middle-aged dick with a ton of money too, and while the Alphas are out doing their thing, we can travel and spend their cash having a blast.”
“Yeah, a total blast!” Nicolette echoed, her pretty green eyes glimmering. “My parents expect me to marry some Alpha asshole way up in Alaska and live in the middle of freaking nowhere. He owns a logging company. He’s a lumberjack, if you can believe it! I’ll be dying to get away from there to somewhere tropical.”
That didn’t sound too bad to me. Up in the woods, away from the arrogant fakes and liars who made up the political circles.
“My father hasn’t let me meet any Alphas yet,” Aubrielle said softly. Her overprotective father probably wouldn’t let her out of the house ever. Which again, sounded better than my fate.
More than anything, I didn’t want to live a life like my mother’s. I’d watched my mother fade away over the years. While his Alpha instincts wouldn’t let him physically harm her or put her in danger, it didn’t stop how emotionally brutal he could be. She was an accessory for my father, nothing more. She was the shadow of the person I knew as a child. If my future was hers, it was grim. My gaze dropped to the floor. “I wish we could just live together. But you know what’s going to happen. When we go into heat… If I ever…”
“Girl,” Kienna turned me to face her and lifted my chin. “You will. Carson will do something sexy… eventually. Maybe you just need to watch some good porn before your wedding night to get the slick flowing.”
“I’m sure you know all the best sites, Ki!” Nicolette teased.
“It would have to be a whole lot of porn,” I groaned. “He does nothing for me.”
“Then you’ll just have to fake it.” Kienna shrugged and let me go so that she could sit on the edge of my bed. “Buy some of that bottled slick.”
Our friends made horrified noises and shook their heads. While not technically illegal, it was greatly frowned upon to fake going into heat. I’d seen stories pop up every day online about female Betas pretending they were Omegas going into heat to win over an Alpha, and when the guys found out as their claim didn’t bond them because they were Betas, they’d flipped. Pretending to be an Omega was illegal.
“I don’t want to have to fake it, though.” I sounded like a whining spoiled brat, but was it too much to ask for a hot Alpha who could trigger my heat and love me for who I was?
Not counting Kienna who was more like a sister than a cousin, I wasn’t close to anyone in my family. I rarely saw my two older brothers, and my parents were all business when we were together. When I attended St. Anne’s School for Girls in California, the friends I made there made me realize what I had been missing in life. I’d been heartbroken when we graduated last year and we went our separate ways. Me back to Astoria, Oregon and my friends back to their own states. Chatting online wasn’t the same as sharing a dorm room and seeing them every day.
“You shouldn’t have to,” Aubrielle stated in a compassionate tone. “You know that your marriage can be annulled if you don’t go into heat after the first year. Then maybe you’ll be able to choose your own husband.”
“Or husbands.” Kienna waggled her eyebrows.
That was Kienna’s dream, not mine. Aubrielle did make an excellent point, though. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to escape a life with Carson and find someone to love. I rolled my shoulders and tried to shake off the stiffness from stress. “I wish I had time to go for a run.”
My friends groaned, and Kienna pretended to gag. “Seriously? You’re such a masochist.”
The other girls thought I was an idiot for loving to workout. While we were at school, I’d been locked in my dorm room several times over the years for sneaking out to run. Omegas were supposed to be soft and curvy, pleasing to an Alpha in every manner, and St. Anne’s enforced their rules without mercy.
But now that I’d graduated, I could run in my family’s garden any time. My parents were too busy to bother keeping an eye on me every minute. Just as long as I attended the parties my father threw and impressed the people he wanted to impress, it was all good.
