I TOOK A PARTING LOOK at Pack Evans’ home as we pulled away in the Center’s SUV and released a wistful sigh. The property was exquisite. There was an orchard for goodness sake. And the pack was…sweet. Close to my age, which was apparently young for an alpha pack to form. They didn’t send me into a perfuming tailspin, but it made me feel both anxious and special with the way their eyes lit up every time I looked at one of them.
And the nesting room… It had been a temptation. At the Center, I hadn’t understood the appeal of a nest. Not until Daniel showed me the small room by the rose garden, dimly lit by a skylight, with an enormous platform bed, every pillow known to man, and the fluffiest duvet I’d ever seen. I finally felt like an omega looking at that nest. Like I could dive straight in and tell someone I wanted chocolate and it would just…be brought to me, no questions asked.
“Not the right fit, is it?” Yvonne asked, studying the furrow between my brows.
“No,” I said, sighing and turning back to face the front of the car.
Nest regardless, I didn’t want those men.
“Shame,” Yvonne murmured.
“Yeah. Shame.”
We were leaving the suburbs for the city again, headed to my next interview, and I tried to focus on Pack Evans rather than where we were going next. To Dark Cherries. To Deep Woods. To Black
Coffee. To Beach Day. To Rose Bush.
To Apple Pie and Seth.
There were six alphas in Seth's pack that made me breathless with only a whiff of them. The other six all smelled like safe, comforting things, which was an appeal of its own. Not perfect matches, but agreeable ones. It’d been three days since I’d smelled the pack, and I hadn’t stopped thinking of them since. If I was right about it being Seth's pack, and I was pretty damn sure, I knew a little of what to expect.
They were an MC, which meant I was looking at something vastly different than the refined country estate I’d just left. Which…yeah, was kind of a shame. I was raised in the city, in apartments, but the seclusion of the Pack Evans house was unexpectedly comforting. Omegas were sensitive, apparently, and preferred homes away from crowds. This hadn’t sunk in for me yet, but I believed the statistics.
I also knew this pack had the good sense to have a beta like Seth. One who’d seen me in trouble and not taken advantage in any of the many ways he could have, and even some of the ways I wanted him to. I wanted to believe that was promising.
The club would have businesses, a structure outside of normal pack dynamics, and the alphas would be used to being deferred to. I was less wild about that. Omega I may have suddenly been, but I’d been a beta for a lot longer. Or I thought of myself as one. I liked my independence, and I liked my ability to make my own decisions. If a biker pack was going to have an issue with that, then they weren’t the pack for me.
Which brought me to the fourth thing I knew. Six of those alphas had scents I wanted to bathe in.
More than bathe, I wanted to inject them directly into my bloodstream. I wasn’t even sure if I could make it through the interview without spreading myself out on a flat surface for one of those alphas and I hadn’t even met them yet. I hoped my omega reactions to their scent wouldn’t outweigh my old beta independence when it came down to it.
We drove down from the suburbs, south into the city, passing the business district, Uptown where the galleries were and the ritzy apartments, Downtown with the municipal buildings. We made it into Old Uptown, where Lola and I lived, where the Devil’s Noose was located, and then we just kept heading south. Seth had let me take a serious detour to the Omega Center with his car as it turned out. We were in the heart of Old Downtown, on the edge of where the neighborhoods were filled with artists, and just about into the projects, when we pulled into the parking lot of a reasonably sized strip mall with two stories of apartments on top.
A sign at the corner read LNH Plaza, with the list of businesses stacked below. Dusty’s Garage, the Green Thumb Dispensary with a marijuana leaf glowing on the side, Full Moon Diner, Roughhouse Gym, and finally, Late Night Howlers Bar and MC. The building looked well cared for —there were curtains in the apartment windows and a few amusing signs. Bikes lined the far end of the parking lot, leaving the front spaces for customers. As Old Downtown strip malls went, it was decent.
Still, it was a long way from the country estate.
“You’re under no obligation to attend the interviews once they’re arranged,” Yvonne said at my side.
I snorted and shook my head, smoothing down the long blue skirt of my dress and pushing open the door of the car as it parked in front of the bar. I was going to see this through. If I made it back out of the interview unmated, I would consider it a success.
Of course, it might be a success even if I didn’t.
Slow your roll, Baby, I reminded myself.
And I would have. Honestly. I would’ve been totally cool and collected if Seth hadn’t swung open the bar door at that moment, grinning ear to ear, his green eyes winking and his patches
displayed proudly on his bomber jacket.
“Hey, precious.”
I ran right for him, not stopping or slowing down until our chests collided with an ‘oof’ of breath, and we stumbled back into the dark of the club entangled.
“I was hoping you’d be here,” I gasped in his ear.
His arms tightened around my waist. He smelled like alpha Apple Pie, but I didn’t even care about that. Well, my body had its opinions, but my heart was thumping for entirely Seth related reasons. I’d met this guy once, for maybe an hour, and running into his arms felt like going home.
“I was hoping you were the one who wanted the interview,” he answered, just as quiet.
Yvonne finally followed in, swinging the door open and revealing the man waiting in the hall behind Seth. The alpha I’d been lusting after. He was tall, beautifully handsome with full lips, large eyes, rich brown skin, and tight black curls cropped close around his head. He smelled like apple pie
and he was looking at me like I’d just pulled a gun on him, all shock and terror. He was dressed in blue jeans with a white henley and that black leather vest on his chest, a wolf howling up over his heart.
“I know you’re new to this, but that one’s not an alpha,” Yvonne said to me, too dry to tell if she was joking.
Seth released me, both of us grinning and I glanced at Yvonne. “He’s part of the pack.”
Apple Pie made a brief strangled noise and then cleared his throat.
“Welcome to Pack Howler,” he said, and I leaned into Seth's side at the soft, mellow, silky tone of his alpha’s voice. “I’m Scorch.” Yvonne cleared her throat, and Scorch’s eyes widened. “Jonah.
I’m Jonah.”
“Baby,” I said, clinging to his beta’s side, hoping Seth didn’t mind the way my fingers were digging into him as if he was the anchor that could keep me from launching myself down the hall to the alpha staring at me.
Jonah’s expression shifted, warming from shock to a steamy heat that bounced between Seth and me, the corners of his lips curling up. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Baby.”
On his tongue, my name sounded unfinished, and I wanted to hear the rest as if it were up to him to share it with me. Between my thighs, his voice branded my core and made me ache. I was so screwed. I wanted to be even more thoroughly screwed.
“Well. Let’s see the premises,” Yvonne said with clipped efficiency, and I shot her a glare. She definitely hadn’t called the Pack Evans house a “premises.”
I stepped forward, expecting Seth to follow me and finding my footsteps unsteady when he didn’t. “Thank you...for giving me a chance to come meet you all,” I said, my eyes locked with Jonah’s warm gaze.
There was something about the twitch of his body, the way he froze as I approached, which made me finally aware of the power exchange between an omega and her alpha. He looked torn between running to me and running away. In my steady approach, I didn’t just feel special and pretty and coveted as I had during my last interview. I felt in command, and by contrast, a bit out of control. The combination was heady, and my breathing was starting to turn uneven.
A step later, and I was just a little too close. Nervous or not, Jonah was the alpha whose aroma made me want to present, and right now that aroma was blooming in the space between us. There was a moan in the back of my throat and a tremble in my thighs.
“Baby,” he said, and there was that pause again. I wished I knew how he wanted to fill it. “Pretty sure this pack is the one with its luck turning around. Not one of us would’ve turned down the chance to meet you.”
He purred the words, and I was lucky Seth and Yvonne reached my side before I did something embarrassing.
“Come on, precious,” Seth said with a gentle hand on my back. “Meet the pack.”
Jonah’s gaze traced me from head to toe once more before turning and leading the way. The hall was dark with forest green paint and wood paneling halfway up. There were old posters covering the empty space, bands and movies and concept art for motorcycles, neon beer signs.
We reached the end of the hall and my feet stopped at the sight of a mass of men waiting in booths along the far side of the room. It was a big bar, with pool tables and low lights and a pinball machine playing a familiar jingle. It was clean. Or it was tidy. It was also deeply embedded with the smell of alphas. My alphas, my hindbrain provided helpfully. The alphas I wanted. Under their scents, the stained carpet and ragged upholstery were heavily dressed in the smells of beer, alcohol,
and sex. I’d always had a delicate sense of smell, but it was painfully strong now. The jumble in the air, the tang of beta arousal leftover in the bar and the alpha pheromones of release, left me a confused mix of irritated and desperate to be touched.
I whined and Seth leaned into me, propping me up as I tried to swallow the sound. Not that it did any good. A solid dozen alphas all stiffened, their eyes fixing to me and their hands fastening around whatever was available in an effort to keep themselves from charging across the room to me. An alpha’s bark brought betas and omegas to heel. An omega’s whine demanded an alpha do whatever necessary to fix, destroy, or satisfy whatever ailed us.
“I’m fine,” I squeaked out. I wasn’t. I had the irrational urge to either set the place on fire or immediately replace all the smells of other’s sexual satisfaction with my own.
“She’s about a week from heat, if our guess is correct,” Yvonne offered the crowd.
One of the alphas in a booth, which he occupied alone due to his enormous size, released a low growl and quickly stifled it.
“We tried to air it out,” Jonah offered with a grimace, his stare darting between me and the bar.
His hands were fisted at his side, throat bobbing with a swallow. His nostrils were flared and his eyes kept drifting down my body to my skirt. Maybe I should’ve worn pants. “We’ve been here a long time.”
Meaning the bar, and probably the entire strip mall, was soaked in their pheromones and the history of their bed partners.
It was a complicated form of torture. I wanted to go up to every single one of them and match who was who. Figure out which ones I’d been fantasizing about at bedtime. Apple Pie was a given, but was the one growling in the booth one of my favorites? I sort of hoped so but the room was too muddled to tell. He was a big burly looking alpha with honey blonde hair pulled back and a darker beard trimmed neatly around his jaw, and his cheeks were pink after he’d let that snarl out.
“Let’s just see the nest,” Yvonne suggested.
“No wait, I’d… I’d really like to meet everyone.” I gave Yvonne a look. The last pack had all introduced themselves to me and told me their professions and hobbies. Why couldn’t these guys?
“If we stay too long you might…” and then Yvonne waggled her eyebrows. Somewhat unnecessarily. I was aware of what I might do. I still wanted to meet the alphas I came to meet.
“We know this is only an interview,” Seth said. “No one here would break protocol and touch her.”
Touch might lead to scent marking and since I had another pack to see, it was strictly prohibited.
Unless I felt like creating an alpha pissing contest at the next interview.
“Aside from you,” Yvonne said to Seth, raising a pristine blonde eyebrow.
“Yeah. Aside from me,” Seth said, grinning back with a sharper edge than I’d seen him wear before. And despite the claim he’d put on me, not one of the alphas in front of us bristled. They barely even blinked, too focused on me.
I liked that. I liked that this pack of alphas, who were all taut with interest in me, didn’t mind that their beta had already staked his claim. That meant the roles of the designations in the pack weren’t too old fashioned, which was a good sign since I wasn’t certain how successful an omega I’d be.
Jonah’s throat cleared again, one hand reaching up and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Right so…I’m the Prez, President of the MC. Bomber— shit, Seth. He’s my VP. We run the bar together.
Um… This here is Dusty.”
Despite what Seth had said about no one touching me, I had an urge to cross to Jonah and put my hand in his. The man, intimidating though he looked, was clearly nervous. The more nervous he was,
the more at ease I was. But I wasn’t about to forget the way I swooned when I got too close to him, and I was barely hanging on in the room as it was.
Dusty was the first in the line of bikers in booths. He had a young round face, with speckled silver hair, and he broke out into a warm smile as I braved my way closer. Out of reach, but close enough to pick him out in my head. He was the warm blanket, and he looked as though he had the personality to match.
“Is Dusty your real name or your biker name?” I asked.
His grin deepened and his blue eyes sparkled. He was heavyset, but not overly so. Just soft and cuddly looking. “Both, Baby.” He huffed a laugh. “Feel like I should get a slap on my wrist for calling you that even if it is your name.”
My own smile grew with his. “And the garage is yours?”
“You bet it is,” he said, his chest puffing up proudly. “And let me tell you, Baby. Pack or not, you ever need a repair? Come and see me. I’ll fix you up, no problem.”
He seemed like a youthful kind of Santa Claus, jolly and sincere and good. And damn if I didn’t want to go set myself down in his lap. But at least I was pretty sure all I wanted was a snuggle. I couldn’t say the same for the man across the booth from him.
Deep Dark Woods, in the flesh.
“And this is Green.”
“Ryan,” the man corrected, with a whispery voice. He had silver in his black hair, with the lines around his eyes to match. He was older than most of the other pack members, but I would’ve guessed he was still in his forties. Asian, with broad features and olivey skin. “I’m the grower at the dispensary.”
“About that—” Yvonne started from behind me.
Ryan cut her off at the quick, his eyes sliding over my shoulder. “It’s licensed. Aboveboard. No additives. No under the table sales.”
His words were clipped, the bite of alpha in his tone without any of the usual volume. I shivered, and his stare landed on me again. I wanted to put myself in his lap too, but unlike the immediate visceral response to Jonah, or the friendliness of Dusty, with Ryan I wanted privacy.
Privacy and intimacy and something I hadn’t learned the vocabulary for yet.
“Which makes me Thumb,” the next man announced. He was short, shorter than me, with velvety brown skin and keen eyes. His smile was easy going, and Ryan relaxed as my focus shifted to him. He smelled like melon and almonds— pleasant, but not for me—and he nodded to me in a way that made me wonder if I didn’t smell the same to him. I liked him all the same. “I run the shop while Green works his magic.”
Next was Cole, an exquisitely beautiful specimen of a man, and one who looked like he knew it.
He had bright brown hair and icy blue eyes and a perfect nose and a dimple on his chin. If he had a job, no one offered me the information. He smelled like a perfect day at the beach—sunshine, salt, and whiffs of vanilla ice cream—and I realized he was one of the scent cards I’d been drawn to. He smiled without showing his teeth, and I found my eyes dropping to the floor as if it was too much to look back at him.
There were others. Jeff, an older man with gray in his beard, who ran the Full Moon Diner and winked at me with a tease that made my belly flip even though his caramel pheromones were too strong for me. Roger, a huge and grinning black man who bounced for the club and had a gentle, animal smell to him and dog hair covering his black pants. Steve, a young, pale goth who was unable to keep a grin off his face and scented of licorice.
Brody was a big Irish looking bear of a man who seemed wary of me and had a bit of a maple bacon thing going on I found appealing, but only gastronomically. His younger brother, Mackenzie, however, made me bite my lip. Mackenzie was the Secretary of the club. Tall and broad with freckles and red hair to match his brother’s—my own too for that matter—Mackenzie looked like he’d just walked out of a tourism guide for Ireland. His wild amber eyes flashed behind thick black glasses as he studied me piece by piece. Here was Black Coffee, one of my kryptonite alphas.
Beneath their booth table, Brody kicked at Mackenzie’s shoe, breaking the force of his study and lifting his eyes to mine. “Hey, Baby.” No accent, but Mackenzie’s voice was deep and sweet, and I pressed my thighs together under my skirt.
I swallowed, wondered if all the alphas could see me trembling, and if now was the wrong time to ask Mackenzie to bite me. “Hi.”
Behind me, Seth and Yvonne both snorted.
The next one was just as bad. Sanjay was tan with glossy black hair and lashes that looked as though they should’ve come from Sephora. He leaned forward in his seat as I stepped closer, my perfume no doubt flooding the air after my stare down with the redhead, and then pushed himself back into the booth, as far from me as he could get. I wanted to chase him in, suck on his skin and search for that dark cherry flavor I’d picked out for myself.
Finally, finally, finally, we reached the last alpha. I was wet. I was perfuming. The room was too hot, and I was shivering. And here was my growler, the big blonde whose cheeks were still pink and whose fingers around the tabletop were leaving dents in the linoleum.
“Bull—Quincy. He runs security for the building.”
Quincy’s pheromones were expanding in the space between us, enveloping me in the gentle scent of roses. Roses had never made me so needy. I whined again, and Quincy slid to the edge of the seat, his legs spread wide in an invitation to me and the thick outline of a cock I was suddenly drooling for clear between his thighs.
“You’re gonna break my heart if you choose another pack, kitten,” Quincy murmured, eyes smiling while he made my chest ache.
An arm circled my waist, and I found myself gasping as I leaned into Seth.
I was monumentally and astronomically screwed. Or I wasn’t, and that was the problem.
“No emotional manipulation, please,” Yvonne said, but it wasn’t so biting. She knew, probably as well as I did, that the chances of me breaking this enormous man’s heart were slimming with every second that passed. “Now, about that nest.”
Who needs a nest? Just surround me with these guys and I’ll be set, I thought.
At the mention, the alphas in the room all tensed, and their scents shifted from sweet and tempting to…edgy was the only way I could think to describe it. Whatever it was, it helped me breathe a little easier.
“Right. The nest,” Jonah said behind me, and even Seth felt stiff at my side.
“You do have one, correct?” Yvonne asked, her arms crossing her chest as I turned to face them.
“We have a room. It needs… well, it’s just the shell of a space at the moment.”
“Your old one—“ “The one we had before is currently occupied. We stopped subscribing, and we weren’t expecting to find an omega on our own,” Jonah said, shoulders tensing. His jaw ticked and his fingers were clenched at his side, and I suspected he was containing a growl at being interrogated by an unfamiliar beta.
“It’s fine, honestly,” I said, glancing between them. “Anything will do.”
Jonah only grimaced at my answer and avoided my eyes.
“Let’s just see it then,” Yvonne said. She looked briefly at the line of alphas I’d just met. “Maybe with less of a crowd so we don’t overwhelm the omega.”
“Baby,” Jonah corrected, his eyes narrowing on the woman. I wanted to preen. “Right. Follow me.”
“It’s no good,” Seth whispered in my ear as Jonah marched with heavy steps to an unmarked door on the far side of the bar. “We’d do up something better for you, honestly.”
I offered him a smile and then turned to the pack. “It was nice to meet you all.”
A few managed a smile for me, most were staring at Jonah’s back with worry on their brows.
How bad could the nest really be that they all looked so hopeless?
