Page 121 of The Beta's Bargain

I flinch.

“In two weeks, there’s going to be a party held at my mansion. This is your invitation. Come and see them. Prove that you can live in a world without them by facing them. If you can walk away from them again, I won’t pursue you. We will all let you go.”

“You can’t do this. They hate me,” I breathe those last words into the air with so much pain that everyone in the room flinches.

“I’m a Waters. No one can stop me,” Hazel says with a lift of her chin. “And they don’t understand what happened, but when you tell them the truth, they will forgive you. They don’t hate you, Onyx. If they hated you, they wouldn’t be so damn miserable.”

“Oh, the arrogance.” I whip around and find Missy in the kitchen. She’s found a stash of my chocolate and is shoving pieces into her mouth.

Kandi is leaning over the island, watching with undisguised glee.

“How did you get in here?” I ask, blinking rapidly. Kandi wasn’t in here before, I was sure of it.

“Kandi either has mad skills and climbed the gutters, or she used the key I gave her,” Missy says. “Hazel, enough with the dramatics. We’re here to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” I protest.

“It’s your birthday, Onyx,” Scarlet says. “I didn’t know what to get you, but I spent too many birthdays on my own, so this is my present to you. A birthday with many people who care, even if you don’t know us well yet.”

I pause, confused, and then suddenly realise it is my birthday. I’ve never celebrated it before. Not once. I stumble backwards and drop heavily into the armchair.

“Get dressed, sexy beta. We’re going to drop Scarlet home before Taylor and Gold can go crazy, and then you, Haze, Moira, Kandi, and I are heading out to have some fun.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Oh, all right,” Missy grumbles. “Sven, Lukas, and Darion are coming, too, but I promise they’ll be invisible.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

Missy walks towards me and crouches beside the armchair. “We’ve known each other for a month, yeah?” She flicks a glance at Scarlet. “We’re the kind of friends that are going to be annoying staff in a nursing home. Friends, Onyx. Haven’t you realised? You, me, Kandi, Hazel, Moira, and Scarlet all old and wrinkled, shouting at our packs while they fight each other off with walkers. Defending our honour. It’s going to be epic.”

“I can just see Darion with adult diapers, glaring at the nurses who come to change him,” Scarlet says with a laugh.

“He and Gold will have to be taken out the back and hosed down from a safe distance.” Missy claps back.

Kandi roars with laughter, Scarlet snorts. Hazel shakes her head in disgust, but Moira looks delighted.

I swallow hard, blinking moisture out of my eyes. I have friends. I think of my mother at that moment, and I know she’d be happy for me. She’d tell me to take a chance. To be brave. She would say betas can do and have anything.

She would have told me to fight for them. She would have loved them, I know she would have, even Falcon.

I look at Hazel, and the world narrows down to just her and I. “I’ll come to your party. I'll explain everything I did. I’ll give them the words they deserved to hear from me. But they won’t take me back, and I won’t chase them again. It’s all-or-nothing, Hazel.”

Hazel lets out a breath and then squeals and throws herself at me. Missy ends up sandwiched between us as the omegas hug me tight.

I don’t know how I got here, but I guess I'm glad for the detour. There’s a tiny burning flame of hope inside me again. I'm going to see them one last time.

thirty-five

Falcon

Ihate this place. I don’t know why Grayson needed to be here tonight. He’d insisted. The thumping of the music is too loud, and there is too much stimulation. I’ve never felt more like an old man watching my pack dance with my omega than I do right now, longing for home. Or rather, for her and the quiet of my study.

Dylan looks up at me and waves.

I will admit, watching the sultry way he moves and grinds with Gray and Silas is bringing out two conflicting urges. The first, to shove him to his knees and claim him as mine in front of everyone here, and the other, to grab him and run.

I turn my head, scanning the rest of the club. It’s packed tonight. A dissatisfaction rolls through me, and I shift as I try to push it aside. Ever since she left us, the feeling has popped up mercilessly. This discontent, this anger that I can’t extinguish, this ache in my chest.

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