Page 24 of Psycho Alphas: Part One

“I’ll give you time to settle in. I have some business to manage. Meet me in my room in an hour.”

“Yourroom?” Her eyes widened as she took that in, and I swear her hand jumped after me as I stepped out of her touch, but then it dropped.

I’d almost reached the door when she asked, “Are you sure there’s no one else?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

She frowned, and I could see the confusion on her face. I was throwing her off. I felt my smile widen. I was throwing her off enough to make her question a scent match.

“There’s another Alpha’s scent in the house.”

“I had a visitor,” I said, as if that could explain the way my true scent was deep in the very walls, but I was already stepping from the room and shutting the door behind me.

It wasn’t until I’d taken a few steps from the office that I noticed something was wrong.

I paused, examining the sense of unfamiliar unease.

What…wasit?

I stepped back, cocking my head, and it took a while to realise what had happened. From the doorway, I could still catch the faintest trace of her scent. Calmer than it had been at the end of the car ride, if still on edge.

I ran my tongue along my teeth, working through that.

I was reacting to her, as if, from the moment we’d stepped into that car, she’d been attaching to me, tendrils of desperation awakening all my instincts in a demand for protection.

That was good.

Dependent was a light word for how I wanted to leave her.

Forcing myself to walk away, and shoving down the sense of unease, I made my way down to the basement.

By the time I’d reached the basement hallway with Rogue’s room, I’d already opened an app on my phone and had the surveillance feed of my office open. The scratching at the back of my mind calmed, but I shoved it away. This was about my plan, not these instincts, and I needed to see what she would do.

I found myself enraptured by the feed.

She was still in my office, sitting on the desk and kicking her legs back and forth as she hugged her bunny. Though… I squinted, it appeared, through blurry details, that her lips were moving. I grinned, digging my earphone pod from my pocket and thumbing the top open before pressing one into my ear.

“…Just doesn’t make all that much sense,” she was saying as the feed audio switched on. “Unless he doesn’t know…?” She let out that same nervous laugh I’d heard earlier when I’d made her flustered. “Hehasto know. Or… well…?” She scrunched her nose. “Hmm. I think that’s it,” she said as she slipped from the marble desk at last and set her bunny down on it. “He’s as mad as a hatter,” she said simply, and I snorted before I could stop myself.

As I watched, she did the thing I’d hoped she would—opened the drawer where I’d placed the gun. A wide smile appeared on her lips as she plucked it out and checked the clip, eyes visibly widening when she found it loaded. “Yup,” she declared. “Might even be as mad as we are, Bunny.” She paused, lifting the weapon and examining it closer. “I kind of like him, though…” She frowned, tapping the barrel on her temple like it would get her thoughts moving. “Oh, get over it.” She pointed the gun at the plushie, tilting her head and closing an eye. “You don’t get to be jealous—and he paid a lot of money forme.”

She pulled the trigger, then jumped violently with a shriek that sounded half fear, half mirth when it actually went off witha bang. Nothing else in the frame moved, though, as she leapt for the desk in a panic, checking over the bunny like it was her firstborn.

She’d missed, and it was much more likely my bookshelves were the casualty.

“Us!”She patted it roughly. “He paid a lot forus. We’re a package even if he doesn’t know it—do you think he’s gonna like you?” She straightened, shifting the gun from hand to hand, then seemed to check the safety—which was good, since I thought I’d left that on. “You’re right. Can’t get attached. Not until we know the deal.” She went on, voice dropping as she enunciated the last syllables while rapping herself on the head with the grip again. “He could be all lies and snakes and disa-fucking-pointment…” The words becoming quiet enough I couldn’t make them out, but I swore I heard something that sounded like‘fucking Alphas’.

When she was done, she grabbed her bunny, tucked the gun carefully between it and her chest, and hurried from the room, but not before she doubled back to grab a fistful of my mints from my desk bowl.

I shut my phone off and lowered it as I processed what I’d seen, my instincts oddly dazed.

She was absolutely fucking nuts, and I was so much more fascinated by her than I should be. She was all mine, and tonight was going to be the best night of my life. I would break her mad little mind.

Feeling a thrill of anticipation, I strode down the hall and knocked on the door to Rogue’s room.

I heard a non-committal grunt from within, and pushed the door open to see him glancing over at me from where he sat on the side of the bed, folding laundry he’d pulled from a hamper.

It was a completely ridiculous sight—an Alpha of his massive size, scarred topless torso of rippling muscle on full display while he paired socks with a great iron muzzle on his face.

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