Page 4 of The Beta's Blind Date

“Goodmorning,Imogen,”Sebastiansays, but his gray eyes look right at me.

And there was a definite emphasis on the word “morning.”

“Morning!” Imogen says, chipper as fuck.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, this time emphasizing the word “sleep.”

I glare at him, my jaw set. This motherfucker. Goading me. Poking at me. Gloating.

“Fantastic, actually.” Imogen smiles, oblivious to the stare down happening between Seb and me. “Oh! Do you know what brand of mattresses these are?” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the bed. “I asked Reid, but he’s clueless.”

“I do not,” Sebastian says, sipping his coffee.

“Oh, that’s fine.” She waves him off and slings her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll ask Haven. See you later!”

With that, she prances away, leaving me to face my worst nightmare by myself.

“Sleepover, huh?” Sebastian asks, taking another sip of his coffee.

My fists clench to stop myself from smacking that steaming hot mug of coffee into his stupid, smug face. He watches me over the rim, his eyes flicking to the muscle twitching in my jaw and the vein pulsing in my forehead.

I don’t give him the satisfaction of a response, though. Instead, I walk away, heading down the hall to the back door of the packhouse.

“Where are you going?” Sebastian asks, his footsteps echoing mine as he follows me.

“Gym. I want to get a workout in before we lead training later.”

“I’ll join you,” he says, gulping down the rest of his coffee and dropping the mug off in the kitchen on our way through the packhouse.

I grit my teeth and hold in a groan. That’s the last thing I want. The last thing I need. Especially when he’s the reason I need to work out some aggression in the first place. Him and his stupid bets.

I was hoping to imagine his face as the punching bag. I suppose his actual face is a much better alternative. But if he’s there, that means listening to his taunts for most of the morning. Or he may choose to go the silent route, baiting me to bring it up on my own.

He sticks his hands in his sweatpants pockets as we cross the lawn dusted with snow, his face turning towards the rays of the bright sun. The subtle warmth will melt the minuscule dusting of snow we had last night before lunchtime rolls around, but it’s only a matter of time before the snow sticks, and we have a winter wonderland. Which is what Haven wants for the wedding in a few weeks.

Seb breathes out, little cloudy puffs of condensation forming in the air, and I roll my eyes and wrinkle my nose. He’s either oblivious to the tension building inside me, or he’s using his lack of words to get a rise out of me and put me on edge.

Who am I kidding? It’s for sure the latter. It’s what Seb does.

He just knows. He knows what makes others tick and knows how to get people to do what he wants. It’s how he lured me into all these stupid bets over the years, before I learned betting against him on anything is the worst idea ever. It’s how he knew the only way Haven would give Wes a chance was if she saw how important she always was to him, as opposed to being told how important she was to him.

And now, he’s trying to get me to acknowledge my failing, my shortcoming, trying to get me to admit that I, once again, lost a bet. He’ll be all silent and smirky and smug, never saying “I told you so” but thinking it beneath the gleam in his eyes.

Well, two can play that game. If he’s not going to bring it up, I won’t either. He thinks his silence will annoy me, will make me blurt it out and fess up, and beg him to let me off the hook.

But I won’t let it get to me. I’ll ignore him and his dumb face and his superiority. It will be the fuel for my workout. I’ll make him be the one to talk first instead of the other way around.

We reach the gym and change in silence, neither of us breaking. He’s waiting for it. Waiting for me to give in to the pressure he’s putting on me. His keen eyes watch me when he thinks I won’t notice. I yank the laces on my shoes harder than normal, and Sebastian’s lip twitches, but I continue on my merry way over to the indoor track.

Throughout our stretches, he keeps watching me, not saying a word. I clench my teeth, and I’m sure the vein in my forehead is as large as a branch from the redwoods surrounding the pack, but I hold out.

I’m tempted to start my run without a warm-up, but the importance of stretching before a workout is too ingrained in me, too much a part of my workout routine to skip it. We may be werewolves and we may have advanced healing, but that doesn’t mean we’re immune to illness and injury. Just like our extended lifespan doesn’t mean we are immortal. We can still die. We can still be killed.

It is a reality I know all too well.

“Run or spar first?” Seb asks once our warm-up is complete, breaking the silence between us.

I stand there, hands on my hips and eyes pointed at the turf on the floor of the gym, waffling between the two. Do I want to pound his face first or kick his ass in a race around the track first?

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