Page 15 of Chased Bear

“Jayce! Corey!” Aydan’s voice boomed, and the five alphas at the table stood at attention.

Oops.

“Hello, Alpha. Do you need to speak with your brother?” Stephen was the first to speak. Probably because he couldn’t feel the tension that was pulling me in a thousand directions at once.

“No, actually, I was just checking on how Jayce was doing.” He was? That was weird.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Aren’t you having lunch with someone else?”

I peeked over and saw that the other omega who had come in with Aydan was sitting at his table, crossing my fingers my ill-earned hatred of the omega hadn’t seeped into my voice. The omega’s eyes were glued to the door that led to the kitchen and not toward me at all. As much as I cared about him, he didn’t seem to pay me any mind and that somehow made it worse.

“Yes, that’s Finnegan.”

Finnegan like that song where they all begin-again. What a stinky name for an unstinky omega. I was the stinky one in all ways. Argh.

“Oh, the brother to—” I started to say but stopped myself. Finnegan had been the brother of the alpha Corey had been promised to, but that had obviously not worked out, and in that context, now I felt a little bad for the guy. That entire situation had been a hot mess from what I’d heard.

“Seems that lunch hour is running a little long for all of you,” Aydan said, ignoring my comment.

The three alphas at our table pushed themselves to their feet and started scrambling. Great. Just great.

“It was great to meet you, Jayce. We must get back to work,” Stephen mumbled on his way.

“It was good to meet you too, and thanks for your number. I’ll be in touch.”

Aydan’s face hardened. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“What?” I said, confused.

“The alphas here aren’t just looking for a good time, Jayce. It would be in your best interest not to lead them on.”

My bear was rising up and it was taking far too much of my strength to push him down.

“Aydan, what the hell, man?” Corey said. Go, bestie, go.

Heat flooded my cheeks. What was he talking about? I hadn’t even—I had just been with him last night, and he was the one who said it was only a good time, not anything real. Fuck. How was this day getting worse.

“Do you have something you need to say to me, Alpha?” I glared at him, daring him to say one freaking thing. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, it’s just… you know the problem we have here. Too many alphas, not enough omegas. It’s why you’re getting so much attention.”

He did not just say that. Now my bear was pushing back doubly hard, and I had half a mind to let him.

“I just don’t want to see any of my alphas hurt.”

“Thank you.” I held back a growl. “You need not concern yourself with me. As of right now, I’m only at your den on a trial period, and quite frankly, I’m not sure that I’m willing to stay.”

I was for sure not if this was going to become the norm. It was bad enough I had my heart crushed thanks to my own dumb choices. Having him treat me this way on top of that? Heck to the no.

“Everyone here has been exceptionally nice, and I do enjoy the people, but there’s just one thing I will not tolerate.” I turned to my friend. “Corey, it’s good to see you. Perhaps we can chat later. I’m going to catch up with Russ. He mentioned that he needed someone to clean the barber shop, and I’m willing to help out where I can.”

“He didn’t mention anything to me about needing help,” Aydan said.

“Perhaps you’re not approachable, Alpha. You ever think about that? People don’t come to you with their problems because you’re kind of a dick.” Not kinda… a full-on dick, and I wasn’t sticking around to be on the brunt end of his dickiness one minute longer.

And with that, I stormed off.

It wasn’t until later that I realized I had just called my Alpha a dick.

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