Page 45 of The Butcher

I roll my eyes and get ready to call him out on how stupid he is but stop when I hear Indy giggle.

“I know. I’m Indy.”

He smiles a bit and nods, but thankfully doesn’t say anything else. Which is when I reach into his back pocket and pull out his wallet.

“Thank you,” Indy says softly. “For the new things for my nest.”

Nash nods again and scrubs a hand over his hair. “No problem. Happy to do it.”

Before this gets weird, because I can tell my alpha is about to get weird, I push him back through the doorway and start to close the door. “I’ll be out in a few.” Then I whisper, “Go take a shower, you’re throwing your scent like a dumbass and no one needs that right now.”

With a slightly embarrassed expression and one final nod, Nash says goodbye then makes a beeline toward the stairs.

I understand why Nan wanted me to break the ice for everyone, but my alphas—ouralphas—better get their shit together or I’m taking Indy and we’re running away from them until they do.

Chapter Twelve

BABY STEPS

Indy

Looking myself over in the mirror one final time, I lean in and try to really see the girl standing there in the reflection.

Any experience I’ve had with a mirror before now was mostly performance based.

Well, it was needed because of some sort of performance based event.

If the Harden’s decided to have a party, one where their wealthiest and most notable alphas came to see the inventory, I had to make sure I looked as presentable as possible. Even if I was already being bred by a pack, I still had to look nice because the herder usually put me out front.

Between my eyes and the unique coloring of my hair, they always figured I was a draw. They assumed that if new clients could see an omega like me, they’d be more likely to work with them instead of going straight to an auction or some lesser known competitor.

I’m not terrible to look at, I suppose, and my eyes are my favorite physical trait. But I didn’t understand why I was put out front when I’d never been successfully bred. I still don’t, if I’m being honest.

Despite that, I had to make sure my slip was clean, that my face and hair were as perfect as I could make them, and that I held myself like a Harden omega. Whatever the hell that meant.

I figured it just fed into the ranch’s reputation or something but asking questions was dangerous, and refusing to do what I was told was even more so.

So, I’d huddle around the one full length mirror in the main hall of our stall with the rest of the omegas who were chosen, all of us trying our best to look the part, then we were paraded in front of all those alphas like prey for rabid predators.

Foster and Hall at least kept them from touching me. Not that I want to give them a lot of credit after my last night at the ranch, but they kept me from being groped by strangers.

Most of the time.

I close my eyes and shudder as that memory races to the forefront of my mind, the one time Hall came with his previous pack, and a series of terrible things happened at one of the Harden’s parties.

Do not go there.

Shaking my head, I blow out a breath and finish making sure I look ok.

Aside from getting ready to essentially be shown off as some sort of livestock, the other time I had to use a mirror was just as bad and disgustingly similar, and yet, very different.

The pack before Foster and Hall, the one Hall was originally part of then forcibly took over—apparently they were ready to throw me away when he wasn’t, so he handled things in a completely out of left field way—they made me do some of the most vile things I’ve ever been forced to do. And it all happened in one, single, awful night.

Hall made me do those things and seemingly forgot all about them when he met Foster.

He was a monster before they met, one I was genuinely afraid of for a long time, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind, he’s why I was still leery about being with them, even if Foster was his complete opposite.

I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as some, I know it wasn’t, but that night at that party, it was both the first and last time anything like that happened. It marked a chapter I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget.

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