Page 5 of Building My Pack

Whether it be good luck or bad, that’s the moment Santiago makes his appearance and I watch as she clams up again. I’d bet my left sock that he is the one who had her out of sorts moments before I ran into her. Which does nothing to help the hard on that’s been slowly growing in my pants.

“What was that about?” Santiago asks after she excuses herself without sparing a glance for the man.

I shake my head, “I was just trying to be helpful.” Then I round on him. “You didn’t say how gorgeous she is.”

His laugh echoes through the hall. “I told you that I wanted you to have firsthand experience. What does she smell like to you?”

“Bananas,” I reply instantly as we start walking toward the doors. “But there’s something else, too. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“Right?” he says excitedly. “I’m glad it wasn’t just me. Let’s go network and maybe we’ll run into her again so you can make more weird conversation.”

He’s teasing, but it still worries me if maybe she thought I was being unintentionallyweird. I’d just spouted the first thing that came to mind. I should’ve mentioned her award or work. Mentally kicking myself in the ass, a slight growl slips from my chest. We’re not close enough to anyone yet for it to be overheard, but Santiago’s left brow goes up in question.

I leave him to integrate into whatever group he chooses while I go grab us a couple scotches from the bar. I’m on my third one already by the time I catch the redhead’s gaze on Santiago. Unbelievably, even as strong of an urge that I have to claim her for myself, I’m not jealous to find her eyes locked on him admiringly. The man will be completely insufferable after this.

That emotion I should’ve felt while watching her admiring my friend quickly bubbles to the surface as I notice the man at her side say something that has her ducking her head. My alpha does not like her being so close to him. It slowly ebbs into slight annoyance as I notice the attention of his pack at the table is focused on him. He’s an omega. All thoughts of him and his pack flit away like a hummingbird when her chin lifts and we lock gazes. Not wanting to appear like the creep I feel like I’m being, I send her a smile that has her blushing again. Never knew I was a man that liked having that effect on a woman until now.

Suffering through the next half-hour of polite chit-chat with Santiago while keeping an eye on our beta and then through dinner, I’m relieved when the speaker finally takes the stage. Speaking highly of Bryce and the award she’s being presented with tonight, he finally gets to the point and welcomes her to the stage. Then our beta is standing and making her way up there. I have to swallow down a growl when I think about all the other alphas in the room now ogling that luscious ass. When she finally gets to the podium and smiles out at the room, I can see why she gave Santiago a run for his money. Her presence, alone, commands the entire attention of the room. However, if anyone after this thing asks me what she says, I won’t have an answer, because all I can think about is how creamy her skin looks under the spotlight and imagining how all that long, red hair that hangs down to her hips would look draped across mine. We are completely screwed.

Whipping my phone out, I send out a quick text before stuffing it in my jacket.

At my side, Santiago uses applause to cover him asking, “What was that?”

“Nicholas,” I reply quietly.

His expression morphs into understanding before one side of his lips pulls up. “Am I good or am I good?”

I don’t give him the benefit of an answer, because he already knows that if I’m calling in Nicholas then he definitely did something right. Pretty soon, we’ll know most of what there is to know about Bryce Hartley, too. I just hope the beta isn’t hiding anythingworthknowing.

Chapter 3

Bryce

I roll over in bed Sunday morning with a slight hangover that is more headache than anything, making me want to pull the covers over my face and forget crawling out from under it. If only I could give my full bladder the one finger salute, then that’s exactly what I’d do. Unfortunately, nature calls, giving me the only option of getting my bum out of bed and taking care of it. It’s a daunting task which has my feet dragging through the dense stone-colored carpet all the way to my bathroom suite. After doing my business and washing my hands, I use the cold water to splash a bit on my face where my makeup has smudged from sleep. Normally, I clean it off, but I’d been exhausted when I’d gotten in so late last night. I’ll be lucky if I remembered to close my garage and set the house alarm. What I should’ve done was stayed the night at the hotel where the event was being held like Chloe and her pack did. There were just two problems with that idea. Santiago and Kennedy. No way was I risking staying and running into them for any more interaction than what already went down. That was already embarrassing enough to last for a lifetime.

Groaning in shame, I locate the bottle of Tylenol in my sink drawer and chug two of them down with a bit of tap water, hoping they can help clear my head. However, as I slip back into my room and start making the bed, I almost hope they’ll transport me into another dimension where I haven’t made a fool of myself in front of my biggest adversary and his business partner. No such luck, though, as I straighten the sheets and flip the orange comforter out to smooth across the bed, it doesn’t save me by sending me down a spiral into another world.

The thought makes me snort gently and shake my head as I line my grey and orange pillows up. Knowing my luck I’d get thrown into a world where girls my size are worshipped and turn into bumbling puddles of awkwardness, or it’d be somewhere like Planet of the Apes or something and I get kidnapped by King Kong.

“Besides,” I say, getting ready to console myself out loud, “it’s not like I got drunk and danced on tables. Or even stalked them back to their rooms in hope they’d invite me in. I just avoided them for the rest of the night. That’s all.”

Satisfied for showing some kind of restraint, I all but skip over to the dresser to throw on my yoga clothes. Even if I didn’t need to purge the feelings from last night, Sunday is always my ‘decompress and relax’ day. Throughout the rest of the week, it’s Zumba and jogging to clear my mind and get pumped for the day. It’s been my routine ever since college, which is why when George and I bought the house I’d made sure to transform one of the downstairs bedrooms into a small gym area. Not like the man ever used it, even when he was always fussing that I needed to. Looking back on all the diets and weight-loss programs I’ve tried, at least nine out of ten were by his suggestion. There were signs that he was—and still is—a total tool, and I should’ve seen them. I accepted a long time ago that I’d never be a skinny person, but I tried for him. At this point, my brain is happy just being healthy and fit. No matter what my waist size is. My heart is an entirely different situation.

By the time I’m headed downstairs, the medicine is starting to do its work. I can already feel the headache lifting. Which is why the urge to close all the blinds in my workout space hitting as soon as I walk in feels strange. They’re hardly ever closed, even if I’m not home. For whatever reason, though, the bright openness bothers me on a whole new level and doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with the lagging I’d felt getting out of bed.

I do my best to clear my mind and put all of the madness to rest as I start to stretch and get into my morning routine of poses. On days like today when there’s nothing planned or after a night of being stressed to the wall, I don’t bother timing myself, choosing to keep going until I feel calmer and in a better mindset. By the time I finish, it’s right in the middle between breakfast and lunch. Something my growling stomach is reminding me of currently.

Going to the kitchen and grabbing a water out of the fridge, I debate my options for a meal, taking a ridiculously long time to decide on brunch. Cooking way more than I could ever eat, I lay out a spread of waffles, fruit, a spinach and cheese omelet, and even some cinnamon rolls. I slowly dig into the food, letting it sink into the empty pit from last night. I’d been too damn nervous about my speech to eat dinner. Of course, in the back of my mind the whole time, I’d been wondering if I’d catch Santiago and Kennedy’s attention again. Thinking of which, I set my fork down and go in search of my phone which never made it past where I dropped it with my other things in the foyer last night.

“I’m only going to check to see who all showed up,” I tell myself, hopping back on my stool at the counter and taking a bite of omelet while unlocking my phone. They’d told us that the pictures would be on their social media page. Plus, Chloe took a bunch for our office’s page, too. Which is what I start with. I’m half expecting them to not be uploaded yet since she had triple the amount of champagne I did and was being carried off by John when we’d said our goodbyes. Fortunately, she’s found the time to do it anyway, I see when the page opens, and I start flicking through the photos. There are quite a few of me on the stage accepting my award and giving my speech, but there’s plenty of the rest of the party, too. People standing around chatting or mid-conversation during dinner. Most of them are posed ones of groups together based on what agency they were from. It’s easily discernible that they were done that way on purpose based on our photo and the one of Jenna’s people. Skipping over a few that I don’t recognize, my finger freezes over the one of Santiago. It’s bad enough being face to face with the man but having him staring directly out of the photo at you like he knows you’re looking at him with that sexy half smirk of his really will get the heart pumping. An effect that I don’t understand outside of his attractiveness. My reaction to both him and Kennedy last night has left more questions that I have answers for at the moment. Switching my attention to the large man beside Santiago, I can’t help but again admire the tall broadness of him against all the other people standing around him. He’s wearing a smile, too, but it isn’t as flirtatious as his friends. Recalling what he’d said about rather being at home than there and it mirroring my own feelings, makes a smile cross my lips.

I keep scrolling through the rest of the photos then move to the other page, but my mind is a million miles away. When I’d first found out that I was an omega, I was terrified. My parents had always preached to high heaven that being part of a pack and owned by an alpha rivaled that of a horror story. Of course, as I’ve gotten older, it’s brought to question which one if not both was burned by an alpha relationship in their life. My once fear of my designation morphed into the background as the years passed and the pharmaceuticals did their job at keeping my omega side contained. I didn’t do much research into it either since I never planned to live in the forced confinements of my designation. I know general basics, but even that isn’t much. Most of what I learned came from school in the class that was required for all students where we’re separated. I’d allowed them to place me in the girls’ beta class since that’s what everyone was forced to believe by the choice I made in keeping it a secret. There were a few times where I felt bad when one of the girls would confess to her desire to be an omega, and I’d wished more than once that I could give them mine. From what little I can remember from that class, my reactions to Santiago and Kennedy last night were completely normal. For an omega. Being attracted to them is one thing. Having my palms sweat and heart race to the point of almost renting a room and begging them to come upstairs is another. Not to mention having their scents locked in my head the whole way home last night. Just thinking about them now, I can close my eyes and still smell the rainstorm and chocolate-tinged coffee in the air.

Closing the app on my phone, I bring up my agenda for this week and add in an entry to call my doctor. I’ll have to work a visit in sometime around my open house on Acacia Drive and the showings for the Brunswicks on Thursday. At least this office isn’t like a normal one, seeing as they’ll work around my schedule and when I’m available. Satisfied that I’ll remember to call them tomorrow, I jump back over to my home screen, ready to maybe or maybe not glance at a few photos again. That’s when the little, red, voicemail notification down at the bottom catches my eye. Weird, I don’t recall missing any calls yesterday.

Clicking it open, I push ‘speaker’ before ‘play.’ After a dramatic sigh, George’s voice fills the quiet of my kitchen. “I thought we talked about this, Bryce. You shouldn’t be calling me anymore. If this is work related then please just leave me a message next time.”

“Or she could justforgetyour damn number,” a feminine voice pipes in. There’s nothing other than a bit more mumbling before the message cuts off abruptly.

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