Page 15 of Defiant Beta

“What is it, Delilah? Did you leave someone you love to come here?” Aden asks.

I jump, startled, when someone drops a fork. When I look, everyone has their heads down, eating.

"Isn’t there more to life than this?” I gesture with my fork around the dining room, where omegas are eating, laughing, and chatting at long, dark mahogany tables beneath sparkling crystal chandeliers.

“Thisis our life,” he says quietly. “Walking away from this would mean walking away from our family. And our home.”

My eyes widen. “Your parents would disown you if you mated with someone you loved?”

His smile is bitter. “Reputation is everything. Love and scent matches are for the poor and the naïve.”

What an awful way to look at the world. I hadn’t thought I was the romantic type. Hopeful but realistic, but damn if this place isn’t making me realize how cold rich people can be. I must be more into romance than I thought.

Aden’s gaze fixates on a spot behind me. His frown prompts me to ask, “What is it?”

The cold-eyed math professor is looking this way, tray in hand. He is still hot. He is still rocking the heck out of a tweed jacket, but he is alsostilla jackass under that handsome exterior.

I lift my chin and hold his gaze, making it clear that I’m going nowhere. Then I turn away from him to smile at Aden. Professor Vincent humiliated me in class, but he hasn’t scared me off. “So, about the omega lesson…”

Chapter 6

Della

The next afternoon,we walk into the gym and I can’t be the only one whose mouth falls open.

A man stands on the mat, wearing all white, holding a white mask with a silver mesh on the front. And not just any man.

He’s tall. Broad shoulders. Shaved blonde hair, striking light green eyes, and neck tattoos on olive skin that I’d give my left arm to see up close.

If trouble, AKA hot guy from the wrong side of the tracks, had a look, I’d be taking a picture of this guy.

“I will be your fencing instructor this afternoon,” he says coolly, raking those pretty light green eyes over us. “Put on your masks and pick up your foils from the basket.”

His deep, gravelly voice adds to his mystery. And, let's be honest, his hotness.

Ms. Huffman stands off the mat in pink leggings, examining her French manicure. She looks bored out of her mind.

The double doors slam behind us, and I gaze wide-eyed at the basket filled with slender silver swords. We drift toward the mat like lemmings.

It doesn’t take long for Ms. Huffman to kill all my mounting excitement at getting to play with a weapon.

“A little less enthusiasm, Miss Farrow,” Ms. Huffman calls out serenely when I test out a swing.

I rein in my frustration by sheer force of will. “With all due respect, Ms. Huffman, would you prefer if I just lie down on the ground as long as I did it gracefully?”

I was joking, but she actually considers it.

“I would see no issue with it,” she eventually says. “Mr. Tomaz, perhaps you can show Delilah more grace with that thing. She seems determined to hurt someone with it.”

The fencing instructor is busy showing another student how to hold the foil. I thought they were swords, but they are called foils.

He motions me over. “I had a different lesson in mind for Miss Farrow.”

I perk up. “Yeah?”

Wariness creeps in at the predatory look in his eyes.

“Step on the mat and put on your mask,” he orders.

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