Page 5 of Knot Their Girl
“Pax, be nice,” she said.
“You’re not my mate,” he snapped back. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“No,” she said, “but I’m sure Darius won’t be too happy to hear how you messed up this interview on purpose so youwouldn’t get chosen for the job. Should I call him in here now? He’s right out there in the hall.”
He scoffed, and then he leveled a hard glare at me. “I’m not a fucking bodyguard. That’s grunt work, no matter who you are. If you pick me, I’ll do the job, but I sure as shit won’t pretend to be happy about it. Now, can we finish this up? Unlike some of us in the room, I have other duties to attend to while you waffle around as you decide.”
I forced out a smile, even though it was more like me baring my teeth at him. “Sure. Go. Don’t you worry your pretty alpha head. I won’t be picking you, anyway.”
Pax flashed me his pearly whites, and I noted the sharpness of his canines. Almost animalistic in their points. “Great. Thanks so much for wasting my goddamn time.” Without saying another word more, he got up and stormed out of the room.
Mercedes watched him go, but I resisted the urge—and the urge to keep my eyes on him was pretty damn strong. Even through the scent-dampening, I got whiffs of something woodsy, his alpha musk strong enough to still penetrate my senses and make my inner omega whine with need.
Oh, no. Even if he wasn’t an asshole of epic proportions, I couldn’t choose him. I didn’t want to deal with his general asshole-iness or wrestle with that horny bitch inside more than I had to. It’d probably be better if I chose that Cunningham alpha or any of the others I interviewed in between.
“Sorry about him,” Mercedes broke the silence of the room, bringing her eyes to me. “I can have Darius talk to him, if you want—”
“No,” I cut in with a shake of my head. “He doesn’t want to play bodyguard? That’s fine. I don’t need him or his superiority anyway. I liked that Rourke guy. He seemed fine. What’d you think of them?”
Her thin shoulders rose and fell once. “Rourke was cool. They were all… fine, except Pax. Definitely reminds me of Darius. In the beginning, I thought Darius hated me. He had this stick so far up his ass that I really thought he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me.”
I laughed. “And look at you two now. All that’s just water under the bridge.”
“Well, he couldn’t fake it for long. Turned out he was just being so mean because he thought I was going to hurt his pack. Besides, when scent matches are involved, you can’t deny things forever.”
Scent matches. I remembered Mercedes telling me about it before, how Darius was basically her fated mate. Good for her for stumbling upon a pack that had her scent match in it, but most omegas weren’t so fortunate. Scent matches were something of a fairytale; we heard about it happening every once in a while, but it was just that: a fairytale.
As she went to bring in Darius so we could discuss me hiring that Rourke Cunningham, what she said echoed in my head:you can’t deny things forever.
Was that what I was doing? Was I denying things by trying to remain packless? There were omegas out there who weren’t claimed by a pack, but they went to heat houses, forced to hire themselves out to make a living. Basically selling their bodies, whether it was just during their heats or being surrogates to packs and popping out babies for them. No omega of my stature, as far as I knew, had ever made it through life without finding herself a pack.
I wasn’t some low-born omega. My family would rather lock me up than let me go to a heat house. Besides, as someone who liked the finer things in life, there was no way in hell I’d ever be caught dead in one of those places. Your girl had expensive taste, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.
That said, those words of hers stuck with me, constantly bouncing around in my head, even as I laid in my bed that night.
Chapter Three – Raeka
Pax Alabaster stands beside Delilah, a hard frown on his face. Thanks to my scent-dampening not being so recent, his scent is damn near overpowering, and I struggle to stand there under his bright green eyes and act like I’m fine.
Of course I’m not fine. I’m half-dressed, and his musky scent is assaulting my nose like there’s no tomorrow and it needs to weave itself into my very DNA.
Delilah is still shaking her head, even as she approaches me and moves to stand behind me, helping me zip up the dress so I’m not totally indecent in the face of this über alpha. “Then you should’ve waited for one of the changing rooms to open up,” she hisses out behind me, still very much scolding me.
I’d roll my eyes, because I don’t give a shit, but I can’t. I’m locked in a staring contest with Pax freaking Alabaster, and I hate how sexy he looks in that all-black getup. He doesn’t wear the strappy ensemble he wore the first time I met him; instead, his tall, impossibly muscled body is clad in a suit. Black on black on black, and it really grinds my gears how attractive he is.
He has no right. No right at all.
“Now,” Delilah says once my dress is fully on, and she steps away from me, “I need to go speak to the others, assuage their fears. It’s common knowledge that no unbonded alpha is allowed back here.” This next part she says to Pax: “We are making an exception for you. I expect you to be on your best behavior while you look out for Ms. Whittenhall.” She sounds like a mother hen. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so annoyed at this particular alpha’s presence.
It’s only when the woman is gone that I place my hands on my hips and cock an attitude at him. “I said I was hiring Rourke, not you. What the hell are you doing here?” I can’t stopthe annoyance from seeping into my voice; I was never good at hiding my feelings. I’m an open book, for better or for worse. Blame my upbringing as a Whittenhall princess.
“Rourke said he wasn’t feeling well at the last minute, and I’m the only one everyone trusts to fill in, apparently,” he bites out the words, not hiding his discontent. “Don’t worry. I’m not too thrilled about this, either.”
I want to give him the finger and tell him to leave, that I don’t need his help, but ultimately, he’s an über. His scowling face nearby should scare off a lot of alphas who believe they could match with me. I need to walk away from this night with no possible matches.
If I do it enough times, surely my parents will see that I’m serious about not ending up in a pack, right? Eventually, they’ll have to let me do my own thing, let me petition the courts to legally change my status to a beta or something, so then at least I’d be able to have a bank account with no pack cosigning on things with me.
“Fine,” I say. “Just do your job. Stand around, scowling, looking scary. I don’t want to hear a word from your meathead mouth, got it?”
