Page 37 of Frenzy
“Hey Radic, who’s your friend?”
I gritted my teeth as Wilkie turned up at our table, and my hands clenched beneath the table. Fucking Wilkie. “This is Pryce.”
I was short with my answer, and I didn’t care if I was unduly swaying Pryce with my reaction. I hated this smug, arrogant fuck. His Betas were mostly nice enough, although they were well and truly ground beneath Wilkie’s boot heel. I looked past his shoulder at Susannah, his female Beta. She was in a short dress and sky high heels, but I gritted my teeth and growled low at the finger-shaped bruises around her arms. Susannah snarled at me. “Fuck off, Radic. None of your business.”
She flounced away, one of the other Betas with her. Quinn wasn’t a bad guy, but he was way down the totem pole of Wilkie’s Pack. The Alpha in question ratcheted up the Alpha vibes he was throwing off. I searched the bar for Dominic and Loren, who had come to guard us, I guess, but were under strict instructions not to interfere unless we were in danger.
“Let me buy you a drink, Omega?” Wilkie purred, and I winced under the weight of his Alpha command.
Bonnie appeared behind him, her lip curled back in obvious loathing. “Fuck off, Wilkie. No one wants you or your sleazy fucking drinks.”
Wilkie raised himself to his full height and towered over Bonnie. “No one asked you, you fat whore.”
I saw how much his words hurt her, despite the way she lifted her chin. He raised his hand and wrapped it around her arm, the same place there were bruises on Susannah’s arms, dragging her closer. I stood, but Susannah was already there, shoving Bonnie away.
“Hands off,” she growled, like Bonnie had chosen to get mauled by this asshole.
Suddenly, there was a knife at Wilkie’s throat. Dominic had a feral grin on his face and a murderous glint in his eye. Why did I find that so fucking arousing?
“I would love nothing—and I meannothing—more than to slice your throat right now. And that includes getting my dick sucked. Because I can get a blow job any day, but ridding this town of a fucking scum sucker like you is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Wilkie’s Betas edged closer, but I saw Murphy and Merrick closing in. Their eyes dropped to Susannah’s bruises too, and Murphy curled a lip.
“Everything okay over here?” he called, though his eyes saiddo you want me to hold him while you slit his throat?
Susannah had grown up with most of us. We were all within a few years of each other during high school, including Merrick and Murphy. Susannah had been a bitch, but she’d lost her mom and had to raise her Omega baby brother. We cut her some slack. Then she up and joined the Pack of the first Alpha who asked. That sleazeball happened to be Wilkie, an Alpha twenty years her senior who knew exactly what he was offering when he poached a vulnerable female Beta straight out of high school, especially with her connection to Raiden and to Joshua, a Legion Alpha.
And since then, Susannah had been stuck. You could see it in her eyes as she stared at Bonnie, her mouth twisted in a possessive snarl that didn’t reach her eyes. No, I was pretty sure Susannah was protecting Bonnie, and that made me irrationally angry. What the fuck was happening over there in Wilkie’s Pack?
Now, she clung to Wilkie’s arm like a limpet. “Everything is fine, right Wilks?” she cooed, and you’d have to be an idiot to miss the sound of desperation in her voice.
Luckily for us all, Wilkie was an idiot. “Sure.” He looked around at us all, before his eyes settled on Pryce. “I will be seeing you again, Omega.”
Dominic laughed. “Only if he comes to spit on your grave. Now, fucking move.”
We all watched as Susannah and Quinn ushered the rest of Wilkie’s Pack away, and there was a tension in our group that remained. Murphy growled low. “I hate that fucker.”
I snorted, because I was pretty sure that was a widely held sentiment. Pryce was watching the two Alphas curiously, and my heart thudded in my chest. Fuck. Unlike Wilkie, I liked Merrick and Murphy. They were good Alphas, strong and trustworthy. Kind too, which wasn’t a trait you found much amongst Manix Alphas.
I cleared my throat. “Pryce, this is Murphy and Merrick. They are Alphas in the Legion Force.”
They both looked down at Pryce with the kind of intensity that seared along your skin, before bowing their heads respectively. “Omega,” Murphy murmured. “We didn’t mean to interfere with your night out.”
Bonnie patted Merrick on the back. “No, it's fine. Come and sit with us. You’ll keep the riff-raff away.” She looked up at me, her eyes imploring me to not interfere. If Pryce didn’t choose us, choose Courtland, then Merrick and Murphy were the best of us who didn’t already have Omegas, or even Betas.
They’d be a good match for Pryce, but not as good as us. Not as good as the Pack that Courtland was creating. I was angry at Courtland for not just asking Pryce, but I understood logically that he was doing it because it was what Pryce deserved. He deserved to experience the world, and dating, before he got locked down to a Pack. We’d all had decades to figure out what we wanted.
I just wished it wasn’t necessary, because I knew in my soul that we were what was best for him. We just had to convince him too.
22
Courtland
My eyelids felt like sandpaper as I assisted Pryce in taking the cubs to visit the doctor. Too many sleepless nights as Radic and Bonnie took my Omega out to experience the world. It wasn’t that I worried the Betas were trying to woo Pryce in any other direction but mine, but still, it grated knowing that they were all out there, unclaimed. It made my Beast angsty. Hell, it made the man angsty as well.
Pryce looked happier however, more secure in himself. That was what I wanted for him most. It helped that the cubs, Gabriel and Georgia, were flourishing. The Doc, Bonnie’s adoptive father, had been correct. Being with dominant members of one species had helped. I wouldn’t feel secure until they were healthy children like any other Manix babes, but I breathed a little easier. They moved more, ate better. Still small, but alert. Their breathing was better and you would not know that they’d been so close to death a month earlier.
I started to wear all my dress shirts open at the neck because I was so used to having a child strapped to my chest. Not going to lie, it definitely didn’t hurt my image with the general population in the days after the dominance fight.
