Page 128 of Pack Rivals, Part One

"Come on, sweetheart."

She lifts out her hand, her fingertips mere inches from my own, and then something on the horizon catches her eye, distracting her.

I smother an annoyed grunt and turn around, the faint roar of an engine reaching my ears.

A red car.

A red sports car.

I know exactly whose car that is.

I snap back around to Bea.

"Come on, sweetheart. It's not safe out here. Let me take you home."

But her eyes are still locked on the shiny car as it motors down the track.

"Bea," I try again, losing my patience. She's mine, not his. I'm not letting him snatch her from me. I'm not letting him ruin this for me. I'm not letting him ruin things like he did before. All those years ago.

She's going into heat. She needs me and my pack. She is mine.

Ignoring my hand, she scampers down the dune, the robe rushing back in the breeze and revealing her long bare legs, acres of creamy thigh. Her scent intensifies as she moves closer, and the blood in my body thrums.

I'm going to plunge into rut any moment.

Her scent is just too–

The car slams into the drive and I swing around to face it. The tires skid across the sand and stop inches from my toes.

I don't stagger back. I don't even flinch. I hold my ground and glare at the man driving the car.

Angel Boston.

He scowls right back, his eyes murderous through the dusty windscreen.

Then his eyes flip from me to Bea. He's out of the car a second later, his nostrils flaring, his pupils blowing wide as he sucks in a lungful of her scent.

"Go home, asshole," I tell him, blocking his path to the omega.

He takes two steps towards me so we're nose to nose.

Back here again. As always.

"Why?" he hisses, "has she made her decision?" The muscle below my eye twitches and he nods his head slowly. "Didn't think she had."

I rest my fingertips on his chest. He's wearing a cotton t-shirt and I can feel his heart thumping beneath his skin. Thumping just as hard as mine, straining for the omega behind me.

Tough shit. He's not having her. She's mine.

I push him, hard enough that he stumbles back.

"Go away," I tell him, my voice more of a growl than anything else. "Turn around, get back in your car and drive away."

Angel cackles in that way that's always sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard to me, setting every nerve in my body on edge. "No way, asshole. The days where you get to tell me what to do are long past."

My hands form tight fists and I take a menacing step toward him. "Am I going to have to make you leave?"

"Let's see you try," Angel says, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders.

---