Page 46 of Pack Rivals, Part One

I blink.

I don't remember the last time Silver said something like that. Shit, I'm not sure he ever has. Sure he's declared girls – omegas especially – hot or cute or sexy, but special?

"Let's hit the sack then, make sure we're on our best game for tomorrow."

* * *

The next dayis one of those beautiful ones where the sun shimmers above the water, and the sea lies calm and clear as a mirror. Salt hangs fresh in the air and the sunlight warms my skin.

I sit back in my chair, sunglasses shading my eyes, and soak up the rays.

Next to me, Hardy's not quite as relaxed. His eyes keep darting back towards the end of the jetty, searching for signs of Silver and the girl.

I don't understand what's rattled his chain.

"Sit still, will you?" I tell him. I don't want my peace ruined.

"What if she said she didn't want to meet us?"

"Then Silver would have messaged us already to let us know." I crack open an eyelid and peer his way. Hardy's dressed in actual slacks today with a light blue shirt that makes his crystal blue eyes shine like the ocean. "What's up?"

"That scent man. Couldn't get it out of my nose last night. Couldn't get it out of my head last night either. Silver said she was special right? What if he's right?"

See, softie.

He believes in all that crap about soul mates and 'the one'.

Me, I gave up believing that bullshit long ago. Ten years of searching. Endless girls. Numerous dates. Countless arrangements.

No fated mate.

I'm convinced all those people – all those alphas and omegas who insist they've found their one, their other half – are lying through their damn teeth.

It's the emperor's new clothes on steroids.

Say you want to be with a girl and she tells you she feels it. The special bond, that elusive connection that means you are her fated mate, but you don't feel it back. What you gonna do? Tell her the truth? Like hell you are. But what if she didn't feel it in the first place? All she had was a case of the stomach flu. Now she can't own up and tell you she doesn't feel it after all. You're caught in the lie.

Yeah, bullshit.

Hardy though, he believes it one hundred percent. Was fed that diet of fairytale make-believe from his grandma who raised him from a young age.

She wants nothing better than to see the three of us settled down. In fact, I think she wants it even more so than my mom – which is saying something.

"Relax, man," I tell Hardy. "We aren't going to have any trouble wooing this girl." He knows that because we never do. "Especially with you looking the way you do."

"You don't look half bad yourself, Angel."

I spent an hour trimming my beard, grooming it with the expensive beard oil my mom bought me a few Christmases ago. Plus I'm wearing the white shirt she got me back then too.

We could afford our own stylists these days but I've never believed in that shit.

"Here's Silver," Hardy says, jumping up on his feet.

I crane my head away from the ocean and turn to watch my packmate strolling down the promenade, his right hand wrapped around the hand of a small woman with long wavy caramel hair, bright amber eyes and a figure that jiggles when she walks. I stand too, entranced by that jiggle, my mind heading places it shouldn't. Not on a first date. Not when Silver insists we take it cautiously with this one.

The photos Silver showed us of this woman did not do her justice. That was a flat two-dimensional thing that gave her no life, no movement, no spark. In the flesh, she's mesmerizing. All eyes drag in the direction of the handsome couple walking our way. Because, damn, she looks good on the end of my packmate's arm.

"Hello," I say when they finally reach the table we've secured – best in the place – right out front with an unobstructed view of the ocean.

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