Page 76 of Pack Rivals, Part One

"Don't you want me to introduce you to some of the other omegas here?"

"Nope," I hiss, standing and scooping up my vase.

I thank the instructor, whose hands hover over my flowers as if she's dying to fix them, and then I march from the room.

At the door, something makes me pause, and when I glance back into the room, Melody is glowering at me as if she'd like to wrap a rose around my neck.

So much for making new friends.

18

Silver

I positionmy feet hip width apart, lock my arms and raise my gun. In the distance, I can spy the target. I line up the barrel of my gun and fire once, twice, three times. The bullets race through the air, hitting the target with three loud thuds. All in the head. I lower my gun and peer over to Hardy in the neighboring range. I grin.

"Lucky hit," he mutters, raising his own gun and firing four times. One of his bullets hits the dummy's shoulder, one grazes its cheek and the other two whizz over its head. "Shit!"

"Keep telling you man, you need your eyes tested."

Hardy scowls at me. There's no way in a million years he would concede to wearing glasses, even though his aim's been growing worse over the last couple of years.

"You could get contacts," I tell him.

He shakes his head, frowning. "No way. I'm not poking myself in the eye." For such a tough man, he is pretty squeamish when it comes to some things. Eyes being one. He once got a splinter in his eyeball and it took me and Angel together to wrestle him to the ground and hook it out.

"It's lucky I don't need you on gun duty these days."

"I can still hit the target when I need to," Hardy growls, lifting his gun and slamming a bullet right into the center of the dummy's head. "Ha."

"Want to go again?"

"Why not," he says and I pull open the magazine of my gun and load it up with a fresh round.

"What did you make of our meeting today?" I ask him. We came straight from some rich beta's house to the shooting range and we haven't had a chance to discuss it yet.

"You know I hate meetings like that," Hardy says, slipping a handful of bullets into place. He hates them because he knows these days I only take him along for effect; to impress the new clients with the sheer size of the man. It's not the tech and all the whizzy gadgets that convince a client to take us on. It's always the size of Hardy's muscles. "Besides, I don't know why the man needs us. Sounds like he should talk to his daughter. Playing with your biology like that – taking fucked-up drugs to try to turn yourself into an omega – that's messed up."

"If it were my daughter, I'd want to make sure the low-life supplying her with the drugs never walked the planet again. She's fifteen! That's fucked up, man."

"Yeah, when you put it like that then I see your point. So are we?" His eyes flick to mine. "Going to make sure he never walks the planet again?"

I smile. Hardy knows perfectly well there is a limit to what we can do. The city authorities watch us like hawks. Any rumors of assassinations and they'd have us behind bars before you could say 'bullet in the head'. As a consequence, I've always ensured we stay on the right side of the law.

"Once we find the dealer, we can certainly make sure they neverwalkagain," I say with a knowing smile. Of course, there are ways around the law.

Hardy laughs and lines up his shot, his broad shoulders rising and falling as he takes a steadying breath before the shot. His forefinger twitches. He squeezes the trigger.

And my phone blasts out.

Hardy's shots sail high above the target.

"Jesus Christ, Silver!"

I raise my palm with a grin. "Sorry."

I reach for my jacket hanging on the hook and fetch out my phone. It's Trent, one of the men I've assigned to watch Bea.

I raise a finger to Hardy, telling him to be quiet, then connect the call. "Trent, what's up? Is everything okay with the omega?"

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