Page 2 of Running on Empty

Jax kept telling me I needed to develop alpha energy in dealing with their dog but, apart from swaggering around like I had a third leg for a cock, I wasn’t sure what that meant. Growl something stupid and tack omega on the end of it?

“Ollie!”

My wolf was absolutely no use, because she loved the damn thing. The fucking dog sailed over the fence like it was nothing and, once he was over, he zeroed in on me, moving like a freight train as he bounded closer.

“Ollie! Ollie! Fuck…”

I dropped my precious, precious coffee onto the grass, knowing from experience that if I didn’t, the prick of a dog would jump up and spill the scalding hot liquid on me instead. I mourned the loss of that caffeiney goodness as I prepared myself, then jerked my knee up the minute he jumped up. I got him right in the guts, making him examine his life choices as he pulled away. Like so many men, that wasn’t enough to hold him off for long. He circled around, tail wagging so fast his whole bum was twerking for me.

Ollie loved me, but more than that, he loved my wolf. When I shifted, they’d play together like puppies, wrestling and playing bitey face for hours until I was forced to reel her back in.

“Shit, Ollie…”

At the sound of his voice, my wolf quivered with all the excitement of Ollie, her entire focus locked down. Jax Kelly didn’t look much like the boy who’d called me down from the tree that night. He’d been a big lad back then, but now he was fucking huge, muscles rippling under the white button down shirt he was wearing, as he threw himself over the fence and loped over, graceful as the wolf that was the other side of his nature.

He might look like a mild mannered security expert, with his jeans well pressed, his tanned skin contrasting very nicely with the white shirt, and his teeth doing the same when he grinned. But he was a predator underneath it, just like I was. Alpha and omega, our designations were made to fit together like puzzle pieces, although that was never going to be on the cards for us. I watched him rake a hand through his longish dark hair, sweeping it back, bicep popping as he did. Three quarters of the female population of our school and a chunk of the male had swooned over Jax and his brothers.

Just not me.

“Sorry—”

“I’d find it much easier to believe your apologies if you did something about your mutt,” I said. Ollie then sat like a Very Good Boy and I found myself bending down, scratching the thick fur on his chest.

“And he’d stop jumping over if you stopped doing that,” Jax replied, mildly. “You’ve just—”

“Reinforced his behaviour.” I straightened up again, Jax’s hazel eyes following my every move. “It’s hard not to when he’s so damn cute.” Jax’s smile widened but that just had me taking an involuntary step backwards. I directed my attention to the dog, not the man. “I’m just gonna have to drink my coffee before I leave the house, aren’t I, boy?”

He wagged his tail hopefully, eyes pleading for another pat or, better, for me to take fur and play. I wanted to. Gods, how I wanted to, but I didn’t take fur around the guys unless it was absolutely necessary. Instead I sighed and gave in, scratching those butter soft ears.

“Come inside,” Jax said, oh so casually. “We can make you another cuppa and—”

“Gotta go,” I said, making a show of looking at my watch. “I’m running late as it is, and Jonesy—”

“Will understand,” Jax said firmly, with all the confidence only an alpha could muster. “You could have something to eat as well. You haven’t eaten anything, have you?”

You see one Kelly and you’ll see the others moments later. That had been the lore that went around school, making it clear that tackling the Kelly pack was an exercise in stupidity. So I wasn’t surprised when the others appeared.

“You know me. Don’t eat anything straight after I wake up,” I replied in clipped tones, smiling to soften my words.Stop fawning over the big bad alphas, I sneered at myself. “And I gotta run.”

“Ollie get over again?” Ronan asked, ambling over, the man able to make jeans and a t-shirt look like couture, his version of the dark Kelly hair containing a reddish sheen. He wore his hair long, and today he had it pulled back into a ponytail, his only accessory his trademark smirk. “Bad Ollie. So, you’ll need to be coming over for a cuppa, Stevie?”

And they saidIencouraged the damn dog? As he spoke to their German Shepherd, Ronan’s voice was more caress than rebuke and Ollie wagged his tail furiously in response, pushing his nose into Ronan’s hand.

“If you’ve been training that mutt to knock my coffee out of my hand in the morning, I’m going to be pissed,” I growled.

“Trained?” scoffed a third masculine voice. Ash Kelly, the biggest member of the Kelly pack, landed in my yard and made a beeline for their dog. “That’s a fucking joke. Ollie, home.”

The big man jerked his thumb in the direction of their front yard, but Ollie just whined in protest. At this reaction, Ash’s wolf pushed forward. Mine watched closely as Ash’s eyes began to silver, his wolf making his presence known, staring down at the dog, and letting a small growl trickle out of his mouth. Ollie barked then turned tail, jumping back into his yard. Once he’d taken care of their errant hound, Ash turned to the next order of business: me.

He was the only one of the brothers with blue eyes, the colour stark against his dark colouring. And this morning, as was often the case when he was talking to me, his gaze was as flat and even as the sea on a winter’s day.

“Soyou’veoffered to make Stevie a coffee and some breakfast,” he drawled, cocking an eyebrow at Jax.

“Yeah, but—”

“Andyousaid no, because… reasons.” That was directed at me. I smiled, sort of, but it was more a baring of teeth really.

Ash summed everything up so succinctly, and his familiarity with our routine made sense. The Kellys were over in my yard as many times as Ollie, if not more. Mowing my lawns, trimming back my trees, cleaning out my guttering and, when they started their security firm, installing a state of the art alarm system. They’d coaxed a scared little girl down from the trees years ago and they seemed to think I’d never moved beyond that, and that they needed to make sure I was fed, watered and cared for.

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