Page 20 of Harley

“Harley,” he repeats one last time. Then he’s gone before I can even register that he’s moved away.

I love the way my name rolls off his tongue.

CHAPTER 9

ZAYD

Choosing Day.

Tension fills the air in the house. Ace told us what happened when he met the omega. Harley.

She had a ticket—a blank ticket for the raffle—in her pocket. He told us all to trust her. That he trusted her. But it's hard for me. I don't trust many people. I want this omega to come, to heal Knight. But I’m scared she will see me and leave.

“Zayd, I can smell you from here. You can block us out of the bond as much as you want, but you can’t hide that.” Knight waves his hand at me, and I take a step back toward my room. I’m going to screw everything up. She will see me and want to draw out another pack’s name.

Knight hasn’t had an episode all week. He needs Harley.

“You need to take a deep breath. Harley will be here with us at the end of the day,” Jax says. I grunt, and Jax’s eyes are on mine. “She will, I can feel it. Have faith, Zayd.” Jax resumes flitting around the room. Rearranging pillows on our sofa, as if it's going to make our house more enticing to this omega. Once she's here, there's no turning back. At least, I don’t believe they can take her away.

But I understand—this is Jax’s routine. He's like this when we have visitors. Only, this won't be a visitor...if she even gets here. I don't have my hopes up, and even if she does come, she'll take one look at me and know I'm broken and won’t want to be near me.

“Can you move that chair into the corner, Dash?” Jax asks our beta.

Dash just smiles and does exactly as Jax says. We live on the outskirts of Crescent City, in an area that is less than ideal. Unlike the elite, we don't have the money to live in a fancy, sterile apartment in the city. Our house is old, and Ace has restored all our furniture from Goodwill.

But this house? It’s a real home. The oven doesn’t heat evenly. The heating is on the fritz, and it gets cold in the bedrooms at night. There’s a burn mark on the countertop, where Dash set the frying pan after making bacon his first morning here. There’s a hole in the wall near the front door, where Ace shoved Jax playfully after he called him an old man. We’ve made memories here.

Then there’s the creaky floorboard in the hall outside my room. The guys all know where it is and avoid it unless they want to come speak with me. I don’t like to be startled. I can’t cope with sudden knocking on my door.

“I think that looks good, Dash.” Ace strolls in, his hair down and past his shoulders. It’s beautiful, with wavy curls. He gathers it up and ties it with the elastic on his wrist.

“Zayd, do you need to smell her top before we go? It might help your alpha,” Ace suggests, and I shake my head. I haven’t wanted to smell it, but a small bit of the scent has been drifting around the house for days. I don’t want to get my hopes up for something that might not happen. If I smell her top up close, I know what I will smell. My scent match. Hell, there is no denying she is; I can smell it already. Even Jax said she’s his as soon as he took a hit of her scent.

This has been the most stressful week. I have spent most of my time locked in my room. I look down at my hands and they shake. My hands are shaking, because if this doesn’t happen, if she doesn’t come back with us...

I will lose them all.

* * *

Outside the hall, hundreds of alphas, a few dozen betas, and their packs gather. There are too many people—too many alphas—and my heart starts to race.

“Zayd, you can hold my hand,” Dash offers, but I shake my head. I don’t want to look weak in front of everyone.

Ace turns to me, and I realize I let that thought through the bond. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to for me to know what he’s saying—it’s not weakness to need others.

He’s told me a million times, but it’s a hard one to remember. I’m twenty-nine, and I still struggle to lean on my packmates when I need help.

I let out a deep breath and take Dash’s hand in mine. He squeezes it, and I almost sigh. How do they know what I need, even when I think I don’t need it?

Because they’re my pack.

“Only packs who are in the lottery, come up to the front,” someone on a speaker system announces, and Ace starts pushing through the crowd. Dash squeezes my hand and Knight grins wildly. Hell, he might need Dash more than me.

“Come on, good-looking,” Knight teases me as we try to keep up. He always calls me good-looking. I know it’s not true, I see the way people stare at me. I’m big and scary. But when Knight tells me, I like the feeling I get. It makes me feel...desired.

We get up close to the front doors, where barriers block everyone from moving into the hall. The guards at the front—alpha guards mixed in with betas—are yelling. The betas wear the Omega House uniform. All guards at the Omega House are betas.

“Pack name?” one asks an alpha next to Ace.

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