Page 102 of Sweetheart: Part One

Not ever.

Not without—

“I’m meeting up with someone who helps organise sweethearts for elite packs.”

My mind raced a million miles an hour as he pushed the lint roller into my hands.

Elite packs?

Like the Crimson Fury pack?

Mymateswere an elite pack. Ones who accept Sweethearts every few months…

“You aren’t as stupid as I thought,” he said, seeing the conclusion I was so clearly drawing. I realised the soaring feeling in my chest was enough to open the bond between us.

He could feel what I was right now.

In a panic, I slammed the connection shut, pulse racing as I held close the first true moment of hope I’d felt in forever, my eyes darting between his.

“I need to look my best for the meeting. I don’t want a single piece of dust on this suit when you’re done,” he said.

The words tried to seize me, to push me to action, but I warred with them, the phrasing something to untangle. I was getting better at that. After a few silent seconds, I won. The word ‘want’ was not a command.

I didn’t move, lips drawn in a snarl, chest heaving as I threw every ounce of my energy into fighting control he could drop on me with nothing more than a breath.

He chuckled. “Alright then, throw it out.”

I frowned, the ambiguous command throwing me off.

He nudged the lint roller clutched in my trembling fist with a sigh. “Throw it out and then come back.”

Seized by the order, I took a step back, knowing this one wasn’t worth fighting. Then I strode toward the small bin beside the door, mind still trying to pick apart what he’d said before.

Sweethearts were betas, not omegas.

But he knew I could front as a beta.

Dread crawled up my spine as I watched the lint roller fall from my hands and into the bin. Then I turned and walked back toward Alastor, where he waited arrogantly in the armchair.

He held a hand up when I reached him, halting me, but I spoke before he could get another command out. “What did you mean?”

“I don’t know if you deserve to know after that behaviour.”

I swallowed.“Tell me.”

I had to know.

Hope was a fragment of white-hot coal, burning hotter and hotter with every second that passed.

My mates.

Was he going to send me to them?

They were the only pack in the world that could free me from the bite on my neck.

Alastor reclined, crossing his ankles as he looked up at me from behind his black mask.

“What I will tell you, is that it’s in your best interest that I look respectable tonight,” he said. “Every piece of lint, little omega. You want it all gone. Use your fingers, and”—He gestured to the hem of his dress pants at his ankle—“start there.”

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