by AJ Merlin
“I’m not moving you off mornings,” he said at last. “You should feel lucky you work for me at all.”
“You should feel lucky my ass stayed so long.” I drummed my fingers on the table, not at all perturbed at his disapproving tone or the warning growl that followed my words.
Not only was Larry a beta with absolutely no biological sway over my poor omega heart, I wasn’t so easily swayed by men who treated my kind like crap.
Noah was grinning, eyes gleaming with amusement.
“I can ask if–“
“No. I quit,” I interrupted. “There is no ‘asking.’ I have wanted to quit forever. You are a horrid boss, and I hope you get shut down by the health department. Have a nice life, Larry. Or don’t. Frankly, I do not care.”
“Alek, can you stop acting like a spoiled omega for one–“ I hit the big red button, effectively ending the call and dropped my phone to the table between us.
“A shame you didn’t let him finish,” Noah commented, taking another bite of his ice cream like some kind of heathen.
“I didn’t want to ruin our celebratory ice cream,” I replied sweetly.
“Nothing can ruin this ice cream,” he said, words half obscured by his mouth being full of it. I snorted, scooping up equal parts ice cream and whipped cream and bringing it to my mouth.
Yeah. This place really was the best. We didn’t come here too much, since they charged outrageous prices for their gourmet scoops, but it was worth every penny and had become our celebration or pick-me-up location. One day I’d have their absurdly expensive pints of ice cream lining my fridge.
Until then, I would have to make do with cheap dollar store knock offs and cans of ready-whip.
“Do you want to go out with me tonight?” My roommate asked, making an obscene sucking noise at the top of his cone, as if he didn’t want to ruin the crispy waffle.
“Noah, please. I can’t be your fake date again. Prom was bad enough–“
“It was our middle school formal, you donut,” he scoffed. “We didn’t even go to prom. And I don’t mean like that. Since you’re working at Prowl and all, I thought you might come to a coworker’s party with me. You can introduce yourself.”
“Right. With my killer social skills,” I sighed, taking another too-large bite of ice cream.
“You can be nice when you want to. Anyway. Emma, you know her, right?”
Kind of. Emma wasn’t my favorite person, but I had no issues with her.
“She’s invited us to a house-dungeon party tonight. It’ll be great, probably.”
I watched him gnaw at the waffle cone and thought, leaning back in my seat with a sigh. “I could go,” I shrugged, not opposed to the idea at all. It wouldn’t be the first fetish club I’d gone to, but it would be the first fetish-dungeon-house.
I was intrigued.
“Thank you for making this sacrifice for me, great lady,” Noah replied solemnly.
I took a breath, then paused. My eyes narrowed, just as they met Noah’s. His narrowed as well, cutting to the side. I nodded.
Someone was trying to throw their scent at me, probably because they’d realized I was an unmated omega.
It wasn’t rare, and it wasn’t welcome.
“You ready?” My best friend asked suddenly, only half surprising me. He didn’t look nervous, but he also didn’t look geared up for a fight.
Not like I was.
“I guess,” I sighed, pushing to my feet and polishing off my last bit of fantastic ice cream. “Though I think it’s a crime that I didn’t get to savor the last of this.”
“Yeah, a real shame,” he agreed. I followed him to the sidewalk, dumping my empty plastic bowl into a garbage can set there for this exact purpose. “We should get back, anyway. Since we’re going tonight.”
A chair scraped across the ground, the person in it not trying at all to be subtle.
Before I could turn, Noah caught my arm. “Try,” he said flatly.
“Hmm?” I batted my eyes at him, tossing my dark red hair over my shoulder as our gazes met. “Why Noah, I’m sure I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“Try to ignore him.”
“But Noah.” My smile turned a bit wicked. “He so clearly wants my attention. Shouldn’t I be a polite omega and give it to him?”
“No.” He glared at me, then over my shoulder. His look turned less severe, and he shoved his hands in his pockets as we started walking. “At least not right here. If this place banned us, where would we get our ice cream fix?”
He had a point.
I meandered along the sidewalk with him, very aware that the person’s scent was not fading. Noah rambled beside me, keeping the conversation going without much input from me.
While it was true that I was tongue-tied around a lot of people and that I would never win an award for being a social butterfly, no part of me-no single strand of hair-was afraid of an alpha. Not one who leaned over the counter at the coffee shop and tried to get handsy with me, and certainly not one who smelled like grease and dirty metal.
If he kept following me, he was going to have a problem.
When we reached the mostly empty parking lot that we’d left the car in, I wondered if it was some kind of sign. Less chance of property damage meant more room to maneuver, after all, and less chance of getting sued.
Before I could say a word, Noah stopped and lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay,” he sighed. “But seriously. I want to go home, not drag half-dead assholes behind a dumpster.”
I gave him my best bratty smile. The one that I was sure I would ply on any alpha I’d ever date.
Should I ever find anyone worth dating who wasn’t a very famous cam boy.
When we were no longer in view of the street-or more importantly, the ice cream shop-I whirled around, standing comfortably on the asphalt.
“What do you want?” I asked the two men that had followed us. “Because if you’re lost, you can go find someone who cares.”
I hadn’t noticed the scent of the second man as we were walking, but I did now. My lips curled in a clear sign of disgust. He smelled like chlorine, and it immediately made me think of a serial killer dousing a room to hide the evidence of his poor grammy’s murder.
Okay. So I really needed to stop falling asleep to true crime documentaries. Noted.
They both watched me, obviously taken aback.
While alphas came in many varieties, I tended to classify them into two categories that I could live with: Does Not Respect Omegas and Does Respect Omegas.
Unfortunately, the second club seemed hard to get into. While I’d absolutely met a few alphas with nothing but respect for my kind who preferred to court their mates instead of grab them in a parking lot, it was much more likely that the unattached alphas I met fell firmly in the other camp.
And these two men were definitely that. If the fact that they’d followed me to the bus stop hadn’t given it away, the way they looked at me now certainly did.
The man on the left, who I immediately deemed Chad, half-sneered at me. “Come on, pretty omega,” he purred. “How could we be lost when you led us straight here?”
His friend beside him, who I immediately decided looked like a Cletus, leered in an eerily similar fashion.
A shudder of revulsion went up my spine. “I almost just vomited,” I said sweetly.
“Would’ve been a real waste of quality ice cream if you had,” Noah called, leaning against the car and spinning his keys around his finger.
“He’s right. And I’m not interested. So….?” I raised my brows, making shooing motions with my hands. “Get lost?”
Cletus looked unsure, and glanced at Chad, who only chuckled. “Don’t be like that. I know your game. Act bratty now to see how hard we’ll work for it, right? But, sweetheart, I think you overestimate yourself a little bit. And I don’t see why we should have to work so hard.”
“Wow,” choked Noah from behind me. “Are you kidding me? You follow us here, propos
ition her, and now you’re insulting her because she’s told you no? Are you losers or what?”
“Don’t work so hard then,” I shrugged, a friendly expression glued onto my face. “Leave. Go home. Go get more ice cream or something.” I wouldn’t let their nasty words bother me. Who were they, to even consider that I’d give two shits about their opinions?
“You’re an omega,” Cletus said suddenly, as if the fact had somehow slipped my mind.
I looked at him, unable to keep a bit of disgust off my face. “Good job,” I replied evenly. “Gold-fucking-star.”
“Don’t be such a bitch when we all know you want it,” Chad snapped, a bit of growl in his voice.
Slowly, I let my gaze slide to his, meeting it firmly instead of ducking my head, staring at the ground, and whimpering like a proper submissive little girl. “Want it?” I repeated. “What’s there to want, exactly?”
He took a step forward and my skin prickled. My own instincts were kicking into high gear, and he really needed to back off if he wanted this to end nicely.
“I don’t want you,” I said. “I don’t want either of you. Last chance to get lost.”
My heart thumped in my chest, the quiet whisper of anticipation making itself known between my ears.
“I don’t want to mate,” Chad assured me, taking another ill-advised step forward. Noah growled softly in his throat behind me, but I had a feeling it wasn’t for fear of my own safety.
He knew me better than that, after all.
“We just wanted to have fun.” He put his hands up in mock surrender, the sneer back in full force. “Not gonna force you if you don’t want it.”
I narrowed my eyes, still meeting his gaze directly in a clear challenge.
I could tell it made him uncomfortable. A muscle in his jaw twitched and his scent turned sour at the edges.
“Okay,” I shrugged. “Then get lost. I said no–“
“But you really should learn not to talk to an alpha like that,” he said, cutting me off. “Don’t you know any better?”
“No,” I said, a smirk breaking onto my lips that I could no longer hold back. “I don’t.”
“Someone should teach-”
“Like you?” I cut him off the same way he’d done to me. “Are you going to teach me-oh.” I gave him a slow blink as his eyes brightened, the typical sign of a pissed off alpha. His teeth lengthened, forming fangs where his canines had been. “You look a little upset. Maybe you should take a walk, huh?”
“You really want to do this?” He strode forward as he talked, fists clenched at his sides.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” I warned. “If you hit me, I’m going to embarrass you in front of your friend.”
His only answer was a snarl. He was obviously done talking.
Which was absolutely fine with me.
His arm came up, fist clenched, and aimed for my face.
That surprised me. Normally, alphas went for a condescending backhand first.
But nothing else about him took me by surprise.
My arm came up and I caught his wrist in my hand, not bothering to move out of the way as I stopped the momentum of his blow.
“That’s it?” I asked when he snarled in my face. His other hand came up, claws extended, and I caught that one before kicking him backward. “All that for a punch?”
He started to come at me again, but I was faster. “My turn,” I told him, unleashing that pent up excitement and anticipation that I always felt whenever an alpha tried me like this.
I hit him once, my fist connecting with his solar plexus squarely. He let out an oomph, all of the air escaping his lungs as I slid in and kneed him hard in the stomach.
Cletus snarled, rushing me as Chad recovered. I turned, easily able to catch him and flip the smaller man over my shoulder.
“Nah,” I told him, taking a few steps back. “With you, I just feel bad. It’s like bullying, you know? I’d hate to feel like I was the bad guy here.”
Chad shoved his friend when the dark haired male tried to come at me again. “I don’t need you!” He snarled. “She’s just an omega.”
“He’s right,” I agreed. “I’m just an omega that he can’t land a punch on.” Chad came forward again, proving me right yet again.
As I blocked the blow and returned it with one of my own, I felt some of the excitement fade, though the anticipation and adrenaline remained.
I’d never admit it to Noah, but I loved when Alpha’s challenged me like this. When they tried to put me in my ‘place.’
I loved getting the chance to teach them a lesson they should’ve learned years ago.
Even if it did nothing for my popularity with those that lived by standard shifter etiquette.
These two were barely alphas, in my opinion. Neither of them had ever seen a real fight, I was sure, and it felt a bit mean spirited to hit Chad again when his nose was already broken.
I sighed when he ran at me once more, snarling at me in a way that might make me shake in my boots if he was an alpha I could ever respect.
But he was not.
Before he could even try to hit me, I swept my leg outward, tripping him with his own momentum and sending him flat on his face on the asphalt. Then, before he could recover, I shoved my knee between his shoulder blades, putting my weight there so he couldn’t move.
“I won’t ask you to apologize,” I sighed. “I know that’s not in the vocabulary of an alpha like you. But seriously…” I ran my fingers through his red-brown hair and pulled his head upward off the concrete. “Be careful what omega you try to ‘teach a lesson’ in the future. They might not be as patient with you as I am.” I let his head fall, happy that he hit his forehead against the pavement with a pained groan.
Swiftly I stood, walking away from him and approaching Noah’s car.
He grinned, all good cheer and casual charm while keeping an eye on the men behind me.
“You’ll never get an alpha,” Chad said, dragging himself to his feet as a pained noise grated from his throat. “Let alone more than one.”
“I think he’s insulting you,” Noah informed me solemnly, pulling his door open.
“What would I do with an alpha?” I asked, raising a brow. “Coddle it? Tell it that it’s very pretty? You should move or he might run you over, by the way.”
I got in the passenger seat, happy to see that he scampered away from Noah’s car as he slammed down on the gas pedal.
“Careful,” I remarked. “I was joking, but he’s slow. You really might’ve hit him.”
Noah snorted. “Oh, yeah, and what a loss to shifter kind, right? God forbid I run over such a treasure”
I couldn’t exactly argue. I also couldn’t understand why anyone would settle for an alpha like those two, who thought it was okay to hit a shifter who didn’t supposedly respect them enough.
With a thunk, I rested my face against the cool glass. Adrenaline from my little fight ebbed from my veins, making me sigh heavily. “He’s kinda right,” I said when we were on the highway and Noah was inching up the volume of his music for the sixth time.
“No, he’s not. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but he’s not,” Noah assured me, choosing to shout over his music rather than turn it down.
Instead of answering, I snorted. “If you say so.”.
Chapter Four
“Have I gained weight?” I yelled, voice loud in my small bedroom as I stared at the mirror in front of me.
“Is this a trick question?!” Noah called back from his own room at the other end of the short hallway.
Snorting, I ran my hands down the soft material of my black dress, pausing where the hem stopped at mid-thigh. In lieu of pants or tights, I wore black thigh-highs and motorcycle boots that came to my knees. All of it was stretchy, soft, and incredibly comfortable to move in. Which were, to me, the most important things to look for in clothes. Despite Noah’s growing concerns over my frumpiness.
I had a feeling that Noah, on
the other hand, would look much fancier than I did. It made sense. After all, he’d also been getting ready for an hour longer than me.
But my routine was easy. A little bit of eyeliner to make my amber eyes stand out, and dark lipgloss that added a burgundy tint to my mouth. Both mostly served to make my pale porcelain skin look even paler, but I preferred to think that I had some Victorian-esque-possessed-doll-aesthetic going for me. Hopefully, the blood-red of my long, loose hair added to the ghost-doll look.
“Are you almost ready?” I called again, wondering if he was going to make us late again.
“I’m getting there! Geez, Alek, don’t be so pushy. It takes time to look so–“ I heard a crash from his room, then a curse.
“I told you not to put the dildos on the top shelf,” I sighed, sinking down onto my bed and curling my legs up under me.
“It wasn’t the dildos!” Noah howled.
I smirked, phone in hand as I swiped over the screen to unlock it.
With nothing better to do until he was ready, I navigated to the Prowl app and opened it, my eyes greeted with the bright purple screen and the little logo in the middle as it loaded.
When it did, I was immediately shown a notification that took up my entire screen.
You’ve received a gift!
Click here to see what someone sent you.
The notification was littered with black heart emojis, and I clicked the continue button. Prowl was normally pretty good about spam and ads, but I was sure this was one of those ‘limited time upgrade’ emails that went around sometimes.
It wasn’t.
When the notification opened, I was stunned. I read it. Then read it again.
Your subscription to Hades Ahlleron has been extended and upgraded!
“Hey Noah? You know my birthday isn’t until next month, right?” I asked, tapping the next button to check the duration of my ‘gift.’
Status: Premium.