34. Cole
Cole
"Stay here," I growl. Thankfully, Sunny seems inclined to obey finally. I absolutely hate the stricken expression on her face directed at the parked car.
Striding across the porch to the screen door, I breathe in and out once to keep from barking. "Get out here," I call into the house to my pack. There’s scuffling, and then they're all stomping out the door.
"What's going on?" Hunt asks, noticing Sunny, who's made herself into something small on the swing, her legs pulled up to her chest.
"The cousin," I say, gesturing to the car stopping outside the low fence gate.
Each of my packmates goes rigid, growls erupting from all of them. Good. I want their alphas front and center for this. We descend the steps, me at the front. A mountain of an alpha steps out of the car. Craig is bald and wears a tan suit.
Craig walks through the gate like he owns the place, and it snaps something in me.
"Stop," I bark. I'm satisfied to find his muscles bunch at the command as he goes rigid and still. Some non-alphas think that size has something to do with dominance. It never has, and never will. Dominance is about inner power. It's born, not fed or trained.
He's frozen and furious. It takes a few beats for him to shake off the command. As an alpha, it won't last nearly as long as if I had barked at a beta or an omega. It's why I can't just bark at him to leave.
So, I put the bark away. "The Apiary isn't open yet, and this is private property. I'm going to ask you to turn around and leave right now."
The big man's eyebrows shoot to his non-existent hairline.
He looks up to where Sunny still sits on the porch swing. I growl, forcing all of my dominance into the sound. I'm pleased to find I'm not the only one. Growls have erupted from my packmates behind me.
"You don't look at her,” I say. “You want to deal with someone you look at me from now on."
Craig looks back at me and sneers. "And who the fuck are you?" His voice is smooth with a hint of a bite.
"Cole Night," I reply. His eyes flash with recognition.
Of course, they would. He knew about our offer for the farm.
It's why he'd ramped up his harassment of Sunny.
That thought has my insides twisting and my alpha straining so close to the surface that it's a wonder I manage to keep myself from destroying this man.
"I see. Has Sunny finally seen reason then, and decided to sell?” Craig smirks. Cartoon dollar signs may as well have been in his eyes.
"Let's make one thing clear right now. What my mate decides to do with her farm is none of your business."
Craig's face twists into something like disbelief and disgust. "You're mate? My cousin doesn't have—"
I cut him off. Listening to this man's voice might be the most irritating thing I've ever experienced.
"We know what you've been doing, and my lawyers have been contacted.
They're looking into you—your movements, your business dealings.
The moment they find anything, they're handing it over to the authorities.
" Now, I have the absolute pleasure of watching all of the color drain from his face.
His slack, disbelieving face. He thought he would get Sunny to sell the farm to us.
Instead, we've turned around and put all our vast resources into defending it from him. It must be a bitch.
"You—this has nothing to do with you," he splutters out.
"This has everything to do with us,"
Luca is staring intensely at Craig. Like he'd rip the man's throat out if I so much as twitched my approval.
Hunt has a similar expression. I realize they've also spread further from Craig as if preparing for him to try to rush towards Sunny.
That would be monumentally stupid, seeing as Jess is smiling at Craig.
It isn't a happy smile. It's a smile that promises painful death.
Because Jess doesn't care about anyone until he cares so deeply, he'd literally destroy anything that touched them.
"We know it's been you. Harassing her, threatening her. I don't know what kind of alpha could do that to an omega, but it ends now." My voice carries all of the dominance and certainty in the world.
Craig sneers. "I certainly can't speak to those tragic happenings around the farm. But I do expect whoever's doing it has the best intentions."
I clench my fists at my sides, not ready to hear this justification nonsense. "Threatening, scaring, and stressing her cannot have good intentions ." I spit the words.
He smirks. "She's an omega. They're not meant to be in these sorts of positions. They're biologically suited to two things. Fucking and bree—"
A roar slices the air.
Mine.