Chapter 5 #2
Not bad.
I hide my smile. “The beauty is that to the supplier, we’re paying premium, but it’s a deal for us. He can get more from all over. Whatever we want. I’ve placed the orders already. They arrive next week.”
Are you planning on matching drinks thematically with the theme of a Season? He drops his hands, then takes the bottle and pours more. Fuck, man.
I get what he’s thinking, that I’m being at best a fool and at worst a traitor.
“Only when it lends to it, like this one. Curated booze for each ball, if the host wants to be the buzz and the Season’s most talked about.
We’ve seen enough of these vacuous types to know how they are.
The wines and sparklings are good, but this elevates.
And I guarantee when we get the rich, they’ll want a premium drop.
It’s a win-win. We make more and Emmie’s future is even more golden. ”
Fuck you, Killian. But he sighs. Fine. Just remember, I, at least, only stole an owl.
Xavier never had money. I did. My parents did. Before they died. Before things went to shit, and I lost everything in that fire. I know how the rich operate. I remember. And they’ll fucking love this.
“The owl’s ugly.”
He cuts me a look. It sparkles in moonlight.
No doubt he’s right. “Yeah, well—” I stop. The small smile on him that breaks free disturbs me. He’s keeping something from me. “Out with it.”
With what?
I go and pull a whiskey from the shelf, probably fucking up Freya’s inventory, but I don’t care. I take it and sit in the booth Emmie vacated where a lone plastic owl figurine sits behind the menu.
Xavier heaves out a breath, takes a brandy, and joins me. He drinks from the bottle.
“Nice.” I stare at him.
Someone came in when I was waiting for Banton.
“Someone came in?”
To the room I was in.
Why do I feel I’m not going to like this? I take a pull on the bottle.
A pretty girl, mouthy. I took the owl, danced with her, and left.
“Jesus, don’t get the help fired—” I run a hand over my face and groan. “She wasn’t the help, was she?”
I didn’t ask. She was a mouthy brat, though.
I tap my fingers against the table. “One mission I gave you. One. Deliver the butterfly pea flower sparkling, collect payment, and leave.”
I delivered the clitoria tea booze. he signs.
It is the official name of the flower, clitoria something or other, but he likes to use it because he thinks it’s funny.
“And got handsy? With a…?” I want him to say it.
A guest .
“What’s wrong with you? A guest?” I knew I wasn’t going to like this. “Please tell me it was a rich Beta.”
But it’s all over his face.
An Omega.
“I can take that Tamara left Emmie. Left us. And sometimes, the allure of an Omega never fully wears off. I get that.” We like small pack mentality. There’s nothing like sharing a girl, owning her. I breathe in. “But Omegas are risky.”
I danced with her, not mated.
“What if you got close, involved? Marked her?” I say. “An Omega could fuck up everything. Especially in high society.”
A fucking dance. I’m not the one who blurs lines .
But my blood is boiling. Omegas, especially the rich ones, follow norms. They want an Alpha with money, standing. Fuck, even half the ones who still live here, in the Lower Side, want that.
Xavier might be more calculated, come across as unmovable and able to compartmentalize, but neither one of us is immune to pretty or our biology.
“Be careful,” I say.
He signs slowly. Take a pill. It was just a dance, nothing more. You think I like those people? I hate all of them. Up to, and including, Tamara and the prick who bit her.
Xavier doesn’t say courted or wooed her from us. He calls it what it is. She fucked him, let him bite her, and left us all in the dust. Some rich Alpha fuck who was twice her age.
Leave me, I don’t give a shit.
Leave Emmie, that’s another thing. We’re just lucky she’s young enough to not remember her. I don’t need her feeling that kind of pain.
“We do what we need to do, but that doesn’t include dancing with some rich fucking brat,” I mutter. “One that could cause more trouble than anything else we do.”
Xavier narrows his eyes and stands. I’ve got work to do.
He stalks off, and I stay seated. I close my eyes and rub my temple, like a headache’s coming on.
Just a dance.
Tamara had rocked into our lives when we lived on the mainland, over in New Hadonia on the East Coast.
She’d been just a dance, too.
One that gave us Emmie, one that showed us how fucked society norms were. Because if she wanted, she could snatch Emmie, and no one would do a thing. Because she’s got a new Alpha with money and pull.
So we came here, under the shadow of the Council’s iron fist, a place where all the rules were stronger. A place where Omega girls are coveted.
Like Emmie.
Just a dance?
To me it sounds like danger wrapped in pretty.
Something I don’t trust.
Not anymore.