Chapter Five – Raeka
Meeting with alpha after alpha is exhausting.
I’m no charmer of a personality, I know, but these damn alphas act as though they’re willing to overlook everything just to have a chance with me.
Has to be due to my last name and my looks, because my attitude and my responses to their questions certainly aren’t going to win any awards tonight.
No good omega trophies for me.
Of course, Pax being Pax helps. And by helps, I mean he both helps and at the same time he doesn’t. Yeah, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but as I sit there, going through alpha pack after alpha pack, I can’t quite get the jerk out of my mind.
Thank God for the injections. I don’t want to know how crazy he’d make me if I wasn’t on something.
Eventually, I need to use the restroom—and by that, I mean I need a break from being bitchy while simultaneously fighting my inner urge to turn toward Pax and demand to know how exactly he’d teach me manners.
I’d never admit this out loud to anybody, but that little interaction was kind of hot. Really hot. Super-duper, unbelievably hot and tension-filled.
Or maybe it was just me and I’m imagining all of this. Who can say for sure? I sure as hell am not going to ask Pax what was on his mind when he said that to me… when he whispered that so huskily, his deep tone even more rugged and manly.
When I stand and say, “Need to go to the restroom to freshen up,” Pax gives me a look that asks me if I can handle going on my own, so I make sure to inform him: “I got this, dude. Take a break while I’m gone, kay?
” It comes out sounding exactly how I hope it does: bitchy beyond all belief, and the only thing Pax does is grunt and glare at me.
So what if I’m having a bit of fun with him? Might as well while I have him at my disposal. After tonight, I never plan on seeing that jerk again.
I leave the ballroom, knowing exactly where the female restroom is from my last matching ceremony.
On the way, I discover that I do, in fact, have to pee a little, so I might as well while I’m at it.
It’ll be interesting to try to go while in this dress, but more superhuman feats have been performed in mankind’s history, surely.
Out in the hall, I make the correct turns to reach the restroom, and when I go through the door, I find there’s a line. A literal line of omega girls all waiting their turn to pee. Hopefully pee. Don’t want to think about anyone stinking it up in here. Ew.
I nope right out of there, ducking back into the hall. And, of course, now that I know I can’t go, the need to pee really hits me. I glance down the hall, both ways. The men’s restroom isn’t directly across the hall, but it has to be nearby, right? What’s the harm in checking it?
I go on a solo mission to find myself the men’s restroom, and I find it around the corner and down the next adjacent hall.
I inch toward the door and lean my ear closer to it, holding my breath to get a better listen.
I don’t hear any manly alpha voices or pissing streams, so I assume I’m good to go.
I reach for the door and push inside, hoping this particular restroom will have at least one stall or two and not just gross urinals.
Although, in this place, nothing is gross. Everything is perfectly well-kept and clean.
I creep inside and instantly spot two stalls after a row of three urinals, and I’m seconds from making a beeline to them when I notice someone else is in here, all alone.
A man stands near the sinks, looking out of place.
He wears a perfectly-fitted suit of navy blue, with a bright red tie.
His dark brown hair is combed back, immaculately coiffed, and his square jaw is free of all stubble.
The man is the definition what clean-cut truly is.
He stands tall, a few inches over six feet, cluing me in to the fact he’s an alpha, although he isn’t quite as muscled as your typical meathead.
He notices I’m not a man the same moment I notice his presence, and we both freeze up, staring at each other, neither of us knowing what to do.
A good ten feet stands between us, and even with my injections, I’m hit with a hint of cinnamon.
Cinnamon and something else, something that threatens to lure me in.
The alpha looks almost like a deer in headlights as he stares quizzically at me. “I didn’t walk into the women’s restroom, did I?” For an alpha, he sounds unsure of himself.
“Unless they suddenly include urinals, you’re not in the wrong one. I am.” As I sarcastically say it, I make it a point to glance at the three urinals in the room, and then back at him. He’s got to be some omega’s sponsor, if I have to guess. The alpha is older than Pax by a few years, I’d say.
“Oh.” His relief is short-lived. His brows furrow as he takes me in anew, and suddenly I feel rather scrutinized, like I want to hide behind something. “Then I suppose that raises new questions.”
“I have to pee, and there was a line.”
“Simple enough.” He coughs, like he’s the one encroaching where he doesn’t belong instead of the intruder being me.
“I should, uh, let you handle your business, then. Good luck?” He takes a single step toward me—or, rather, toward the door, which I currently stand in front of, but then he stops and mutters, “I don’t know why I said that. ”
I give him a smile, and he breathes a little harder after that, making me wonder if was wrong and this alpha isn’t a sponsor—only an unbonded alpha would react like that to a mere smile. It must be rare for someone his age to come to these things. “Don’t worry. We can pretend it never happened.”
“Oh, good,” he says dryly. “My glowing social life would never be the same if word got out.” Based on the way he says it, I can’t help but assume he does not have any such social life, glowing or not.
He resumes his exit, stopping only when he stands in front of me. He may not have the ridiculously wide frame most alphas do, but he’s still quite something, and I can’t shake that thought from my head as I stare at him.
“Excuse me,” he says, reminding me that I stand in front of his exit, and I need to move to let him go.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, a word that does not leave my mouth often, believe it or not, and I step aside to let him out as I head toward the stalls in the corner. I make it a few steps, and he’s just about to open the door and leave when I stop him by saying, “Wait, please.”
The alpha immediately stops and looks at me, and out of nowhere I’m struck by the depths of his blue eyes.
He wears glasses, strange for an alpha, but they’re such a unique, dark color, even in this fluorescent lighting.
“Yes?” It’s good to know that, just like most alphas, he’s eager to please an omega.
“Do you think you could, um, stand watch while I go? Don’t let anybody else in? You know, so my reputation for only using the correct restroom stays intact.”
“It would be a shame. I doubt your social life would ever recover from that embarrassment… and I bet, unlike me, you actually have one.” Putting himself down, an odd thing for an alpha to do.
I don’t know what to make of this guy. “I’ll stand guard for you outside.
” Without another word more, he exits the restroom.
I watch him go, feeling some kind of way. Whoever he is, there’s something about him. Something I can’t quite describe.
Whatever. I really do need to pee.
Going to the bathroom in a formal gown like this requires some patience and a whole lot of swearing under your breath—it also involves holding up the dress so it doesn’t get on the floor or in the toilet. It turns into some gargantuan, herculean task, and I hate to say it, but it’s barely doable.
Obviously, whoever makes the dresses like this must think all women don’t ever go to the bathroom. We’re too feminine to have to pee or anything like that.
But in the end, I manage to do it, and I step out of the stall, fully refreshed, and once my dress is fixed, I wash my hands. Soon enough I’m stepping out into the hall to find that, yes, the strange alpha did indeed play guard for me.
He stands just off to the side of the door, and when I emerge, he gives me a gentle smile, yet another thing that doesn’t seem to come easily to most alphas.
They’re hard in all respects. This one is the polar opposite of Pax, whereas your typical alpha probably falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
“I trust you’re better now?” he asks quietly.
“I am, thank you. It’s funny. I didn’t really have to go when I left the ballroom—I just needed to stretch my legs. When I saw how busy the restroom was, that’s when it really hit.”
“That’s how things always seem to go.” His dark blue gaze shifts to the diamond-studded pin in my hair, the one with the omega symbol. “That’s… quite the dazzler, there.” Based on his tone, I don’t think he actually likes it, and that makes two of us.
“Gaudy, isn’t it? My parents got it for me when I was ten—ten, three whole years before I presented as an omega. It’s like they wanted me to be…” I glance down at myself, at my pink dress. “…this.”
“Being,” he pauses, mimicking me by gesturing toward me, “this can’t be all bad.”
“No,” I admitted. “Not all the time, just most of the time. This—” I pause again, pointing to the sparkle in my hair and the rest of my dolled-up figure. “—is what the world wants all omegas to be, but sometimes—most of the time, all we want to do is exist. Be ourselves. Be who we want to be.”
I meet his eyes when I say that, and I force out a soft chuckle. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get deep on you. I’m Raeka Whittenhall, by the way.”
“Whittenhall,” he echoes, recognition dawning on his face. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have introduced myself to this particular alpha. “Yes, I know of your family.” As most people in the city do, but I keep that comment to myself as he goes on, “I’m Gideon… just Gideon.”
“Well, just Gideon, it was nice to meet you.” I can’t help but be a little miffed that he didn’t tell me his last name. Whoever he was, he wanted to hide it. Whatever. Fine. “I should get back to the ballroom before my bodyguard goes crazy.”
“Bodyguard?”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “Let’s just say I’ll consider this night a win if I leave without getting any offers.”
His eyebrows lift. “Without?”
“Yep. You heard me right. I might be what some of those packs want… but I’m not what they need, and they sure as fuck aren’t what I need or want.” I realize then I swore, and I quickly say, “Sorry.” A second apology. Something must be in the air here.
“Don’t apologize. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it you want, then? What do you need, Raeka Whittenhall?”
For some reason, I’m not expecting those questions, so it takes a moment for them to register in my head. “All I want, all I need… is to be me. To make my own choices. That’s it. Being tied down to the stereotypical pack life isn’t for me—but I try telling anyone that and they think I’m insane.”
“You’re not.” Those two words, simple as they are, hit me hard. This alpha, this stranger, gives me something no one in my life ever has: validation. “Well, for what it’s worth, I hope someday you find whatever it is you want.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then, at the risk of being here even longer and spending the rest of the night with this alpha, I turn to leave. I walk with a quick pace, mostly because if I let myself slow down, I might just turn back to the alpha who smells of cinnamon.
Whoever he is, I hope he finds what he wants tonight, too. He seemed nice, and that’s not something that can be said about many alphas. So many times alphas are plain dicks, especially when you’re vulnerable.
But that one… that one is cut from a different cloth, and as I walk away from him something tugs at my heart.