16. Brylee
16
brYLEE
Mandated.
My mother called and mandated that I go to the next ball, which is tomorrow. I fully intended to avoid it like the plague, but she went full dragon-mode, spitting fire, as she informed me that a dress and hair and makeup team will arrive promptly at four on Saturday to paint me into a picture-perfect omega for Brock Stirling and his alpha buddies.
As if that wasn’t enough, Sam texted me to ask why I’m always MIA and why I didn’t contact his kickboxing friend. I signed up and attended class as myself and not as Ted. And I brought Harper along like a fool. For being a girly girl whose nails are perfect, she loved it enough to ask to go again…so now what do I do? I can’t tell him I showed up, not when his friend is expecting an alpha and I’ve already registered and paid for a month as myself.
I texted Teddie and his helpful response was: What a tangled web we weave, when first we aim to deceive.
It would serve him right if I just mailed him a box of live crickets or something from the pet store. I’d add that to my to-do list, but it’s already infinitely long. And complicated. And riddled with all these damned issues.
Like this one—I ripped my foam suit the other night when I climbed through the window. My backpack caught on the windowsill and I yanked it—not thinking—and then there was a horrid tearing noise. My bag now has a gash in it…but worse, when I pulled my bodysuit from the bag to inspect it…I realized that my inner thigh does too. A long divot right across the middle, splitting it.
Thank fuck for duct tape.
But I have Hand-to-Hand Combat over at Eros this afternoon, and I’ve spent the past hour in paranoid fear, not only about doing the whole gender swap midday, but that somehow the tape is going to come undone while we’re wearing tight fighting gear…
“Brylee, focus. Nesting is a treasured omega activity.” Madam Ellora’s hand cups my shoulder, yanking me out of my internal pity-panic party and pulling me back into her Friday torture session otherwise known as Scenario Training.
All omegas, no matter the year, are gathered in a huge ballroom today, and a hundred tables have been set out, stacks of magazines, scissors, and glue sticks set at each one. A random beta on the street walking in here would think that this is either Ransom Note 101 or a preschool craft. Unfortunately, it’s neither.
I blink over at my prim and proper professor, attempting to look neutral, as if I don’t think my entire world is about to implode. I’m not sure what expression I manage to make, but based on her thin-lipped reaction, it’s not the calm collected look I’m aiming for.
“Dear, Alpha Brock and his team are a wonderful catch. And you don’t have to worry about including little luxuries in your requests.” She leans in conspiratorially, a tiny grin on her face. “They can afford it. So if that’s what’s holding you back, don’t.”
I swallow hard and nod, eager to make her leave, but also slightly disgusted that she thinks I’m that materialistic. When she moves on, I heave out a relieved sigh.
Yes, all omegas want a cozy nest, but what the heck does she think that entails? It’s pillows and mattresses and soft lighting, not stacks of gold bars and diamond-beaded curtains.
Except then I glance over at my table mate, a freckled omega named Sarah. She’s included several marble statues in her “nest design” dream board.
Turning around, I check on the girls at the table behind me. Harper’s board has some chandeliers, and the girl next to her, whose name I haven’t learned yet, has an indoor fountain.
My own board has a plate of fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookies, a velvet blanket, and a mountain of pillows. I can’t really think of anything else I want.
It’s plain. Simple.
Very un-omega apparently.
Ugh.
I debate adding something ridiculous, like a birdcage full of doves or whatever, but why? If you have an intricate nest, it’s hard to move…and I remember what it was like when we were younger and had to pack up and abandon our summer palace.
There was a huge attack from Nóthos. Missiles hit the city of Paichnidi, near our country home, and intelligence said that they were likely to target us directly.
Leaving there is one of my more potent memories from childhood. I was able to take a suitcase—but one of my dogs, a pug named Porcupine, was out roaming the grounds and didn’t come when he was called.
We left him.
Someone delivered Porcupine to us a few days later, but the sick feeling of driving away from him still clings to my ribs. And I got my puppy back.
My father though?
Dad had the shakes for days after we left. His nest had to be completely abandoned. I never saw him cry…but, looking back, that might have happened behind closed doors.
An omega gets very, very attached to their nest. It’s an extension of themselves. A physical manifestation of home and comfort. My father’s nest had been a tower of mattresses inside that palace, so high that I used to think it touched the three-story ceiling of the room it was built in. I remember a swing in that room. Furs. Exotic trinkets.
I want something simple. Portable. Something I’m not in danger of losing.
Flipping through a magazine, I pretend to consider pictures for the next twenty minutes, but all I really do is run out the clock. I leave my bare bones collage for my nest exactly as it was before, because this exercise is futile.
My mother’s already gifted my life away. She won’t care that I have a scent match—a scent match with a group of assholes that I’ll never, ever in a million years mate with, but still. A scent match.
Why does fate delight in being so cruel?
Matching me at all when I don’t want mates is just wrong.
Harper deserves a scent match, not me.
The other omegas, the ones who want to find mates, deserve a group that’s well-off like Brock’s.
But my mother’s determined to make me politically useful at the worst possible time. Couldn’t she have waited a year? Or forever?
Of course, worrying about why she’s matched me right now—out of the blue—sends me spiraling into thoughts about the war and how it’s progressing. If my parents need allies that badly, it might not be a good sign. I could ask, but they’ll never answer. Not me. Maybe Teddie, but not me.
I hand in a bland, disappointing board that I’m aware will probably immediately be photographed and texted to Stirling and company, a sense of angry desolation sparking inside my veins as I turn in my pink kitten heels and flee from the room.
Harper hurries after me.
“Hey, Bry! Wait!” she calls out.
I half turn, forcing a smile for her sake because it’s not her fault that everything is falling apart around me. Waiting for her to catch up, I say in a low undertone that can’t be heard by those around us, “Can’t. Promised to go see my brother.”
“Oh, okay.” She wisely doesn’t comment on the fact that I’m clearly going to be leaving campus when I’m not allowed. “Maybe I’ll catch you at dinner?” she inquires hopefully.
I bite my lip. “Maybe. But, honestly, his omega is an amazing cook, so probably not.” Caran is an amazing cook, but I’m not going to be sampling his food tonight. Nope. I have back-to-back classes with Alpha Team X, which is basically going to be a nightmare come to life.
“Well, have fun.”
“Will do,” I lie before turning back down the hall and trying not to feel as though I’m marching into a dark cave to face a snarling group of rabid grizzlies.
* * *
“We’re going to work on open-handed punches today. Hit with the base of your palm, right here,” Ridge calls out in a strict, dictatorial tone. His annoyingly perfect face scans us all with a dismissive glance that I swear I saw earlier in the magazines I flipped through. There’s an arrogant, bored look to his expression that perfectly matches the men advertising cologne.
Just imagining him shoved up against a tree, a dozen lights blinding him, and a photographer clicking away and saying, “That’s it. Scowl for me, baby,” has me snorting.
“The little prince thinks our tips are funny, huh?” Alpha Kylian suddenly appears at my side, just like he’s been prone to do the last several classes. The cruel man leans in close, an angry expression on his face as one of his tattooed hands reaches forward and grabs me, yanking me forward.
Anxiety rumbles up my stomach as he pulls me toward the front of the gym. My eyes dart to Sam, and my roommate gives me a sympathetic look, but what else can he do?
“Teddie here has kindly volunteered to demonstrate the issues with a closed-fist punch,” Kylian announces. He looks far too amused for his pronouncement to mean anything good.
Ridge steps forward, sliding body armor down his chest before donning a helmet. Gone is his advertisement-worthy expression. Instead, a bloodthirsty look crosses his features—and to my shock, that terrifying, evil expression sends a jolt of hot lust screaming down my spine.
Fuck.
No.
He steps closer, and his scent invades my nostrils. Warm. Delicious. I could drink it down like spiked cider.
I try to hold my breath.
He smirks, thinking that I’m nervous and not that I’m frantically trying to backpedal against my body’s traitorous responses to his nearness. To the height of him as he towers over me.
Hot.
So damn hot.
My pulse starts to race, and my nipples pebble beneath my suit. I know that slick isn’t going to be far behind, and I need to get this over with so I can rush to the bathroom before the flood happens.
Another step closer, and Ridge is close enough to reach down and caress my cheek. Of course, he doesn’t.
He sees Teddie, not me.
He smells Teddie, not me.
But me, I see and scent every alpha inch of him. And it makes my knees grow precariously weak.
“You’re gonna punch me, right here.” He taps his chest, just above his heart.
I nod, turning my head to the side to steal a quick breath—but Kylian’s there, crowding me like always. Instead of relief, I’m battered by more delicious alpha pheromones. Another cruel expression that has me torn between wanting to slap the shit out of him and kiss him.
Frustration knots my fingers into a fist, and I bring it back, surging forward and letting my anger fuel a punch that I know is going to be futile, a punch that’s going to hurt me more than it ever will this alpha—just like our secret scent match tortures me while my scent blockers leave these bastards unaware.
But if Ridge thinks he can intimidate me into backing down, thinks that making me hurt myself is going to dissuade me, and thinks that a public smackdown is going to rein me in…
Fuck him.
Fuck fate.
Fuck everything.
It’s all been piling on my shoulders, and I’ve had enough.
My knuckles crash into the armored breastplate, and it’s like a car crashing into a brick wall. Immediately, I feel something crack, and pain crumples my hand, lancing up my arm. But I grind my molars together as I lower my fist, and I meet his burning gaze with the blazing fire of my own.
That’s when the slick hits.
As our gazes shred one another, cruelly shaving ribbons from each other’s souls—my panties grow soaked.
Flooded.
And when Ridge inhales, his eyebrows lift, not in disdain, but surprise.
Fear tumbles through me, worse than any of the pain bleating from my hand.
That’s when I turn and march off, in a wide arc around the rest of the alphas, clinging to the wall of the gymnasium until I reach the double doors, where I shout, “Point fucking made. I’m off to the nurse.”
Shoving open the doors, I take a shaking step through them, adrenaline rattling my bones.
I half expect Ridge to come running after me, but he doesn’t.
No one does.
I make it all the way down the hall alone.
And for some reason, I’m not relieved by that.