7. Sour and Soap
Sour and Soap
Kelya
This redheaded alpha at the bar is kind of cute. He’s bulky and quite dumb looking. I found that look is sometimes indicative of a fat cock. He probably doesn’t know what to do with it.
“I’m Marquette,” I say to him when I catch him checking me out.
“Jones.” His eyes stay glued to my breasts, then he asks, “What’re you drinking?”
When he finally looks up at my face, I reply, “A red wine. Chianti preferably.”
He doesn’t make the move to order it for me, so Valentina, the bartender, just stares at me, unimpressed, until I order it for myself. Damn, Jones, you really know how to make a woman melt.
I ask Valentina for some ice, and she slides over a cup of ice along with my glass of wine.
“Did you just put fucking ice in your wine? That’s insane. Why didn’t you just order a sangria?“ No one cares that I drop a few ice cubes into the wine, but Jones seems to have a problem with it.
I think he’s negging me.
I shrug my shoulders, which seems to irritate him, and he turns to the woman on his other side. Maybe I don’t care if his cock is big.
Valentina gives me a look, and we both silently laugh at the idiot.
“Valentina, right? I’m Marquette.”
She takes my outstretched hand. She’s a beta, Afro-Caribbean, with dyed red hair pulled back tight in a cool spiky bun with two small braids hanging over her face with crystal beads woven into them.
She has a crystal nose ring and big princess eyes.
My eyes flit down, and I see a tattoo on the back of her wrist that doesn’t quite match her vibe, looking old-fashioned.
It’s of a critter’s face with its fangs out.
“What is this?” I laugh lightly at the design.
She takes her hand back and smooths over the tattoo with her thumb affectionately.
“Mangosta.”
I drop my head to the side, confused.
“It’s my clan,” she explains warmly. No one at the bar needs anything right now, and I’m supercurious, so I ask her more about it.
“Is it the dominant clan around here?”
Alphas and omegas often form large clans, as well as packs. They have loyal or even bonded betas. Clans are made up of packs and unbonded individuals.
“The most powerful clan in PR. They own this hotel, among many others.”
“Oh.” I may have stumbled into something I don’t want to be part of.
“My clan leader is a male omega. He’s called San Miguel. He protects us. He’s always curious when another omega comes to his island. I’ll have to tell him about you.”
She says it almost quietly so it’s only for us to hear.
Clan leaders are not to be trifled with.
I try to stay clear of them and focus on isolated alphas.
When she says she has to tell him about me, she isn’t being friendly.
I can choose to lay low, avoiding him until I can find a new place, or the other option is to win his favor.
Normally, I wouldn’t choose the second option, since it requires a lot to gain the favor of a clan leader, but the alphas from the other day have given me a gift.
“Valentina, can you smell me?”
She stops moving glasses around the bar and sniffs the air.
“No, I don’t. But I don’t have a great nose. I’m a beta. If you want a scent check, I can bring Tortuga over. He’s my alpha.” She nods to the large man near the entrance. Security.
I shake my head.
“I have a surplus of scent blockers. High grade. Completely neutralizes an alpha or omega scent.”
I let my sentence hang in the air, not quite getting to the point so she’ll understand my meaning.
If she’s part of a clan here with a scary name like Mangosta that tattoos mongooses on its members, they may be in the market for my drugs.
Puerto Rico is known for their farmacéuticas, so it’s a gamble if my Canadian scent blockers are even something they want.
Valentina looks at me. “Surplus, right. I’ll pass along the details. How about you tell me the numbers?”
“2,000 capsules. I’ll take 5k for all of them.”
My heart pounds, but I don’t let my face show how nervous I am about brokering this deal. If this clan is powerful enough, they’ll just take what I have. I have no connections or protection. I’m all alone. But if they aren’t shitheads, I can sell it to them and win their favor.
“How’s your wine?” she asks as a sign that we are done with this conversation. Jones turns back to us, none the wiser. Valentina winks at me.
That’s a good sign. If Mangosta doesn’t decide to hassle, rob, kidnap, or kill me, I could stay here a while. Maybe I’ll feel good enough to go explore Santurce soon. There’s a Bacardi factory I could tour. Maybe I could take a water taxi to Culebra, the little island nearby.
“You don’t live here, do you?” Jones asks me while eyeing my wine.
“At the hotel?”
“No. PR.”
“Oh no, just visiting. And you?”
He scoffs, and I catch a scent of something off-putting coming from him. Like someone left out kombucha too long. I check him out to see if he has anything I want. He’s got one hand in his jeans pocket and the other on the bar top. Who keeps their hand in their pocket while they’re sitting?
“Are you all alone?”
I hate this question. It’s always an indication they want to know how much they can hassle you and get away with it.
“I’m waiting for my boyfriend.”
He laughs in my face again.
“Ok, sure. Right. Omegas don’t have boyfriends.”
“Ok, sure. Right.”
I’m going to have to go out tonight if I want to get laid, because this just isn’t it.
I look around the bar and see a lot of people dancing on the other side, near the back deck, and I consider joining them. There’s also a pack with a male omega. European by the look of them. They’re playing a card game and laughing loudly. I wonder what San Miguel looks like.
Most male omegas are on the shorter side and have feminine features. They look like angelic beings. Soft voices. Hands that have never seen hard work.
Jones tells me he needs to use the restroom, and I relax, knowing he’ll be gone for a minute. When he gets off his stool, he knocks my purse off the back of mine, but doesn’t go to pick it up, so I climb down to retrieve it. When I right myself, he’s gone.
What a fucking tool.
Some men really don’t know how badly they fumble. If he were to just be somewhat pleasant, he’d probably get laid tonight.
I reach out to my untouched wine, now that the ice has had a second to drop the temp.
Suddenly, my arm is ripped back and bent behind the chair with a punishing force.
I reach my other hand back to hit my assailant, but that one is grabbed, too.
Valentina is nowhere to be seen. She must have stepped into the kitchen.
My mouth opens to scream, but a large hand slaps over it.
There’s a man behind me. He holds my jaw in place, and his other holds my wrists together behind me.
Fear balloons around me.
I’m being attacked.
I struggle, but he’s got me in a tight hold. Tight. Purposeful. Strong.
It can’t be Jones. I smell something fresh and woodsy. Jones was vinegary. This is another male. Alpha, by the feel of his aura.
Oh fuck.
Trees. Familiar.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It’s got to be the same man from Casablanca. No, that’s insane. That can’t be.
But it is. Scents don’t lie.
This man’s lips come close to my ear. I feel the rim of his glasses on my face, and over the roaring blood pumping through my ears, he says, “He put something in your drink. Don’t fucking touch it.”
That last thing is said with an alpha bark. A special command from an alpha that compels an omega to do as he says. It works really well on omegas.
I struggle against it. I hate being commanded.
Normally, an alpha command would make me throw a fit and have a panic attack.
However, my inner omega accepts it willingly.
Doesn’t she fear this man? We are in an open-air bar.
People can easily see what he’s doing. That’s probably why she accepts his command, but I don’t really know.
Just as I think this, he releases me. I swear I turn around at the very same moment, but no one is there. Just that fresh, soft pine smell.
Cypress.
Valentina comes back, holding a large blue barrel of ice.
“Valentina,” I whisper. She leans in to hear me. My hands shake uncontrollably as I gesture towards my drink, physically unable to touch it. “Can you pour my drink out? I think that man put something in it…”
I can tell she’s confused, but then she locks in. Her eyes dart around, looking at everyone around us, then she sets the barrel down. She takes my wine glass, sniffs the contents, and before I can stop her, she takes a small sip.
“What’re you doing?!” I practically jump over the bar top, but she puts her hand up to stop me.
“I think you’re right, probrecita. It tastes like soap.“ She spits out the little she had in her mouth, then rinses with water in the sink.
She dumps the drink and pours me a new one.
“Do you know him?” I ask.
“He’s not staying here. He just arrived an hour ago. Some tourist. Is he coming back?”
Valentina plunks ice cubes into the red wine and slides it over to me. I’m grateful for the new drink, but I’m incapable of touching it. I can’t even raise my hand to it. The alpha command was strong. Even this new drink makes my inner omega want to hurl when I think about touching it.
Alpha commands are no joke.
Not every alpha has an effective bark, but this one’s hold on me is strong.
“I don’t know.”
She signals for a large man by the entrance and tells him the situation. That must be her alpha, Tortuga. He has thick, hairy fingers and a sweet-looking face. He also has a mongoose tattoo on his arm. He smells of mint. Not cypress.
I keep looking around for my mystery alpha. The blood has returned to my arms, but my heart is still racing. I rub my wrists. There’s a buzzing from my toes to the top of my head I only usually feel after being knotted during heat.
Jones comes back into the bar. The hairy-knuckle guy stays close.
“Hey, Omega, how’s your drink?” he asks with such confidence.
I’m stunned. I’m left totally speechless.
“You should drink up…”
“Hey, dickhead, do you have any more GHB on you?” Valentina shouts. Jones looks at her with a stupid expression for about four beats, then takes off out of the bar. Tortuga chases after him.
I grab my purse and look for money to leave, but my hands are still a little shaky, and it’s not going well.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. He left his card. I’ll charge it. Mangosta will take care of it.”
I back away, holding my purse close to my middle.
“Thank you. I think I just need to leave…”
“Of course. Get yourself somewhere safe for the night. You don’t have to stick around. I’ll tell San Miguel about this.”
Right. The clan leader. I fumble with my purse.
“Thanks for everything, Valentina.”
She smiles and nods.
I leave straightaway and rush to my room within the hotel.
I keep looking around me, but don’t see anyone.
Once in my room, I make sure the doors to the veranda are closed, and there’s nothing under the bed.
Then I lock myself in the bathroom. It smells a little like cypress in here. Am I losing my mind?
He was real, right?
As I try to regulate my breathing, I find myself holding my arms behind my back. I hold my wrists together like he did. The action is somewhat calming. I press my face into the bathroom door.
I feel really sick.
My body keeps flashing between hot and cold.
“That motherfucker! Who thinks he can put drugs in my drink? That shit isn’t cheap either! What made him think I was a good investment? I didn’t even tell him I was alone or staying here. He just assumed. What a dirtbag.”
I hope Valentina’s people beat the shit out of him. People don’t put up with that shit in a place like this.
Cypress.
My mind flashes to the feeling of being restrained by the mystery alpha. Cypress. My body shivers. I’m doing a really fucking good job pretending that wasn’t real, that whole thing with Cypress. If it’s real, that means he followed me here across a giant ocean. That would be impossible.
I spend a long time in the bathroom. It was already late when I went to the bar, so it’s got to be close to midnight when I hear a knock at my door. I steel my nerves, leave the bathroom, and walk up to the door.
“Miss. This is Rodrigo from the front desk,” a man says from the other side.
I unlock the door and open it to the beta. I know Rodrigo. He helped me with the passcode to a hotel room safe I couldn’t access…that was definitely James’s safe and not mine, but he doesn’t need to know that.
He’s in his early twenties, maybe even younger. His hair is dark and curly, done like how all the young guys are doing it, in a mock mullet. His silver earrings shine, and his smile is sincere.
“Hi, Omega. Valentina said you had something for me?”
My mind goes blank. What would I have for Rodrigo? He turns his wrist and looks down, and I see the mangosta tattoo. Oh my god, I almost forgot! I nod, close the door, retrieve the pills I’d stashed under the bathroom sink, and return.
I let him come into the doorway as I hand him the ziplock bag of pills. He exchanges it for an envelope of cash. I count it. $5,000. Damn, that was quick.
“Someone left you this at the front desk. An alpha.”
He lifts a shopping bag. I didn’t order anything, but I never turn down a gift. I take the bag from him.
“Are you ok? Valentina told us what happened.” He pitches his voice lower, and even backs away slightly, showing he’s not a threat.
“I’m ok.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t happen here. We are all very upset.”
I nod, agreeing that we are all upset.
“Let me know if you need anything, Omega.”
“Goodnight, Rodrigo.”
“Goodnight.”
I shut the door and take my spoils to a large round table. I lay the envelope next to the shopping bag. Inside is a plastic spoon and a carton of passion fruit ice cream.
There’s a card. I put it up to my nose.
Cypress.
The words are carefully written in blue pen:
Do you like other flavors?
I gasp in surprise and throw the card like it’s going to burn me. It falls right at my feet, so I hop away.
“What the fuck!”
First, the cypress smelling alpha puts his hands on me, then he sends me ice cream? A question floats in the air above my head—what does he want from me?
I had ice cream earlier. He must have seen me. How did he even know it was passion fruit? It could have been lemon or anything else yellow.
I crouch down next to the table and look at the carton sitting there. It doesn’t appear nefarious. It’s a gift. It’s a gift from a man who was in my room in two different countries in the span of a few days.
Should I leave again? Maybe he can’t follow me a second time…the idea of leaving brings a dark cloud over me. Beads of water break out over the ice-cream container and my forehead.
I have to leave. I don’t know who this is and what he wants from me. With almost no sense, I reach out for the ice cream, open the lid, take a scoop, and let it melt over my tongue.
It’s nice.
I pick up the note from the ground and press it against my nose again.
“I have to get out of here.”