31. Luna #2
As we make our way down the stairs, I lose sight of Madden and the others. My eyes dart around the room, my nose burning from the intensity of all of the different alpha scents, and I swallow hard.
With my pack out of my line of sight, I’m starting to feel lost in the sea of unknown alphas.
“Actually, scratch that,” I mutter under my breath.
“You’ll be fine. There’s security everywhere. Nothing can happen to you, I promise.”
I nod, halfheartedly. Even with his promises, I can’t exactly stop my body from feeling the way it’s feeling when I’m surrounded by this many alphas.
He walks me to a round table at the center of the room. My name is printed on a name card in elegant gold lettering in front of the seat I’m directed to sit at.
“Waitstaff will walk around with some hors d’oeuvres, so feel free to gesture to any of them if you need a bite to eat,” The director says, leading me to my seat. “They’ll also be walking around with glasses of champagne. Have you ever drunk alcohol before?”
I shake my head. “No, not really.”
“Then I wouldn’t recommend it. Stick to the food for now.”
I nod. The last thing I want is to be intoxicated around this many alphas I don’t know, even if the director says there’s going to be security here.
A tall, middle-aged beta woman in a deep maroon cocktail dress appears by my side with a bright smile.
“Hello there, you must be Luna!” She says.
“Oh, yes, hello,” I say, trying to give her a smile.
“I’m Amelia Stewart, I’ll be the coordinator assigned to you this evening. That means I’ll be bringing your scheduled packs to you and sending them off once their time is over. Does that sound good?”
“Yes,” I say nodding my head, nervously lacing my hands in front of me.
Amelia’s eyes dart down and her eyes soften.
“Don’t be worried, if I notice anything wrong, or if you catch my eye, I can have security at your table faster than you can even blink!”
“For better or worse, you have a lot of eyes on you,” the Director says. He glances around the room, catching the eye of some other old men mingling in the corner. “That’s my cue to leave you.”
“Thank you for escorting me tonight. I know you didn’t have to.”
The director eyes me one last time, his gaze analytical.
“You mean a lot to my son and his pack. We don’t have the best relationship, and my responsibilities as director often clash with the wants of my son, but I do want him to be happy. Good luck this evening.”
He leaves me standing with Amelia, who quickly pulls out my chair.
“Do you have any questions for me?” She asks.
I glance around the room, seeing a few other women dressed in extravagantly sparkly gowns. I assume they’re also omegas, based on the similar style of beading on their dresses, which I also have on mine.
“Are there other omegas here?”
“Yes, though most of them are either already bonded or currently courting a pack who’re just attending the party portion of this evening.”
“So not everyone here tonight is here for me.”
“No, these events serve as a way for the community to mingle as well as stay updated on who’s debuting. Some of the older packs here may have eligible sons they may want to introduce to an eligible omega, for example.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
I’m not sure whether I find it comforting or not that not all the packs here are here for me.
I’m landing on not comforting because even if they’re not here for me, I can still feel the gazes of practically everyone in the room.
“Alright then, I’ll send over the first pack to you. They’re called the Cordova pack. They’re a bit older, but they passed all of the preliminary checks.”
“Okay, thank you, Amelia.”
The pack that Amelia escorts over to my table has three alphas and, like she said, all of them are older. I’d say around their early forties. The leader, who sits to the right of me, offers me a huge bouquet of flowers.
“Hello there, Luna, we’re the Cordova pack,” he says.
I do my best to keep my nose from wrinkling, but it’s hard, because these flowers are the strongest-smelling flowers I’ve ever smelled in my entire life. And not in a good way.
“Hello,” I cough. “It’s nice to meet you.”
We go through the usual pleasantries and introductions and for the life of me, I can’t remember any of their names. All I really do know about them, though, is they’re incredibly insistent about wanting children.
When Amelia finally comes back to rescue me, the pack leader sends me a bright smile as if he believes this conversation went splendidly.
“Please consider our pack, Luna. We believe you’d make a wonderful mother for our children and we’d be able to provide you with an idyllic lifestyle with no worries.”
I don’t know what this man defines no worries to be, but popping out babies right now is incredibly worrying to me.
“Thank you for your time,” I say, flashing him and his pack a tight smile.
Amelia takes the bouquet of flowers, her nose wrinkling as she takes them.
“I’ll go put this in the back. All the gifts will be delivered to your apartment so you can go through them after and decide what to keep.
” Her eyes drop down to the bouquet in her hands.
“Or maybe what to get rid of, sound good?”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“I’ll be right over with the second pack. They’re called the Graylock pack.”
Amelia walks back with four alphas, one of which looks shockingly familiar.
“Officer Stone?” I ask, my eyes going wide.
Officer Stone, out of his police uniform and dressed in a suit, smiles at me. His smile is almost a bit sheepish, if an alpha like him had the ability to look that way.
“How’re you doing, Luna?” He asks, sitting beside me.
“A little overwhelmed,” I answer, gesturing around the room.
“I can imagine,” he chuckles. “I’m sorry for just leaving you there at the center the other day. I felt so bad, you looked so lost. It’s just that’s what protocol is, you know?”
“I understand,” I reassure him. He didn’t truly have anything to do with the bad experience I had when I first came to the center, so holding it against him wouldn’t do either of us any favors.
“Sorry for surprising you here, I just couldn’t get the thought of you out of my head,” he says, his smile soft and kind. “Let me introduce you to my pack.”
“Hello, my name is Killian,” The alpha with dark, slicked back hair and piercing green eyes says. I catch a whiff of his tea-like scent.
“He’s our pack leader,” Officer Stone adds. “You may also know him as Councilman Grayson, he’s the youngest person to ever be elected onto the council.”
“Nice to meet you, Killian,” I say, offering him my best attempt at a smile.
“I’m Theo,” the alpha with short-cropped brown hair to Killian’s right says, offering me a bright smile.
“He’s the lawyer of the pack,” Officer Stone explains.
“Milo,” the final alpha says, offering me a small nod. He’s slighter in build than the other three and his shaggy, curly dirty blonde hair falls in his face, hiding his expression from me. It kind of seems like he doesn’t want to be here.
I instantly find a sense of comfort in his presence.
I don’t want to be here either, as normal as this pack seems.
They just aren’t my guys.
“Milo is our tech genius,” Officer Stone says.
Officer Stone, Killian, and Theo all make attempts at small talk, but my attention starts to drift pretty early on into the conversation, despite this pack not being nearly as uncomfortable to be around as the first.
Officer Stone seems to notice. When there’s a lull in the conversation, he takes the opportunity to ask me the last question I ever would’ve expected.
“Are you actually interested in joining with any packs other than the Ward pack?” He doesn’t ask the question accusingly, as if he’s upset I haven’t been paying attention.
Because it seems to be an honest question, I answer it honestly in return, giving him a small smile.
“Not really, no.”
“That makes sense,” he nods.
“I’m sorry for wasting your time.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek, worried they’re all secretly upset.
“No need to apologize, we understand,” Theo—the lawyer guy, I think—adds.
“We did bring you a gift,” Officer Stone says, setting down a winter coat on the table in front of me. “I hope you can make use of it, even if you’ve got your heart set on one pack. I know you didn’t have a coat with you at the police station. ”
I blink up at him in surprise, my chest warming at the thoughtfulness.
“Thank you guys so much.”
They leave early without Amelia having to get them, giving me a few extra minutes to eat a few bites of food.
“Alrighty! The third pack is up,” Amelia says, grabbing my new coat from the table. “They’re the Ward pack. I hear from the Director you’re familiar?”
I swallow hard, my stomach doing somersaults.
“Yeah. I am.”