Chapter 16 #3
Chase lifts both hands, palms out, still holding my gaze. "Didn't touch her. Just talking."
"And offering her things she doesn't need."
"Doesn't she? From where I'm standing, she looks like she could use a few better offers."
My stomach drops.
"Watch yourself," Ragon growls.
His scent spikes, dominance pouring off him in a thick wave that makes my knees want to buckle.
Other zoo-goers start to notice. Heads turn. A child tugs on a parent's sleeve.
I suddenly want to disappear.
Chase's eyes flick to the growing attention, then back to Ragon.
He takes a small step back. "Relax. I'm not poaching. Yet."
"Leave," Ragon says. The word is command.
Chase's lips curl, amused. He turns his gaze back to me for one brief, searing second. "Offer stands."
My fingers tighten around the card in my hand.
"Drop it," Ragon snarls.
Chase winks.
Then he turns and walks away, unhurried, disappearing into the crowd.
For a heartbeat, the only sounds are penguins splashing and my own heart trying to hammer out of my chest.
Ragon turns on me.
He doesn't yell.
That might be worse.
"What did I tell you about wandering off? Did you not smell him coming?"
"I—"
"Did you not smell the threat?"
"I didn't— he wasn't—"
"Show me your hand."
My throat closes.
Slowly, I lift the hand clutching the card.
His eyes narrow.
He plucks it from my fingers before I can react.
He glances at the print—name, number, promise—and his lip curls.
He tears it neatly in half.
Then in half again.
The pieces flutter into the nearest trash can like white confetti.
Heat rushes to my face—shame, anger, loss, all twisted together.
It was just cardboard.
It felt like proof.
"Hey. That was mine."
"You don't need it. You don't need him."
He steps closer, and his hand comes up, fingers tangling gently but firmly in the hair at the back of my neck.
Not quite a grab.
Not gentle enough to be comfort.
A hold.
He growls, low and long.
My omega stills under it, instinctively obedient.
"You are not unclaimed. You are mine. Ours. Don't you ever stand there and let another alpha appraise you like something on a shelf again."
"I didn't— I wasn't—"
"You stood there. While he moved your hair. While he inspected what is not his. You took his card. Were you planning to call?"
The word maybe is a pulse in my throat.
Not because I want to leave.
Because I wanted the option.
I swallow hard. "I don't know."
His grip tightens, just enough to make my scalp sting.
"You're not free to 'not know.' You belong to this pack. Just because we haven't completed the bonding ritual doesn't change the fact that your name is on my paperwork. The registry gave me custody of you five years ago. You're mine to protect."
The phrasing hits wrong.
Belong to.
Not with.
My eyes sting.
"Then maybe act like it," I mutter before my self-preservation can catch up.
His eyes flash.
For a second, I think I've just bought myself another night on hardwood. Another month of no comfort from my alphas.
Instead, he exhales through his nose, a harsh sound. "We'll discuss that later. For now, you stay with us. No more wandering off. If you want to look at penguins, you tell someone where you're going."
"I'm not a child."
"Then stop making me feel like I've lost one. Come on."
He releases my hair, but his hand doesn't leave me.
It slides down, fingers closing around the back of my neck—firm, possessive, guiding.
He steers me back toward the food court like that, palm hot against my skin, scent wrapped thick around me.
Anyone watching would see an alpha escorting an omega back to safer ground.
I feel like I'm being dragged by the scruff.
We rejoin the others at the table.
Drake jumps up when he sees my face. "Hey. What happened? You okay?"
"Another alpha decided to invite himself into our business. Vee got a sales pitch."
Marie's eyes narrow. "What kind of sales pitch?"
"The 'I'll show you what you're worth' kind."
Heat rushes back to my cheeks.
Marie's mouth tightens.
Jasper's gaze flicks over me, then the direction Chase went.
Eli stands half out of his seat. "Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Did he touch you?" Drake demands, scent flaring.
"Not really. He moved my hair. That's all."
"Not all," Ragon mutters.
Eli's jaw clenches. "Sit."
Ragon's grip on my neck loosens.
I go.
Because of course I do.
Eli pulls me onto the bench beside him, close enough that our thighs touch. His hand slides from my wrist to my knee, grounding.
Ragon sits opposite, posture rigid, eyes still scanning the crowd.
"He gave her a card. I disposed of it."
The sting of that flares again.
It's stupid.
I hated the card.
I wanted it.
I wanted proof that someone outside this disaster could look at me and say if they don't do right by you, someone else will.
"He said I should call when I've had enough. Said he'd show me how 'real alphas' treat an omega."
Drake swears quietly.
Marie's expression goes complicated—anger, yes, but also fear.
Jasper's mouth compresses. "Recruitment tactics at the zoo. Classy."
Eli squeezes my knee hard enough to border on painful. "You're not calling."
"I know."
Ragon watches me, eyes unreadable.
"Don't wander off again without telling someone. I mean it."
"Yes, Alpha."
He nods once, decisive, and turns his attention back to his food.
Conversation limps back to life after a while. Marie makes a pointed comment about alphas who don't understand boundaries. Drake tries to lighten things with a joke about jealous penguins.
I sit between Eli and Jasper, sipping lukewarm soda, staring at nothing.
On the outside, it probably looks like a normal day at the zoo with a slightly rattled omega and a protective pack.
On the inside, I am a tangle of contradictory truths.
Ragon is drawing up paperwork to bind me to him permanently.
Marie would rather I stay unmarked.
A stranger looked at my bare neck and saw a vacancy.
Part of me is furious with him for intruding.
Part of me is furious with myself for caring what he said.
And buried under hurt and anger and confusion, a small, stubborn thought curls up like a seed:
If someone like that can look at me and see something worth fighting for—
why don’t my alphas fight harder for me?