ELIANO #4
He lunges toward me, probably panicking that I’m about to bite Salt’s neck, and he grabs my arm, trying to shove me back.
But he is a beta. C’mon. Ten times less testosterone, weaker bones, lower density muscle tissue, and fewer fast twitch fibers, no need to keep going.
He can’t move me even a millimeter. Alphas are like gorillas. They’re just humans.
Interestingly, Salt does not move either.
He’s not scared of my proximity, or of my invasion of his space.
His eyes narrow slightly as I nose around the gland at his neck.
There’s a strange, provocative smirk at the corner of his mouth.
So I mutter, "Nu beta linguacciutu e bedduzzu, cu ’nu prubblema a cuntrullari a lingua so?
" (Hey, you mouthy beta, all pretty, got a problem controlling your tongue?”)
Salt doesn’t respond to that, but his breath quickens against my cheek.
I feel the temptation to nip him lightly at his inactive neck gland, but the beta cop flailing uselessly at my arm like a silly bug ruins the slightly combative, but mostly erotic tension.
I step back, sending Salt one more soft growl.
Then I say to Gessler, not looking at him, my eyes still locked in Salt’s mismatched ones.
"You! Open the door."
Unfortunately, Storm steps between me and Gessler, who is already obediently reaching for the reader.
"You haven’t shaken his hand yet, Eliano! A deal is a deal," he says firmly, letting out a prolonged, low sound in the AO language, a mix of warning and pleading.
Then he turns to Salt and says in an almost begging voice, "Touch his hand, Salt. This could be your chance to avoid prison. Don’t throw it away. Just see what happens. Maybe there will be a First Touch."
I glance at Salt, who still has that smirk on his face, but before he can answer, I cut in, grimacing.
"Don’t bother, dude. Storm paid me. As you correctly noticed, he really is desperate." And I wink at him.
Then I pull a hundred-dollar bill from my pocket and, in a burst of self-destructive pride, toss it onto the floor, painfully aware that I will probably spend the rest of the day with only the food Storm bought me in my stomach.
"You’re not leaving until you touch his hand," Storm says defiantly, crossing his arms over his chest, still blocking Gessler.
That is when the cop finally speaks, having only now started breathing more steadily.
"With all due respect, Mr. Nolan, we cannot hold people here against their will. Please open the door, Mr. Gessler."
"Okaaaay, fine!" Storm snaps. "Yes, I paid him just to get him to come here at all, because he, just like you, Salt, doesn’t believe you’re True Mates.
I had to convince him somehow!" he blurts out desperately, looking at Salt, then at me.
"But please, before you leave, do what I asked. Shake his hand, Eliano."
I look at his face. There is a kind of wild determination there, a stubbornness that makes me hesitate.
In a sudden impulse, I am not even sure why, maybe some shared recklessness mirroring Storm’s desperation, I turn toward Salt. A strange flicker of alarm, maybe even fear, flashes across his face, but in a lightning-fast move I grab his slender hand.
Bam.
I feel the strangest, most pleasant shiver of my life shoot through my entire body. A short gasp tears from both my throat and Salt’s at the same time.
We both tilt our heads back slightly, as if struck by a strange electrical discharge.
Slightly dazed, I immediately let go of his hand and step back, as everyone stares at us.
"Well?" Storm says, grinning with wild satisfaction. "Somebody said something about my incompetence. You’re gonna walk that back."
"It was just stress. Or emotions!" Salt blurts out defensively, almost fearfully. His jaw is clenched, his expression strange and as dazed as mine.
"Don’t tell me nothing happened, because we all saw it!" Storm’s tone is sharp, but triumphant.
"Probably the air. It’s dry and charged," I mutter, echoing his denial, because I do not want to believe it either.
Things like this do not happen, especially not with betas. Finding True Mates among alphas and omegas has about a six percent chance, and involving betas is most likely a microscopic fraction of that.
On top of that, Salt is not the kind of person I would want to deal with. His provocations and in-your-face behavior are not my thing, even if I have to reluctantly admit there is some chemistry hanging in the air.
Still, Storm does not back down.
"And yet something sparked between you two, no matter how badly you both want to deny it."
Salt clenches his jaw even harder.
Silence falls. The cop and the case handler look stunned. After all, they both saw us jolt. You can’t exactly simulate that with perfect simultaneity.
Salt looks away. The silence stretches on, and I still cannot make sense of it in my head.
"I don’t know why you’re fighting this so hard," Storm says to the beta.
"Would you really rather have your contract bought by some old bastard instead of a young, attractive guy? You’d prefer a prick who will throw you on a bed on day one and fuck you brutally just to get the thrill of bedding the famous Alpha Slayer? "
The words land heavily in the booth.
Salt stares at Storm with almost tangible hatred. His lips pale slightly, then press into a hard line. Then he shoots me a brief, assessing, intense look, like a pinprick.
"Whatever, dude. Do what you want. If you’re so convinced it’s a great idea for him to get my contract, fine. I give up. You’ll find a way to get rid of me anyway so Fate’s Choice gets a nice fat cash injection from Second Chance."
Those words echo just as strongly. All faces turn toward Salt, and I cannot deny that his statement surprises me as well.
"Hey, don’t I get a say in this?" I protest.
"Work it out among yourselves," Salt says with a contemptuous curl of his lips. He drops back into his chair, and only then do I notice that the stack of papers beside him contains tattoo designs.
"Exactly," Storm says eagerly. "Let’s step outside and talk about this now that we have the green light from our dear Alpha Slayer." His tone is sour, and he is barely keeping himself together.
Mr. Gessler swipes his card through the reader, and the three of us leave the booth.
Each of us wears a different expression, but none of them looks happy.
In my head, thoughts whirl like a furious flock of crows circling carrion. What the hell just happened? I should get out of here as fast as possible. This feels like some kind of farce or a scene from a madhouse.
I want to say something, but Storm grabs my elbow and pulls me toward the exit of the hall.
His expression leaves no room for argument.
Whatever this cost him, it was a lot. I have no intention of shouting over him in the middle of a crowd, so I follow, but inside I am boiling over with a mess of conflicting emotions.
The fuck? A homeless man rummaging through a trash can finds his destined partner… This sounds like a Cinderella fairy tale or something along those lines. Stories like that just do not happen.
I mean, they do happen. After all, my own parents were True Mates. But cases with betas are incredibly rare! Why would it come about for me of all people?
This whole thing could easily be a scam. Storm could have made a deal with Salt.
Find me a good looking guy, because I do not want my contract bought by some old creep or fetishist who likes the idea of taming a criminal.
So Storm went out, scoped the place, spotted someone who seemed acceptable, dragged him in, and Salt played his part in the little performance of pretending to be ‘hard to get,’ making it look believable.
A plausible scenario. Salt did give in surprisingly fast. But then I remember that shiver when I touched his skin.
Well, even that could have been staged. What if Salt had some kind of special patch hidden in his palm that delivered a mild electric shock?
I have heard of tricks like that being used to pick up omegas in clubs.
Some alphas used them and then went, "Oh wow, maybe we’re fated mates.
We should go to bed right now and make sure this is real.
" I have heard about that plenty of times.
A lot of guys in the mafia used it on inexperienced omegas.
This could all be one massive scam, and I fell for it.
Storm, Gessler, and I finally reach a small office off a side corridor, and the entire time I am putting together a neat escape plan in my head.
Only the cop stays behind at Salt’s booth.
We step inside the office, and a short, chubby omega with strawberry red hair springs up from behind the desk and rushes over to Storm, planting a wet, intense kiss on him.
Wow. That I did not expect. Storm keeps his own boyfriend right here at work?
"Eliano, this is my True Mate, Damien," Storm says with a note of triumph, and I blink. Well, the fact that Storm has his own True Mate certainly adds to his credibility, but it is still not a hundred percent proof.
I sink down onto a small sofa. I would rather say all of this while sitting, calmly.
"This whole situation is extremely suspicious. You pick me up off the street, and suddenly it turns out this murderer is my perfect match. Please forgive me, but it really sounds like a setup to close Salt’s difficult case."
To my surprise, the case handler joins in.
"Unfortunately, I also have to voice my doubts. This all seems strange."
"I am aware of that," Storm says calmly as he sits down behind the desk. He looks almost comical there, the desk is so small and he is massive, and his omega perches on his knee, which only adds to the absurdity of it all.