JUSTICE
Justice
Despite the giant windows and the hum of the scent dampening system, the tour bus felt like a coffin. My heart rate kicked up as I scanned the cramped rows packed with alphas, betas, and omegas. Too many people, not enough space.
Packs clustered together, taking up blocks of seats, while the front was all alphas. I kept my breathing steady through sheer force of will. Cars and limos were almost never an issue for me. Maybe it was too many excited auras in one place.
Mackenzie was… animated next to me. The polar opposite of my zombie stare. She kept turning in her seat and craning her neck to see things out the window. And she didn’t use her phone once.
For fuck’s sake, was I looking for a tech contact high from my omegas? I thought each day would get easier. It didn’t. I was just going to buy a fucking phone at a fucking gift shop. I’d take a burner flip phone at this point.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe Justice Twill is actually here,” the stage whisper from a few rows back made me cringe inwardly. “Do you think he’s looking for a pack?”
That was answered with a “Duh. This is Bond Voyage. Why else would you go on a matchmaking cruise if it wasn’t to find an omega?”
Mackenzie gave me some side eye and stifled a laugh.
“Did you see his feature in Port Haven Business Monthly?”
Shit. That photoshoot had been Daisy’s idea. It was good PR, but the photographer was a nightmare. He kept trying to get me to take off more and more clothes. There was nothing wrong with porn, but this was for a business magazine, for fuck’s sake.
“Who cares about the money? Look at those shoulders.”
I forced my face to remain neutral, the way I did during board meetings when some trust fund investor was spouting bullshit that he would never have the intellectual capacity to grasp. But these omegas were worse than tech bros with their startup pitches.
“I heard he turned down the Knightbridge packs,” I caught the redhead out of the corner of my eye. Her voice dripped with awe. “Can you imagine? Turning down the Knightbridges?”
The Knightbridges? Not if my aura was ripped in half and I was about to die. Star beat his brother Beg to death over a pack of criminals. Win wasn’t much better. Same font, different tax bracket. Payton? My eyes slid to Mackenzie. I wouldn’t let an omega within ten feet of his pack.
“My cousin’s best friend’s pack mate went to college with him. Said he was already coding million-dollar apps as a freshman and was always starting fights.”
I shifted uncomfortably. The bus hit another curve, and my chest tightened. Too small. Too confined. Like being trapped in another pointless investor meeting where everyone wanted a piece of me, except here I couldn’t even pace.
“I heard he has a private jet shaped like a dragon.”
Mackenzie’s laugh burst out, bright and unexpected. “A dragon? Really?” she whispered to me.
“Well, I heard something way juicier,” the brunette omega who had been eye-fucking me earlier turned in her seat, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Remember that beta who was on like one episode of Poseidon Bay? The one with the nose ring? Remember, she got fired from the show and then disappeared from social media? My last heat helper said Justice trashed the Pax in a jealous rage and put her in the hospital.”
My whole body went rigid. The size of the bus was suddenly too small for all the people on it.
The familiar rage built in my chest, but beneath it was something worse. Shame. They got the Pax and the hospital bit wrong. Not that it mattered. There were emergency exits on a bus, right?
“Ladies,” Mackenzie’s voice cut through the gossip, sharper now. She popped up and turned, leaning on the headrest of the seat. “You’re being weird. He’s just a person. And he can hear everything you’re saying. Have some class.”
She rolled her eyes and bounced hard in her seat with a noise of disgust. Her hand was on her knee, but her pinky stretched out to stroke my thigh. I stared straight ahead while my heart decided if it was going to beat properly or not. “Just a person.” From anyone else, that might have been insulting, but from her?
I looked down at her hand. Shit. This was selfish, but I needed just a little more of her. I laced our fingers together and put her hand on my knee. Her skin was so soft, and she was almost hot to the touch. A hint of orange blossom wrapped around me, somehow breaking through the dampeners just enough to keep the panic at bay.
“No dragon jet,” I said quietly, just for her.
She snorted. It was a delightful sound.
“Ew. What’s the point of all that money if you’re just going to have just a regular jet?”
“No jet either. I don’t fly unless I really have to. And I’ve had a lot of drugs.”
Mackenzie turned and searched my face. Looking to see if I was joking, perhaps. Her eyes were a remarkable shade of brown, like velvet that shifted slightly in hue.
Her thumb stroked my pinky.
“I bet you have a cool car, though.”
“Yeah, I do. A Kawabashi Mach 7SR roadster. Fully electric, all the bells and whistles.”
She nodded solemnly, not successfully hiding her attempt to hold back a smirk.
“It’s a cool car, okay?” I said in mock outrage.
“But does it have a stick shift?” She patted our joined hands and snuggled into my shoulder.