Chapter Eight
Augie
As I made the trek to Animals, it felt closer than I remembered.
Or maybe that was just because, as I got closer, I kept thinking about the last time I was here not for work.
It hadn’t been great. I must’ve had an Easy Omega sign flashing above me because the alphas kept bothering me, thinking they could take me home because I’d come alone.
In hindsight, it wasn’t the best idea to come to a bar by myself, but Animals had such a good reputation I hadn’t worried too much about it.
I thought it would be fine, and it was. Goldie, the bartender, and her three mates sat near me, and they got rid of a few without me even asking.
At no point in time did I think I was in danger, and they weren’t all assholes.
A few were polite. A few thought they were the king of alphas.
If so, why were they alone? But a couple refused to take a hint and stayed near me longer than I wanted.
It was exhausting, and my beast hated every second of it.
I had to remind myself tonight wouldn’t be like that.
I’d be working, and that was that. My beast wasn’t thrilled with us coming back here and went into hibernation, pushing himself way back.
He was different than other people’s animals.
Growing up, I had friends whose animals would pace or push forward when they got nervous, or try to convince them to leave or fight or whatever made them feel safer.
Mine was a retreating kind of guy, and maybe that was okay for tonight because it would allow me to focus. Or at least that was the theory.
The club’s staff had been great. They had all the tables set up and all the decorations in place when I arrived. Best of all, they helped me carry the items from my van to the carts, to the display, and assisted in putting the rest of goodies someplace safe for replenishing the display when needed.
I took about five million pictures. A lot, anyway. The entire setup turned out so well. I told myself if people ate the baked goods and were kind of on the fence about them, they wouldn’t even notice because they were so darned adorable.
The entire time, my beast didn’t make a move. If someone transmigrated into my body at that moment, they wouldn’t even know I had a beast. He was that pushed down.
You don’t need to pout.
He ignored me.
Fine, stay grumpy. I’m here to work, not socialize.
As much as I told myself it was fine, that he wasn’t being annoying, it was distracting. I was not used to being alone, and right now, I kind of was.
Once everything was in place, I went back to the kitchen. The event was about to start, and my job was to stay out of the way while still keeping everything stocked. There were servers to tell me what needed to be brought out, and I felt in the way.
One had me sit on a bench, gave me a plate of sliders, and told me it looked like I needed to eat. Looking back at the day, they were right. Eating the burgers was the first time I wasn’t baking, thinking about baking, or trying to get some sleep before baking again since that call.
The servers would come back through and tell me how the kids were loving the display, that adults were taking pictures, and how multiple people made reels for social media.
According to one, the entire room thought the hedgehog cream puffs were the most adorable thing ever and were afraid to eat them, while at the same time eating so many of them.
That was probably an exaggeration, but they were being eaten quickly enough, I wondered if what we had would make it through the night.
I brought tons of extra cookies to fill the space, so I wasn’t too worried, but it would be nice if we could keep the display going.
It might’ve been secondhand knowledge, but just hearing how my display was being received had me floating on cloud nine.
“You should come out now,” one of the servers said.
I needed to be better about getting people’s names. This was becoming a bad habit.
I walked out, and they had me stand to the side.
The ceremony of the event was starting. Someone tapped on a microphone, something I didn’t realize happened in real life, and it squeaked.
The room quieted. I was only half listening, focusing on people’s reaction to the food as they refilled their plates.
There were thank-yous for volunteers and vendors and donations—the normal stuff that was said at places like this, and then they introduced the event planner.
That caught my attention. We’d emailed back and forth but hadn’t talked yet. He was running an amazing business based on everything I saw. I could probably learn a lot from him.
I turned to look at the stage, expecting to see a little old man with years of experience. But before I even got a good look, my bearcat pushed forward again and again. He nearly had me toppling me over. I hadn’t been expecting anything from him, and suddenly he was attempting to take over my body.
My chest tightened, and my heart raced as I inhaled, taking in a delicious scent.
I wasn’t smelling the chocolate or the lemon icing or the honey, and it wasn’t the scent of all the bodies in close proximity.
It was better than that, better than anything I’d ever smelled before.
Lavender and cinnamon mixed with amber. The scents shouldn’t have gone together, and yet they had me wanting to rub against the source and get the scent all over me.
My bearcat agreed, pushing me to look at the speaker, and then I saw him.
Dante wasn’t an old man. He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen—tall with chiseled cheekbones, which I didn’t know were my thing, but apparently were, and lips I wanted to devour.
He was repeating the thank-yous of the earlier speaker, his tone very professional, the opposite of how I was currently feeling.
I longed to race to him and rub against his body.
While I stood there, drooling over him, wanting to lick him from head to toe, wanting to make him mine, he was going through the itinerary for the evening.
My bearcat lunged, and it took all I could do to keep my skin. This might be a shifter club, and I’d seen a few people shift, but I wasn’t going to get many jobs if people thought I had no control over my animal. That was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Dante turned slightly and looked directly at me, and everything changed. Not in the room but between the two of us. His gaze locked onto me, and his body stilled. He dropped the mic as he bellowed, “Mine!”
The room went silent. Everyone froze, and I stared at him as it clicked that I was the mine he was talking about.
Mate, my bear cat insisted. Our mate.
The music stopped. Nobody moved. Not a conversation to be heard, and everyone turned, facing me or Dante. They might as well have put a spotlight over our heads.
He must have picked the mic up because Dante started back with his speech and then said, “Fuck it,” through the mic, which hit a speaker with a crash as he jumped off the stage, coming toward me like I was his prey.
People parted for him, letting him through. He didn’t pay attention to them but focused on me. My bearcat was there for it. Me? I was freaking out, unsure what was happening and what to do next.