Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
HAVOC
Using my tiniest scalpel, I skim off the side of the clay statue of a dog collar. I work in silence with the utmost precision when my silence gets interrupted by my shed door being whipped open.
My head instantly jerks up to the door, and I see the wind from Silas’s harsh entrance blowing his shirt and the dust off one of my workbenches.
I scrunch my eyebrows in question as Otis, our gray Pitbull, darts up to greet his dad. Silas rushes toward me and grabs my forearm, trying to lead me, but I stay seated.
“Come with me,” he says instantly. Silas’s eyes are wild as he rushes me. His cropped coil hair is wet with sweat, and it makes me think something happened at practice. Is Thorne okay?
Worry instantly shoots up my spine, and I tug him closer to me, being the stronger of the two of us.
He’s a professional athlete, but I've spent the past ten years in prison, working out, reading, and creating art. In the two years I’ve been out, I haven't changed my schedule.
At 6’4, I tower over most people, including my two mates, who are also extremely tall.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing; things are good, fantastic even. I need you to meet Noa,” he goes on, rambling about her, just as Thorne did last night, and my hackles instantly rise.
Meet someone? I don’t do well with people, especially women.
If Thorne thought he screwed up his meeting with her yesterday, I’m sure to fail.
If these two weren’t my scent matches, I wouldn’t have talked to them either. Well, I didn’t talk to them first; they approached me.
I was hanging out, as recommended by the therapist assigned to me once I got out of prison, outside my apartment. I went to a bar nearby called Slapshots. They scented me somehow in a bar full of people and approached me.
I caught their scent as they got closer, and as much as their scent called to me, I didn’t think there was any way they were walking towards me.
I’m not the most approachable person. With the tattoos and scowl, most people assume I don’t want to talk, and they’d be right.
I don’t. But that didn’t stop them — well, it didn’t stop Silas.
Silas is our leader for a reason. When Silas wants something, he gets it, and the only two things he’s ever wanted were Throne and me, and now maybe this omega?
“Silas, no,” I say, sitting back down on my stool and turning back towards my clay. It was drying, so I would either need to re-wet it or be fast; neither option was one I particularly wanted to do.
“I just need you to smell her. I want to see something.”
“I’m not a dog,” I say, knowing damn well that’s not what he meant. Otis’s head snaps to me and tilts in that cute dog fashion, and I nod at him in acknowledgement, since my hands are covered in dust and clay.
“Havoc, please, she might–”
“She might be part of this Pack?” I ask, knowing that is where he was going. There would be no other reason he’d rush over here on his break from practice.
But he’s not thinking. She can’t meet me, not this soon. Not before they had had a chance to woo her.
“What if she doesn’t like me? Finds me scary?
What if she doesn’t want an ex-convict as part of the equation?
” I say, letting my fears be known immediately.
I don’t have time to pussyfoot around. If this is a potential new Pack mate, we need to lay all our cards on the table. We can’t pretend I’m not a liability.
He stops and faces me. His brown eyes peered into mine. He rolls his lips in thought before answering.
“We won’t know until we find out.”
“What happens then?” What happens when she forces them to choose between me and her? An ex-convict or an omega, any sane alpha would choose omega.
“You trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then know when we say you will always be a member of this Pack, we mean it. If she doesn’t accept you, we walk away.”
“Thorne?” I ask. He’s already in love with the Omega. Silas has to know I wouldn’t let them choose me over her. I’d lose them before I hurt them.
“He will too.” I’m not so sure about that. I’ve never seen him this way over anyone else before.
Courting an omega would change everything.
We were once just three alphas, in love with each other, not needing anyone else.
In the span of one errand, we’re contemplating a courtship with an omega, two of us scent matched with, and it’s a big step.
A huge change. One I’d never thought would come for us.
Silas and Thorne always said they weren’t searching for an omega. They believed they were it for each other, and when I was added to their mix, they felt the same about me. It was gonna be us three, always. We didn’t need anyone else.
I didn’t think that after two years with my Pack and living my peaceful life after my entanglement with the mafia, that an omega would ever come into play. I–I’m not the kind of alpha omegas like.
Omegas don’t want an alpha who has a prison record. Don’t Silas and Thorne know that? Meeting this omega would change everything.
I stare at Silas, who is pleading with me with his eyes. I want to join their dream escape where we court an omega, but I can’t put logic aside on this one.
“Havoc, come on,” he says, pulling on my arm. I sigh.
But one thing I’ve learned to do is trust my Pack mates. So that’s what I’ll do.
“Let me get a clean shirt,” I say, reaching back, grabbing the neck, pulling my clay-ridden shirt off, and reaching for the clean stack I keep by the door. I rinse my hands in a bucket, then wash them in the regular sink and redo my ponytail.
“You’re hot as fuck, Hav, let’s roll,” Silas whistles, turning around and running out of my shed. I laugh, trying to dampen the little flame of hope in my stomach. I wipe my hands off on a towel when I hear Silas curse.
I run out, and he’s frozen in the middle of the yard.
“What’s wrong?” He slowly turns toward me, his face devoid of any emotion as his eyes go past me and land on Otis.
“I just stepped in dog shit.”
Fuck. I look down at Otis, who stares at me with big brown eyes. I was supposed to pick that up.
“Change your shoes.”
“I have to wash them; these are the nicest shoes I have.” I roll my eyes. Cause what shoes he has on will make or break this meeting, apparently.
“Well, I need a shower. I can’t meet the omega like this anyway,” I say, storming past him, making sure Otis is following me. He doesn’t need to hear his dad cursing at him as he cleans his poop off his shoes. I’m covered in sweat and clay; it isn’t the sexiest look, I can admit.
If I am meeting the omega, I’ll do it right. Clean and somewhat more approachable. I have to impress her for the sake of my Pack.
“And put your hair up in that sexy-as-hell bun you do,” Silas yells after me, and I chuckle. That sexy-ass bun is done in ten seconds, and he absolutely loves it. I wonder if the omega will like it too?
Maybe I might have a real chance with the omega.