Chapter 2
Bonnie
Iam the apple of my father’s eye; I know it. I have wanted for nothing and have had a perfectly normal, if spoiled, life. In his eyes, I am the omega he raised to be strong and good, a daughter he can be proud of, someone to carry his legacy.
My mother taught me strength and wisdom.
She’s the one who wove intricate ribbons of white and pale pink in my blond hair.
The pure white dress is over the top with all its frills and excess, but the moment I’d seen it, I’d known this was the dress I had to wear to meet them.
She has paid for it and cried when she first saw me wearing it.
My father had teared up when I’d asked for the dress and explained why. Now I’m wearing it, looking like a virginal sacrifice, going to them pure and ready for the future.
When I had looked into a mirror, I’d seen a girl who looked pretty, who was so excited that her cheeks shone pink. Over the last few weeks, my joy spread throughout my family, and I wouldn’t have stopped it if I could. My thoughts were of them. Only them.
I couldn’t see anything else. Today, I can’t see anything but the future.
I bite my bottom lip, trying not to squeal.
Nothing could possibly ruin this day. It’s one I’ve dreamed of for forever. Today, I will meet my scent matches. I’ll go to them, and we’ll fall in love. It’s all worked out. We’re going to be happy forever.
My head is so filled with fantasies that I’m having trouble being here and existing in this moment. My fingers tremble, and the butterflies in my stomach flutter endlessly.
What will they be like? Where will we live? How many kids do they want? We’ll hold a private bonding ceremony with just family and friends. Will we have a party after?
I inhale and slide a hand across my stomach, trying to calm the nerves. Somehow, hours have passed, and the cold of the night has me shivering and wishing I’d taken the shawl Mum offered.
The street lights are bright, and the roar of the city traffic is a thunder that I don’t know if I will get used to. The city doesn’t smell nice, it’s a combination of alpha, beta, and omega scents, petrol, rubbish, and decay.
“Bonnie, are you sure about this?” My father murmurs, shuffling his muscled body closer to mine, so he can glare at the crowd in front of us.
They are all jostling and fighting to get closer, waiting for people to walk off the red carpet, just like we are.
“We can just leave; no one has to know. They aren’t good enough for you. ”
My heart twists. “No one will ever be good enough,” we say at the same time.
He chuckles and pulls me into a one-armed hug, kissing my hair. “That’s right. They won’t be.”
I squeeze his hand. He’s always been far too overprotective of me. But he’s still handsome, distinguished. I always wanted to find an alpha like my father. Fate has gifted me four. This is my future, and I am not afraid.
I inhale and fidget with my dress. “No, Dad. This is perfect. You have given me everything I could ever want. I am strong and happy, and I will make them happy. Trust me, everything is going to work out just fine.”
His wide and happy grin never ceases to light up the darkest parts of my heart.
A twinge of something streaks through me at my words. Uncertainty? Unease?
My mother blows me a kiss and dabs at her eye from where she leans against the car.
She’s never liked crowds. I never did find out why; it’s just part of who she is.
Perhaps it’s because I have such an amazing family that I got this idea in my head.
I’ve had one thought in my mind since I first emerged as an omega; find my scent matches so I can have a family like my parents have created.
I want a love like theirs.
I can see it in my head, like it was straight out of a romance movie.
Three weeks ago, I was walking into a large restaurant with a friend, going for coffee after we’d been shopping, when I smelled them.
I was struck blind, wordless, helpless. I followed that scent and found them, but before I could announce myself, they were gone again, getting into a blacked-out car and driving away.
I’ve stalked the restaurant and its social media account.
I’d looked everywhere until, two days ago, I found them by chance.
They are the sons of four founding members of the Alphawise Company.
Surprisingly, it’s a company that specialises in technology advancements that help omegas and alphas deal with their natures, creating things like suppressants, scent-neutralizing patches, and spray misters to deodorize large spaces.
The fact that they are contributing to society is such an impressive manner just made me so proud. I’d stared at the article and dabbed at my eyes while my whole future changed in an instant.
They are rich, and their names are well known in society. There were a lot of stories of them getting caught with omegas, but though I hadn’t liked that, I realised we all have a past. That was before me.
Now, there will be a future for us. Everything will be different.
I’m wearing my favourite new dress, and I’ve been dieting for the last two days. I look amazing. For the first time, I feel a little bit daunted. What if they want to whisk me away? Should I go with them? Should I play it cool?
People shout and laugh. I edge through the crowd, letting Dad push them all aside. They’re at the only public event I can find. A viewing of a movie that I don’t give a shit about.
The crowd heaves and shoves back at us, but my dad promised me he would get me to them. He never breaks his promises. We keep moving forward. Even when someone screams in my face, tears running down her cheek, screaming for Baby Tonalien, the actress, I don’t falter.
My hands sweat, and I feel like I might puke, but people are starting to come out of the movie theater.
Oh, god.
“It’s time,” Dad says unnecessarily.
With each passing second, my nerves shoot up. My dad stands at my side, protecting me from the surging crowd. A mountain of strength and support.
“What if they hate me?” I ask him.
“They won’t.”
I close my eyes, but I’m breathing like I’ve run a race.
“They will love you, Bonnie.”
He comes out so suddenly, it takes my breath away, and all I can see is him.
“He’s gorgeous,” I whisper out loud.
Dakota Myles is everything my fantasies never even remotely came close to imagining.
He’s got messy brown hair, a dark glower, with green eyes.
His broad shoulders and height intimidate most people, but to me, he’s perfect.
His smile and those dimples have been splashed online everywhere.
He’s wearing a white shirt that’s open one button too deep and black slacks. I think he’d look stunning in anything.
Stepping out behind him, flashing his dazzling, flirty smile, is Cyn Jennings.
Honey-coloured hair, with golden skin and deep green eyes that carry mischief and allure in equal measure.
Cyn is the good boy out of the four of them and has a reputation for being a good alpha.
His black shirt and slacks just bring out his colouring more.
Rory Aster has black hair and is the most mysterious of the four.
His eyes take in everything, but he seldom speaks to journalists.
He intrigues me so much. Rory looks dangerous and like he might snap someone in half for just looking at me.
He’s wearing jeans and a leather jacket.
I mouth the words ‘bad boy’ and swallow hard.
And, finally, Vale Prince steps out, with dark red hair, tanned skin, shiny hazel eyes, and a vibe that says he can conquer everything; he rules just about everything he touches.
He makes my skin prickle with electricity.
Vale is wearing a long shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows and jeans that are tight across his thighs.
My mouth waters, I can’t see anything but them. I catch the murmur of something Cyn says to Dakota. The rough sound of his voice is unexpected but sends a delicious thrill up my spine.
They are Pack Prince. My Pack.
In slow motion, they walk towards me. Dakota laughs at something Cyn says, smiling wide and looking over his shoulder. Oh, I hope I can make him smile like that one day.
They get closer and closer. I step forward, slipping under the ribbon holding the crowd back. Security hasn’t seen me, but Rory Aster has. His gaze finds me and lingers, like a deep, dark caress.
Because he’s watching me, Vale finds me, too. A tiny frown wrinkles his brow, and he reaches up and tugs his collar like he’s preparing for war. His eyes drop from my face, down my body, and back up, but his expression is unreadable.
I take a step closer. They are magical, perfect, incredible alphas, and they are all mine.
When I look away from Vale’s magnetic gaze, I find Dakota’s and almost tremble under the weight of it.
They are only a few feet away when the wind pushes past me and lifts my scent to them. I see their eyes widen and narrow. Nostrils flare. My pack has my scent.
In my wildest fantasies, I expected gushing and them to rush to me, hugging me, holding me. My first kiss, whisking me off in a limousine, celebrations with our families. Everything would change.
Time holds, it freezes, I stand on the cusp of everything. My heart is so big, so ready to love them.
It’s Dakota that makes the first move, and it’s one I never, ever dared to imagine.
He simply steps past me. The magnitude of that move steals my ability to breathe.
My head whips around, looking at him as an incredibly hot actress slides into his arms.
“No, wait!”
The cheer of the crowd smothers my protest.
I turn away, looking up in shock at Rory, hoping he will explain, but he and Cyn step around me like I’m not even here. Parting like water.
Like I’m nothing.
Vale stops in front of me, raising an eyebrow in mocking disdain.
“I am your scent match,” I whisper as if I’ve been hit, bruised, dealt a blow that I will never recover from. A reporter hears and snags onto the word, throwing out a dozen questions that we both ignore.
“Bonnie!” I hear my dad shout, but he’s too far away. I’m going to die from this pain, even he can’t save me.
Vale smiles. Actually smiles, like he’s enjoying my torment.
“Go home, find an alpha who will take care of you and give you pretty babies. We don’t want a scent match.”
The words don’t make sense. When he steps around me, I turn, reaching out and grabbing his hand.
“Let go of me!” His acid hiss has me recoiling, frightened. My alpha looks like a monster.
“But-”
“Take a hint, Omega. Look at you. You’re what?
Twelve?” He gestures towards Cyn, who is whispering in the actress's ear as they slide into the car while a thousand cameras flash. She’s everything I’m not.
Flawlessly graceful and sexy. She’s part of their world, I’m not.
“You think anything you could offer is better than her?”
My grip falters and slowly slips off his hand.
“Consider this your lucky day,” Vale says with a croon that makes my stomach tighten. “You dodged a bullet.”
I turn with him, watching as he walks away, watching as they drive away and destroy everything I am.
My entire world collapses with just a few of his careless words. It never occurred to me that my pack would be assholes. It never occurred to me that my pack wouldn’t want me.
Why didn’t it?
My knees buckle, and I drop to the red carpet, struggling for air. The pain is like nothing I have ever felt. The words play over and over. His expression, so cruel, their hands on her.
The cameras continue to flash, capturing my agony for the world to see, but it doesn’t matter. My alphas…they aren’t mine.
Rejection is a bitter acid in my mouth.
Security yanks me up and carries me back to the crowd, where I’m shoved into my father’s arms.
“Come on, Papa,” I say low through numb lips, trying to scrape together the shreds of my dignity.
I hold my peace in the car and throughout the two-hour drive home.
I don’t break; I don’t make a sound. My silence is brittle and fraught with my growing pain.
I hold it until I get inside my childhood bedroom, where I close the door, turn up the saddest song I can find.
I wrap my arms around myself, hoping to hold me together, but it fixes nothing, and I break.
I tear that beautiful new dress off me and rip it into a million pieces.
I tear out chunks of my hair trying to get the ribbons off.
My makeup I smear on the rags of the white, my ruined innocence stained and torn.
There will never be a moment I will ever be the same.
I look into the omega’s eyes in the mirror, and I don’t know who she is.
I hate her. A tiny part of me still can’t see what’s so wrong with me that they would reject me so quickly.
I scream the question to her. When she doesn’t answer me, I shatter the mirror, sending the shards around my room. And in a way, it breaks me apart, too.
My silence gives way to screams that I can’t stop. My eyes fill with tears that won’t cease. I become my own enemy.
My brother comes in and holds me while I scream. They take the shards away from me. They remove everything with a reflection.
Only then do I calm down a little.
I crumple to the floor and lay there for hours, keening for my mates.
For a future I’d dreamed up.
It’s all gone.
It can’t get any worse than this.
It does.