Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Camelia
"Come on, it'll be fine." Aria's grip tightened on Camelia's hand, and Camelia suppressed an eye roll as she stumbled a little, following her new friend into the house they were walking towards.
Aria had latched onto Camelia without a second thought after that first lunch, and Camelia complained in good humor, but deep down she was glad to have a friend.
She had never made female friends easily; the prejudice towards Omegas and all they stood for ran deep, and even when she wasn't public about her status – like now – other women still looked at her and shunned her.
For her shape, for her weight, for her confidence.
It was lonely, and despite the fact that Aria was evidently the social butterfly of Ridgeview and knew everybody and was insistent on Camelia also knowing everybody too, challenging her introverted tendencies...she was happy to have a friend.
Even if that meant being dragged along to a sorority party being thrown by the Gamma Delta girls, knowing that she would have a few drinks and make up some excuse to head back home as soon as she could.
Best not to draw too much attention to herself, after all.
The party was in full swing by the time Aria fully dragged her through the front door of the house and the loud chatter and music that was playing immediately made Camelia wince.
She smoothed out her expression as best she could, looping her arm through Aria's as they made their way deeper to the house. "Show me the booze!"
Aria giggled, shaking her head. Her hair was pulled up into a puffy, curly ponytail on top of her head tonight and several tiny gold hoops decorated the helix of each ear.
She had gone all out, dressing in a bright pink sundress that fluttered around her with each step and made her dark brown skin practically glow.
Her heels were silver and scrappy, buckled high around her ankles and she drew attention with every step that she took.
Camelia forced herself not to shrink next to her vivacious friend as she called out and greeted the people she knew.
If Camelia didn't know better, she would have said that Aria was a Gamma girl herself; the ones that Camelia could see were also wearing pink, also drawing attention the same way that Aria was.
Camelia leaned close, speaking in a low voice as they finally made their way into the kitchen where it was blissfully quieter. "Aria, do you belong to the sorority?"
Aria smiled wider, giggling. "No. I just roomed with a few of the girls freshman year so they all know me. Tight knit group. Look! Drinks!"
Camelia was distracted, and she relaxed a little as she swiped a beer and took a sip. It was cold and bubbling, and though she wasn't usually a beer drinker, tonight it settled her a little.
Aria tugged on her arm, a soda in her other hand. "Come on. Let's people watch."
Camelia took another draw of the beer, already thinking of the excuse she was going to use to slip away from the party.
The living room was just as raucous and loud as it had been before when Aria dragged her back in, but the faux leather couch was comfortable when Camelia sank into an empty corner and Aria flitted off to say hi to someone she knew.
Aria leaving didn't bother Camelia; it would only make it easier for her to slip away when she was ultimately ready.
She could look for a few minutes, though. Without drawing attention to herself. That would be okay.
She narrowed her eyes, toying with the hem of her shirt as she looked around.
Aria had picked out what she was wearing to the party, which is why she found herself in a pair of her tightest jeans and boots that laced halfway up her calves.
Her shirt was a silky navy number that she hadn't worn in years – not since her body had fully developed with her Omega hormones – and the scoop neck was far lower than she was ordinarily comfortable with, putting her generous tits on display.
It didn't seem to matter that she was dressed revealingly, though.
There were more men at the party than she had expected, but none of them were paying any attention to her.
Betas, of course, mingling with the girls and enjoying their fawning attention the way any young college man would.
The Gamma girls in their pink and ponytails were all chittering away like mice as they flitted around the room, and the occasional high-pitched squeal of laughter made Camelia grimace.
Still, the longer that she sat there with her drink and the less attention that anyone paid to her, the more she relaxed.
One beta guy with a Greek symbol on his shirt glanced her way curiously a few minutes into her observation, but he quickly looked away when one of the Gamma girls stepped up to him, capturing his attention with conversation.
Probably from the brother fraternity. Camelia wasn't super familiar with Greek life – the idea had never appealed to her when she was a freshman at Harrison, and then she was too engrossed her studies to even consider another extracurricular activity after that – but she knew that the sororities always had a matching fraternity, and they usually did events together.
Even if this wasn't a formal Greek event, it would make sense if some of the guys were around. After all, when you spent that much time together...you had to be friends of some kind, right?
"Maybe all I needed was to just be around a bunch of girls who wanted attention more than I do," Camelia muttered to herself, snickering into her beer.
The drink was warming her with a pleasant fuzz, and it almost obscured the tingle that raised the hairs on the back of her neck as she continued to sit there, signaling a change.
She saw them before they saw her, her eyes zeroing in first on Evan as he entered through the front door, then James close behind him.
They both wore cocky, confident smiles, and they were predictably swarmed by a few of the Gamma girls as they made their way into the living room.
Evan took their attention in stride, smiling charmingly as he leaned down and whispered something in the ear of a tall, pretty blonde girl, but James seemed unaffected by the advances.
The smile on his face faded as his gaze swept the room, as if he were looking for danger.
As if he were cataloguing the exits and the number of people in the room.
A trickle of curiosity took hold in Camelia's belly as she watched him.
He held himself like someone who was always ready to be attacked, always ready to defend himself. Even the tailored lines of his button-down and designer jeans couldn't hide that fact, and Camelia couldn't stop herself from feeling a twinge of sympathy for this person that she barely knew.
What must his life have been like, to constantly be on the edge like that? She could already tell that James wasn’t the type of person to relax; the lines of tension in his shoulders were familiar, and a tiny part of her wondered what it would take for him to finally relax.
Of course, she knew what it was like to be constantly on edge herself, but she had the feeling that James’ reason for constant vigilance were a little different than hers. She could sympathize, though.
The moment that his eyes collided with hers, Camelia swallowed hard.
It took everything inside of her not to shrink into the couch and try to disappear from his sight, and the gray depths of his eyes practically glowed.
His hand brushed Evan's in a casual touch, pulling his attention, and a moment later, Camelia found herself pinned under the gazes of both Alphas.
Evan continued smirking as he looked at her, but there was something new in his eyes that hadn't been there when Camelia had met them the other day.
A certain...wariness, caution. Side by side with a wisp of longing that tugged at Camelia's gut with a surprising ferocity, and she forced herself to take another draw of her beer as she met their gazes unwaveringly.
She desperately wanted to look away, but she wouldn't be the first to show weakness.
Not to Alphas.
"Empty," she muttered to herself, when the next drink she tried to take gave nothing.
She stood up, shaking her head and steadfastly turning on the two Alphas who were still watching her with an intensity that took her breath away.
Part of her wanted to go find Aria, so that she wasn't sitting alone in the middle of this party that was suddenly feeling much more dangerous than it had been a few minutes before.
A bigger part of her didn't want to be forced into conversation with whatever sorority girls that Aria was currently bubbling along with.
An even bigger part of her wanted another drink, even if it was only beer.
Camelia hummed to herself as she made her way to the kitchen, pulling out her phone and opening the Uber app as she tossed her empty beer bottle and picked up a new one from the ice bucket.
Sorority row was only a few streets away from the university proper, and therefore the dorms; she could reasonably walk it, but she knew that her father would have a coronary if he knew that she willingly went walking around after dark, alone.
She would have another drink, then order her ride. She wasn't going to ask Aria to leave early just because she wanted to get out of the crowd.
The bottle opener that Aria had used when she had handed Camelia her last drink seemed to have disappeared, and Camelia glanced around fruitlessly for a moment in the empty kitchen before sighing in irritation. "Fuck."
"Need a hand?"