Chapter 14
Reed
Hal Brody chokes when he’s winning.
Every time. Give the man a four-point lead and he gets cocky, starts narrating his own greatness to the whole pub, and throws his next three shots straight into the wall.
So we keep it close. Let him stay cocky. Let him think he’s got us.
We’ve been doing it for forty minutes.
On purpose.
Well... mostly.
“Twenty to go,” Maggie calls.
She’s got the chalk in one hand and a dish towel over her shoulder, keeping the score diligently (a guy who tried to correct her addition got cut off for the night).
“Brody’s team is one shot away from winning,” she says, tapping the chalkboard. “Hal just needs to hit the double-sixteen ring. The Millers are trailing, you need a double-ten just to stay in the game.”
“A miracle, more like,” Hal says, grinning around the toothpick wedged in his teeth.
“A double-ten,” Maggie repeats, ignoring him. “The narrow strip on the outer edge.”
The pub’s gone even louder, warmer. Half the room’s drifted over to our corner, and old Pete from the feed store is taking bets, which is probably illegal, but Bram seems too invested in the game to care.
It’s about as perfect as a Sunday gets.
And now Luna’s up. She steps to the line with her tongue between her teeth. A few drinks in, dead serious, and I can’t look anywhere else.
She throws... and it thuds into the seven, wide.
“Damn it,” she mutters.
“Hey,” Doug, Hal’s teammate, chuckles. “Girl’s got an arm. A wild one, but an arm.”
Luna turns around, her eyes narrowing as she holds Doug’s gaze for a second. Then she looks at me, pointing the second dart at my chest, her other hand on her hip. “Reed. No way I’m letting them win. Coach me.”
Oh, you don’t have to ask me twice, Sugar.
“Alright.” I set my pint down and step in behind her, leaving just a few inches of air between my chest and her back.
My whole body goes live like someone flipped a switch.
Her sweet scent has been quietly driving my Alpha crazy all night. Getting this close definitely doesn’t help.
“First problem. You’re holding the dart like a steak knife.” I reach around and tap the back of her hand, and a jolt of heat shoots clean up my arm. “Three fingers. Loose. Don’t choke it.”
She loosens her grip. “Like this?”
“Better.” My voice has dropped lower than I planned. I clear my throat. “Now your feet. Flat.” I slide my boot forward and nudge the outside of her sneaker an inch left... and the outside of my thigh brushes the back of hers.
I feel the little hitch in her breath.
Christ.
“Now, only your arm moves,” I say, goosebumps rising along the side of my neck. “Picture the dart already in the board. Don’t think about anything else.”
“MILLER.” Hal waves his pint like a man flagging a bus. “You wanna get a room, or you wanna let the lady throw before we all die of old age?”
“Patience, Hal,” Bram says from the wall, the corner of his mouth ticking up. “At your age, dying of old age is a daily hazard, anyway. Let her shoot.”
“Yeah, Hal,” Ash adds. “Some things can’t be rushed.”
I step back. Half a step. Enough to give her arm room and not one inch more.
“Go on, VP. Show ‘em.”
She blows out a breath and squares up. Loose grip, feet flat, only the arm. She draws back, her eyes lock on the board... and she throws.
Thunk.
It thuds into the ten slice, just a hair below the narrow double ring on the outer edge. A single, not the double we need to win.
“Ohh,” goes the pub.
“That’s the right line,” I tell her. “Just a hair too low. You’ve got the feel of it now.”
She rounds on me, lit up despite herself. “Next one’s the charm.”
Maggie marks the board. “Millers still need the double-ten. Hal, you’re up.”
And here’s the part we’ve been farming for forty minutes.
Hal swaggers to the line, rolling his shoulders, his toothpick sticking out of his mouth. He only needs to hit that outer double-sixteen ring to win the match.
“Watch and weep, Millers and co,” he says, holding the dart up to the light like he’s appraising a diamond. “Sixteen years I been throwing this lane. Doug, get my coat, ‘cause we are going home.”
Beside me, Ash murmurs, barely moving his lips. “There it is.”
Because, again, everybody knows Hal Brody chokes when he’s winning. Every time.
He draws back, confident, and lets it fly—
—and it skips off the wire with a sad little tink, dropping to the floor.
The pub howls. Doug puts his face in his hands as Hal stares at the board and mouths something.
“Tough break, Hal,” Bram says.
And just like that, the match is back in our hands. One final dart. Hit the double-ten ring, or we lose.
“Luna, you shoot,” I say.
She takes a breath and steps to the line, the noise of the pub fading to a low hum. She rolls the dart between her fingers, eyes locking onto that thin slice of double-ten at the top of the board. I swear the rest of the room drops away from her entirely.
She draws back—
—and throws.
The dart flies in a clean, high arc.
Thwack.
Right in the middle of the double-ten ring.
The pub detonates. Pete’s napkin goes flying. A stool goes over backward. Maggie hits the bell over the register, and Hal lets out a wounded bellow.
Ash roars, and Bram is grinning, his hand coming down hard on my shoulder. The three of us are already shouting, closing in to celebrate, when Luna spins around. Her face is lit up, mouth wide open, glowing.
“We did it!” she yells, running straight toward the three of us.
I’m the one in the middle, and she jumps right at me.
I catch her by the waist and haul her up off the floor.
Bram’s big arms wrap around both of us from the side, and Ash hooks his arm over her shoulder, pulling us all tight.
Just like that, we’re a knot of flannel and heat—three lunatic alphas and one delighted omega in a screaming pub.
She’s laughing, her hands braced on my shoulders, her body pressed warm against mine.
... Which is when the rest of me wakes up.
The friction of her against me. The rush of her scent, that sweet thing gone suddenly very thick... makes my blood go south.
Luna goes still.
“Reed,” Luna says. Perfectly conversational, her face an inch from mine. “What is that thing poking me?”
God is real, and He hates me specifically.
I set her down like she’s a hot stove. “That’s—”
My mouth, the one that rarely fails to have something to say, gives me nothing.
“Uh,” I manage.
But as she looks down, a blush starts climbing her throat—
—and then her scent surges.
Not the soft sweet undertone anymore. It comes off her in a wave. A full-body bloom of honey and gooseberries that grips me by the throat.
Ash’s eyes go black, and I watch Bram, the most controlled man I know, curl a hand into a fist.
Best thing I’ve ever smelled in my life. And I’m spending everything I’ve got not to do something about it right here on Maggie’s floor.
Thank God, I think, dialing myself down with both hands. Only her scent matches can smell that.
Except a couple of the locals turn their heads.
Doug pauses mid-laugh, his brow furrowing.
Two booths down, an alpha I half-recognize lifts his chin, sniffing the air, and goes quiet.
They aren’t her scent matches, which means none of them are getting the full, addictive hit of honey and gooseberries, but something is definitely bleeding through the edges.
Some vague, electric omega frequency that has the room shifting.
We need to get her out of here now before half the pub loses its mind.
“Hey.” My voice comes out rough. “You wanna get out of here?”
Luna’s got her arms crossed tight over her chest now, staring down at her sneakers, flushed all the way to the roots of her hair.
“Let’s,” she says.