Page 5 of Shades of Scars

The set ends with a flawless, nearly deafening cheer from the crowd. The curtain draws closed, and I growl as soon as my view of my latest obsession is cut off. Wren clasps me on the shoulder before I can manage to duck away from him, already on the hunt to take and claim.

“No. Absolutely fucking not.” He snarls, but I’m ten seconds away from snapping his goddamned hand if he doesn’t let me go when one of our waitresses appears, as if Wren had summoned her. Fuck, maybe he had when I’d been too lost in the sensations that pretty beta’s melody made me feel.

He flicks his attention to her, but he keeps his hand on me, and I growl again. He ignores me. “Bring the vocalist to my office for the rest of her interview.” Interesting that he doesn’t want to go fetch her himself.

But this is an easy enough job for me. I just have to come along with Wren so I can get my hands on her as soon as he’s done with his interview. Part of me hopes he doesn’t hire her, just so I can steal her away and not have to worry about the headache he’ll cause me if he does hire her, and I decide to pursue her anyway.

The waitress dips her chin before slipping away, off to follow her orders, and Wren finally turns his attention back to me. His eyes narrow on me when he gets a good look at the expression on my face. It’s no doubt slightly unhinged with my growing obsession already. “Stay out here and watch the floor.” He orders, but he knows I have no intention of listening to a damn thing he says. I don’t even know why he’d bother.

He slips off in the direction of the elevator that’ll take him up to his office on the top floor. I wait several seconds–a feat thatshould dub me a goddamn saint–before I stalk after him with single minded focus. I have a beta to make mine.

And there’s nothing Wren Madden can do to stop me.

4

Wren

Entering my office, my sour mood only intensifies when Caito swaggers in barely two minutes behind me. “I gave you an order.” I growl, but I know my words fall on deaf ears. I can’t pretend I hadn’t seen the glint in his eye while he’d been watching the beta on stage.

The infuriating asshole just shrugs and then plops down into one of my guest chairs to the right of my desk, propping an ankle up on his knee and lounging back like he’s the King of the coop. I pause beside my desk on the opposite side of him and narrow my eyes. “I’m warning you, Caito-”

“Spare me the bullshit, Wren. I’m allowed to sit in on your interviews. This is, after all, the pack’s club. Hiring employees doesn’t just fall to you.” I grit my teeth when he waves a hand at me, but I don’t argue with him on that front. It’s his other reasoning that’s steadily getting on my nerves.

“You’re not going to fuck her.” It isn’t a request. If he ruins this for me, I’m going to have to throttle him. That woman can sing, and the way the crowd had reacted to her was a clear indication of how well she’d do for business around here.

And I’m definitely not going to mention to him just how affected I’d been by her during the show. I won’t break my owndamn rules. She’s just a beta that needs a job, and I can put distance between us as her boss. There’s nothing more to it.

Caito just smirks at me, and I thrum my fingers aggressively against the edge of the desk, still glaring at him. I open my mouth to remind him again of the rules–fuck knows why I bother–when a solid knock sounds at the doorway where it’s still slightly ajar.

I glance over and spot Gus, one of our best VIP bouncers, peering through the partially open door. “Sorry to interrupt, boss, but Miss Reighn is here as per your request.”

Out of the corner of my eye, Caito drops his foot back to the ground and leans forward, eyes already trained like a hawk on the shadows behind the bouncer. The hand that had been slack at my side clenches into a fist, but I hold my tongue. “Send her in.” I start to round the desk as Gus disappears, but then a slight breeze carries towards me when the door’s pushed farther inward, and I freeze.

Caito senses it right as I do, and the low rumble that emits from him has all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I swallow my own growl as I turn to face the small woman standing in the doorway, just as frozen as we are.

Her eyes are blown wide as she darts them between us, and I can see it in her eyes. I can see it in the way Caito takes a measured, determined step towards her. I watch her nostrils flare wide, and then she blanches, and I fuckingknow.

Even if I can’t scent her from here, I know why panic flits across her face. Fuck, I know why Caito dives for her just milliseconds before she turns to bolt. Chaos consumes the next several seconds, and I feel my heart jump up in my throat when she twists away from my pack brother, like that’ll help her escape. All it does is expose her back to the real predator in the room.

She misjudges how quick he can move when he’s on the hunt. His arms catch her before she can take more than two staggering steps back towards the only other exit in the room. Caito may be hell bent on making sure she doesn’t escape, but she’s also just as determined not to get caught.

Faster than the strike of a cobra, her elbow slams down into the crook of his forearm before she throws her head back like a wildcat. I wince when her skull connects with his nose, the sound of bone and cartilage cracking echoing through the room. Caito snarls, and his arm only tightens around her further. He’s quick to drag her back towards the desk as if she were merely just a kitten struggling to get out of its momma’s jaws.

“Omega.” Caito rumbles when he shoves his nose against the crook of her neck, his other hand coming up to tangle in her hair to keep her from throwing her head back again. Blood’s now pouring freely out of his broken nose, but he doesn’t seem to give two fucks about that while he inhales deeply.

I round the desk, unable to stop myself, and the second I’m within touching distance of her, the rest of the barriers between the three of us fall away. Her scent explodes outwards, breaking past the suppressant she’d obviously taken recently. My entire body visibly shudders when I inhale smokey jasmine and tart citrus like my life fucking depends on it.

Caito groans as he does the same, and his grip on her tightens, even though she’s fallen limp temporarily in his arms. My eyes open to lock with her beautiful dark, hazel gaze, and I realize right then and there that I never even stood a chance.

“Mine.” My pack brother snarls, and then I see the panic flare again in her eyes when his bloodied teeth scrape against the sensitive flesh just below her earlobe. Right over her pulse point, which I can see thrumming erratically beneath his vicious, manic grin.

“Gus!” Finally, I regained some control over myself again to call in for reinforcements. I need to get Caito the fuck away from her before he goes and marks her without her permission and fuck us all to hell.

My favorite bouncer rushes into the room, eyes darting around to quickly assess the situation. They quickly fall on the three of us. “Boss?”

“Separate them.” Is all I say before I dive for the littleomegathat’d been masquerading as a goddamnbeta. Gus, thankfully, catches my drift and dives for Caito at the same time. I rip her out of his arms just as the bouncer collides with him, taking him to the ground in a tangle of snarling, snapping teeth and flailing fists.

Shit. I’ve never seen my pack brother like this.

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