Page 4 of Stalked By the Alphas
“It’s the whiskey talking,” I protest weakly. “We’re drunk.”
“Drunk words are sober thoughts, love.” Zach moves closer until I’m surrounded by alphas. The air is thick with their combined scents, cedarwood, the ocean and summer rain, making my head swim. “Make the pact with us.”
“All of you?” I look between them.
“Make the pact, Hazel. Promise us.”
I should say no. I should laugh it off as drunk talk, change the subject, and go to bed. But the whiskey has loosened my inhibitions, stripped away my careful walls. And God help me, I want it. Want to belong to someone who won’t leave.
“Five years,” I whisper. “If we’re all still single on my twenty-fifth birthday?—“
“We meet at your bookshop,” Carter states.
I take a shaky breath. My alphas. My friends. Is this right? Is this a bad, drunken decision? Probably. But fuck it. “I promise that if we’re all single and unmated on my twenty-fifth birthday, we’ll meet at my bookshop.”
“Five years,” Carter murmurs. “It’s a binding contract now, tiny omega.”
I blink, wondering what I’ve got myself into here. But the whiskey makes it impossible to care.
1
HAZEL
The wind lashesagainst the windows of my cosy cottage on the high street of this gorgeous little village in the Lake District. It’s only just summer, but the weather has been atrocious for this time of year.
I stare out of the window and shiver. The clouds overhead are making it darker than it should be. Sitting at my desk, trying to review the invoices for the bookshop, I can’t focus. Picking up my phone, I stare at the message, and tears prick my eyes.
Yet another alpha has dumped me. Left on the side of the road with a pitiful excuse.
It’s not you, it’s me.
We aren’t compatible.
I don’t see a future with you.
I need someone more stable.
It is you, not me.
My family wants me to mate with someone who comes from a good family.
So not a dead family then, which is exactly what you get with me.
I sniff and, with a shaky hand, reach for the herbal tablets the naturopath next door to the bookshop gave me for my anxiety. I pick up the brown plastic bottle and uncap it. Shaking out two tablets, I swill them back with the water in the glass on my desk.
Sitting back, I close my eyes and finish the water, but my eyes snap open when the wind picks up, and the rain hits the glass harder. I rise, going to look out of the window with the cottage panes. Standing at the side, hidden by the curtain, I peer out. I can’t see anyone out there, but I know better. I know someone watches me. I can feel their eyes on me. I shudder as icy fingers trail down my spine. Gripping the edge of the curtain, I quickly pull it closed, bringing the other one to meet it in the middle. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I step back and walk slowly out of the small room I commandeered as my office to check the front door. It is locked, chained, and bolted. I knew it would be, but I have to check. Several times.
Stepping back, I hurry through the small cottage to check the back door as well. The same system is in place.
I breathe out, and I force myself to relax.
Making my way back to my office, I leave the door open and move across to the desk to sit again, staring at the laptop. My phone catches my eye, and with a huff, I turn it over. I have to just stop trying. There is no point. There is something fundamentally wrong with me as anomega. Maybe my scent, jasmine with a dash of vanilla, is so off-putting to alphas that they can’t stand to be around me. Or maybe they want a more traditional omega. One who will sign up for a scent-matching app or be the little homemaker and do all the things to catch the perfect mate.
That’s just not me. I don’t lie about it or try to pretend I’m someone I’m not. I’m upfront about the way I am, the way I think for myself, and how I want to be independent but still be loved for me and not because biology says so.
But that must be the problem.
The trouble is, I don’t think I can lie about who I am just to hang onto an alpha long enough to make him fall in love with me.
