Page 9 of The Alpha Escort Agency
“How was your week?” her mum says as she comes back in handing her a glass of wine. “Any news?”
“No not really.” The wine is cold on her lips as she takes a sip of it from the large glass.
Her mum cares about her, they speak every other day now her mum is all alone, but despite all the talking, they've never had a relationship where they talk about their feelings, about the intimate details of their lives. Part of Alice would like to tell her mum about the Alpha and the arrangement she's made for her next heat, but her mum has always acted as if that part of Alice doesn't exist. She refers to her heats as 'your time' or 'your trouble'. She doesn't want to know.
“But you're doing okay, darling?”
“Yes, I'm fine.” Her mum smiles at her and hooks the strand of hair that's fallen into Alice's face behind her ear before turning her head back to the television.
Alice bites her lip thinking about the Alpha, thinking about the way he'd done the same thing, the way his large fingers had brushed around her small ear, tucking that strand of hair away just like her mother. The action was laced with something. Affection. It was affectionate.
Chapter 4
Rory has a pot of chilli bubbling away on the stove, two loaves of banana bread and a batch of brownies cooking in the oven, and a selection of vegetables ready on a chopping board. He leans over to the stove and flicks the ignition to light the gas hob, then pours oil into the frying pan and tips in the slices of red onion. They hit the pan with a hiss of steam and their striking aroma flies into the air. Lifting the pan by the handle, he jiggles the slices around the bottom, and begins to chop the other vegetables. He's going to make a vegetable lasagna as well as the chilli and the macaroni cheese already finished and stored in the fridge in tupperware boxes.
Usually, he only prepares a couple of dishes and a cake to take with him on an assignment, meals he knows the Omega will find filling and comforting, but something has compelled him this time to make double the dishes.
He doesn't want to think too hard about why. Maybe it's because he wants to impress this particular new Omega. Maybe he has a strong urge, stronger than normal, to keep her well cared for. He presses down hard on the knife, the carrot beneath the blade splintering into two, and then he repeats the action until the carrot is neatly sliced. Concentrating hard on the activity, he tries not to let his mind wander back to the night before.
They always offer the clients the opportunity to have a pre-meet, but very few take the offer. Most want a fuck and that is all. It's just an arrangement to them, nothing more. There's no reason for them to waste their precious time meeting an Alpha who they're simply hiring to see them through a heat. He can count on one hand the number of clients he's met in advance and those he has have been of no interest to him.
Until last night.
Alice, beneath her obvious nerves and discomfort, had been funny, engaging, once or twice possibly flirtatious. Her scent, fresh like spring flowers, had penetrated right to the base of his skull, awakening something there that he suspects has lain dormant, a primal reflex that made the gland on his neck tingle and every nerve stand up alert.
He throws the carrots in with the now soft onions and hacks at a yellow pepper, spearing it open and gutting its insides.
Such feelings about an Omega, and a client at that, are dangerous and yet here he is preparing her more than the standard required meals and cursing himself for leaving the bar when he did. He could have stayed. He could have talked with her more, enjoyed the way her cheeks flushed pink and her sea-green eyes swam across his face. It had felt electrifying, a sensation that sparked on the tip of his tongue and the pads of his fingers.
Her hair, black ringlets clipped at the base of her skull, had tumbled into her face, resting on the brow of her cheekbone and he hadn't been able to stop himself from holding a strand between his fingers and tucking it behind her small delicate ear. It had been an excuse to touch her, to feel the soft skin of her cheek and the silk of her hair, and his belly is hungry to do it again. So much so that he is acutely, intensely aware of the numbers of days that lie between now and when they will meet again.
He groans at his own foolishness and presses down hard on the knife, misjudging the swipe of the blade and nicking the side of his thumb, red blood curling onto his skin. He lifts the cut into his mouth and sucks, the taste metallic and animalistic. Instinctively, he grazes his teeth against the pad of his thumb, testing the strength of the skin, wondering how hard he'd need to press to pierce it.
In the craze of a heat, an Omega can lose her judgement and beg for an Alpha to bite the gland at the base of her neck, an act that binds the pair together as life mates. It's seductive as hell to have a little Omega whining to be bitten, and the thought of sinking his teeth through the wafer thin skin of a mating gland, and sweet Omega blood pooling into his mouth makes his stomach growl. But that's just fantasy. He's never had a problem resisting it in reality, even in the depths of passion. He wonders if he will have such a problem now. He wonders just how she would taste.
He rifles through the cupboards until he finds a box of plasters for his thumb and wraps the injured digit. Then he adds the peppers to the pan, slices of mushrooms and baby sweetcorns and stirs the chilli, gazing out of the window and into his garden as he does.
There's a robin there today, perching on the fence, its red breast puffed out, head flicking from side to side, skipping from one foot to another. Seemingly satisfied with what it sees, it flies to the birdbath and dips its head to the water, droplets flicking upwards and then over its wings.
Rory examines it, the pattern of colour across its wings, the shape of its head. He thinks it's the same robin he's seen in the garden over the last few days; his garden has obviously become part of this little bird's territory.
Rory shakes his head. Perversely, he's always resented the robin. Well-loved and presented as a cute, friendly creature on Christmas cards and in children's books, yet the bird is fierce and territorial, attacking other males that enter its domain. It's unfair, he thinks, that because it looks so harmless it has earned a reputation opposed to its actual nature. The very opposite of Rory himself.
He intimidates people with his powerful frame and vast height. He sees the way they flinch and draw back. He smells the fear and the caution. He hears it in the careful way they choose their words. They see him and they judge him, without knowing his true nature.
Maybe, though, they are right to. Here he is opening a tin of passata and considering how he'd like to gouge his teeth into the neck of the Omega he's just met.
Is that not the thought of the creature they suspect him to be?
He places the tin opener down and takes a step back, gripping the edge of the countertop with his hands and bending down to catch his breath and drive the thoughts from his mind. Then he runs himself a glass of cold water from the tap, draining it as he watches the robin land on the bird feeder and force its beak between the wire, claiming a mouthful of seed.
Growing up, he'd hoped he'd end up a Beta like his granddad and his nan. No, not just hoped, wished with every bone in his body that he would be. He didn't want to be an Alpha like the man who had gotten his mother pregnant, like the men who flitted in and out of her life, controlling her, coercing her. They'd been dark, menacing hulks, terrifying monsters. Shadows that hovered at the edges of his life. He hated them. He didn't want to be like them.
Then puberty hit.
The first moment he'd known it for sure, what he was, had been in the changing room after a football match. Sitting on a bench untying a knot from his muddy laces, he'd listened to an older boy dissect the match, when a scent suddenly caught his attention. One moment it had been invisible to him, the next there inside his mind, something to be decoded. He'd tried to read it logically and consciously, aware that his body was already reacting to it, his muscles tensing, his teeth grinding. He'd kicked off his boots and run to the shower, stripping as quickly as he could and plunging under the tepid water, hoping it would remove the scent and with it the aggression racing through his body.
It had continued like that. Snatches of scents, strange reactions he couldn't control and with it his body had changed until soon he was taller than his grandad, his bodyweight twice what it had been. His mind and body became invaded by strong, powerful urges and instincts, his sense of smell all of a sudden opening up a hidden world of other people's emotions — fear, lust, violence. With it came an anger he'd battled to control as a young man, the unfairness of his situation fueling this all-consuming rage within him.
