Page 179 of Pack Rivals: Part Two
Want to find out just how crazy we can get?Nate whispers through the bond.
Out!I screech back.You’re not allowed to see the bride on the wedding day! It’s bad luck!
We can’t see you, sweetheart,Axel chimes in.But we’re getting mighty impatient down here. Hurry up and come get hitched.
It’s been three months since we took the step to bond, since we made this pack of ours official that way.
It had been the first truly warm day since the winter, the heat lingering as the sun sunk and the full moon rose, and somehow Nate had convinced us all to go swimming in the ocean, the water glistening around us as silver as Axel and Angel’s eyes. As we’d stumbled from the waves, wet, our skin tasting of salt, I’d known this was the moment. That there would never be a more perfect moment. So I’d told them “claim me” and in the moonlight, with sand between our toes and the sea crashing around our ankles, six alphas had held me, kissed me, caressed me, stroked my skin and whispered to me; and then each one had bitten at my neck, sinking strong alpha teeth through my skin and binding us together forever.
The connection had been instantaneous, like a light igniting in my mind. I could feel them with me. I could hear their voices. All of us connected in an infinite glittering circle of trust and love.
I thought the intrusion of six other people into my mind would take some getting used to. I thought the connection with six alphas would be overwhelming at first. It’s been none of that. It’s as if they were always meant to be in my head and I was meant to be in theirs.
My fingers stray to the scar marks where my shoulder meets my neck, and trace over the indents my alphas’ teeth have left in my skin. I smile and Courtney rolls her eyes.
“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“What?” I say innocently, turning to the mirror, admiring the white lines of my scar proudly like they are the most dazzling diamond necklace.
“Talking to your alphas through the bond.”
“Maybe,” I say.
Courtney bumps her hip against mine. She’s wearing a lilac dress that matches the flowers in the yard and brings out her eyes. Molly’s wearing an identical one. I’m pretty certain both dresses were meant to be below the knee but somehow have miraculously shrunk to mid-thigh. Molly’s been filling Courtney in about all the eligible bachelors invited here today. I suspect they conspired to hitch up their dresses together.
“You’re so in love!” Courtney laughs. “If it was anyone else, I’d be green with jealousy and puking in the corner, but instead I’m so deliriously happy for you.”
I grin back at her. “I am in love. Head over heels in love.”
“And happy?” Courtney asks, resting her hands on my bare shoulders.
“I’ve never been this happy.”
Everything has been falling into place. The trial of Don Cleaver and the alpha members of his pack finished several months back and all of them received lengthy sentences. Dr. Hannah and her two alphas were last seen in Columbia with no sign of ever returning and I’m now officially a college student, studying what I love the most. Then there are my six alphas … My days are filled with more love and laughter than it seems fair for one person to possess.
“You deserve it, Bea. Not just because you’ve been through some seriously ugly shit, but because you are the loveliest person I know. I was beginning to believe that only the mean girls got their guys. But the fact that someone as lovely as you can find their happily-ever-after gives me hope.”
“And me!” Molly pipes up from the corner where she’s fiddling with the long blonde locks of her hair.
“Neither of you two need hope,” I point out. “Both of you are gorgeous and amazing. Both of you have men swarming around you. Both of you are going to find your happily-ever-afters, too.”
Molly snorts, adjusting the flower pinned above her ear. “I thought it was hard enough dating when I was stuck at home all the time, now my big brothers are around it’s even harder. The last dates I had didn’t make it past the front door. Axel scared them away.”
“If they’re that easily scared, they’re not the pack for you.” I’m pretty certain about that. My very-soon-to-be sister-in-law is going to need a pack as strong willed as she is, not a bunch of men she can run rings around. “Besides, no one’s buying the whole dating act, Molly.”
“What do you mean?” she asks innocently.
“I mean we all know it’s a ruse for what’s really going on in your love life.”
Molly twists her head and peers at us over her shoulder. “Do two certain alphas know what’s really going on in my love life?”
I shake my head. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“They can see inside your head!” Molly says.
“I think they’ve learned to stay well-clear of the box marked ‘Molly’ after they stumbled upon your dildo advice stored away in my brain.”
Molly smiles wickedly. “Serves them right.”
