Page 83 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
REX
The wiper blades scrape against the windshield, pushing aside rain that immediately reforms. Back and forth. Rhythm without relief. The sound fills the sedan's interior because I'm sure as shit not turning on music or attempting conversation.
My fingers grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary. The leather creaks under my knuckles.
Jamie's offer keeps replaying in my head like a scratched record stuck on the worst possible verse.Sometimes I like to have betas over for bonding activities.The way he'd said it, all cheerful and innocent while propositioning Bells for a threesome like he was offering her fucking cookies.
The territorial growl that had wanted to tear out of my throat in that moment still sits lodged somewhere between my ribs and my spine.
I'm not fucking jealous.
I have no claim on Bells. None. Zero. She's a means to an end—the atomic weapon I'm wielding against Stephen Hughes. That's it. The fact that she's also apparently the only personwho can look at visible scarring without flinching or staring is irrelevant.
Completelyfucking irrelevant.
Orion's scars are extensive. I don't just know this because Jamie chatters away the entire time he works on my masks. The golden skull mask hides most of it, but the pink scar tissue that branches up from the edges tells enough of a story. Whatever happened to Orion destroyed his face from the cheekbones down.
People react. They always react, even when Orion is wearing a mask. Same bullshit I have to deal with. Jamie's told me this in those rare moments when the omega gets serious and drops the sunshine-and-gumdrops act.
But Bells?
Despite her fear of alphas and apparently thinking Orion was a fucking ghost when she saw nothing but a floating skull mask up in the window, she just... talked to him. Complimented his boots like they were the most interesting thing about him, not the mask or the visible scarring or the fact that he's a seven-foot-tall alpha who resembles a prince from hell.
She saw past all of it.
The same way she saw past my mask in that tunnel and didn't run screaming. Didn't tell anyone. Protected my secret when she had every reason to weaponize it. Yeah, she knows the consequences of fucking up will be dire, to say the least, but she hasn't held it over my head even in private.
It settles under my skin like a splinter I can't dig out. Uncomfortable. Persistent. Impossible to ignore no matter how much I want to.
I tell myself it's because of the pain. That's why I'm overthinking and feeling weird shit dangerously close to possession. Dangerously close to jealousy. The pain from the lingering infection must be screwing with my head.
And I tell myself if I took the painkillers the hospital sent me home with instead of refusing because of what shit like that did to Nash, it would stop.
It would stop, and I'd go right back to thoroughly hating Bells and not thinking about how close we came to fuckingkissingin the goddamn tower when I stumbled and crushed her against the wall.
"You're quiet."
Bells's voice cuts through my spiral, laced with that amusement that means she knows exactly what she's doing by opening her mouth right now.
I keep my eye on the road, watching Seattle's outskirts give way to denser cityscape. The rain's getting heavier.
I snort. "Just giving you time to think about the 'offer.'"
She laughs, and the sound fills the sedan's interior like bells. Like her fucking stage name, which I'm starting to realize is either the most ironic or most accurate pseudonym in existence.
"I'm, uh, not really interested in flings," she says, and there's something in her voice I can't quite identify. "Besides, I think it would be a problem. You know. Me being a girl."
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache.
"No," I say flatly. "It wouldn't be."
The words come out before I can analyze them, before I can shove them back down where they belong. Apparently my mouth has decided to operate independently of my brain today.
Bells shifts in the passenger seat, and I catch the movement in my peripheral vision. She's turned to face me now, those honeyed eyes tracking my profile like she's trying to solve an equation.
"Jamie likes betas," I continue, rolling my eyes, because apparently I'm committed to this conversation now. "Regardless of gender or whatever. Orion too. They've had partners of all types."
"How do you know that? Are you friends?"
