Page 12 of Pack Frenzy
I stare at his hand for a heartbeat too long. This is real. This is happening. If I take it, everything changes.
I take it, and the shock of contact steals my breath. His skin is warm, heat seeping through my palm and spreading up my arm until I feel it everywhere. Calluses drag lightly against my fingers, rough edges catching on something I didn’t know was starving for touch. His grip is firm but not controlling, steady but not demanding, and God help me, I don’t want to let go.
For a second too long, neither of us does.
His gray eyes hold mine, and there’s something in them—recognition, maybe. Or a possibility I don’t dare believe in. Something that sayswe see you, and it terrifies me how much I want that to be true.
“Jess,” I say, even though they already know. “Jess Mancini.”
Cassian doesn’t offer his hand. He just watches me with those whiskey-dark eyes, and there’s heat in them…the kind that promises trouble. “Ninety days can change a lot, Omega.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “We’ll see if you can handle us.”
The challenge in his words should annoy me. Instead, it does something else entirely, something that curls low in my belly and makes my scent spike again, sweet and wanting.
Yeah, I think, meeting his gaze even though my heart is hammering.We will.
I’m walking out of here with a pair of Alphas who could destroy me or save me, and I can’t decide which possibility terrifies me more.
CHAPTER 4
ROWAN
When Jess’s hand slips from mine, the room exhales around us, and the air feels thinner without touching her like I’ve surfaced too fast from deep water.
I flex my fingers once, grounding myself in motion, while her scent of jasmine and vanilla, a sweetness edged with nerves, clings to my skin like a promise I haven’t made yet.
The visitor badge gleams between her knuckles. Temporary freedom. Every Omega walks out of Nexus with one, no matter who they are.
“Processing,” Eli says, already moving toward the door. He moves the way he always has—efficient, quiet, steady enough to anchor Cassian and me both when tempers start to tip.
He doesn’t look at me, but I feel the flicker of his attention on Jess. Not pity. Hope. He’d deny it, but I know the shape of it on his face.
Jess keeps glancing at him like she’s trying to decide if he’s an escort or a guard.
“You’ll want him with us,” I murmur, tilting slightly toward her. “Eli’s our pack Beta. He keeps the rest of us civilized.” Notto mention he’s with me, in my bed, and I fell in love with him despite never being attracted to another guy before or since.
Her brows lift slightly. “You have a Beta?”
“Yes, and ours just happens to know how to talk Nexus out of trouble.”
She laughs lightly, and the sound makes something in me loosen, makes me think Eli was right to recommend her for our pack.
We’ve tried this before. Cassian’s bar pickups lasted three days before we found out they pawned everything they could carry, and empty pill bottles.
The last Omega I dated for a month looked at Eli like he was competition instead of completion, and couldn’t understand that loving both of them wasn’t splitting myself in half; it was finally being whole.
Other Omegas were too fearful of Cassian’s moods.
We move through corridors that reek of disinfectant and recycled air. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead like trapped wasps. A guard stares through us—not at us. Everyone here knows this drill, and no one wants to be part of it longer than necessary.
Jess walks between us with her shoulders tight, and I wonder what her story is. Sure, Nexus has her file, and Eli probably memorized it, but I want to find out from her.
A guard tells her to change into her street clothes she came here in, and return her Nexus items, but the ankle cuff will remain. They want her tracked no matter where she is or who she’s with, until bonded and claimed.
Cassian’s jaw ticks once, but he keeps quiet. The last thing she needs is a reminder that Alphas can start wars with a look.
I lean closer to her, just enough that only she hears me, and the sharpness of her fear hits me first, anxiety spiking her natural sweetness like lemon in honey. “Breathe.”
She does. Pulls in air like she’s following orders, and the scent around her shifts…the citrus fades, vanilla smoothing out into something richer, warmer. Still sweet, but steadier, like sugar crystallizing into something solid.
