Page 62 of Pack Frenzy
We drift on. Sun flares off shop windows; a kid drops a cone and wails like the ocean wronged him personally. My stomach answers with a quiet, traitorous growl.
Eli hears it anyway. “We’re almost to the café,” he says, already angling toward the pier.
By the time we get to the place, the lunch crowd is officially gone, but I don’t mind.
The sign out front readsThe Salty Gull, paint peeling, neon half-dead and flickering like it can’t decide whether to give up entirely or keep fighting. I love it immediately, this stubborn little place that refuses to be anything other than exactly what it is.
Inside smells like butter and the sea, the kind of scent that should be bottled and sold as therapy. The air hums with chatter and clinking glasses, and gulls shout overhead like hecklers kept at bay by wooden owl carvings nailed to the rafters. It’s loud and chaotic and perfect, the kind of place where no one’s watching you, where you can disappear into the noise and just be.
I slide into the chair nearest the railing, and the ocean’s right there—slate green chopped with gold light, boats bobbing like they’re waiting for applause. Wind moves through the open windows, carrying salt and the faint metallic tang of the docks, and I breathe it in deep, trying to memorize it. This moment. This feeling of being here, being part of something instead of watching from the outside.
Eli waves down the waiter before anyone opens a menu. “Everything fried,” he says with the confidence of someone who’s never met a consequence he couldn’t charm his way out of. “We’re conducting a study.”
“On cholesterol?” I ask, falling into the rhythm of this, the easy back-and-forth that is like I’ve been with them way longer than a few days.
“On joy,” he corrects, straight-faced. “We’re going to indulge. Purely in the name of science.”
Cassian leans back in his chair. “You could be the first Omega I’ve met who dies of food poisoning.”
“Then put it on my tombstone,” I tell him, and his laugh is real, unguarded, sliding under my skin and warming something I didn’t realize was cold.
The sound does something to me. Makes me want to chase it. Except I know, it’s dangerous, wanting things from people. Wanting anything, really. But I can’t seem to help it.
Before I start flirting or telling bad jokes to get him and the others to laugh, the chowder arrives steaming, buttery, flecked with thyme, and probably enough cream to stop a heart.
I burn my tongue on the first bite and go back for more because it’s so good. The burn grounds me, distracting from the ache that’s harder to define—the one that has constant residence in my head and whispers that this is temporary, that I shouldn’t get comfortable, that people like me don’t get to keep good things.
Eli debates paprika ratios with the waiter, hands moving like punctuation, emphatic and ridiculous. Cassian joins in halfway through, clearly just to annoy him, and their bickering has the worn rhythm of years, and I’m over here trying to figure out what happens at the end of this trial—and whether they’ll want me to stay.
With my hand shaking, I reach for the breadbasket, and Rowan pushes it closer before my fingers touch it.
No comment, just instinct and helping me.
The gesture is so small it shouldn’t matter. But it does. Because he anticipates what I need before I ask for it. Because in a lifetime of being overlooked, someone’s finally paying attention.
He does it again later—shifting the water pitcher closer, angling the plate of shared appetizers so it’s easier for me to grab. Each time, my awareness of him sharpens, until I’m super conscious of his presence beside me, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he takes up space without apology.
The crust flakes under my thumb, butter slicking my tongue—and I’m not thinking about bread anymore.
His knee bumps mine under the table. Once, like an accident, and then it stays.
My pulse flutters, obviously traitorous. I focus very intently on buttering another slice I don’t need, as if I just concentrate hard enough on this one simple task, I can ignore the lust spreading through me, the way my body’s responding to nothing more than the press of his leg against mine.
My body remembers the last time we were this close: the sharp inhale before that kiss, the way the world narrowed to just the two of us, the desire, the want that hasn’t stopped since, even when I’ve tried to ignore it. The memory lives in my skin, and sitting here beside him and all of them, it’s waking up again, wanting to unfurl in my chest.
I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t let myself imagine that this closeness means anything beyond convenience and proximity. But I can’t seem to stop.
“You okay?” Rowan’s voice is low, private in the noise.
“Just hungry,” I lie, buttering bread that doesn’t need more butter.
His knee stays against mine like an answer he isn’t going to say out loud.
As if sensing that part of Rowan is touching me, Cassian’s shoulder touches me on the other side. I half expect Eli to play footsies with me, but he just leans forward, as if included in our circle without crossing an imaginary boundary. Or he’s letting the Alphas lead and figures three of them touching me right now might just start up my heat or something despite the shot Nexus gave me.
Not that I haven’t thought about that. About what it would be like with all three of them during my heat—if they’d take turns or if they’d want me all at once. The thought makes my face hot and other parts of me hotter, and I shove a piece of bread in my mouth before I can say something stupid. Or ask them. Christ, what is wrong with me?
Eli’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read—something careful, maybe even hopeful. Like he’s waiting to see if I’ll pull away from him the way I’m guessing others have. The thought makes something fierce rise inside me. He’s part of this pack, part of them, and if they want me, that means all of them. Not just the Alphas.
