Page 53 of Pack Promised

Absolute silence falls with his insult, the angry mob stilling, so either they still have some sense of morals, or they don’t want to miss the rare sight of an alpha losing his head. The telltale click of a hammer being cocked back carries on the breeze, Maddox appearing out of fucking nowhere. I was staring right at Victor and never saw the guy until his gun was pressed to the alpha’s temple.

“Watch your mouth, Alodia. Remember, you were begging for her notice up until five minutes ago, so if there’s anyone here that would sacrifice their family for what they want, it appears to be you.” Maddox’s dark eyes are soulless, expression blank; the face of a man that doesn’t need a reason to pull the trigger and will carry on to do his shopping without wiping off the blood like it’s any other Sunday.

“No ploy at all,” I interject. “Honestly, I’m as surprised as the rest of you.” Turning to Emmy, I give her a ‘what in the actual fuck were you thinking’look before clucking my tongue and shaking my head. “You and your secrets. Always need to cause a stir, don’t you, sister dear?”

Emmy blinks innocently. “I’m simply of the opinion that to be chosen, you need to actually be, you know,chosen. Doesn’t count if you have to buy your bride’s affection. No wonder less and less girls are being born; it’s the only way to escape the entitlement that anyone is owed our incredibly delightful company.”

Malachai tears his gaze away from Maddox and Victor to look at Emmy. “And you’ll live here, I presume?”

She shrugs, palms up as if saying ‘whatcha gonna do?’ “These men have proven that they deserve my respect, so I'll trust them to make the decision for whatever they think is the best course of action in regards to the housing arrangement. I couldn’t care less where we live, I simply want to be mated to people that actually give a damn aboutme.And I think that I actually have a shot at that with these men.”

Her gaze bounces between the six of them. “Though if you only expressed an interest because your alpha demanded it, I’d appreciate you saying something now. No point in going down with the ship if you don’t actually want to be on it.”

None of them say a word, and her grin splits her face, the first genuine smile most of these people have ever seen from her. She seems to shine impossibly brighter in her joy and I witness the very moment something shifts in her future mates’ eyes as they become absolute goners, realizing she may very well be capable of burning away the demons that plague them.

“So, duke it out amongst yourselves and I’ll go pack, sound good?” She waits for any sort of protest, like the gun at Victor’s temple isn’t the only thing keeping everyone here in line. When no objections come, she pivots on her heel, crossing the threshold into the sitting room and leaving us to deal with the fallout of the bomb she dropped.

“Wait.” We all turn to face Gabriel, and her smile falters at his cautious tone, but she stops all the same. “Is the only reason that you chose us because we were the least offensive options and you had always intended to select one from each pack?”

It’s a fair question, though I commend him for being ballsy enough to ask when her answer might very well be a blow he’ll never recover from. She chose well.

“Not at all. I actually planned on picking whatever alpha looked at my brother with a modicum of respect, but like I assumed, none ever did. Plan B was to flip a coin and then kill myself before I ever had to go through with consummating the mating,” she states so flippantly, like it should have been obvious rather than ripping my heart clean out of my chest.

“Then you appeared with that damn epi pen,” she continues with a soft chuckle, shaking her head, “and blew all of my plans out of the water. So since they were already ruined, I started wonderingwhat if.” She tips her head to him respectfully with a teasing lilt to her voice. “What if itwerea perfect world like you mentioned, where none of this was necessary? What would that look like to me?”

Gabriel’s eyes darken. “And what sort of life did you picture?”

She sighs wistfully, closing her eyes and tilting her face towards the sky. “One that felt like drowning.”

Her meaning is lost on me, but not Gabriel, and not Luca who comes to stand beside her, bright blue eyes swimming with something between sympathy and familiarity. “Loving someone so much that you can’t breathe, and still sinking into their embrace, knowing the peace that’s waiting for you on the other side of pain if you’re brave enough to let go.”

She swipes at her watery eyes with a breathy laugh. “See? You get me.” Turning back to Gabriel, she blows him a kiss before heading into the house again, brushing off the heavy moment with a mental flip of a switch. “So no frets. If I wasn’t even going to suffer a life of loveless misery myself, why would I subject you to such a fate? If you don’t feel the same, I’ll be sad, but I’m not going to guilt you into accepting the offer either.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he declares quietly, tracking her every movement.

“No point in packing,” Raiden scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “We all know that everyone’s staying here.” With a mocking gasp of shock, Emmy flutters a hand to her chest that has the man snorting once in amusement.

“I’d have to disagree,” a familiar voice states, my hackles raising.

Scanning the crowd, Adrian appears with a determined glint in his eyes, laser focused on a spot behind me that has a growl rising from my chest that I don’t bother to subdue. After the attention he paid Sabrina at the party, I’d bet my ass that he’s the one that left the drugged food outside of her apartment, likely working with Stonewood in a bid to get us out of the way, searching for any chance to snatch her away from us by messing with our heads. And after the revelation of Bo’s mark? It’d be too much to ask for Emmy to keep everyone distracted from that particular problem any longer than she’s already managed.

Beside him, three men that I don’t recognize stride forward with a level of confidence that has me bracing myself.We’re completely fucked. All alphas, and this crowd will happily jump in to help total strangers over the likes of us.

“Apologies, gentlemen, you’re about five minutes too late. Emmeline’s already chosen her mates, so unless she’s open to adding another-" I cut a look to her to be sure "- you're going to have to leave as disappointed as the rest, I’m afraid.”

“We’re not here for her,” one of the foreign alphas declares, pinning his furious glare on the woman behind me. “We’re here for Sabrina.”

***

To be continued in Pack Poisoned

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