Page 1 of Bonds and Beasts

Adison

All I see is blue and yellow. The wallpaper stares at me and I stare back, willing it to change, to move, to become something other than itself. Frigid isolation reaches down my throat and pulls at the air in my lungs, stealing it until I can't get anything but tiny, knife-sharp wisps of air. My knees shake as I stumble blindly down the hall, grasping at the wall with the same cursed wallpaper. Cold tile bites into the soles of my feet as the bathroom tilts. The edges of my vision blur.

I yank the mirror off the vanity and it swings open, revealing an entire shelf's worth of pill bottles, all with my name on them. I squint through the haze of my fogged eyesight and grab the bottle I need. My hands shake so hard that it's amazing I manage to get the pills out. I swallow hard around two sips of water. The glass is cool as I clutch it to my chest. The silk robe I'm wearing slips off one shoulder. I lean into the bathroom wall and slide until I'm sitting on the tile, breathing hard. My perfume chokes the small bathroom. The cloying scent of roses, dead on the stem, surrounds me.

An omega whine crawls up my throat, hot and sharp. It's painful to my own ears but I can't stop it. Can't keep it down. My omega claws at my insides. Not the gentle nudging of other omegas. I bleed inside. Every movement feels like a wound. My knees pull up to my chest on the black tile, dim light from the deco wall sconces reflecting around me.

She wants out. But I can never release her.

Bello

Star Harbor hugs Lake Michigan. It’s quaint and reminds me of New England, if New England was a touch darker. Gothically painted Victorians line the neighborhood streets. Red, orange, and yellow leaves rain from trees in yards, painting the whole world in the soft colors of autumn. The main street is lined with converted houses made into storefronts. It’s picturesque. Or it would be, if so many people weren’t holding up signs.

Some are semi-normal, full of the simpering platitudes of fans declaring their love and devotion. Some are a bit more… feral. I sigh as the car we're in slowly makes its way through the crowd.

“Wasn’t Lumi supposed to keep this whole shooting location hush-hush for at least the first few days so we could get some uninterrupted work done?” I ask.

I’m in the backseat of a limousine, gazing at the two leather bench seats facing each other in front of me where the other two members of my pack lounge. The partition between my pack and the driver is closed so we can have some semblance of privacy. I snort. Privacy in our lives is a faint whisper of a dream.

My alpha packmate, Dean, with his perfectly coiffed blonde hair and leather jacket draped casually over his shoulders, leans where the car door and the leather seat meet. His elbow is propped up on the frame as he stares out the window. Across from Dean sits Easton, his disheveled brown hair falling in a perfect flop over his forehead with round glasses framing his face. He’s thin, especially for alpha standards. We each fit our respective, clichéd roles. Dean, the rugged action hero. Easton, the nerdy hot professor. And me?

I catch my reflection in the window. Black hair cascading in waves to my shoulders. Sharp bone structure, pale skin, dark eyes. Always cast as either the dastardly villain or the gothic male lead.

Together, we've starred in some of the biggest pack romance blockbusters in the world. The media had taken to calling us the Beauty Pack early on, and our agent, Lumi, had insisted we keep it for brand recognition.

“You know how the internet is, man. Can't do anything without the fans knowing,” Dean points out.

I sigh again. I suppose that’s true, but we’d done a lot to keep this secret, and somehow, it still managed to get out.

Our car pulls up in front of one of the only hotels in town. It’s packed. Fans are crammed in the entrance and I can only imagine that the lobby is full since they’re waiting outside.

“Goddamnit,” Easton mutters, adjusting the glasses on his face.

I knock on the glass between us and the front seats. It rolls down slowly, revealing two hard faces. The driver is a thick, bald man with a full beard named Larry. The second, Tom, is more wiry and scrappy with shifty eyes.

“See if we can be checked in virtually and if there’s a more discreet entrance we can use,” I say.

Tom nods and rolls the window up.

“How exactly are we supposed to stay away from crazy fans during this shoot?” Dean asks, tapping the window rhythmically with one finger.

“They have a presidential suite. Private elevator access. As long as there’s a back entrance, interactions should be nominal,” Easton explains. He likely looked up the hotel schematics when he found out we were staying here.

The partition to the front rolls down again, and Tom's face appears, looking unhappier than usual. Which says something since the man isn’t typically a ball of sunshine.

“It appears there’s been an error in the booking,” he says in his thick Irish accent.

Dean sits up in his seat, Easton straightens his glasses, and I lean forward slightly.

“What kind of error?”

Dean

“What the fuck do you mean we don’t have a room?” I demand of the nervous hotel manager.

We were brought to a side exit where the emergency alarm had been disabled so we could come in without being noticed. Now we’re in a service corridor and no one looks happy. Tom and Larry stand on either end of the space keeping watch.

The hotel manager, a beta man, stands with a too-loose suit and a clip-on tie, his eyes trained on the floor as if he wished it would swallow him whole. “I do apologize to your pack. It doesn’t appear a reservation was ever made for you.”