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“We were gonna take Espy to Black Mountain Brasserie,” Cabe starts to answer, only to be cut off by Lincoln.
“Are you courting her?”
The whole group goes silent at his sharp tone, and I literally take a step back, unable to handle the tension suddenly ricocheting between the assembled males.
“Ummm, that’s not really any of your business,” Cabe finally responds, his brow furrowed.
Undeterred, Lincoln swings his gaze to me. “Are they courting you?”
Fuck! What is he playing at??? “Uh, no. Not exactly. I mean, not at all! But—”
“Good. They can’t.”
Mackenzie and I look like a pair of fish with the way our mouths gape open.Did he actually just ...?
“What the fuck, man?” Leo frowns.
“Who the fuck areyouto say—?” Cabe begins, but he’s cut off as Lincoln quickly moves to stand in front of me.
“She’s mine. I’m courting her.”
It’s like I wandered into some sort of crazy, topsy-turvy dream-turned-nightmare.
“Jesus Christ,” Tanner mutters, shaking his head like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.Get in line, bro.
Mackenzie reaches over to hold my hand, and I cling to the tiny shred of support. I hear growling, but I can’t tell which of the alphas it’s coming from.
“You can’t be serious, man,” Mason says, an edge of anger spilling over into his typical calm.
“I’m extremely serious.”
“Dude, are you out of your mind? Espy is mysister. We can’tcourther. That’s sick! That’s—”
“Leo. Calm down, man.” Tanner steps forward to pull my brother back. “How about weallcalm down ...?”
“Calm down!? No way am I going to calm down when my fucking packmate is standing there making some sort of claim on my sister—”
“He can’t just claim her!” Micah butts in, looking pissed. “Espy is a human being.Shegets to decide who courts her!”
The arguing continues, loudly, and looking around I can see we’ve started to gather quite the crowd.
“Ummm, guys?” Mackenzie tries to intervene, but no one seems to hear her.
My heart is beating out of my chest, but no one notices my growing panic.
“We kissed! We-we were going to ask her tonight if—”
Lincoln cuts Mason off, his growl sounding scarier than I’ve ever heard it. Weirdly, instead of it sending me running, I find myself leaning toward him slightly. Like a lunatic.
“It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again,” Lincoln declares, his voice hard as he visibly grits his teeth, his jaw clenching. “I’m not one to kiss and tell, unlikeyou, but if I were—”
“You kissed him?” Cabe breaks in, craning his neck to try to catch my eye. He looks hurt, which makes me want to run to him, to hold him and reassure him everything’s okay. Even though it isn’t.
“Sheperfumedfor me this afternoon,” Lincoln practically barks, and of course that succeeds in shutting everyone up. Again. Micah, Mason, and Cabe look heartbroken. Leo looks stunned, Tanner looks thoughtful, and Mackenzie, stepping into the middle of the group, looks pissed.
“Are you all done?!” she demands, scowling around the circle. For a tiny omega, she manages to pull off fierce pretty well. “This conversation is completely inappropriate. What the hell is the matter with you?”
Without Mackenzie holding my hand, my urge to bolt only grows. Even without knowing much about perfuming, it feels like such a private, intimate thing. For Lincoln to have brought it up out in public like this, in front of my brother, has me completely flushed. In fact, I’ve never felt so red. It’s like my blood has been set to simmer, and my skin feels crazy-sensitive. Almost like I can feel my heart beating along every nerve ending. My breath starts to stutter, and a wave of dizziness crashes over me out of nowhere.
