Page 34 of Pack’s Prize

I stood, still and serious, at the door, as the faint sounds of pleasure and the scent of them together bled from behind the door. My eyes roved over the crowd, searching for threats: wolves in the trees, or more likely strange alphas lurking behind the caterer’s table.

Not that that would happen–this wasn’t the old days. But still. My alpha hadn’t seemed to get the memo, not with the way a growl threatened at the back of my throat whenever a guest strayed a bit too close to me.

Then the door was opening behind me, and my knees nearly crumpled as the scent of pure sex swirled from Theo’s office, taking the bulge in my pants fromrock hardtopainful.

Theo stepped out, looking… surprisingly presentable. He hadn’t been wearing a tie, but his jacket was buttoned, his hair only the regular amount of tousled. Looking closer though, his face was flushed, pulse jumping under the skin of his neck, his lips rosy and plump. He was holding the hand of Ava, who appeared from behind the door frame a moment later, and…

“Fucking…fuck,” I said as her eyes met mine. Her pupils were wide and dilated, her dark eyes black pools that reflected my own lust. Her carefully coiffed hair was loose, and as I watched, one delicate strap of her dress escaped from her shoulder, sliding down her upper arm. She caught the fabric at her breast, drawing my eye as the perfect mound moved against her hand. Her other nipple was teasing against the pale fabric, and as I dropped my eyes lower, I saw that her silk dress was slightly crumpled. Whatever she and Theo had been doing in there, it hadn’t been with the dress hanging neatly on a hanger, off to one side.Fuck,I thought again, my vocabulary shot.

Theo reached out and slid it back up her arm to her shoulder, his hands lingering on her blushing skin. He looked from her to me, and smirked.

“You’ll have to wash that mouth out with soap, Eli,” he said, and I levered my jaw closed. Theo leant closer, tilting his head up to whisper in my ear, “if you keep speaking like that.” His breath was sweet like honey.Like her.I nearly came in my pants like a freshly presented pup when I felt his knuckles graze against my fly. I knew he had done it on purpose when he chuckled, so low I knew even Ava couldn’t hear it.

My eyes were closed when he moved back again, but I could feel his smug satisfaction as he murmured, to Ava this time, “Are you ready, darling?”

I forced myself to open my eyes and look at them once again. “If you want to sneak out through the back, I can tell Michael you’re in the car, we can still close early–”

“Oh,mais non,” Theo said, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes.Too innocent.“You want to stay, Ava,n’est-ce pas?Admire the art?”

Her eyes were full of the same twinkling light as Theo’s as she nodded. “I don’t want you to cut your night short on my behalf,” she said, “and we have some time yet before… well. Before I’ll really need to be home. I mean, at your apartment.”

It was home, her home as well as ours, but I kept my mouth shut. It could barely think of anything beyond the fact that Ava wanted to be here, with these people, now, when she was looking so entirely debauched, when she was smelling likethat.

“You’re sure, Ava?” I asked. “We can just as easily go–”

“No,” she said, and stood up straighter. “I’m here tonight to be seen, right? To be your courted omega? What could be more convincing than this?”

She had a point. Still, though…

“Everyone will understand,” I suggested, but Theo cut me off.

“Just because you don’t want to mingle with that log shoved down your trousers doesn’t mean we all have to leave the party early,” he teased, and I scowled. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was being selfish. After all, Michael would be thrilled to show her off like this…

Ava stood on tiptoe on her tall high heels, brushing a kiss against my jaw, then another on the skin above my collar. “Elias,” she whispered, “it’s okay. Thank you,” she said, and then her hand slipped between my jacket and my shirt, wrapping around my waist to tease at my side. “I’ll thank you again, later,” she whispered, pulling away. Her hand left the echo of heat in its wake. “I promise.” One delicate eyebrow raised, and her eyes flickered to my lips and back.

I nodded curtly.

Fine. We could mingle. Schmooze. Whatever.

As long as I could have her all to myself.

And soon.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

Ava

I would have never–never,ever–dared to do anything like this–even remotely–with Roman’s pack.

The instant I had felt my preheat coming on, I’d basically locked myself in my room at the pack’s house, waiting for the heat to start in earnest, wishing and hoping that this time–this time would be different.

That this time, at the other side of my heat, I’d be a claimed omega.

It had never happened.

I hadn’t noticed the symptoms this time around, and then… Now that the foggy feeling that had threatened at the edges of my mind was momentarily cleared, I could hardly believe what I’d done.

WhatTheoand I had done.