“Babydoll,” he said. “I certainly hope you try.”
What I wanted to do was grab my tray and leave. But then I saw Amadeus sitting at the staff table. And he was watching us.
Dammit.The last thing I needed was to show that I wasn’t a team player. And no way I’d leave Matt and Mari to this alphahole.
So instead, I embraced Strategy B. Which was to pretend that the jerks at the other end of the table didn’t exist.
Something made considerably more difficult when Aaron singled Mari out. “Are you the one who kept me up all night? You snore like a Basilisk. Someone needs to cork it.”
Mari froze with her forkful halfway to her mouth. Her gaze slid to me. “Do I snore?”
Oh, man.I went for total avoidance. “We all snore,” I said.
Her forehead wrinkled in concern. “I am sorry if I am keeping people awake...”
“It’s fine, Mari. Aaron is just being rude,” I stated, ignoring the glowering beta as I sliced a sausage in two.
“All Dires snore,” Matt interjected helpfully, although his voice remained tense. “The better you howl, the louder you snore.”
I grinned at him and turned my attention to Mari. “So, can you tell me what I’m eating?”
Mari regarded me for a moment before she swallowed and pointed to the fish on her plate.
“Well, this is from my home realm—it’s called a Dinook.”
I only half listened to her reassuring rumble. Across from me, Matt pushed his food around as though he’d lost his appetite, while Darius busied himself with his own breakfast. But his gaze repeatedly slid my way, and he kept inhaling, as though he liked my perfume.
Except I wasn’t wearing any.
Aaron just plain glared at every one of us as he chewed. Each time the alpha’s glowing gaze brushed over me, that dominant energy pushed at my resolve. But I wasn’t a Dire. And be damned if I was going to be ruled by an asshole just because he was born with a certain kind of entitlement.
If he wanted to be leader, he would damn well have to earn the title.
13
Matt
I had lost my appetite. The conflict between my beast and my human had my entire body tied in fuckin’ knots.
I’d met many alphas over the years. None were the posers that Darius was.
I’d always been known as a battler. Nothing had been handed to me on a platter, mostly because I’d not been destined to wear the crown. That fell to my brah.
Alphas were born, not made. They came out of the womb with a dominant energy capable of forcing others to submit. It mostly worked on other Dires, but the strongest could influence other species as well.
I recognized straight off that Darius was a powerful bloke. But the few alphas I knew didn’t have to prove anything. You knew what they were the moment they entered the room, and I had never seen them resort to pushing their power on anyone.
Not that Dires didn’t fall over themselves to submit to my brah, who was stronger than either my father or uncle. But he earned their respect by leading through example. By putting his life on the line for them. He worked the nearly wild cattle right there with them, taking risks, shouldering his share of the load.
I knew right off that Darius was nothing like that. Sensed it in the way he swaggered and threw his energy around.
Unfortunately, it mattered little to my inner beast, who submitted despite my efforts to fight it. And Darius’s energy was strong. Too strong to fight.
Not that I didn’t try. I fought it with everything I had. Because I bloody well hated how he looked at Anna.
Strewth, she was a fighter. She pushed right back, and hard. If she’d been a Dire, she might have given him a run for his money. But she wasn’t. She could never stand against him, and my heart quailed at what it might mean.
My beast would never let me fight Darius. Wouldn’t matter if we were on equal footing, I could clean his clock. That alpha energy would defeat me before we’d even begun.
