h, finally the week is over! Hey Brendon, wanna grab something to drink to celebrate?"
Mark beams. Sam looks like a golden retriever who just heard the word walk with his shiny blonde hair, and those stupidly bright green eyes practically vibrating.
"Maybe another time. I don't really drink."
Mark shrugs, already dragging Sam toward the exit.
"Suit yourself, man!"
I stretch my arms over my head as we spill out of the building, joints popping in protest after a week of solid overtime. God, that hurts. I need to blow off some steam, flex muscles that have been criminally neglected sitting at that desk. Maybe I'll swing by the local fight club tonight. Nothing clears the head like someone actually trying to hit you.
These pleasant thoughts last approximately thirty seconds before they're murdered by a voice coming from the alley beside the office building.
"H-hey — please, not here—"
I slow down.
Why does that voice sound familiar?
"Relax." someone growls. "I can already feel your sweet scent. Your body was made for me."
Right.
Of course.
I could actually throw up. Those words, that tone — it crawls under the skin in a way I can't fully explain.
Here's a thing about betas people forget: our senses aren't wired like an alpha's or an omega's. We can't smell emotions. Can't feel the pull of pheromones the way they do. Meaning we cannot understand certain and very important social cues. Early on I decided that was a deficit worth fixing, so I trained myself to read everything else instead — micro-expressions, shifts in posture, the specific way someone's voice changes when they're afraid versus when they're just performing, how even the slightest change of habit can indicate shift in someone's routine. Now it comes naturally. Second nature.
The upside of not sensing pheromones is that no one can chemically drag me somewhere I don't want to go.
Unlike, apparently, the omega currently backed into that alley.
I exhale slowly. Take a deliberate step in the opposite direction.
Not my kennel. Not my problem. Last thing I need is inserting myself between some omega and the director manager. Because that's who that is — voice like a kicked-over trash can, entitlement baked into every one of his syllables. I would recognize the bastard anywhere. Caleb Miller. Cousin of the CEO, which means untouchable by basically everyone in that building including me.
My feet take another step.
"It's not on purpose—!"
I stop.
Grit my teeth at the pavement.
Keep walking, Brendon.
But I know Luke's voice, the omega in question. We've worked the same floor for two years. I know how he sounds when he's laughing, when he's tired, when he's running from his own heat. I know the exact register his voice drops to when something is genuinely wrong.
That's that register.
This isn't foreplay. Not for him anyway.
I stand there for a second staring at the night sky, which offers me absolutely no guidance.
"I'm really going to regret this, aren't I," I say to no one in particular.
Then I turn around and walk into the dark alley where the sounds are coming from.