Tilly
Mybodyswayedto the music as I glanced around the dancefloor. A man dressed in a pair of dark trousers and a white button-down shirt caught my attention. He smiled as he stared back at me. He was the most striking man I’d laid my eyes on tonight. Many dancers stood between us, but it was as though there was no distance at all.
He was tall, head and shoulders above my five-feet five. He had dark blond hair that glistened underneath the lights of the nightclub. His trimmed facial hair highlighted a powerful jaw and perfect lips. His remarkable blue gaze drew my eyes back up to his. Warm, friendly eyes penetrated mine, and I held his harmless gaze with one of my own.
Be a beta.
After we smiled, I looked away. Because as much as my suppressants helped to hide my scent, I couldn’t do anything about the timidness that came with being an omega.
“Let’s dance,” Isla pulled my arm, pointing her drink to the already packed dance floor.
Isla and I liked this club. We could come here, dance and have fun without the fear of being attacked by an alpha. Because this was a beta club, though they didn’t ban alphas or omegas. But it wasn’t the place an omega seeking an alpha would go. Or an alpha seeking his omega. Unless, like me and Isla, they sought a beta for safe, consensual sex.
I lived a beta life, thanks to my mother. Her life as an omega was hard. She needed a pack, and my father refused. Anyway, I didn’t want that life. I saw how my father was. I was unsure if that was because he had no pack. But I knew he wasn’t a sharing type of man. His only love was for two things: my mother and money. Not necessarily in that order. He wasn’t a good man, but I loved him.
My father was forceful and cruel, and my mother was demure and kind, though I come to learn she was stronger than I ever imagined.
My independence was a problem, and very unlike an omega, I didn’t need or want a firm hand to direct me, but that was nature. The way it was supposed to be.
“One sparkling wine!” Isla shouted over the heavy beat of the music an hour later. She held up the wine flute, and I grasped it. “You have an admirer.”
“Probably looking at you,” I said, because Isla normally got the attention.
Unfortunately for Isla, she looked like an omega.
While I was taller but not tall per se, my hair was long and brunette and I had green eyes. She was petite and blonde, sapphire blue eyes with a sharper, longer nose than mine. It made her look model like, while I got the usual cute. It didn’t offend me because it meant when an aggressive alpha came into this club, Isla was often the one that attracted the men.
Luckily, we got turning down alphas to a fine art or at least thought we had. Despite that, so far this club was still the best place for us to be.
“Definitely you.” She dropped her head and canted it in the direction.
I glanced back at the guy, the one I smiled at earlier. He was nice looking, no he was a gorgeous man and normally men that gorgeous tried to pull Isla, not me. I tried to look away, but looked downward instead. My brain must have misfired, because my gaze held fast on the package in the front of his black jeans. I pulled my eyes upward to see he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a muscular frame, and when I glanced upward again, his eyes looked blue and from where I stood they contrasted nicely against his mid-blond unkempt waves. He had a decidedly just-fucked look. I bet there was a lucky bitch had made him look like that.
I gave him a smile of encouragement. Maybe it was time to date again.
The dating scene I stopped when my relationship with James became serious. Serious enough to stop going to the club, serious enough to stop my hook-ups in the club, serious enough—I fell in love.
I took a sip of my drink.
James.
I didn’t know where he went that day. The day he left me to never return.
One year ago.
One year of torment, of fear for his life, and one year for my heart to heal.
“Talk to him, Tills,” Isla said into my ear. “Just talk. You might like him.”
I nodded but didn’t feel a confidence in it. The nightclub was called Freeze, and it was a haven of not only hiding that I was an omega in a world of dangerous alphas, but also for forgetting my past, my worries and my fears. Though, I knew drinking wasn’t the answer, but it helped, if only temporarily. Because I also came for the music, and getting lost in the beat as I swayed to the tunes.
Everything helped.
Perhaps it was time for a fling for the night.
“Okay,” I said and took another sip of dutch courage and sashayed through the dancers, looking directly at his broad back.
I was so close to reaching him when I felt heavy hands grasping at my hips, pulling me back to a hard chest. I jerked away from the act. My adrenaline spiking and making my heartbeat bounce in my chest.
“Relax baby,” he drawled into my ear, his tongue flicking over my neck.
This can’t be happening.
Why do I attract jerks?
“Sorry I’m with someone,” I said, shrugging away, and tried to walk off, but he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me back against his chest.
Isla caught my distressed look and pushed her shoulders back and strode over with long strides, grabbing my arm and pulling me into her. Her hand rested on the back of my head as she plunged her lips into mine.
My fingers pushed into her hair. She smiled as she pulled away.
“Sorry lovely, but she’s mine tonight,” she said and dragged me away from him.
“Shit Isla, you need to stop kissing me,” I said.
“I think it’s these pills, too much testosterone in them, making me all alpha,” she said with a grin and a wink. “But you have the softest lips.”
She curved one arm around my waist and pulled me closer as she glanced over my shoulder. “That guy is watching you again,” she said. “Do you want to go to him?”
I shook my head as her fingers scraped along my spine. I was wearing a backless dress, the index finger smoothing a straight line across my skin. Her hand slapped the cheek of my ass, and she finished with a grasp and dragged me to her as her lips landed on my neck.
I moaned into her touch. Isla and I were true omegas and both highly sexual. But we’d tried a relationship together, and it didn’t work. On paper it should have, but reality wasn’t statistics. So we stuck to pretending.
But we were highly sexual omegas but also fussy with our marks.
Her fingertips dug into my hips and pulled me closer and we danced to the music, moving to the rhythm as the tune played all around us.
“He is still watching. Let’s give him a show,” Isla said. She spun me around, her hand skated around my waist as she pulled me against her. Which was strange because Isla was shorter than me, but as our hips curled together, we moved as one in one languid movement. Her hand meandered up my body and settled over my breast.
“Too much, Isla,” I said with a raspy breath.
She laughed into my back. “You love it,” she said into the shell of my ear.
“Not as much as the people watching,” I said and burst out laughing, holding her hand over my boob.