Page 207 of All Packed Up

She couldn’t take her eyes off the alphas before her. The alphas that had made her life a living hell. The alphas who’d put so many cruel words in her head she couldn’t differentiate them from her own. She didn’t know what was her and what was the awful remnants from them.

They’d fucked her up. And they didn’t even care.

That was why she couldn’t go back.

Slipping her hand into her pocket, she felt the warm metal of the switch blade she’d snagged from her backpack while she was packing brush her fingers.

She took it out of her pocket and flicked the blade out, passing it to Griffith.

“He thinks his best side is his right side,” she said, staring at Derek. “Thinks the cameras love him. You can start there.”

Grif stared at her, bewildered, as she held the knife out to him. Then, a slow smile started to curl his lips.

“My pleasure.” He turned to the alpha, spoke low, soft, but the bark, the unyielding command made her skin break out in goosebumps. “Don’t move.”

And Derek was still, eyes wide. He couldn’t move because Griffith didn’t allow him to, the knife growing closer and closer to his precious golden skin.

“I’ve never removed an eye before,” Griffith murmured lowly. Wendy couldn’t help the smile that tried to twitch at her lips.

“Darla will appreciate the protein,” she added, and almost lost it as Derek’s eyes widened further.

They’d fall out on their own at this point.

The knife grazed his skin, and Derek hissed out a breath, blending into a low, panic filled groan before he finally broke. “Okay! Okay! Don’t—don’t. We’ll leave,” he pleaded, eyes shifting between alpha and omega. “We promise. Just don’t…”

Tension raced across her skin as Griffith stared down at the pitiful alpha. “Are you lying to me?” he asked, dragging the back of the blade across his cheek in warning.

“N-No. Not lying. We won’t even think about her again, I swear.”

Wendy cocked her head to the side, studying the alpha, but even after so many years with him she could never tell when he was lying. So she used the bond to her advantage, his moment of weakness to prod at the frayed connection between them. He felt it, dragging his wide gaze to hers before snapping his attention back to the alpha with a knife against his face.

Fear, bright and visceral, echoed from him.

Derek cared about his image, how the world perceived him, more than anything in the world. To physically ruin his looks would be the best revenge, because he’d never be the same, just like Wendy would never be the same.

But she was better than them, and Griffith had played along with her for long enough. She placed a hand on his arm, and the cornbread scented alpha looked to her for direction.

Just as Wendy parted her lips to tell the alpha, the rumble of a car filled the empty street, and as one, their attention turned to the Jeep that pulled up to the curb with a screech of rubber.

A tall blond man eased himself out of the passenger seat, much more leisurely than the lean brunette who rocketed himself from the vehicle before it even stopped settling from being thrown in park.

“Nic!” he called out, but faltered when he saw the group of alphas frozen to the spot. His gaze dipped to the knife in Grif’s hand, the bruises on Wendy’s throat, and finally returned to the beta. “What the hell is going on?”

Chapter 46

GRIFFITH

A Jeep pulled up to the curb in a screech of rubber, and Griffith tensed, fearing the Sterling Pack came prepared with backup.

“Nic!” a voice shouted, and a tall, lean, dark-haired hunk by the name of Stellan MacKey hopped out of the vehicle.

He recognized the omega and relaxed as much as he could.

Grif wiped the sweat away from his forehead. It wasn’t easy barking such an intense command, let alone at alphas. Four of them, at that.

He collapsed the switchblade before handing it back to Wendy.

Nic has good taste, he thought as the rare omega professional boxer walked right past the stone still alphas.