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“My apologies. I really embarrassed myself there, didn’t I?” Chase held his palms up in a gesture of peace. “One too many drinks tonight. You know how it goes, Pan. I didn’t realize you were talking abouttheTully Hartlock. We’re old friends, aren’t we, Tully?”

His comment echoed in my ear, accompanied by the phantom feeling of his hands on my body. His breath hot in my ear as he panted.

Such a pathetic, needy omega, aren’t you pretty?

I gripped an arm around my stomach and whimpered at the memory of Chase’s body on mine. The last time I’d seen him and the unraveling of his carefully hidden anger. The way he had flipped a switch.

It simmered now under his skin while he stood in front of me. Lashed at me like a whip, but no one else seemed to notice. Chase cocked his head, reached out and tangled a finger around a lock of Seph’s hair.

Gods, how many times had he done that to me?

“Tully?” Lloyd said.

The four of them pressed in on me. There was comforting warmth to their combined bulk, but it wasn’t enough to stem the nausea that tossed in my stomach. If I didn’t get out of here, I would lose the contents all over Chase’s shiny leather shoes. Maybe I should do it. He deserved it for what he’d done to me.

“Friends is a stretch. Acquaintances, maybe.” My words slipped out, slick with the oily path of guilt, fear, and disgust.

How could he stand in front of me and claim we werefriends? When he’d systematically broken me down and would have continued to do so, if I’d inherited the Hartlock fortune, like everyone thought. Chase’s eye flashed with a sharp warning and my knees wobbled with the sudden need to apologize. He hated when I spoke out of turn, or when I used a tone.

The room narrowed to a pinprick.

Chase laughed, good-natured, like I’d jostled him with a jibe rather than cut him with an insult.

“I suppose that’s true. You kind of dropped off the face of the world for a while there. We all wondered where you were hiding.”

How dare you hide from me?Was the implication.

He was too good at this, and I hated how easily he made me small again. The name Hartlock offered no protection against this alpha. Shivers racked my body, and numbness spread through me in a wave of pins and needles.

“I don’t feel good,” I gasped, mouth gaping like a fish.

My pack didn’t question my sudden change, acting with militant efficiency. Walden pulled me from Pan’s hold and hiked me up into his arms.

“Excuse us,” Walden explained with brisk efficiency.

Chase’s faux sympathy was abhorrent, and he sent me a quick wink as Walden carried me away. I didn’t care that I looked like a baby. I just wanted to be far, far away from Chase. Pan appeared by our side as Walden pushed through a door, reading staff only. We maneuvered through the corridor until we came to a small room with a desk, chair and sagging couch. Walden deposited me on there, which was comfier than it looked. Ajax and Lloyd squeezed in next to me. The latter picked up my hand.

Walden crouched in front of me. The concern in his eyes made me want to collapse all over again. I was ruining their gala. Chase opened a chasm inside of me, one I slapped a bandageon and ignored. Seeing his face again, hearing his thinly veiled threats, catapulted me back into a dark, musty closet. Where I was a puppet and he was the master.

“What’s wrong? Tell me and we’ll make it better.” Walden asked with such seriousness.

It coaxed a watery sigh out of me. His forehead creased, my reaction concerning him deeper. I shook my head and forced my lungs to fill. I was going to pull it together. There was no way I was going to ruin this night. Chase was my past, and there he would stay.

The four men in front of me were here. They wanted me, loud and proud. Chase wouldn’t take any more of my life. I was strong; I was brave. Now I just had to believe it.

I filled my lungs with desperate air. “It’s a bigger crowd than I’m used to being around.”

How to break it to Pan that his bestie was my nightmare?

“Nobody can tell you’re nervous, Tully.” Ajax rubbed my shoulders.

Lloyd didn’t buy my story, pursing his lips and digging deeper. “So, this had nothing to do with Seph Campion? What aren’t you telling us?”

There was a small window, and I stared out at the star-studded slate sky while I considered my answer. An apologetic man poked his head out with a grimace, saving me from answering.

“Mr. Baylark, there is a situation that requires your immediate attention.”

Walden growled under his breath.