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4

E zra

Cayson bumps my fist behind the curtains, grinning like an idiot. This is just the kind of thing he loves to do. It wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, but when I thought of Faye, I just wanted to do something to make her smile. She doesn’t smile nearly enough, and when she does, it’s breathtaking.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Cayson says beside me, peeking out at Kurt, who is doing an awkward move at the end of the stage.

We could be back in our seats with Faye by now, but we didn't want to miss a moment of this. This is candy for the soul. Something to look back and laugh at in my darker moments.

It’s… a trainwreck.

The women are literally leaning back from the stage. Their combination of disgust and unease is palpable. Kurt truly is the kind of man that any smart woman should stay far away from. He makes their instincts scream that he’s not safe.

It looks like the omegas know what to do around him.

The show closes out when Kurt, still brooding, turns and stalks off the stage and the music is shut off before he’s even stepped into the backstage area. As soon as the lights come back on, I watch through the curtain as Faye gets to her feet, pushing through the crowd to come behind the stage, heading straight for me.

Instantly, my pulse picks up. Faye looks incredible. Her hair is brushed in waves that fall over her shoulders. She’s wearing a green dress covered in little flowers that comes down to her ankles. The material of the gown is light, almost sheer, and there’s a plunging neckline. It’s a casual dress, and yet, it’s not. Something about the way it hugs her body makes me think she could wear it in the middle of a dance floor filled with beautiful women and still steal the breath from every man in the room.

Her hazel eyes meet mine, and her lips curl into a smile. My chest aches at that smile. I swear, when I first met her, I thought this woman might only be capable of feeling terror and sadness, but something’s changing about her. Something I can’t quite put my finger on, but I like it.

“Faye,” I say, immediately taking her and tucking her to my side.

The woman fits me like a glove. Her tiny body is pressed against mine like that’s where she was always meant to be, and her scent washes over me, that of lavender and vanilla. I inhale deeply, instinctually pulling her even closer.

She laughs and runs a hand over the sparkles on my suit, before looking up at me. Something strange tugs in my stomach at the sight of her, so close, carefree and happy. This is how she’s always meant to be. This is why she needs an alpha to protect her.

Hopefully someday she’ll have one who will beat the shit out of Kurt if he even looks in her direction. Someone who won’t be scared of Kurt’s big bad daddy. Even a man like me has to be careful with someone like Kurt. I wouldn’t want him attacking my pack out of anger. I wouldn’t forgive myself for any lives lost because of this asshole.

Not that that fact will stop me from hurting him if he ever comes after Faye again while she’s under my protection.

“How did you like the show?” I ask, watching as she glances off to the right.

Cayson is over there, chatting and flirting with a throng of omegas, who are all talking and petting him—their hands on his suit, his chest, ruffling his hair. It looks like just any other day with Cayson, but Faye hasn’t seen him like this very much. Around her, he’s always laser focused on Faye.

It’s something that’s been a surprise to me. Cayson focused on one girl? Before this, I would’ve thought that was impossible.

I watch Faye closely. Something like jealousy passes over her features, which isn’t good. Faye shouldn’t be jealous of him. It doesn’t matter if Cayson flirts with other omegas, all of this is fake. I hope she’s not forgetting that. Just the thought of Faye actually being hurt when we end this charade makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

“I thought there were some clear standouts,” Faye finally says, tearing her eyes away from Cayson and re-fixing them on me. “You guys obviously stole the show.”

I raise my eyebrows at her, and a sense of understanding passes between us. She’s going to pretend she doesn’t feel jealous, and I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that look on her face just now. It’s just one of the many things we’re pretending about.

“I’m surprised you played along with Cayson like that. I thought you were far too serious for public dancing,” she teases, poking me in the chest.

“I’m not too serious for that,” I say, laughing and nudging her.

It was surprisingly a lot of fun, dancing around on the stage up there with Cayson. As serious as the council, and everyone else, likes to take The Selection, there is something inherently goofy about the whole thing. And Cayson and I were just exploring that.

I mean, we were already a group of alphas in a fashion show. The whole thing was ridiculous.

“Could have fooled me,” she says, reaching up and picking a piece of fuzz from my collar.

It makes my breath catch in my throat, that light touch. The simple act of her caring for me like that, caring about my pack enough to think about something as unexpected as a grant to help us. When was the last time someone did something like that? I think of Katie, and for some reason, I can’t remember if that was something she did. Which is weird. Are my memories of her getting duller?

“You two looked like you’d done that a thousand times before,” she tells me, still smiling.

“Not a fashion show exactly,” I say, glad to be distracted from my thoughts about Katie, “but lots of similar things.”

I think about Cayson and I growing up, thick as thieves, always getting into trouble and causing problems. Nothing crazy, just normal kid stuff, around my duties to my pack. But when I turned thirteen, things changed. My father sat me down and had a talk with me about maturity, being what the pack needs, having a sense of honor. I realized then that my youth as I knew it was over. I was onto a new phase in my life.

After that, Cayson was off without me, getting into trouble and causing problems. He fell in with a bad crowd, making worse decisions and being even less responsible, with me only occasionally joining him for the more PG stuff. It was as if he decided to become exactly what his father always accused him of being.

I like to think before that point I balanced him out, made him rethink some of the riskier choices. We were good for each other.

But that change in responsibility wasn’t the only thing that dulled my spirit. I think of Katie—of that one night that changed everything—and my chest tightens.

I hold onto the feeling, waiting for the flood of grief and guilt to take me, but for the first time since it happened, that complete overwhelm of emotion I expected doesn’t come. I stand there, breathing okay, and thinking of Katie without gasping for air. Some part of me feels like the sharp edges of remembering her are smoothing, the memory less like shattered glass and more like just a normal memory.

“What kinds of things did you guys do together?” Her voice pulls me from the past. “I’m trying to picture the two of you, stern Ezra and goofy Cayson, as kids.”

I clear my throat, thinking about how best to explain this. “Cayson and I used to do crazy stuff all the time, growing up. Like, we once found an old boat on the river, we packed supplies, and we took the boat as far as it would take us. We were gone for three days, and boy, you should’ve seen our dads’ faces when they caught up with us downstream.” I’m grinning at just the memory. “And there was another time that Cayson found his pack’s stock of plastic wrap. That night, we plastic wrapped just about everything in town.”

She laughs, and the sound is magical. “So, what happened? How did you get so serious?” She seems to be genuinely curious.

I don’t know what to say. “I just… I suppose I just stopped having fun.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, studying my face. “Since when?”

I open my mouth, but the words stick. It’s there on my tongue, the truth of it… Katie being the reason I forgot how to have fun. I struggled so much with living without her that I missed out on a lot of happy moments around me. I didn’t want to be happy without Katie.

But it was more than that.

I wanted everyone around me to see how miserable I was without her. To prove that she was my mate, my life partner, and without her, there was no romance, no sparkle, left for my life, even though most of the people around me doubted we were mates. They dismissed it as just a teenage romance, a passing phase, and that hurt. Like me losing her didn’t matter unless she was my true mate. Like it was just expected that when we came to The Selection, we’d find our mates, and our childish romance would be over.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

Her expression says she knows there’s more.

“I can’t…” I say, and I can’t. I’m not ready yet.

“Oh,” Faye says, stepping up on her tiptoes, “your makeup is running.”

I let out a sigh of relief. She isn’t going to make me keep talking. I don’t have to bare this wound just yet. Instead, her soft fingers run over my face, and I have to bite back a groan at her touch. My blood runs hot through my veins, and I take deep breaths to stay in control.

“You look like a girl after the walk of shame,” she says, laughing and reaching into her pocket, pulling out a makeup removal wipe.

She came prepared, and weirdly, something about that turns me on even more.

“I look like a girl after the what ?” I tease her.

“Oh, please,” she says, laughing. “Don’t act like you haven’t sent out plenty of girls after a night of fun.”

“I would never,” I assure her, and when our gazes meet, it’s like there’s a tug between us, some sort of undeniable gravity pulling her into my orbit, and me into hers.

I can’t stop my face from moving, bending down, nearing hers. Her eyes are a mix of fear and determination, anxiety and want, and it’s almost enough to stop me, but then, in a moment that surprises me, Faye tips her chin up and meets my lips with hers.

It’s a slow, exploratory kiss. Like neither of us has completely accepted that we’re kissing. She tastes sweet, of course she tastes just like she smells. Like something good enough to eat. I bring my hands up, thumbs grazing the delicate curve of her jawline as I cup her face gently, feeling as a shiver runs up her back at the feathery touch.

“Uh, excuse me!” Cayson says, his tone low as he sidles up behind Faye and reaches his arms around her, sandwiching her in the middle of us.

Our kiss breaks, and I glare at the other man. Cayson’s only wearing the sparkling pants. He’s free from the rest of the outfit. Faye doesn’t seem to realize it until she glances back at him. I watch as Faye’s eyes dip to his chest. Her gaze turns heated, her pupils dilating, and I want nothing more than to have her look at me that way, too.

“Where’s my kiss?” Cayson asks, his voice coming out an octave lower than normal.

“Cayson…” she says, a warning in her tone.

“Ezra got a kiss,” he challenges.

When Faye turns around to say something, he grabs her hips, turning her in true Cayson fashion. His hand comes around to the back of her head, while his other travels to the small of her back, pinning their hips together. She makes a surprised sound, and his lips descend onto hers. And this kiss… there’s nothing slow or gentle about it.

I have to look away to keep from getting turned on at the scene. Not only do I want to continue watching them, I want to be touching Faye too. I want to make her feel like she’s on fire, begging for me and only me.

You’ve only ever felt something like this once before , a stray thought whispers in my mind. My heart is hammering, and I steer my thoughts away from Katie. Away from the fact that no other woman has turned me on since her. No other woman has even made me want to consider taking her to my bed, but Faye makes all of those feelings rise inside of me.

Except, there’s something different about the way I feel about Faye. Something on a deep instinctual level that I don’t understand. Something that demands that I claim her for my own. This is supposed to be fake, a lie to keep her safe from Kurt, but something inside demands that I truly claim her for my own.

Cayson pulls away from her, burying his head into the crook of her neck and whispering something in her ear. Based on my previous encounters with his moves, I imagine he’s saying something like I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you.

Faye tips her head back, letting him run his teeth and tongue up the tender skin of her throat. I feel my entire body flush with heat. I want her like this, in our bed, doors closed. This is our chance to do things to her that will make her never want to leave our bed.

That’s when I remember that we have an audience. I glance around and freeze. Some alphas and omegas are looking on with amusement. The unaccompanied alphas are staring with far too much interest.

“Cayson,” I say, “dude—PDA.”

When he just keeps running his teeth along her throat and my fucking cock jerks, I give him a little nudge. We don’t need a room full of hard alphas looking at our omega in a sexual light. That can only bring problems our way.

“Yeah, sorry,” Cayson says, pulling back and scrubbing a hand through his hair.

Faye is blinking, looking like she’s trying to remember where she is. And it’s hard to see her like that, because I want to be the one that makes her lose herself. I want to be the one tasting her neck. Fuck, I want to bite her and mark her for all to see.

Frustrated, I drag my gaze from her. Across the room, I see Kurt, a whirlwind of barely suppressed rage bulldozing through the alphas and omegas, the curtain a flimsy barrier against his furious exit. And Brock, the ultima, is watching. For a second, I tense, and then I remember this is a good thing. I can only hope that this little display has shown him that Faye is connected to us, and that he won’t keep pushing her to “explore” her mating bond with Kurt.

Then, we can end this charade. We can… just walk away from Faye.