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Fifty percent would run screaming at the first glimpse. The other half couldn’t handle it either, but their enthusiasm to try was fun, not that I partook of the opportunities often. To me, they were wealthy patrons about to get frivolous in my club.

“Don’t talk about them like that, arsehole,” I muttered.

“Willing participants?” he asked with an overly innocent expression on his face.

“Better,” I agreed.

The dick laughed. He knew about my hang-ups.

They’re not the same as omegas , I told myself. These are betas, and they rule the fucking world.

Maybe not Desparion, but everything beyond the metal fence was the dominion of their kind. I’d lived outside once, and it wasn’t as pretty as the commercials would have you believe.

“You’re growling,” Ryder said way too casually.

“I’m good,” I said, letting the memories fade into nothing, which was where they deserved to stay.

I didn’t need to go back there, to being a small, unrevealed kid, powerless as they…

When I became an alpha, I’d learnt how to fight and had dedicated myself to making a place for me and my sister.

Ella was safe now, and I made sure she stayed that way.

If she wanted to be with a man, beta or alpha, it was on her terms.

“You’re still growling,” Ryder said as a couple of alphas approached to take over watching the gate.

I huffed out a breath. “I know. I’ll deal with it.”

“You need to get laid,” he said, smirking now.

I chuckled, feeling the last of my tension fade.

The arsehole was probably right. I didn’t usually partake of the party crowd, but there was one little morsel that was making me wish I could make an exception.

Tiny little thing, trying to pry her eyes off me and failing as she walked by.

She’d caressed every inch of me with her gaze, and I hadn’t missed that tell-tale swallow.

I’d known what she was thinking, what she’d wanted, and for once, I’d felt the need to give it to her, staring long past the point of being polite.

The bloke with her, he didn’t seem to be hers, looking at me with a much more blatant hunger.

Omega , the beast inside me rumbled.

I shook my head. No omega would willingly enter alpha turf. They were carted off and sold by the Dawn Agency, not waltzed in through the gate to get their drink on.

Several of my men ambled up to take over at the gate. We nodded to our replacements and started walking back toward the club.

“So, Miss Prim…” Ryder trailed off, eyeing the same woman I had, then he launched into a full-on snicker when I punched the bastard in the arm.

“Off limits,” I said, not bothering with pretences.

“Yeah,” he replied, still wearing a shit-eating grin. “That one’s a screamer of the unenthusiastic variety.”

He was probably right on that as well.

Our club , the beast said in a low purr of satisfaction as the uptight little beta and her party walked inside our bar, Inked. Smart choice on her part. I didn’t tolerate bullshit or alphas making unwelcome advances on my turf.

Fuck no.

That didn’t mean I was green. I’d been with enough betas to know how to coax the right woman into the throes of pleasure. All it needed was time and patience.

And lube—a fuck ton of lube.

She was interested. Alphas were instinctual creatures, and we knew the signs of an opportunity, as Ryder referred to them, and how they were susceptible to alpha pull.

I wasn’t going there, though, not tonight and not with her.

She was in my club now, vulnerable. I wanted to frog-march her right back out of the gate so that she’d be safe.

Ryder’s assessment was like the proclamation of my doom.

“She’s still off limits,” I said because she was, and I was determined the purse clutching beta would be returning home without a scratch on her. If I wasn’t tapping that, then no one else was either.

* * *

Sloane

I steered us into a nearby bar, but that was a mistake, though finally agreeing to Em’s demands to visit Desparion was probably the first one. We walked up the steps into a darkened space broken by spots of artificial light, the place not yet packed.

“Damn your cockblocking, Sloane,” Jude grumbled as he sat down at a stool by the bar, the girls doing the same. A bartender—beta, by the look of it—slid our way and took my order with a nod, along with my credit card. “Three alphas on the prowl. Three! Can you imagine?—?”

“Oh, we could imagine,” Jewel said, then sighed. “They’re so big and hot. Do you think they’re proportionate?”

“Of course they are,” Em insisted. “That video we saw of those two alphas and…” She grinned nervously, remembering where she was and whom she was with. “You can’t cater to needy omegas with a pencil dick.”

“Omegas,” Jewel said, sighing. “It must be freaking amazing to be completely overwhelmed and swept up by feelings and instincts so big, you’re helpless to do anything but submit.”

“Shut up,” Jude exclaimed with a groan, rearranging his junk in his jeans. “I think I cried for two days straight when I revealed as a beta. I would’ve made a brilliant omega—being treasured, maintaining a beautiful nest, plus the harem of burly alphas gagging to take me over and over…”

“Shut up,” I said, but not harshly, as I pushed his bottle of beer over, handing the girls their drinks. From our left, a great squeal went up, and the next instalment of Emma’s entourage entered the club.

The drinks came right back to me.

“Hold these,” Em ordered before throwing her arms around the necks of the newcomers, and more enthusiastic dancing and squealing ensued. A hairband with sequinned cat ears emerged from one girl’s bag and was placed on Emma’s head to another cheer.

They all started to gravitate towards the dance floor, and with them came the alphas.

They formed a ring around it, watching the beta men and women throw themselves around to the music with practised abandon.

I could almost hear David Attenborough narrating a documentary about the mating habits of betas and alphas in the background.

“Em…”

But she was gone, throwing her arms up in the air, wiggling her hips in time with the thumping bass, the other girls doing much the same beside her.

“I take it you’re going to stake out this particular part of the bar, as per usual?” Jude asked, nursing his beer.

“I don’t dance, you know that. I’ve got?—”

“Two left feet, I know—I’ve seen you in action often enough. For someone who seems to have it all together, I’ve not met anyone that damn clumsy.”

I shrugged, sipping the vodka. It hadn’t always been this way.

Before puberty, I’d been perfectly capable of participating in the gymnastic program, taking dance classes, and performing all the little rituals a growing beta was required to with grace and poise, but then my body began to change.

My feet became obstacles rather than natural parts of my limbs, my constant stumbling, knocking into things, tipping things over driving my extremely well put together mother mad.

I took a big mouthful of my drink at that memory.

“Go,” I said, waving to the dance floor, my eyes on the way the men began to cluster around my sister and her friends. “I know I’m boring?—”

“Not boring, love.” Jude swept in, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

“Just…overburdened with responsibilities.” He grabbed my hand, clasping it to his chest in an exaggerated fashion.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow, but…” His eyes slid sideways, and mine followed them, making him smile and me stiffen on my stool.

“Looks like Daddy’s here to stake his claim. ”

The doorway filled with a familiar figure—the guy from the gate.

Dark hair that needed a cut was raked back with a big, broad hand, the tattoos over his arms and shoulders showing up in the flashes of bright light as he passed under the bulbs, the white tank top he wore stretched tight over his chest, serving only to emphasise the acres of rippling muscle there.

Those dark eyes cut through the place, making me shrink back against the bar, even though I knew it wasn’t me he was searching for.

He probably worked here, or he conducted business in one of the notorious backrooms and was here to carry out whatever shady deals passed for legitimate enterprise in the zone.

“Ohh, you’re gonna get it,” Jude said when the alpha’s eyes locked with mine, a small smile forming—a carnivorous one. Something that was only emphasised when the alpha came strolling over with the slow, confident prowl of a predator. “Well, toodles!”

He knew exactly what he was doing, my so-called best friend. Jude’s fingers trailed through mine, making it clear I could escape with him, out onto the dance floor.

Or I could stay.

I twisted on my stool, unable to find a comfortable position, my thighs trembling with the need to follow Jude or to lock me down tight on the seat.

He’s not coming over here , I told myself furiously, forcing my eyes to study the dance floor like it was me that was the scientist, studying the mating rituals of young betas. You are entirely too ordinary and too boring to be the focus of any alpha.

I watched the alphas on the edges of the dance floor move in, arrowing in on their choices, separating the man or woman from the herd, taking them down with surgical precision.

And the betas? They responded to all that alpha allure, turning like flowers towards the sun, their steps faltering, their smiles fading, their bodies going soft, compliant, then wrapping themselves around their alpha, like a vine would a boulder. That wasn’t my fate. There was no way.

I spent so much time not seeing him that I didn’t even notice them when they approached.

“Hello, sweetheart.”