Page 54 of Just One Bite

Chapter Forty-Four

Parker

This is the most food I’ve ever seen. I haven’t eaten all day—except for a rabbit during the shift?

I barely remember picking the fuzz out of my teeth—so I’ve got hotheaded blood simmering out of control, an empty growling stomach, and the nauseous urge to barf any time I look at the food, because Olivia is still anxious.

By mid-dinner, I’m so delirious I’ve resigned to looking at the wall.

Then to Olivia who is across the room with the other hunted.

Her under eyes are dark, and she doesn’t crack a smile once, only the forced pleasant ones when someone compliments her or asks her about herself.

But the girls are being kind to her, and that brings me a little peace.

I’m at a table in the far corner, strategically picked so I could watch over her. There are brass chandeliers in the rafters that cast the room in a warm-yellow glow.

“Are you really not going to eat?” Austin asks me.

The live music starts and the energy in the hall shifts. Some people have already gotten drunk enough to dance. One guy stands up, pitches his napkin on the table, and goes to talk to Olivia. I grit my teeth and grab a few turkey thighs for my plate.

“Owens looks like he might shift,” Garrik says.

All the assholes have gravitated to my table, which is the fucking story of my life. I’m a magnet for them. Most of them are acquaintances I’ve met before in some way or another. A few I used to attend school with in the city. Some are from different universities or different Rage teams.

Gavin would call this “an opportunity for greatness,” but I’m not in the mood to be great. The guy across the room is trying really hard to make Olivia laugh by telling her jokes that aren’t funny. She’s obliging him though with a half-smile and forced chuckle.

“She smells so much like you.” Garrik has been staring at her all day. All of them have.

But Garrik doesn’t hide the fact he wants her. I smell the shift in his scent when he takes a long look and lingers on her bare legs.

“Probably because a few days ago I was dripping out of her.”

His eyebrows raise with that shit-eating smirk, and it does what I want. His attention is back on me as he leans back in his chair and takes a sip of the goblet of wine on the table.

I’m itchy, so I finally take a bite of the cold turkey leg on my plate. “So, yeah, I’d say we’re pretty close.”

“Yep, he’s in love with her,” Austin says. He’s a trust fund kid and a Rage team captain—the only tolerable one.

“She’s in love with him too. That’s easy to tell,” the tall one, Calix, says. He might be the largest man I’ve ever seen. I’ve had to fight him on the ice before. It sucked, but I still won. He’s the reason for a lot of the scars on my back.

“Not a dealbreaker for me.” Garrik’s watching me eat.

“Me either,” Calix says. He’s got one silver eye and the other red.

“Well, it is for me. Am I the only one trying to find a soul mate here?” Austin asks.

“Yes,” the rest of the table says.

They don’t ask me why Olivia and I are both here because they don’t care. The only thing they care about is how to leverage this for themselves.

“A linked mated with those special eyes at The Hunt makes this the most interesting one yet. Way better than last year.” Garrik is back to looking at Olivia.

You’re not guaranteed a mate, and if someone they want gets taken early on—say some billionaire’s daughter—they’ll go home empty-handed.

“I can imagine it now. An heir with those violet and golden eyes. A boy and a girl with that pretty brown hair of hers.”

Oh, this dick is testing me, and so is the other one across the room leaning on the table chatting up my girl.

His words have me going places I’ve never let my mind reach.

Olivia’s eyes reflected back to me in another man’s kids.

I’m not even sure I want kids, but I know for sure I don’t want Olivia to have some other guy’s children.

Especially from this asshole who only wants to mate with her for the recognition. Fuck that.

Garrik twirls his fork, setting his elbow on the table and resting his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you come over and fuck her in my house.”

My teeth crunch on the bone of my turkey leg, and I spit it on the plate. After grabbing another turkey leg, I drop it with a thud. I focus on the smell rolling off the meat to keep me calm.

“How kind of you,” Calix jests.

“Of course, my mark would be on her neck.”

“You’d be a kind man and let him take her out too.”

“Sure, in the clothes I bought her. With my car. With my money.” Garrik licks his teeth.

The whole table snickers, except for Austin. I chew through flesh and lick the bone clean.

“That’s not going to work for me because I want to be the only one fucking her,” another one says.

I scrape my teeth on the bone, focusing on the taste. The tear. The skin peeling and snapping. Opportunity for greatness. Opportunity for greatness. Fucking opportunity for fucking greatness.

“Such a calm alpha,” Calix says.

“I’m not worried. You’re not gonna catch her,” I say.

“You’re forgetting we’re not all legacy Doxlothia sons. Some of us have been fighting since we were young,” Garrik says.

“He’s right. I’m itching for a challenge,” Calix says.

Fuck these assholes. I drop the clean bone on the table, still crunching on the cartilage.

“Finally some good competition, then,” I say, the edges of my vision blurring.

The guy chatting up Olivia’s table has her hand.

I grip the table to keep myself from imploding. The others next to me go silent. She accepts. She fucking accepts, and I physically have to look away because I’m going to lose my shit. Or I’m going to throw up. Or maybe fucking both .

He leans to kiss her hand, and she blinks. I’m on my feet before I realize, crossing the room. Who does this guy think he is—

“Move,” I say to him. That’s as nice as I’m going to get.

“But—”

I move him by simply walking forward. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me in a fight.

I can feel it all. Like my nose was clogged before, and now all these new senses have kicked in.

I take his place by grabbing her hand and moving my other hand to her waist. I’m not as modest as he was.

Something in her scent leaps at my presence.

Relief. Her breathing is easier. Her eyes heavier.

“Was that necessary?”

I grab her hand and rub the remnants of that scent away with my lips.

Garrik and the others watch us from the table. He’s eye-fucking her, and I have a big problem with that, but it can wait.

“You’re lucky I don’t take you into my room and scent you right now.”

Her heart kicks. The scent of her arousal hits me like a freight train, and I don’t think anyone could understand the type of restraint it takes not to get pulled down with it.

“I don’t like people touching what’s mine.”

“I thought you said you were here for someone else?”

“And you believed me? When has there ever been anyone else?”

I’m prickly all over and itchy. So fucking itchy. My voice is rougher than I want it to be.

“You shouldn’t have come.” She sighs.

“Olivia.”

I stop swaying, and she waits for me to speak. We’re still chest to chest.

“I don’t want to be friends anymore.”

Her eyes widen, nostrils flaring, and I see something I’d witnessed in her more sacred space. It’s the same look when she misses a beat in ballet. She’s scared.

“I need more. I need so much more. And I think I’ve made it as clear as I can make it. Of course, I’m here for you. I’m going to win tomorrow, and I’m going to claim you. Is that what scares you?”

The music lifts, and I thread my arm around her waist. Most people dancing are playfully flirting.

There’s a photographer in the corner snapping photos of us.

I hug her tighter, and one inhale of her scent has my body alive with the itch of shifting.

My lips close over my mark on her neck, making the hairs stand up along her skin.

“I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be dancing with you.”

“Then tell me the night we spent together meant nothing. Tell me you didn’t feel what I felt and you truly don’t love me. You don’t have to lie about that. You can tell me now, break my heart.”

Olivia stares at my lips. Her scent is the calmest it’s ever been. She’s leaning into me for support but isn’t saying anything.

“You need to think long and hard about what you really want. Because I’m claiming you tomorrow. That’s a promise. If you really want to run away, this is your last chance.”

She stops dancing and breaks away from me, leaving me in the middle of the dining hall. Garrik’s smile mocks me as she disappears into the lobby.