Page 10 of Match (Damselverse #1)

Chapter ten

Halle

“ B ut I insist, Halle,” Dane says as he gently pushes me toward the garage door.

I dig my heels into the ground, shaking my head. “I am already overstaying my welcome. And surely, you have better things to do.”

The big Alpha stops, meeting my gaze. “I don’t. And I told you, I have the next few days off from the firehouse. So now I get to spend all my time with you, Petal.”

Damn. I am running out of excuses.

And he should refrain from calling me Petal. It makes me sound fragile. Like something that can easily burn in a fire.

I am fragile, though. That’s how my Alphas made me. They wanted to destroy my spirit, and they succeeded.

Dane whistles merrily as he takes the wheel of the SUV, and when we pull away from the beautiful cul-de-sac, I gaze up at the packhouse.

Penn watches me from a window. He's out of work, all because of me. He should have every reason to hate me, but sometimes I’m not sure how the Alpha feels about me.

But he doesn’t express a lot of emotion. Not like the golden retriever of an Alpha beside me.

This pack has two golden retrievers: Sabrina and Dane.

“The nesting store has endless supplies you can take your pick from, Halle. Not that I’ve ever been inside.”

I watch him from the corner of my eye. It makes sense, considering how they don’t have an Omega.

So, Pack Hope would have no reason to go inside a nesting store.

Still, there’s no missing the melancholy in Dane’s eyes as he taps the steering wheel. That’s when he catches my gaze and gives me a bright smile. “But not to worry. Because now I get to take you!”

This feels wrong. I already have Alphas.

But it’s not as if they ever took me out nest shopping. They never even gave me a nest.

The nesting store is only a mile away in a large retail park, and as we get out of the car, I hunch my shoulders, wishing I had a baseball cap to hide my face.

I hope I don’t see anyone I know.

“Now, would you look at that,” Dane sighs as he gazes up at the colorful store.

I peer up from under my eyelashes. “Hattie’s Nesting Supplies.”

I hear Hattie is a filthy rich CEO now. To have all that money and not have to depend on any Alphas.

Not that she doesn’t have her fair share of Alphas.

Some Omegas have it all. I am just not one of them.

“Well, come along. We have some nest shopping to do!”

Dane practically skips toward the big warehouse-style store as he runs to the carts, and when he asks if I would like to be pushed inside like a toddler, I decline. I am trying to lay low here, and besides… I am not that small!

The nerve of this Alpha.

We are greeted by a very enthusiastic sales assistant as soon as we step through the automatic doors. “Welcome to Hattie’s Nesting Supplies. How may I help you today?”

The woman is Beta, naturally, but hot, with long dark hair, tanned skin, and a dazzling white smile.

I don’t like how she eyeballs Dane. Those are definitely fuck me eyes.

Yet it’s not as if he is my Alpha. Why should I care whether the pretty sales assistant gives him her bedroom eyes?

Dane barely looks her way as he only has eyes for me, and I shrink in his presence. Especially as I can sense the envious eyes of the Beta.

“Yes. Where do you keep all the blankets?” Dane asks.

Disappointed by his lack of interest, the sales assistant takes the lead, disappearing into the big store. “Right this way, sir."

Soon, we arrive at what I can only describe as a mound of pillows, all just sitting in a pit like a bowl of giant marshmallows, and I resist the urge to jump inside.

I can’t. I am trying to keep a low profile.

The sales assistant proceeds to give us a running commentary on all the different textiles they use at the store, but Dane holds up his palm, keeping that shit-eating grin on me.

“No. That will be all, miss. Thank you.”

The sales assistant looks at me, eyes burning hot with jealousy, then spins away. Once she is out of earshot, Dane whispers to me, “Go on. I know you want to.”

“Want to what?” I ask.

He nods his head at the pillow pit. “Jump onto all the pillows... Come on! We will do it together. No one will notice.”

Startled, I glance around.

No one is around. Well, apart from an elderly Alpha and Omega couple. The old man reaches up and grabs her a fancy blanket from a shelf, wrapping it around her shoulders like a shawl.

How sweet. I want that.

But I never will have it.

“Well?”

I meet Dane’s hazel eyes. He wiggles his brows, and what is wrong with him? Not only is what he’s suggesting highly juvenile, but I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules.

Still, I guess one jump wouldn’t hurt. It does look fun.

I sigh. “Okay.”

“Let’s go!”

He grabs my hand, and now we’re running toward the pile of pillows. Once we’re airborne, I close my eyes, my body becoming weightless for a few moments.

But once we land, a strange sound escapes me.

I laugh.

As I live and breathe…

Dane freezes beside me, and I look across the pillows at him. There’s that wide smile again.

“What?”

“You laughed. That means I was right. You do like it here.”

I roll my eyes, grab a pillow, then whack him across the face. He does the same to me, and without thinking, he pins me down to the pillows.

I perfume in that moment, and what the fuck?

My eyes widen as he leans down and sniffs my neck, and time seems to halt. I am neither here nor there as the Alpha brushes his nose against my pulse, and I’m pretty sure I become weightless again.

His eyes meet mine, and his pupils are round and black as they zero in on me.

What is going on?

“Hey, get out of there!”

We both startle, looking up to find the pretty sales assistant at the rim of the pit with her arms on her hips.

“You’re not supposed to be in there!"

“Well, why make it so enticing?” Dane mutters as he rolls off me, helping me to my feet, and we ascend the ladder toward the floor of the shop again.

We find the disgruntled sales assistant again. Dane shrugs, a sheepish grin on his face. “We’re sorry?”

He doesn’t sound so sure about that.

The sales assistant narrows her eyes. Then she sighs, storming away. She speaks into a comms attached to the collar of her store-branded polo shirt. “It’s fine, Karen. Tell security I’ve dealt with the situation.”

Wow. They even had security on hold to apprehend us. We really are criminals now. Bonnie and Clyde.

“Do you think Karen is her floor manager?” Dane asks, stifling a snort.

“I seriously don’t know,” I reply.

“Well, let’s go before Karen scolds us."

He grabs my hand, and now we rush through the store. All the while, security keeps a close eye on us, and I laugh when I see the size of the Alpha.

He's small compared to Dane.

In the end, Dane filled our cart with an assortment of pillows, blankets, and even plushies.

“Look, it’s a unicorn!” he peeps, poking me in the face with the stuffed unicorn’s horn.

I giggle. “I can see.”

My eyes land on someone behind his shoulder, and I gasp, ducking into the shopping cart as I hide beneath the blankets.

Confused, Dane turns around. I peer through a gap between a toy pink panda’s foot.

It’s her…

Lucia.

Evil incarnate. The devil’s spawn herself.

She was a ‘friend’ of my old pack. My Alphas liked to bring her around just to torment me. Sometimes, they would ‘entertain’ her just for my benefit, and the woman was always loud .

Lucia is a Beta who always wanted to be an Omega, and as you can imagine, she loved every moment of trying to make me jealous.

Yet, I never did get jealous. Not really. Sure, it hurt that they were servicing her instead of me, but better her holes than mine.

My Alphas never touched me. They wanted to keep me wanting. Touch-starved, basically.

No. I needed something more on an emotional level, but my Alphas were too emotionally stunted to give me what I truly wanted.

Still, fuck Lucia, and fuck other-woman drama. I don’t even like it in my books; I always check the triggers.

I remember how Dane only looked at me when that pretty sales assistant was practically drooling in his presence, and I warm up inside.

My Alphas never looked at me like that. As if I were the goddess who holds up the sun in the sky

“Petal?”

“Shh,” I shush Dane.

The Alpha stares at me, puzzled for a moment. Then he shrugs and returns to looking at Lucia.

I hear her annoying, breathy voice next; she’s flirting with Dane. Of course she is. “Excuse me, Alpha, sir. Do you think you could reach up and grab me that candle there.”

“Sure.”

Dane doesn’t even look at her as he grabs her the candle, and the look of pure disappointment on her face will be forever etched in my memory.

Take that, bitch.

When Lucia realizes she isn’t going to grab Dane’s attention, she pouts, then storms off with her candle.

Why is she even shopping here? This is a nesting store.

She doesn’t nest.

As I said—wannabe Omega.

Still, I would trade with her any day

“She’s gone, Petal.”

Finally.

I pop my head out from the plushies, and Dane cocks a brow. “Well, who was she?”

I sigh, climbing out of the cart. He helps me. “She’s no one.”

Dane’s eyes soften. “Someone from your past?”

Yeah, let’s leave it at that. “Yes.”

To my relief, the Alpha doesn’t pry, and now he goes to a checkout to purchase everything in the cart.

And I promise myself that I will pay back every cent one day.