Page 17 of Match (Damselverse #1)

Chapter seventeen

Penn

T he guilt of my actions takes me to a dead-end bar.

I always bypass this place since I’ve never been the type of Alpha who buries his sorrows in a bottle of beer, but something leads me here tonight.

My Alpha picked up on the stench of stale piss, and it looks like he’s about to get his revenge.

That dried piss motherfucker put his hands on his Omega, after all. Halle still bears the bruises of his transgressions, and now a growl slips from my lips as I kick the doors of the bar wide open.

A myriad of seedy-looking men turn my way as I barge into the bar like a rampaging rhino, only having eyes for one male.

He has his arm wrapped around a hooker, his mouth covered in her tacky red lipstick, but when his eyes find me, the color drains from his face.

“Holy shit…”

I have no idea what he must see in my eyes: I have no idea what the other bar patrons see as they all take a step back. Some even shuffle out of the bar to run off into the night.

But I can’t take my eyes off Dried Piss. An image of him bruising her arm returns, the way his chipped, dirty nails dug into her porcelain skin as a low growl rumbles in my chest.

Dried Piss sees the threat clear as day, and he shoves the hooker into my path, using her as a shield as he scrambles to get away. “Fuck!”

As I thought. A lesser male.

“You,” I rasp. “You hurt my Omega…"

Even the mere utterance of the word hurts. It hurts the further I am away from her, and I swear I will make it up to her when I get back to her.

I will make it up to my whole pack.

Dried Piss tries to push through the crowd, but he only ends up in my path again. Someone shoved him forward, wanting to see a fight.

No one allows him to break away. These degenerates adore displays of violence after all, while I normally abhor them.

I’ve always been a pacifist.

Until I met Halle…

Until this putrid male put his scent on her.

Now I stalk toward him, and lo and behold…he pisses his pants.

Well, that explains the piss scent.

“Please! I never knew she was yours!”

A smirk stretches my lips, and then I catch sight of my reflection behind the bar as I descend on the Beta.

My usually gray eyes glow bright silver, a sign of my awakened Alpha.

“Well, now you do,” I growl, taking slow, deliberate steps toward him. His piss pools at his feet, but I hold my chin high, staring him down.

He's blubbering, and I hear the hooker sighing on my right as she walks out of the bar. It looks like she will have to find some cash elsewhere because this one is mine.

I will ensure he won’t have a dick to fuck hookers with once I’m through with him.

I grab his throat, throwing him across the bar. Booze and glass shatters as he collides with the shelves, but I’m not done.

I jump over the bar, pinning his face into a pool of whiskey and discarded glass as I breathe down his ear.

“That Omega is mine. So, you tell her pack, or whoever it is that you work for, that she is no longer theirs. If they pursue, I will destroy them. Hear me?”

I wrap my hand around his throat to punctuate my point, and he chokes out, “I…I will tell them! Please, don’t kill me…”

My fingers loosen around his throat, and I deliberate on what to do for a moment. I throw a right hook at his cheek, deciding to send him back to Halle’s old pack with a few bruises.

Let them see what happens if they ignore my warnings.

Because I will do so much worse to them.

I throw another punch for good luck just as a siren pulls up outside.

Well, I certainly haven’t been arrested before, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess.

I don’t regret a single moment.

I will gladly go down for murder if it keeps Halle safe. Her bright eyes are all I think about as the cop handcuffs my arms behind my back, throwing me into the back of his car.

Just like a snake, I shed my old skin as I become reborn.

Now I’m an Alpha that fights—fights to protect what is his.