That’s one.
He virtually ignored Chloe, who wavered between sending him questioning looks and smiling sweetly at Jim, who in turn ignored her in favor of Sarah.
This weird love triangle was beginning to look suspiciously like a rectangle. Gabe wanted Chloe (and Sarah, if the glare he kept steadily on Jim was any indication). Sarah wanted Gabe, Chloe wanted Gabe (and Jim, from the lustful looks she kept sending his way). Jim wanted…Emma? Maybe? The vibe she got off the vet was strange. He watched Emma when he thought she wasn’t looking with a sort of wistful regret, but when he looked at Chloe, he felt guilt, and enough hot lust to melt paint off the space shuttle.
He really needed to get over the fact that Chloe was only twenty-two and just make a move on her.
If
Gabe lets him, that is.
Because despite his glare at Jim he’d seated Chloe next to him with a gentle
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smile he hadn’t bothered to give his mate.
She sighed and took another sip of her margarita.
A love hexagon just doesn’t have the same ring to
it somehow.
She needed a distraction or she was going to wind up with a migraine from all the tension at the table. Luckily it wasn’t hard to be distracted in a restaurant like The Rainforest Café. Every few minutes the “animals” would squeal, squeak, roar or shout. It was hard to hear yourself think, let alone make conversation with someone else, but she and Jim managed it, mostly by leaning into each other and yelling in each others’ ears.
If it wasn’t for Gabe and Chloe glaring at the two of them it would have been a lot of fun.
“I think lover-boy is pissed at me,” Jim shouted discreetly in her ear over the “thunderstorm”. “He looks like he wants to beat me with my own head.”
She giggled, leaning into him. “Wouldn’t that be kinda hard?”
He cupped her cheek, conveniently hiding their mouths from Gabe. “Not if he rips it off first.” His lips touched her ear. “He’d probably have it encased in resin and use it as a bowling ball so the pain would be eternal.”
“I don’t think you’d be feeling much pain in your bowling ball.” She tapped his chin with her finger.
“Now, if he decided to use your hollowed-out balls as castanets?”
He blinked and quickly hid his face against her shoulders. “I’m frightened. Hold me?”
She threw her head back and laughed, ignoring the anger beating at her skin like a living thing, desperate to break through the façade of cheer she held in front of her like a shield. She knew whose anger she was feeling, but she completely ignored her mate in favor of the human sitting next to her. Quite frankly, after months of ignoring Sarah, Gabe deserved to see what it felt like.
Jim’s smile tickled the bite mark Gabe had left behind. “When did you get a hickey, Sarah?”
Her eyes went wide. “Um…”
“Did you burn yourself with curlers or something just to make him jealous?” He leaned back and put his arm around her shoulders, smiling at Gabe. “Gotta love a smart woman, eh, Gabriel?” he shouted across the table.
Gabe smiled back, showing more teeth than should be humanly possible. “Some women are smarter than others, I’ll grant you that.”
Her lashes lowered at the look on his face. She had the feeling that if they’d been in their dream her ass would be burning right now.
“Sarah? I need to speak to you privately.”
She looked up at Gabe and noted the smile had turned into fierce determination. She opened her mouth to reply, not quite sure what she was going to say. Her heart was pounding, partly in fear, partially in anticipation.
Jim interrupted her before she could speak, kissing her cheek. “Are we still going dancing after dinner?”
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She smiled sweetly up at Jim, taking the out he handed her, ruthlessly ignoring the seething man across the table from her. She knew at some point there would be a reckoning, but for now she was going to enjoy the support of her friend. Something about the way Gabe was watching her reminded her of what he’d been training to do for the last several months. “Sounds great!”
Jim picked up her hand and kissed her fingers again. A small shiver went through her, but not because of Jim. The two fingers Gabe tapped against his plate were a warning, and she knew it. Luckily the restaurant’s animated animals chose that moment to begin their screams, distracting Jim from the golden-eyed glare Gabe was sending his way. That had to be giving him a headache. She’d never seen a Puma’s eyes remain gold for so long.
Gabe’s sudden turn-around was startling, and she didn’t quite trust it. He’d spent the better part of two months ignoring her in favor of Chloe, but a couple of hours of Sarah flirting with Jim had him doing a countdown to a spanking? Hah!
The Pride leaders were standing, laughing and joking about dancing the night away over at Universal Studio’s nightclubs. Her plan was to dance and have fun with the blond god next to her. She would deal with the consequences tomorrow. Tonight she had a date with a good friend and a little white pill that guaranteed her a dreamless sleep.
Gabe stood next to one of the many sofas that surrounded the dance floor and watched as his mate shimmied to the music with Jim. Part of him wanted to storm over and cart her off into the sunset.
The other part was stuck listening to Simon and Adrian while he sipped a beer and pretended to listen.
At least she wasn’t dirty dancing with the asshole.
Actually, he couldn’t call what she was doing dancing. She looked like she was having spasms. He hid his grin behind his beer as he watched her happily gyrating to the music. The look on Jim’s face as he watched his partner was priceless. He doubted the man would stay on the dance floor with her for much longer. He at least seemed to know what he was doing. Sarah, on the other hand…
“She looks like someone’s poking her ass with a stick.” Simon cocked his head, watching as Sarah’s body bowed in a way that should have been physically impossible while standing. In fact, Gabe was surprised she
was
still standing.
Adrian shook his head sadly. “What I want to know is, does she thinks she’s actually dancing?”
Simon cocked his head the other way, like he was studying some strange alien life-form and didn’t quite know what to make of it. “That’s dancing? I thought it was some sort of weird religious thing. I know I saw a few of those moves on the Discovery Channel.”
“Yes, but were they done by humans?”
Gabe turned back to his two friends, not surprised to see them smirking at him. “Do I make fun of your mates?”
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“Have any of them given you such a good reason to?” Adrian took a sip of his own beer, his gaze straying over to his pale fiancée. She sat on the sofa behind them, her sensitive eyes carefully shielded from the strobe lights by big white sunglasses. She was laughing and chatting with Becky and Belle. Rick hovered over the women, a small smile on his face as he listened to them chat, his massive arms crossed over his chest, hard, cold eyes softening as they rested on Belle.
“I don’t think any of our mates would be, ah, brave enough to step out onto the dance floor like that,”
Simon laughed, his own gaze straying to Becky’s wild head of curls. The big glass artist’s face was full of happiness.
Gabe rolled his eyes, his attention drifting back to Sarah. Jim was laughing at something Sarah had said or done, but he kept his body at a distance, possibly fearing for his limbs. Gabe was okay with the way they were dancing together…for now. The moment a slow song came on, however, he was going to be on the dance floor. There was only so much he could stomach. Seeing Sarah in another man’s arms was not an option. “I still need to mark her.” And he had to do it before Jim got any closer to Sarah than he already was.
“You should have taken care of that before you left.” Gabe shot Simon a look. The Beta slammed one large hand down on Gabe’s shoulder. “What the hell were you waiting for?”
Gabe grimaced. “The Hunter who trained me told me it would make things a lot more difficult for both of us.” He ran his fingers through his hair wearily. “I’m beginning to think taking his advice was a huge mistake.”
Simon frowned. “Damn. Six months, knowing who your mate was but leaving her unclaimed? The dreams must have been driving you insane. I know they’re what finally made me realize what my Puma had been telling me for months. I just wish I’d acted sooner, before she got hurt.”
Gabe nodded. Simon would probably never forgive himself for not claiming Becky before Livia, the rogue Puma who had tried to make Emma and Becky’s lives hell, had managed to hurt her. “Seeing the hickey I gave her in one of those dreams was surreal. It just solidified for me how big a mistake it was.”
It took him a moment to realize that the two men were staring at him, shock on their faces. “What?”
Adrian was the first to recover. “You bit her in a dream and the mark showed up for real?”
“Hickey. I gave her a hickey.” What would have happened if he
had
marked her in the dream? Would they be going through this now?
“Whatever.” Adrian frowned. “As far as I know, that’s impossible.”
Gabe shrugged. That jived with what Gabe knew, but nevertheless the mark was there. “Obviously not.”
Simon kept watch on the women while Adrian and Gabe chatted, but Gabe could tell they had the Beta’s full attention. The fact that the Alpha and Beta had been made, not born, meant that the two men occasionally ran across some aspect of being a shifter that was still new to them.
And wouldn’t he have loved to be a fly on the wall when Jonathon Friedelinde, the old Alpha, had bitten the two men? He wondered how all of them had handled the inevitable arousal that would have spiked between them. He’d heard the sensation was incredibly intense. He figured their girlfriends must have walked funny for a week afterwards, but no way in hell would he say that out loud where Emma and Becky could hear it considering they’d been dating Livia and Belle at the time.
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Come to think of it, perhaps he shouldn’t mention it in front of Rick, either.
Adrian shrugged. “Well, as far as I know, the mate dreams are just that: dreams. What you do in them has no impact on your mate whatsoever.”
“I know that’s how it normally works, but she knew it was there. She even covered it with her hand.”
Gabe watched as Sarah attempted to twirl and nearly fell on a nearby couple. Jim’s quick hands stopped her from a nasty fall. Gabe grumbled and wondered if he’d actually have to
thank
the asshole.
“Could it have something to do with the fact that she’s the Omega?”
Gabe felt everything in him still. For the third time that night he was stunned. “Excuse me?”
Omega?
She’s the Omega? Since when?
Then something else occurred to him.
But that means…
He turned, glaring at his mate as she danced with Jim.
That means she knows
exactly
how I feel about her being with Jim.
Omegas were the heart of the Pride. Just as the Marshal could feel the physical well-being each Pride member, the Omega could sense their emotional state. Together they allowed the Alpha to zero in on individual problems within the Pride that he might otherwise overlook.
His grin was feral as he caught her eye and held up three fingers.
Oh, baby. That’s three.
He wasn’t surprised to see the hint of wariness on her face before she turned her attention back to her dance partner.
“Yeah. It’s been informally confirmed. We all agreed to hold off on the formal announcement until after you got back from your training.” Simon shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable.
“Really.”
“Gabe.” He turned back to Adrian, who was frowning at him. “You weren’t here. From everything we saw and heard you were pursuing Chloe, not Sarah.”
“What?” His jaw clenched. Sarah had leveled the same accusation at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Simon began ticking things off on his fingers. “The bracelet you gave Chloe for Christmas when you didn’t bother giving Sarah a gift.” Gabe flushed. He had a present for Sarah, he’d just wanted to give it to her in person. “You talk to Chloe almost every day, but don’t call Sarah at all.”
“Sarah stopped answering her phone.” Gabe was becoming pissed. Even the Pride leaders thought he’d betrayed his mate with another woman?
Things were worse than he thought.
“And Chloe constantly talks about you and what you’re doing, while Sarah knows next to nothing.”
He frowned. That wasn’t what he’d intended at all. Chloe was supposed to befriend Sarah, keep her company. When she’d stopped answering the phone he’d become worried about her. And from what Chloe had said Sarah was spending a lot of time with…
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Aw hell. Please tell me that Chloe didn’t deliberately sabotage my relationship with Sarah.
“Christ, what a mess. I have to fix this.”
Simon pointed with his chin towards the dance floor. “Go dance with your woman. Sounds like they’re about to start a slow song.” The big artist winked, grinning. “And with all those bodies dry-humping out there no one will even care if you give your mate a bite, will they?”
Gabe watched as the lights dimmed and Sarah stepped into Jim’s arms. “I think you may be right.”
It was past time to claim what was his.
Sarah knew the moment Gabe stepped up behind her. His heat and masculine scent enveloped her, despite the fact that she was in another man’s arms. He reached around her and tapped Jim’s shoulder.
“May I cut in?”
Jim made a great show of reluctantly letting Sarah go, scowling at Gabe before giving her a light peck on the cheek and stalking away. She almost stopped him, terrified of what Gabe had planned for her. His emotions beat against her back, anger and remorse mixed with a primal need to stake his claim on her.