Chapter 42
Ollie’s POV
I’m not jealous. No. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
If Hugh wants to go out and sleep his way through every available woman in town, it’s none of my business and I couldn’t care less.
The fact that I can’t sleep that night is entirely related. I keep tossing and turning as my wolf Scarlet paces endlessly inside of .my mind.
“This is ridiculous,” I tell her. “We don’t care what
doing, or who. It never bothered us before. Why would it now?”
“He is out there because you rejected him,” Scarlet reminds me. le could be with us right now…”
“After what he and the others did to us? I’m not going them with a ten–foot pole. At least, not as their mate…”
Despite how much I want to avoid them as myself, I can’t. As an Omega, I have limited rights and will need their permission for almost anything. Yet, even if I had been declared a Gamma, I would still be expected to serve them while I lived in this house.
Until I could move out of the pack, I would never be totally free.
I roll over with a grumble, pulling the covers up over my head. I will find sleep tonight, I don’t care what my silly heart says or how much it hurts.
I repeat this mantra in my mind for another hour, before I throw back the covers and begrudgingly rise from the bed.
Maybe Hugh is back by now. It’s been a few hours. If I head over to his room and see that he’s here, then I can go back to sleep and actually find peace today.
That’s the lie I tell myself, as I sneak out of my door and head to the stairs. I exit the stairwell onto Hugh’s floor and know right away from the darkness and the silence that he’s not home.
He doesn’t keep the same hours as the rest of us. In fact, for a while, I thought he might be nocturnal, sometimes gone all night. It seems tonight is going to be another repeat of that experience unless he actually is asleep.
It seems like a longshot, but I decide to check just to be sure.
Keeping my footsteps as light as possible, I creep down the hallway, eventually making it to Hugh’s bedroom. The door is cracked, and there is darkness within.
My heart hammers in my chest, being so close to the place where he sleeps. Where he lives. Where he sometimes brings his lovers to dole pleasure upon them which I am very familiar with.
What would it be like for him to lead me into this bedroom, for him to push me down on his satin sheets and tease me like he did
in the cabin?
I stretch my hand out, touching the wood of the door. Yet, just as I’m about to push it open, a harsh voice barks out a firm
command.
“Stop.”
That wasn’t Hugh’s voice, but Declan’s. The coldness in it sends a shiver all the way down my spine to my toes.
Though he hasn’t touched me, I snap back from the door like I’ve been yanked. Turning toward him, Ip ny back to the wall beside the door. Immediately, he steps into me, crowding me. I straighten my back, pushing against the wall as much as I can,
careful not to touch him.
Declan doesn’t seem to care about that, or maybe he’s enjoying watching me squirm, because he inches closer still. Towering over me, he stares down at me with cold eyes. In the dim light of the hallway, I can see the frozen blizzard in the depths of his blue eyes.
Chapter 42
For a long while, he just stands there staring at me, allowing lils presence to menace me more than his words.
Then, his voice low and clipped, he asks, “What are you doing here?”
+25 BONUS
I could ask him the same question, though he has more reason to be here than I do. The brothers can go wherever they want, whereas I have to explain myself when I want to be somewhere I probably shouldn’t be.