Max looks the same direction, slightly frowning, then he looks back at me. “How do you know?”
I can’t help but smile. “I’ve been like that. I’ve done princess parties in the morning and then still had to work at the cafe in the afternoon, without time for a total change of style at home. I always make sure I dress fancy enough to keep the princess style up, but also in ways that are easy to undo for the other shift. Of course, I didn’t attend a party at an estate, but the idea is the same.”
He laughs, a warm and deep sound, setting all my nerves on fire. Fuck, I wish he’d keep doing that. It makes him look a lot less serious, so much softer. And at the same time, I wish he didn’t, because it makes it so hard not to just climb in his arms and hide away from the world for a while.
“You got him to laugh. It’s a miracle.” Liam is back, sliding a tray with snacks onto the table between us. “I also got us something else to drink.” He puts a bottle of water next to it. “This should tide us over until the hour is up.” He sits down on my other side. “What did you say to him to get him to laugh like that?”
Max answers instead, his voice much more at ease. “She was just reading the room. She’s got a great ability to notice things that others might not notice.”
Well, I have to. Not the stuff I just told Max, that was just a well-educated guess. Generally, I have to read people, make quick calculations if they’re human or shifter, and if they’re shifters, if I’d be in danger or not. So it’s not so much a fun skill for me, more something I had to learn quickly to survive in this world.
But none of that matters when Max looks at me like I’m magical, or when Liam smiles, his eyes full of delight. They seem to like the ways in which I’m ‘weird’ or different and it makes me feel a little bad for hiding who I am from them. They make me wish I could be myself, my real self, around them. But that’s not possible, that’s not safe. So I have to play along, play the human, and hide myself, even from them.
Then, the hallway falls quiet, and so does this room.
Shivers run down my spine, what just happened? The whole atmosphere at the party changes. That can’t be good. That definitely can’t be good...
14 Zack
“Zachary Tempest and his...” The man announcing the guests looks at the note I just gave him, frowning, glancing at the both of us, before he seems to almost shrugs as he completes his sentence. “Alpha Zachary Tempest and his companion Alpha Spencer Raiden.”
I couldn’t convince Spence to let them call him my partner or even my date, so companion was the best I could get. Still good enough, especially with how the whole party falls quiet as we step through the doors.
Spence’s hand twitches in mine, his whole body tense, but he’s still got his best smile on, not letting anyone see how nervous he is. I’ve been on my best behaviour all week, like I promised him I would, and now he’s my date to the party, as he promised me.
It’s pretty fun to watch how nobody in the room seems to know how to react to us and for the first time since... Well, I don’t even know since when, since forever probably, we’re not immediately swarmed by desperate parents, trying to pawn off their Omega kids to us, to have us take even a slight glance in their kids’ direction.
I guess that’s another advantage to doing this, to making it look like we’re two Alphas in a relationship, getting at least some semblance of calm at a party that normally has even us exhausted in just a few minutes, on top of course of pissing our parents off and probably pissing many people in this room off too.
The whispers start from nearby and spread through the room like wildfire and I wonder if they think we’re deaf or something, or that they no longer care now we’re supposedly no longer interested in their kids. We can still hear them, they’re right next to us. Whispers of ‘are they joking?’, of ‘this is a poorly planned joke’, of ‘How dare their parents let this happen?’. Or the best one, ‘I’ve always know it, they were weird, they were too close, it was unnatural, they were too much trying to play at being interested in others’.
I knew we’d get pushback, but even though I was aware of some of the things people were saying about us, I had no idea they’d suddenly become so open about their dislike for us. That they could really switch like this, adoring to detesting, so easily. So, so easily. It kind of takes me off-balance for a moment.
But then I catch the furious glare of a certain someone from the other end of the room and I lean to Spence. “Brace yourself. Parental unit incoming.”
“Who?” But as his eyes go over the room, he finds his mother glaring at us as she barges in our direction. “Oh, crap. Way out?” His first instinct is to flee, and I totally agree with him.
I glance around, trying to be inconspicuous about it, but this
