“Fuck.” His hand tightens in mine.
His mother is an Alpha, she runs their family business, just like my Alpha father does ours, and in some ways, she can be even more strict than my father. She can look so sweet and kind and wholesome, that is, until you cross her...
The woman stops in front of us, her Alpha influence almost like a mantle around her and I fight everything in myself to not cower. Yes, she scares me more than my dad does... Probably because I don’t usually end up on the other end of her wrath so openly.
“Spencer, Zachary.” She nods at us. “How good that you could make it tonight.” She’s staying civil. She doesn’t want to cause a bigger scene than we’ve already caused ourselves.
She must be aware of it too, aware of the whispers that our families’ companies are conservative bigoted dens, and openly being hostile towards her own Alpha son and the Alpha son of the other biggest real estate company in the city being in a relationship would not help with that reputation at all. She’s on damage control now.
“Hello, Mother.” Spence puts on his sweetest and most poisonous voice. He’s much more used to her anger, and he’s already the calmer of the two of us, always has been.
“Hello, Alpha Raiden.” I incline my head to her, just a fraction, just enough to be polite.
She tries to step between us, break our linked hands, but we’re not letting go of each other. We can’t, not if we want to show that we’re being serious, but also because letting go means losing our lifeline to safety in this place, in this battle we’re fighting here.
“Have you seen the other rooms in this magnificent house yet? This place is stunning. Imagine living in a place like this with your family. Come on, I should show you around this place. It’s so beautiful.” She tries to step between us again, but once again fails. Her mask slips for a moment, her fury visible to the both of us, but she quickly puts it back in place.
Spence openly glances around, like he’s considering what his mother said. “Oh, no, we’ve not seen it yet.” Spence might be uncomfortable with what we’re doing, but his mum is pissing him off, big time. “We’d love to take a look around, right?” He looks at me, smiling widely, and I nod.
“Yes. We’d love to take a look around.” I lean towards his mother slightly. “Could you show us in the direction of the gardens? We heard they’re beautiful. And we’d love to check them out. There’s nothing better for a family than having a garden where they can shift together, all the space to be their real selves. It’s the best.”
“They... The...” Her eyes grow, but if she doesn’t want more rumours going around, she can’t explode at us out here in the open. She narrows her eyes. “Room to the right, then one more room and then you’ll be able to overlook the gardens.” She keeps her voice measured, in perfect control. She didn’t make it to the top of the family company, even though she was the third Alpha in line, without that perfect control and ability to influence the conversation around her.
“Thank you. We’ll go check them out.” I quickly pull Spence along to where his mother indicated. Cutting this confrontation short is probably the best thing for all parties involved.
The other partygoers quickly step out of the way when we come near. Now the whispers are different. Standing up to Spence’s Alpha mum and not backing down, it definitely makes people think that we’re serious, that this is serious. Ah, well. That’s not bad. The shifter and human communities barely overlap, so it definitely won’t make a difference to the girls who usually hang around us, and it might actually help to get shifter parents to stop bugging us all the time.
The room we step into next is also silent, and when I glance around, I find a face I definitely didn’t expect to find here.
What’s Cyra doing here? Why is she at the party? What?
But before I can get further than that, Spence has already pulled me away to the next room. There are barely any people in here and Spence quickly pulls me along to what looks like a quiet area in one corner, almost hidden behind a big plant.
Once we’re there, he lets my hand go, shaking the tension out of it, and leans back against the wall, closing his eyes, exhaustion openly visible on his face. “Fucking hell. That was scary as shit.”
“I know.” Now it’s over, I almost feel like I’ll start laughing, but if I do that now, Spence is going to seriously hurt me. “I hadn’t planned on your mum seeing that entree.”
“No shit.” He opens his eyes again, grinning. “That was a fucking rush though. I don’t think I’ve ever felt adrenaline like that before.” He takes a couple of deep breaths. “Well, we now know how our ‘openminded’ community would react to two Alphas dating... I guess I’m glad we’re the ones doing this and it’s not someone else.”
The initial rush has left me and I’m much calmer now. “But we’ll have to keep this up. We can’t say ‘just kidding’, that would be...” I look at him and he nods, his eyes guarded, pained.
“Yeah, that would be bad.” He reaches out to me, raising my hand to the light slightly. “Where the hell did you get us these rings at such a short notice?”
“Not saying. A husband has to keep some secrets, especially ones that make their partners smile.” I wink, stepping closer to him, changing subjects. “Do you know who I just spotted?”
He looks at me, slightly confused, but shakes his head.
“Cyra. Cyra is here with two Alphas.”
“What?” His eyes go wide and I can’t help my smile, it’s funny how he reacts to her name. “Where?”
“The room we just came
