Eli extended an arm to her as they walked down the side of the room toward his desk.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t appear to be concerned about being at the center of attention of a bunch of people who looked like they’d just trodden in cow manure. If anything, her smile was warm, her glance just as heated as she looked at me and then Eli.
She drifted from Austin’s arm to Eli’s, and he tucked her in at his side.
Her scent was deeper now, more intense, and I knew that was because she was with us. Knew it and marveled at it. Her essence ripened, growing richer and powerful, until my cock was hard, and the need to claim her was a powerful throb in my blood.
I’d moved from my leaning position against the desk to a standing one when she’d arrived, and the look she gave me, the smile? It made me want to take her in my arms and hold her and kiss her and give her all the affection I’d never had in my life and, sadly enough, that I thought she hadn’t had in hers either.
“Soon,” she breathed, the words whispering into my mind, making me realize she’d spoken them to me and me alone.
I sucked in a sharp breath and clamped down on what I was feeling. I didn’t need to transmit what she inspired in me, not in this den of boors.
So I slouched back against the desk once more, even as Austin moved over to stand at my side.
When she was looking up at him, Eli declared, “Meet your new omega.”
It was shock after shock tonight for these people. For a second, there wasn’t even a single reaction. Not a mouth held agape, no wide eyes, no gasps or sharp exhalations.
Nothing.
Then, almost as one, it started.
The questions as they surged forward and instantly began fawning.
The people who had looked at her like she was less for her unusual coloring, were suddenly all up in her face, wanting to know more, needing to know because of Eli’s declaration.
“Pricks.”
“Agreed,” I muttered back to Austin, and we both received a little snicker of amusement from Sabina, telling us she was on the same page.
Wholeheartedly.
Eli growled when Brandon approached, and his eyes flashed in surprise. “Alpha?”
“I’d back off, buddy,” I warned easily. “You know what it’s like when you’ve just found your mate.” I bared my teeth. “You don’t like other men around her.”
My words caused several frowns.
“But Austin brought her in,” was a frequent and repeated whisper.
“Two points for you,” he retorted smugly.
Conrad, for all he still had a wet patch on the front of his pants, was the first to work it out. “She has more than one mate?”
“Three points!” I retorted.
“Bullseye,” Austin tacked on.
“Enough,” Eli growled. “Mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. We have been granted an omega, my mate is here, at my side, and a pack with a mated alpha is a blessed one.” He sucked in air through his nose like he was finding it hard to stay calm. I empathized. Newly mated males always found it hard to have potential enemies around their females.
Weak enemies or not, they were bound to agitate him. They’d have done the same for me and Austin, but we were used to being agitated by these bastards. Exposure therapy worked sometimes, it seemed.
It didn’t come as any surprise to me that Sabina cuddled into him, pressing her head to his shoulder, and the delicate touch, the tenderness, had Eli sighing, his shoulders drooping like the aggression he was feeling didn’t need to exist anymore because she was there, capable of making everything better.
Her power over him interested me. Everyone knew how strong he was, what he was capable of. Even though he’d made very few new rulings on his own, without his mother’s input for fear of contradicting his father and hurting her, his wolf was beyond strong. To the point where it was a relief for most of the pack that they saw him so infrequently.
Eli had that kind of presence where, in the middle of a crowded room, he could pop up from out of nowhere and instantly, everyone would know where he was without having to turn their heads. Their wolves would sense it, and they’d whine at his presence.
I was impressed, as I’d always been by that. Never scared, never cowered, because I was strong too, but he had something I didn’t—diplomacy.