Chapter 1: Chapter One

Maybe pouting wasn’t the most mature choice, but Emily could think of no better reaction when faced with her three new—and far too hot to be fair—alpha bodyguards.

Her father had discovered she’d been skipping out on her last protection detail. Not that it had been the first time she’d taken her security less than seriously. Men were easy to manipulate and convince to do whatever she wanted. It hadn’t taken more than a week or two of work for her before a new bodyguard would start turning a blind eye to whatever she wanted. Not to mention, getting her way had never been hard, not with her classical good looks. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a figure she spent plenty of hours of cardio keeping slim meant it didn’t take much to tempt men.

Besides, her father hovered over her as though she were still a child. As an alpha, he couldn’t help it, but that didn’t mean she’d just put up with it. He’d been overprotective all her life, ever since her mother had been murdered when Emily had hardly been old enough to walk. Why should Emily suffer just because her mother had ended up the target of some deranged alpha?

Life as an omega had enough problems without factoring in a father who wouldn’t let her go to the store alone.

“Miss Pitch,” Levi, the head bodyguard, said with that professional, distant politeness she loathed as he gestured toward the waiting limo. He was dressed in one of the all-black suits that seemed obligatory in his line of work. Not that she’d complain with how he filled out that suit. Levi had that no-nonsense attitude, paired with dark green eyes and dark hair. His stern expression was the sort of thing that could melt panties, at least if he hadn’t been such a buzz kill. Still, it made her want to see how far she could press him before she got a reaction.

Emily scowled, lifted her chin and walked ahead with the haughty “I’m better than you” attitude she’d learned at an early age. Arguing any more now wouldn’t do a thing.

She’d argued for hours with her father when he’d told her about the additional security and it hadn’t changed anything. It hadn’t been the first time they’d had this fight, and it wouldn’t be the last. Because she was his only child, her father liked to keep her wrapped up and away from any potential danger, and Emily? She liked pushing her luck.

Maddox moved in front of her to open the door, which put her beside the very large alpha. He’d unnerved her more than the other two from the moment she’d first seen him, when he’d stood, his height having to be six-four at least. Add to that a shaved head, serious eyes and the broadest chest she’d ever seen, and it was no wonder she’d taken an automatic step backward.

The third alpha, Grant, lacked the outwardly vicious edges of the others. Instead, he smiled like a lure, like the prettiest, most tempting trap in the world. Eyes so dark a brown they were nearly black had peered at her, coaxing her to fall into them, and all of it wrapped up in flawless dark skin.

Were all alphas so tempting, or was it just those three? Or, maybe her lack of exposure meant any alpha at all would draw her in.

As an unclaimed omega, Emily had plenty of eyes on her. No shortage of alphas would have loved a shot at her, since the possibility of mating into the Pitch family would tempt even saints. Money, power, prestige—her bloodline could offer them all to the lucky alpha who landed her as a mate. Her father knew that fact well, which meant his protection kept her both safe and away from any alphas.

Emily slid in and to the front of the limo, as far as she could away from them. Levi, Grant and Maddox got in afterward, showing no reaction to her distance. Maddox and Grant had their focus moving from place to place, not darting but a slow perusal. Neither appeared worried, just alert. Meanwhile, Levi had his gaze pinned to his phone, his finger scrolling through whatever he read on his screen.

“I have spin class tonight.” Emily crossed her arms and leaned back in the seat. Being ignored never failed to make her want to act out.

Levi lifted his gaze from his phone, a bored expression across his features. “I think we can miss that. The threat against you is credible, and tomorrow we will take you to the airport. At that point—”

“I’ll be safe again. Right. Since you’re new, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m never safe. After this, Dad will come up with another reason why I’m in danger, another reason why I need an escort.” She threw the words out there like bait, waiting for one of the alphas to respond.

That was how it worked. Throw out tiny barbs, little complaints, and play up the “poor girl who just needs a little help” card. One of the alphas would tell her it wasn’t so bad, and she’d squeeze out a few tears about how hard it was to be trapped all the time, how she just needed a little freedom, and before she knew it, she’d be off to spin class.

Instead, Levi cocked a dark eyebrow before dismissing her and returning to his phone as if she hadn’t spoken.

The gall… Emily’s mouth dropped open. She was the only daughter of business mogul Samson Pitch. She was a damn legend. She had mating requests from no less than fifty different alphas, and those were just the ones who had passed the first level of rejections. How dare some hired help ignore her like she were a petulant kid?

“This is all just overreacting,” she pressed, wanting him to engage.

Levi placed his phone on his thigh, then set his arm over the back of the seat, finally giving her his full attention. “The threat against you is serious enough for your father to have hired us. You’ve had too many close calls, recently.”

“It’s not the first time someone has threatened me. It wasn’t the first time my house security was tampered with, or the first time someone thought they could make a few quick bucks by planning to abduct me. You know what, though? Nothing has ever actually happened.”

“And it won’t happen this time, either.” Levi leveled her with a steady gaze, and Emily saw that his eyes were green. Not a light green, but an emerald that didn’t seem to fit with his all-work, stick-up-the-ass personality. Eyes like those belonged on writers who recited sweet-but-terrible poetry on the beach. They certainly did not fit on an alpha like Levi.

Worse than those eyes, though? The thing Emily tried her hardest to ignore? The alphas smelled good. No, not just good—they smelled delicious. The scent of all three filled the limo, which suddenly didn’t seem nearly large enough. Emily had spent so little time around alphas, she’d never gotten such a powerful whiff of that heavenly scent. She’d had no idea that the potent, masculine smell would have her body reacting, her pussy growing wet without any help from her at all.

So they smell good. So what? They’re still assholes. Pizza smells divine, but I’m not about to fuck it.

“Come on. You can’t uproot my whole life just because of one little threat.” She tried to ignore the effect the small space was having on her, the way her panties had dampened.

Maddox snorted, his gaze out of the window as though he wasn’t listening. Still, his curled lips said he’d heard every word.

Grant answered. “Don’t tell me that works with the betas?”

“It must, given they did such a terrible job with her protection,” Levi said. “Hard to believe some batted eyelashes could sway someone.”

Batted eyelashes? Emily sat up straight, feeling the need to defend her skills, skills which went far beyond just some fluttering lashes.

“Betas are easier to manipulate,” Levi continued. “They are often looking to prove themselves, and a pretty, bratty omega can get whatever she wants from them.”

“She does seem like a brat, doesn’t she? Saw that a mile away when we got her files,” Grant said.

“Excuse me,” Emily interrupted, “but you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Levi looked in her direction. “So you haven’t been manipulating your bodyguards? You haven’t been slipping your security details when they can’t be manipulated? You haven’t been sleeping with them?”

The last accusation hit her the hardest, like a punch to the gut.

She hadn’t thought anyone knew about that, at least no one but her father, and he only had suspicions.

I won’t feel guilty about it. I have to spend all my time with these bodyguards. I’m never allowed to meet anyone else. Fuck him for trying to make me feel bad for having sex with the only men I’m around. Even as she told herself all the reasons why she shouldn’t worry…she did.

Men wanted her for what she could give them, for what a future mating with her could do for them. It meant all those alphas her father had approved, the ones who sent expensive gifts, were the enemy at best. Sleeping with her bodyguards was her fuck you to expectations. Even if no one else knew, each was her own little rebellion that made her feel more in control of a life she had no real control over.

“You don’t know anything,” Emily repeated.

“Of course, Miss Pitch.” Levi maintained the uninterested tone which implied he didn’t care who she had slept with or why, though in the same breath, he managed to call her a liar. “We will go to your residence for the evening. No spin class, no stops. Maddox can pick up food for us should you have nothing to eat at your home. Tomorrow, you will pack, and we will go to the airstrip. Your plane leaves at four tomorrow afternoon. We’ll transfer your protection to the team who will go with you to Europe.”

Her father had already said the move was temporary. She’d spend the summer there while those her father had hired worked to ferret out the danger to her. Her father had promised she could come home by winter, that he’d have everything settled.

“So I only have to put up with you for twenty-four hours?”

Grant released a laugh, sitting back. “So, the stories of your brattiness are pretty much on point.”

Levi shot him a hard look before returning his gaze to Emily. “Yes. In only twenty-four hours, you will be someone else’s problem.”

Emily opened her mouth to say something back, something sharp, and to remind them they were not at all on the same level. Instead, a crash silenced her.

As soon as it happened, Levi was beside her, his large, strong hand grasping the back of her neck and pressing her face down near her knees. The limo swerved, but nothing could shake Levi’s solid grip.

Another sound, so loud it made her ears ring, filled the space along with something raining down on her. It took a moment for her to realize it was glass.

The alphas shouted, but her ears couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in her ears. The limo swerved and shook, like it had gone off the road, and Levi yanked her seatbelt on, managing to hook it before the loud snap of twisting metal filled the limo and everything went black.

* * * *

Emily shoved at the hands that roamed over her body, slapping them away. She hated when men got all cuddly the next morning, usually looking for a quickie before she kicked them out of bed. Not that she minded quickies, but she really hated mornings. The last thing she needed was to be bothered by morning breath or morning wood.

“I don’t care if you have blue balls. Get out of my bed,” she muttered, trying to roll over and go back to blessed sleep.

Except as she rolled, something hard jabbed into her hip—far harder than anything on a man would be, no matter what they claimed—and she was forced to open her eyes.

Grant knelt beside her, his hands moving over her shoulders then her ribs. He lifted them to her cheeks and stared into her eyes. He looked almost sweet, with the way his fingers slipped along her skull and the back of her neck, with his eyes so dark, they were nearly black. “How’s your head, brat?”

All those feelings of almost-fondness disappeared when his words registered. She knocked his hands aside and pushed herself upright. “What the hell happened?”

“We were attacked.” Levi’s voice drew her attention to the left, where he sat on a rock beside a pile of items he was sifting through. He spoke without looking her way. “An ambush was set up on the bridge, a tack strip to force the limo to stop. Once our driver was killed, another vehicle pushed the limo off the road. Neither vehicle was drivable.”

“What happened to the people in the other car?”

Levi lifted an eyebrow as though the question were stupid. I guess it is. If we’re alive, they’re not, right?

“Aren’t you supposed to prevent this exact sort of thing from happening?”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Levi tucked the items he’d separated into the backpack. A small first-aid kit. A knife. Bullets. Rope. More items she couldn’t place. Funny how, even with his disheveled suit, his dark brown hair still seemed perfect, the gel holding it in place.

“Alive? Barely.”

Grant caught her chin, bringing her gaze back to him. “You’re going to need to start listening, because this is serious.”

“So call Dad. He’ll send another team to pick us up.”

“We can’t call your father, not until I’m sure you’re somewhere safe. The people who set this up are probably waiting for the chance to strike again.” Levi pulled his bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” Emily gestured to the massive amounts of nothingness around her. “Go where? We are stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

“No. Where we are is far too close to where the limo crashed and where whoever set this up last checked in. Where we need to be is as far away from here as possible.”

“And how are we getting there? Because it doesn’t sound like the limo is going anywhere.”

Grant chuckled and flicked her thigh hard enough that the spot stung. “These legs aren’t just for tempting men, brat. Did you know they can actually be used for getting from place to place?”

Emily ensured her face said “asshole” in a way her proper upbringing didn’t allow her mouth to.

“Feisty,” he all but purred, as if the more she scowled, the more turned on he got. Not that she couldn’t smell it. Excited alpha was even better than regular old run-of-the-mill alpha, it turned out.

Standing was enough for her to realize, yeah, she had been in a car accident. Her hip ached, her side hurt and her shoulder was not at all into the whole moving thing.

Levi was in front of her before she got the chance to do much, his fingers finding the front of her button-up shirt and pulling it to the side. He offered a soft tsk of his tongue as he stroked a tender spot. “You’ll bruise.”

“Some job you’ve done, then.”

His dark eyebrow cocked again, that subtle shift that said he wouldn’t rise to her insult. “I doubt it’s the first time you’ve gotten bruises from a bodyguard of yours.”

His statement was innocent on the surface, yet the way he said it made her mind tumble right down the rabbit hole. She pictured her time with the other bodyguards. Olin, who had been sweet—her first—and far too gentle. Brandon, the one who only managed quickies because he was always too afraid of getting caught. Others had been less serious, just kissing, some groping, maybe a blow job when she was particularly lonely. Garret, her most recent, stuck with her the most. She’d thought, for a split second, there might have been a future there. He’d been angrier about losing his job than about her, though, and she hadn’t bothered to return his many calls.

“No, they haven’t,” she bit out, trying to hide the nerves and lust the question had brought up.

“Well, that explains why you’ve been such a handful, doesn’t it?” Levi leaned closer to answer, taking a low drag of breath in, as though he were smelling her.

Then again…he probably was. Alphas weren’t betas. Scent and pheromones drove alphas, just like they did her. Beta lovers were one thing, but even in the less-than-an-hour of time she’d spent with Levi, she’d started to fear her father had been right.

Putting omegas and alphas together for any length of time was a bad idea.

“Maybe if one of them had left a few marks, you might not be as troublesome as you are,” Levi pushed.

Emily pulled in a shuddering breath, her heart racing as the images bombarded her. What sorts of marks did he mean? She sure as hell didn’t get the sense he was talking about anything she wouldn’t damn well like, and right then? Her body was on board for whatever he wanted to try.

Still, the part of her that had grown up with anything she wanted, with all the power and no real rules, rebelled against him telling her anything.

So Emily did what she did best. She pulled her shoulders back, hiked her chin up and spoke as though she were addressing someone so far below her station that they hardly warranted her attention. “Or perhaps they were just a lot better at doing their job than you are. Now that you’ve managed to destroy my vehicle and get me stranded, where should we go?”

His gaze narrowed, even as Grant’s laughter from behind them said he had watched it all.

Levi nodded toward where Maddox appeared from the tree line. “This way, Miss Pitch.”

The way he rumbled out her name made her body heat, but she took a step the way he mentioned, unwilling to let him see it.

Fuck him. She sighed. If only.