Chapter 7 Natasha

Damn! Garrett's daughter had started making her way toward me! Oh no!

She took a seat beside Norma Craig, directly across from where I sat.

Damn! Each time she glanced over at me, I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the table.

It still stunned me that I had spent the night with Mylah Willis's father-a man only two years my senior! To be fair, forty-five was considered very young for an Alpha. Garrett had always been incredibly charming, easily passing for someone in his thirties. Ever since he'd let a bit of stubble grow... Just a light shadow, with a small patch under his lip and a thin line along his chin-Garrett had somehow gotten even harder to resist.

Our kind possessed this seemingly eternal youth because we regenerated much faster than humans and aged at a fraction of their pace. To put it simply, our species lived three times longer than any human. In Alpha years, forty-five was still in the prime of life. If anything, it had been Garrett who acted recklessly when he'd gotten a girl pregnant at seventeen.

As expected, when Norma's two cowboys showed up, they wasted no time in shooing Mylah and Lenora away to take their places. That left Mylah and Lenora with no choice but to join me on the opposite side of the table, where two open seats waited beside me.

Lenora, one of the submissives in our group, turned to me just as I furrowed my brows. She probably assumed I was judging their behavior, but in truth, my mind had simply wandered. She went on to mention that Norma, Wyatt, and Darren Paxton had become an official couple, though I had already suspected as much. Norma's scent lingered on both Alphas, and theirs clung to her in return.

After countless twists and turns, Norma finally agreed to start a relationship with the two Alphas who had chased after her for so long. Hmmm... I called them Alphas, but, technically, none of the three had truly awakened as one of us yet. I suspected their alpha genes still needed to be activated by one of the Divine Alphas in their community. Things worked differently in Garrett's pack compared to the traditions in the pack I'd known growing up in Miami. Then again, my father and his biker gang had never cared for rules, so none of it seemed out of the ordinary to me.

I managed a faint smile in Norma's direction, quietly congratulating her.

She had found her Alpha-or rather, her Alphas-just as fate intended. I had found the Alpha destined for me as well, but life didn't always play out the way we hoped.

Now I was left with a deviant Alpha, while the one I truly belonged to had turned into a forbidden subject.

Still, I tried to celebrate Norma's happiness with a smile, even though last night's events weighed heavily on me... especially with what awaited me once I returned to Orlando. If Garrett's scent kept clinging to my skin...

Ugh! I had scrubbed myself clean that morning after our night together, but his scent refused to fade, and I couldn't understand why. I'd even used perfume-a faint mist-just to make sure the other Alphas wouldn't realize what had happened between Garrett and me.

Brent would have killed me if I had ever returned to him and he detected even the slightest trace of Garrett's scent on me. The very first time it happened was on our wedding night. Garrett had asked his cousin for a single dance with the bride... and then, later that night, Brent kept insisting that I reeked of his cousin's scent. That was also the night he struck me for the first time.

He even used his power on me-like a massive, invisible hand crushing my skull from the inside out.

And that faint scent Brent caught on me, whether it was on our wedding night or the times I had stopped by to cook for him, was nothing compared to the intoxicating blend of sandalwood and mint-Garrett's signature fragrance-that had soaked into my skin when I woke up that morning.

The Elusive Mist had always been just a temporary fix. We could only hope Garrett's scent would eventually fade, but he was a Divine Alpha, and their power always lingered longer than the others. Sometimes, the effect could last for weeks.

But what if it never faded at all?

Just imagining it drained the color from my face and set my heart racing.

I knew I could never stand against Luis. He was a deviant, just like every Alpha who had once belonged to my father's pack. And Brent's own pack had wiped them all out. He had admitted it himself-he'd taken responsibility for erasing every single chapter of my father's pack along the east coast. Two of his top lieutenants had been there when he said it, so I knew it hadn't just been empty bragging.

My father and his closest lieutenant had gone into hiding last spring, driven out by Brent and his new associate, who had launched an attack on them without any warning. Now, this new figure in the Italian mafia had taken Pierce Ahmed's place in drug production, and it was Brent's pack that distributed his drugs all along the East Coast. They had even managed to take over all of my father's former clients. His pack had grown even more powerful than my father's ever was in its prime.

In short, I stood no chance against him. With my father's pack erased from existence, I had lost every last bit of support. No one remained to stand in Brent's way if he ever decided to kill me.

On my right, Mylah broke into laughter, poking fun at how her friend Norma had both Sandoval brothers completely under her spell.

Mylah had never been one to back down, even if someone like Luis had threatened her.

I had always admired Garrett's daughter. Mylah's mother had been a real piece of work-what we'd call a jerk-who had gotten involved with a cartel boss in Colombia, and her stepfather had been obsessed with her. But Mylah had escaped when she was sixteen. She left Colombia behind, started over with a new identity, and, years later, brought them all to ruin.

If the entire drug and human trafficking network run by Tobias Oliver had been dismantled in South America, Mylah deserved the credit. She had pulled it off while her alpha gene still lay dormant. Even now, her alpha potential remained untapped. For reasons I still didn't understand, her father had not activated it, even though he had found her three years earlier. Garrett had no excuse anymore- especially now that I knew she was a Divine Alpha. It wasn't as if there were another Divine Alpha who could take on the task.

They had always been the only ones capable of activating an Alpha's supernatural gene.

It amazed me even more, then, that Mylah had managed to accomplish everything she had without ever tapping into her Alpha potential. She had remained stuck, unable to access that side of herself.

Across from me, Norma blushed as red as a tomato when one of her Alphas tried to feed her with a fork in front of everyone, his gaze overflowing with affection. The sight sent a fresh ache through my already wounded heart. That was another experience forever out of reach for me- being doted on by my Alpha.

A bitter laugh escaped me.

If anything, it always felt as though I was the one catering to every whim of my Alpha, not the other way around.

At times, I even felt more like Brent's mother than his Consort.

Guilt struck me at once for feeling so envious of Sam's happiness.

She had endured so much to get to this point. Not only had she survived a terrible accident that left her disabled at seventeen, but she had also spent years imprisoned by Mylah's stepfather. He had tormented and tortured her, trying to punish Mylah for slipping out of his grasp. But Norma had held on. She endured it all and, eventually, found her way out of that nightmare.

Three years had passed, and now Norma was not only walking again, but she had also rebuilt her life-with two Alphas by her side. Both men were hopelessly foolish and soft-hearted.

Looking around the table, I realized they weren't the only happy couple here. We had gathered to celebrate the remarriage of another pair from Garrett's pack- a couple whose Alpha, Cameron, still hadn't awakened his power. Hmmm... Cameron had certainly proved himself, so I couldn't help but wonder what the founders were waiting for before starting his transformation-or his awakening, if that's what they preferred to call it.

Though I didn't belong to Garrett's pack, I considered myself an ally. Since I worked for Garrett, I often overheard him talking about such matters, either on the phone or with his personal bodyguard and assistant, to whom he never kept secrets. I knew that, just before the holidays, their band council had discussed the possibility of activating the gene for several Alphas they believed were finally ready-along with their fated partners. I didn't know who had been chosen, but Cameron might have been included in that group.

I carefully sliced into my crepe and took a bite that tasted especially bitter to me that morning.

Several of my other friends from Orlando's submissive circle had also found love-with dominants, even if they weren't all Alphas. Lenora's and Lesly Harding's husbands didn't truly belong to that category, but they too had discovered their soulmates. Maybe not in the way we Alphas defined it... but love was love, after all.

Seated around the table, everyone was present, accompanied by their loving, attentive husbands who had given them beautiful children. In our group of submissives, only Yvonne Lopez, Clare Glyn, and Erin Chavez had yet to find their match.

Hmmm... but it seemed only a matter of time before they, too, would be surrounded by love.

By all these pairs of destined souls.

As for me, my soulmate would always remain out of reach.

The joyful shouts of children echoed through the dining room. Without my noticing, the space had filled up with young parents and their kids-including Leif Higgins, who now joined his wife, carrying little Tammie Higgins in his arms while Tiana Higgins, her twin, clung to his hand.

"Grandpa!" the little one suddenly cried, eyes sparkling with excitement.