Chapter 2 Poised Little Princess

“Well, fuck,” I mutter, watching Haven Bell hurry away from me, the sway of her ass in her prim and proper skirt making my dick throb. I mean, it was throbbing long before now. As soon as I got close enough to actually see her in person, my cock stiffened and lengthened and practically begged me to bend her over and fuck her right there, in front of her father and all the other assholes at this self-congratulatory party.

Every part of my alpha wanted to mess up her perfectly coiled dark hair, yank off that cardigan with so much force the buttons popped and rip her panties right from her body before plunging into her. Fuck, how I want to dirty her up, turn her from poised princess to filthy little whore.

“Well, that went about as well as expected,” an amused voice says. I turn my attention from the sway of the omega’s ass to latch eyes with Creed, my pack mate. He blows out a ring of smoke, unconcerned, as I scowl at him. “Don’t give me that look. You know she’s about as wound up as it’s possible for a woman to be.”

I sigh and shake my head, wiggling my fingers in a request for a cigarette. “Is this where you tell me she isn’t like normal girls, and we need to treat her with tender loving care?”

Creed’s brows jump as he holds out the box for me. “I mean, yeah. Not only is she an omega, but she’s… so sheltered, Hale. You know her dad hardly lets her out of his sight.”

I snort. It’s true. Say what you want about Frederick Bell. He has made it clear that Haven is his protected princess. She’s either at his side or tucked away in their big house on the nice side of town. As far as we know, she’s never dated anyone. A few packs courted her when she was in the omega academy, but she didn’t accept any of their offers. Though from what we heard, it was her father that rejected them and not her.

Apparently, no one is good enough for his poised little princess.

That was two years ago.

Since then, she’s safely in their house or glued to his side, like she is now. Smoke wafts over my face as I watch her slip through the crowd, undetected by most, though a few eyes follow her hungrily. She’s pretty. I wasn’t blowing smoke up her ass when I told her that. In truth, ‘gorgeous’ is more the appropriate word, but her pretty is smothered under too much… control.

Hers or his, I have yet to figure it out.

It would make sense if it’s hers. She’s been raised to be his demure little princess, smiling and waving right alongside him. Makes me sick that an alpha and an omega can so blatantly support the suppression of the designations.

Not only publicly, but privately. Haven Bell is an omega who smells like a beta. There’s a faint tinge of chemicals that lingers around her, mixed in with a spicy sweetness I can’t place. But the chemical scent? That’s a clear sign that she’s on suppressants.

It’s going to make what we came here to do all that much harder.

Creed’s brows crunch together and he shakes his head the longer I go without responding. “I still think we need to suss out the situation before we move forward.”

I glare at him, blowing smoke into his face. “We’ve sussed. We’ve done our goddamn homework. Everyone we’ve talked to has told us Frederick Bell dotes on his daughter. That he adores her, treats her like a princess.” I frown, my eyes flicking back to where she disappeared. “Granted, she doesn’t seem like a very effusive princess, but she’s dressed in designer clothes, gets carted around in a hundred thousand dollar car. She attended AOA, for fuck’s sake, and you know how much that school costs.”

Creed shrugs. “So he spends money on her. It doesn’t prove anything, other than that he has a lot of it.”

I point at him with my cigarette. “You and I both know he wouldn’t spend money on her if he didn’t care about her. It’s just not in his nature.”

Creed scowls, then runs a tattooed hand over his face as he sighs. “You’re probably right.”

“I am right.” I clap a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve worked on this plan for years, Creed. We all agreed she is the way forward. There’s no backing out now.”

His gaze flicks over to the crowd. Haven has disappeared, but her father is still there, smiling and laughing for all the world to see, like he isn’t a disgusting amoeba of a human being. Like he didn’t rip our world apart ten years ago for no other reason than that he could, that he wanted to.

The deep grey of Creed’s eyes darkens with hate until it’s almost black. “He took everything from us,” I say quietly, squeezing his shoulder. “It's time we do the same.”

Creed gives a jerky nod in agreement, even though I can still feel his dissatisfaction with our chosen path. He’d never admit it, and he certainly doesn’t look it—he looks like he could tear you apart with his bare hands—but he’s a bit of a marshmallow on the inside.

It’s part of why I’m the pack lead and not him. I can make the hard decisions, the tough choices. I can choose who we’re going to hurt with a smile on my face. So long as it gets me what I want, I’m willing to fucking do it.

And if getting what I want means spending time between Haven Bell’s pretty little thighs or with her mouth on my cock? All the better.

“Things are wrapping up,” Jude, our third pack mate, says, coming up to us with Atticus right on his heels. He runs a hand through his golden locks, expertly riffling them in a way that makes all the girls go crazy. “Our mark disappeared behind the tinted windows of a car. Guess she didn’t want to spend too long outdoors. Might muss that perfect bun her hair’s always in.”

Creed grunts and glares again, apparently not liking Jude’s assessment of the girl. Or maybe it’s that he called her our mark. Nevermind that that is exactly what she is.

A mark. A tool. A means to an end.

Specifically, the end of Frederick Bell.