Rejecting Alpha Dreads

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Today was the weekend.

Moonlight faded as the first light of dawn shimmered slowly into my room. I slapped my window curtains shut and blinked sleep off my eyes, nervous about how horrible my day might go.

It would certainly be horrible. I couldn’t help but mentally see myself in a bikini, right amid people I considered lesser than me. I would be lost to their crowd. You could look at us categorically and say, “Oh, the bikini girls.” What exactly would I be doing? Forced to be in the pool with them? Sit by a corner and pretend I wasn’t around? Read a book in the midst of the chaos.

What was Dreads’ actual plan?

Usually, they gathered around in the evening, arriving in ones and twos until the whole place became bedlam.

I would have discussed this fear over with Felicia, my ex-maid-turned-hoe. I really needed to have some girl time at this point, someone I could gossip all my worries to, and we’d laugh about them until they mattered no more. Felicia betrayed me. Mere thinking about the fact that she’d be at the pool too, fooling around with my own mate, made me angry all over again. I felt like crying.

The hours leading up to the pool event filled me with dreads. I had developed anticipatory anxiety. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else but my potential humiliation. They say fear is usually in your mind, and in moments like these, it helps to go exercise or take a walk.

I decided to text Benson. He asked me to pretend I wasn’t bothered and promised to be with me over the phone all through the evening.

"Remember too that we'll be coming over tomorrow. Alpha Davies is clearing up his schedules already. Let this cheer you up, okay?" Benson said.

"I really can't wait to see you guys," I said.

Soon, it was time. It came too quickly like someone had seized the clock’s hands and wound them down to 4 pm. I picked up a favorite book. I was in my best lingerie and a marching bikini, making sure to cover myself with a night gown for the sake of what’s left of my dignity.

The indoor pool area was already awash with neon lights and the sound of splashing water mixed with obnoxious laughter. Some girls were shooting water guns. I stopped looking at them as their activity went into a lull at my presence. They shared side glances and stifled giggles. Oh great, I thought. They night hadn’t even started and my fears were coming true.

Dreads wasn’t around yet. An omega dude stood at the DJ stand, nodding his head and enthusiastically scratching his equipment. I went straight out to sit on an empty recliner, laying my back on it and holding my book as close to my eyes, so I wouldn’t have to see anything else.

My recliner was meters away from the edge of the pool, the cheerful splashes and laughter of the girls contrasting sharply with the turmoil in my heart. Alpha Dreads soon arrived, accompanied by Beta Rob and a gamma whose name was Reynolds. I honestly saw Reynolds very rarely. He was chubby and seemed like a gentle wolf, the book definition of an introvert who had to be here just like me.

“My girls!” my mate screamed. The girls shrieked in response over the loud music, shooting the water guns at each other and into the air in excitement. It was like throwing a bag of bananas at a horde of monkeys. Dreads became the center of it all, his broad smile giving the girls pleasure as he flirted and chatted with them. His eyes met mine briefly before he turned his attention back to a skinny girl on his lap. Why was he doing this? Why the hell was I here? A scowl appeared on my face and the ache in my chest grew, but I swallowed it down. I was the Luna and I had to hold my head high. At that point, I was considering the stupidity of keeping my affair with the cousins private. Perhaps I should’ve invited them over too, so we could all cheat on each other as one big happy wolf pack.

The basement soon became warm and humid, the pool’s chlorine scent rising and mixing with the overpowering perfume of the girls. I glanced longingly at the exit to my far right, wishing I could escape to the solitude of my room upstairs.

One of the pack’s omegas walked up to me, bowed to my level on the recliner and served me wine in a tall transparent glass. My first instinct was to refuse the offer but I decided against it. I needed some booze in my blood stream. I took two glasses, downed one at a go and grimaced at the sourness, after which I returned the empty glass to the omega’s waiting tray and kept the non-empty one for later. The girl turned around and left. As the party continued, I caught Beta Rob watching me sinisterly from across the pool. His gaze was intense, predatory. I shivered, but not from the growing evening cold.

And just in the nick of time, my phone rang. The sudden appearance of Benson’s name on the screen equivalent to giving CPR to a dying fellow. “Benson,” I said, “I feel I’m suffocating.”

“You should leave to take fresh air somewhere else,” he replied, “then return later when you’re fine. Go to the restroom or something. Just take a little break. Is the place that bad?”

“You have no idea. I want to go jump into that pool right now to drown myself.”

“Priscilla,” Benson’s voice sifts softly from the phone’s receiver. “It will be over soon, okay? Meanwhile, let’s distract you. Describe the whole place like you’re an external observer and not part of it.”

I took a quick gulp of wine. “Well, there are up to fifteen girls.”

“Fifteen? !“ Benson screamed and feigned surprise in his voice. “A whole fcking harem.”

“I hate them all,” I said in a burst of anger, rather than giggle at Benson’s attempt at humor. “There’s a barbeque near the loudspeaker,” I continued, lowering my voice. “Dreads is currently with two idiots to his left and to his right. I think they might be his former high school colleagues or so. My ex-maid Felicia once described some of them in detail, and these two fit well into the description.”

“How ugly are they?” Benson asked.

“Oh, extremely ugly,” I said and felt instant relief. It was as if I just reported a crime to an officer, although, in truth, both girls weren’t anything close to ugly. They were pretty.

Without warning, my feel-good time ended as Dread’s voice boomed over the crowd, calling for everyone’s attention.

“Let’s raise a toast!” he announced, his eyes sweeping the basement before landing on me with a mocking smile. “To our beautiful Luna, Priscilla. Isn’t she stunning tonight?”

The crowd cheered and clapped, their praise hollow and insincere. “Let me call you back,” I said to Benson and ended the call as my cheeks burned with shame. Everyone had raised their glasses but I left mine on a little stool beside me, returning their toast with a blank facial expression, but inwardly wishing I could disappear.

“Hey, Priscilla! Why don’t you join us?” one of the girls called out, her voice dripping with mockery. I recognized her as Brittany, one of Dreads’ high school crushes. She was perched on the edge of the pool, her slim legs dangling in the water. I ignored her and stood up from the recliner, focusing on keeping my composure as I walked past the pool area to go use the restroom as Benson had suggested.

“Looks like the Luna is too good for us,” Brittany continued, her friends giggling.

My inner wolf, Betty, snarled in my mind, urging me to put them in their place, but I knew better. Any confrontation would only amuse Dreads and his harem. As I walked through the hallway, I noticed Felicia in a make-shift kitchen, preparing drinks for the partyers. She looked up and our eyes met for a brief moment. There was a flicker of guilt in her gaze, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"Felicia, can I talk to you for a moment?" I asked, my voice barely concealing the hurt.

"Later, Luna. I’m busy right now," she replied coldly, turning her back on me. It was clear where her loyalties lay now.

I went into the restroom to cry my eyes out. I decided I would spend the rest of the night here, at least until I couldn’t hear the loud speakers anymore. The girls would spend the night in Dreads’ room, surely. But like always my pillow and music should filter out some of their moans and bangs. I now realized how much I preferred that. Never thought there could be worse humiliation than right now.

I went into the restroom to cry my eyes out.

It was one of the random public restrooms built for people who would use the pool. This one had several cubicles and all of them seemed empty at the moment. I decided I would spend the rest of the night here, at least until I couldn’t hear the loudspeakers anymore until that damned party was over. The girls would spend their night in Dreads’ room, surely. But like always my pillow and music should filter out some of their moans and bangs. I now realized how much I preferred that. Never thought there could be worse humiliation than right now.

Someone knocked on the door of the restroom’s cubicle I was in.

“Busy,” I said. It must be one of the decadent girls who were drunk.

The person knocked again and I repeated “busy” a little more loudly and irritably, tightening my fist and wishing I could just go give someone a punch in the face. Weren’t other cubicles empty? I swore by the moon goddess that if I heard another knock on this door from that bxtch…

The person knocked. “Open up,” their disembodied voice said this time, and it wasn’t a female.

It wasn’t Dreads either. I did a quick memory juggle and rightly guessed who it was. “What the fxck do you want, Rob?”

“Open up,” he repeated.

“And why would I do that?”

“I have something important to tell you.”

“It can wait,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the pool.”

“It can’t wait,” he replied. “This is the best place to say it.”

I opened, revealing my angry face to the cursed Beta Rob who was now smiling ear to ear, swirling his wine in the glass cup he held. Who brings a glass of wine to a restroom? Answer: this i***t. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He raised his arms up as if avoiding a potential fight. “I only came to comfort you,” he quipped. “You were visibly distressed at the basement and I thought I might come make sure you’re okay.”

“Is the important thing you have to say?” I asked.

“Isn’t it important to see if you’re fine?”

“Well, I’m fine, thanks. You don’t need to bother about me,” I said.

“You look hot in that G-string by the way,” he replied, looking down at my groin. Immediately, I covered myself properly with the nightgown. “I just got hard after looking at that camel-toe.” He held his fingers to his eye level and absentmindedly drew out the shape of said camel-toe in the air, all the while fixing his gaze at my groin, even if it was now covered. “That’s like the fattest one I’ve seen in a while.”

It was disrespectful but rather than react, I chose peace, slamming the door to my cubicle shut.

But he stood on the other end of the door, giggling. “You were on your phone for a really long time back at the pool. Might it be one of them boys?”

I kept quiet.

“You know,” he continued. “We could make an arrangement which you’ll have to accept. We both know I can decide to ruin you. Of course, I won’t do the ruining. Your husband will. The entire pack will gladly deliver your cheating, lying whoring corpse to your worthless pack and we will gladly await the aftermath. Now, listen to me, hoe. How about every Saturday, you go and cheat with your boy lovers? Alpha Dreads is my friend. I know how to distract him. He’ll have enough girls he won’t even know you exist. If he asks me to get you or something, I’ll give some random excuse or pour him more wine or throw the fleshiest, sexiest girl at him until he forgets about you. You could take that time to visit whatever hotel you wish for your guilty pleasures, you know, have yourself a nice time.”

I remained quiet, listening to my breath and to his words, taking all the insults in.

“All I just need from you is simple,” he continued, but in a more subdued tone this time. It seemed he had drawn nearer and was now resting on the door, as if trying to let me in on a secret. “Let me galvanize that stiff engine of yours. I don’t want the boys doing the work alone. Just…” he stopped and giggled like a child. “Help me to help you, Priscilla dear. Live life on your own terms. Dreads doesn’t give two hoots about you. It’s time you showed him the middle finger and return the favor…”

I couldn’t hold it anymore. His face was close to the door. I could feel it. The door was made of hardwood. I kicked it hard towards him. Luckily, it caught him right on his fcking face.

Like bang!