Page 114 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
Ren rested his chin in his hand.
“Fix it the same way you did when I broke it.”
Jax turned his head toward him with an expression of theatrical offense.
“I beg your pardon? I fixed it because you’re Brody’s omega.” He raised his hands as though the logic were irrefutable. “Rank has its privileges. He…” he pointed at Sergei with his thumb “…has no privileges.”
“I have bigger fists,” said Sergei without looking up from his plate.
Ren took his napkin, screwed it into a ball and threw it at Jax’s face. It hit him on the forehead. Jax caught it as it bounced and threw it back with an accuracy that would have been alarming had Ren not dodged it by tilting his head. The napkin landed in Zev’s coffee.
“For fuck’s sake,” muttered Zev. He extracted the soaked napkin with two fingers and dropped it on the table with a grimace of disgust.
Rocco threw his own napkin at Jax in solidarity. It caught him on the ear. Jax stood up with his napkin in one hand and Rocco’s in the other, arms spread wide.
“Seriously? Everyone against me?”
“Always,” said Ren.
“You should be used to it by now,” added Brody with a sip of his coffee, his first verbal contribution to the chaos in several minutes.
Jax screwed up both napkins and threw them at Brody. One bounced off his chest. The other fell into his cup. Brody looked at the napkin floating in his coffee with an expression that would have made more sensible men take a step back.
Jax sat down.
Ren felt the laughter rise through his chest like something warm and bubbling. He let it out—a sound that would once have surprised him with its ease. Not now.
Brody pulled the napkin from his coffee with two fingers, set it on his plate and looked at Ren. He caught him laughing and something softened in those gray reddened eyes. But only for an instant. He resumed his usual expression and looked at Jax.
“You owe me a coffee.”
“I owe you a lot of things. A coffee isn’t the worst of them.”
The conversations started flowing again. Ren leaned back against the stool, one hand on his belly out of habit, and watched Brody listen to something Rocco was saying while nodding with a slight frown. But his eyes drifted to Ren. Just a second. Back to Rocco. Then to Ren again. Then to Jax. Then to Ren.
The third time he caught him looking in under a minute, Ren dropped his left hand under the table and placed it on Brody’s thigh. He stroked it with his thumb, a slow, repetitive movement, the way you run your hand along the back of a restless animal to settle it.
Brody went still beneath his touch. His jaw tightened. Ren kept stroking.
Brody turned his head toward him, his lips pressed together.
“I’m not a dog.”
He said it quietly enough that only Ren should have heard it. Or so he intended. The entire table went silent.
Jax reacted first. His laugh exploded like a gunshot and he doubled over the table. Rocco covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Zev raised his eyebrows without lifting his eyes from the tablet, though the smile gave him away. Sergei looked at Brody with something bordering on the sympathy of a comrade fallen in battle. Marta pressed a hand to her chest and let out a high-pitched giggle she tried to disguise with a cough.
Brody closed his eyes for a moment. Set his jaw. Then looked at Ren with that intensity that promised consequences.
Ren held his gaze and didn’t move his hand from his thigh.
“Of course not,” said Ren. He gave his leg a pat. “Dogs don’t growl as much.”
The table erupted.
The chairs emptied one by one. First Rocco with his long stride and his half-wave over his shoulder. Then Zev, the tablet already lit before he crossed the threshold. Jax stretched with his arms above his head, stole a piece of toast from Sergei’s plate and disappeared dodging the Russian’s swipe. Sergei followed, muttering something in his language that sounded like a credible threat. Marta collected her cup, gave the two remaining a warm look and excused herself with a “I’ll go see to the rooms” before disappearing down the hallway.
The silence fell over the kitchen like a blanket.
