“Dude, Two o’clock.” Red shit has been watching you.

I lift my beer bottle to my lips and casually glance ahead and to the right. The guy Gunnar is referring to is definitely looking at me. Hard. He catches my eye and winks, then before I can even get a good look for myself, he’s already inching forward.

“Thanks a lot, man. Now he’s coming.”

Gunnar grins and taps his bottle to mine. “You’re welcome a lot. See, that’s what a good wing man does. He gets the guys to come to you.”

I roll my eyes and take another swig from the bottle. Just as I empty it, the kid in the red shirt appears in front of me.

“Hey, handsome. You want to dance?”

No, actually I don’t. But I’m not here to be a dick. I’m here to find some…I guess. And if this guy has enough balls to ask me to dance, the least I can do is play along for one song. “Sure.”

Reaching for his hand, I gently lead him to a spot at the edge of the dance floor. The song has a fast beat, so it doesn’t take a lot of effort to keep a good rhythm with him. His hands wrap around my biceps and he pulls me down so he can speak in my ear. “I’m Seth.”

“I’m Jude. It’s good to meet you.” While I’m leaning down, I take a whiff of his neck. An omega’s scent is usually strongest right at their pulse points, and it’s one of the fastest ways to judge compatibility.

The scent test isn’t a sure-fire way of knowing if an alpha and omega work together, but I like to use it as a gauge of whether or not it’s worth my time to purse someone. In this case, Seth smells pretty good, but his natural pheromones are masked under cologne. It’s not a deal breaker but I’m not instantly attracted to him. When I pull back and get a better look at him, I feel a little more interested. Seth isn’t bad looking. In fact, he’s kinda hot. His brown hair is shaved on one side and hangs over his eyes on the other. It’s cute. But it’s also young. Like, skater boy in high school kinda young… “How old are you, Seth?”

He waggles his eyebrows and presses his chest to mine, making sure his pelvis quickly follows, rubbing his erection on my thigh. “Old enough that you don’t need to worry about a thing.”

Okay, now we have a deal breaker. I can appreciate coy as much as the next guy, but slutty just doesn’t do it for me. I like to have some kind of challenge and a guy who just throws himself at me, practically humping my leg in the middle of the dance floor just isn’t my idea of a good time. If anything, I just feel sorry for him. And my knot doesn’t pop for pity.

We finish off the song and I give him a quick hug before thanking him and heading back to the table. Gunnar isn’t there when I slip onto a stool with a fresh beer. With a quick glance at the crowded dance floor, I find him between two blond omegas who might be twins.

Okay, that’s the kind of slutty I could make an exception for. Those boys are hot. As I scan the faces of the men surrounding me, my eyes lock onto a face I’ve never seen before. He’s young too, but not as young as Seth. He has light brown hair that’s glowing blue under the LED lights in the club and he’s swaying to a slow beat with his back pressed to an alpha behind him. The kid is beautiful with a sleepy grin on his face. Like he’s content and in a daze.

Part of me feels envious of this alpha who has an omega in his arms who seems so happy to be there. And when the alpha’s wide hand slides down the boy’s chest and cups his dick, that spike of envy just grows. Until I look back at the omega and see a glimmer of fear cut through his glassy stare. The content look is gone from his face, replaced by discomfort. Based on the way other alpha’s surrounding them are glancing in their direction, I know the boy is shooting off waves of pheromones from being touched so intimately.

But from my distance, I don’t know if those pheromones are from lust or terror. As the song comes to an end, the alpha turns to a group of alphas behind him and nods at them before he drags the omega off the dance floor. As if that’s some kind of cue, the other guys all stand up and follow their friend toward the back of the club.

I take another swig off my bottle, wondering what’s about to happen. Although, I don’t need to wonder. Obviously, those guys are planning to put that omega’s ass to use. But what’s bother me is that I’m not sure if he’s okay with it. He definitely looked happy to be on the dance floor when he was just dancing. But once that meathead grabbed his junk, the kid visibly tensed up. Maybe he was just nervous or shy. Not everyone likes to be groped in public. But that didn’t look like nerves getting the best of him. It looked like actual fear.

Fuck.

I slam my bottle onto the table and make a path through the crowd, following in the direction those guys took off in.

The bathrooms are on the other side of the club, so when I get to the dark hallway, a rock starts to grow in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t good.

The first door is unlocked and opens to a breakroom. An empty breakroom. The second door is also unlocked and when I peek inside, I find shelves of cleaning supplies and broken chairs lined up along the back. No people inside. At the end of the hall is a third door that’s locked when I turn the knob.

“We’ll be out in a minute,” someone calls from the other side of the door.

I knock harder. “Security. Open up. No one is supposed to be in here.”

“The manager gave us permission.”

A high-pitched scream turns my blood cold. “No, please stop. I don’t want—”

Several voices speak at once and the crying stops. “We’ll be out in ten minutes.”

Like hell you will. I line up my shoulder with the edge of the door then take a step back and lunge forward with all my strength. The door cracks but doesn’t open. I can hear glass shattering on the other side of the door but it takes three more lunges with all my two hundred and thirty pounds to finally buckle the wooden door enough that the locking mechanism pulls free and releases.

When I get inside, my heart breaks at the sight in front of me.