MATED TO THE ALPHA AND HIS BETA - Season 5 Episode 89

Stella

I stared up at the tall, black brick building in front of us. It had taken us over an hour to get here with Selena driving so fast I would’ve feared for my life if I hadn’t known I could cast a protection bubble around us in the event of any emergency. Even so, my heart was racing and my palms were sweating from the wild ride.

And anticipation.

“This is a human club,” I said under my breath.

Selena giggled. “Yep.”

“I’ve never been to a human city,” I murmured, holding back to let some clubgoers go in ahead of us. “I’ve barely even been around any humans.”

Selena tugged me off to the side. “I thought you were in that, whatever you call it. That enclave place. Weren’t there any humans there?”

I shook my head. “There might’ve been, but remember, I was small for a lot of that. And once I grew up, we had to get out of there. Fast.”

A shadow passed over my aunt’s face. For the first time, she looked sympathetic. “That must’ve been really hard. And scary.”

“It’s what I was meant to do,” I told her sincerely.

“Even so,” she said.

After a second, I nodded. Then, I laughed with embarrassment. “I faced an army of raging High Council wolves who were determined to kill me and my entire family, but somehow, I feel more scared about going into that club.”

“You look fantastic,” Selena assured me. She dug in the small crossbody purse to hand me a compact mirror and tube of crimson lipstick. “Freshen up.”

When my hand looked like it was shaking, she helped me. She stepped back to assess, then gave me an approving nod. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning at the tiny face I could see in the small mirror. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I said. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

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“Just follow my lead,” she said, then stopped short with a furrowed brow. “Shit. I’m going to need you to do a little handwaving to get us through the door.”

“Huh?”

“Humans can’t get into a club like this until they’re over twenty-one, not eighteen like shifters can. And, you need a form of ID,” Selena explained. “You don’t have a driver’s license, do you?” “No…”

“Me neither,” she said with a laugh she hid behind her hand.

“But you drove us here!”

“Yeah,” she said, totally without shame.

“How do you have a car without a driver’s license?”

Selena laughed again. “It’s not my car. Let’s just say I…borrowed it.”

“You stole it?”

“Borrowed,” she insisted in a low voice. “C’mon. Can you get us inside or not?”

I looked back up at the many storied, black-brick building. I could hear faint music thumping from inside it. It got louder when the doors opened, letting people in or out. A tall, man stood guard at the door, checking small plastic cards watched him turn away a pair of young guys with hopeful looks on

ON ERA

their faces.

“Come back when you’re old enough,” the guard said. He kept their plastic cards as the younger guys slunk away.

I sighed with a frown. “Selena…you didn’t tell me it was going to be like this.”

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“What’s the difference?” she asked. “You’re wearing a different face and body to fool people into thinking you’re someone else. Why’s it such a big deal to fool the bouncer into letting us in?” “I’m not doing it to fool people,” I argued.

She laughed. “Yes, you are.”

My frown deepened. “Maybe we should just go home.”

“We came all this way! And you look so good,” she wheedled in a voice that told me she knew I wasn’t going to be able to resist.

The truth was, I did want to go

inside. I wanted to see what a

human club was like, and…I did look

good. The mass of golden curls tumbling over my shoulders and down my back, the red lipstick, the leather jeans that molded to my butt and legs… Selena had said looked like a badass, and I was feeling like

one.

“You’ve got some kind of mind-control powers, don’t you? Vampires can compel people, right?”

“Yes.” There were other kinds of supernatural beings that could manipulate others, too.

She grinned at me until finally, reluctantly, I grinned back.

Selena tucked her arm through mine and forced my feet to move. In front of the guard…no, she’d called him a bouncer. Probably because he bounced people out of the way? In front of him, she positioned us both.

He gave us a bored look that turned a little more interested as he looked her up and down. Then me. “Ladies.”

She nudged me.

I held out my palm, fingers up. I focused on an image of two driver’s licenses with appropriate information on them. “Here are our IDs.”

He looked at my hand, eyes narrowed. Then nodded. With a grin, he stepped aside and even opened the door for us.

“Have a good night, ladies,” he said. “And welcome to Paradise.”