Beta Bully (F/M) - Chapter 47 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Darcy Undercover

“Ready?” Darcy murmured into her phone.

“Ready,” Luca answered.

She tucked the device into her back pocket, picked up her basket of cleaning supplies, and followed the hallway to Alpha Nico’s office. She knocked, and heard a sigh from the other side.

“Come in,” Alpha Nico barked.

Darcy hurried inside. The alpha was sat in her signature position behind her desk, perfect posture and frown in place.

“Alpha Nico, may I clean your office?” Darcy asked politely, lifting her basket of supplies with an awkward smile.

“What did I-” Alpha Nico brought a hand to her forehead and her face crumpled. “Ugh. What’s that static noise? It’s buzzing right in my skull.”

“Hm? I can’t hear anything,” Darcy replied innocently. She genuinely couldn’t, but she had omega ears. Alpha ears could pick up sounds in other dimensions. At least, that’s what people had told her.

Alpha Nico rattled the top drawer of her desk open and brought out her phone, inspected it, and put it back.

“Do you have your phone on you?” She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose as she did. “Or a smart watch, or something?”

“Um-”

“Empty your pockets, Omega,” she ordered.

Darcy turned out her empty front pockets and Alpha Nico made a twirling motion with her finger. Darcy turned to face the back wall of the office.

“There.” Long fingers dug into her back pocket, grazing over her butt as they did. “You butt-dialled Beta Luca.”

Darcy spun back around as Alpha Nico ended the call and handed the phone back to her.

“Oh, thank y-”

“Get the fuck out of my office and don’t make me tell you again.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Darcy scurried out.

Their genius evidence-collection plan had been foiled in less than five minutes. Thankfully, she and Luca had a plan B. It needed another excuse to come into contact with Alpha Nico, though. And she clearly couldn’t approach the office uninvited again. Darcy didn’t have a death wish. She just needed a reason, even a weak one, to speak to Alpha Nico.

It only took a few days for the summoning, and it came in the form of a blond-haired bitch.

“Omega,” Riley called into the closet Darcy was dusting. Cleaning duty was going surprisingly well. Boring, but less stressful than her PA tasks. Still incredibly demeaning when the pack house was intended to run with a ‘clean up after yourself’ policy. “Nico wants you in her office.” He curled himself around the door frame, pointing his slender little foot out like a ballerina and admiring it. He tilted his head with a condescending look. “Urgently,” he added.

“Thanks, Riley,” Darcy replied as sweetly as her pride would allow. Riley could believe himself to be the daintiest and most delicate being in a ten-mile radius, but he would never be an omega. Darcy kept that thought held tightly in her chest. Her teachers had always said that imitation was the highest form of flattery, and it was clear that Riley was playing omega simulator in his head. Even if it was only clear to Darcy.

Riley ‘humph’d and slunk away, cat-like.

Darcy paused before exiting the cramped storage space, she only needed a moment to open her phone and get the recording rolling.

As she stepped out into the corridor, blond braids burst back into her vision. Dipping in from his place hovering just outside the door, Riley’s face was suddenly far too close to hers.

Darcy yelped and ducked. She stumbled forward and righted herself with her back to him.

“You’re really going to keep Nico waiting?” Riley called after her.

“I’m going,” Darcy huffed.

He tutted at her back.

Despite the urgency that Riley had claimed, Darcy was stood for almost a full minute outside of Alpha Nico’s office with no invitation to enter. Of course, the alpha could smell her, but she wasn’t going to make the worst mistake of her career thus far, again.

Finally, she tapped a polite tune onto the wood.

No answer. Darcy leant forward onto her toes and gave the door an experimental sniff. She couldn’t pick up a fresh scent of the alpha, but with the way she worked, it was possible she had been glued to her desk for hours.

“What are you doing?”

Darcy jumped forward, smacking her forehead against the door. Behind her, Oli was leaning against the corridor wall, hands in his pockets and head tilted to one side.

“Oli,” Darcy gasped, stumbling back a step. “You scared me!”

Oli smiled apologetically. “You surprised me, too,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you pressing your nostrils against Nico’s door when I turned the corner back there.”

“I was told she wanted to see me, but I don’t think she’s inside,” Darcy admitted sheepishly. She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her palm.

“I can check for you.” Oli threw the door open without hesitation, revealing an empty office on the other side. “Nope.” He pulled the door shut again. “Maybe try the blue lounge room on the West side? It’s communal, but she’s the only one that goes there. You’ll know it when you see it because-”

“It’s blue?” Darcy guessed.

“Exactly. Walls, carpet, furniture. Like a kid’s storybook.”

“Thanks, Oli.”

He winked with a lazy grin. “No probs, Darce.”

The more time she spent scouring the numerous rooms of the main pack house, the more anxious Darcy became at how long it was taking her to report to Alpha Nico. She pictured the alpha in her head, counting the seconds.

Blue in the distance, a dimly lit room down a short corridor. Darcy sighed with relief and hurried towards the half-open door.

She burst in and skidded to a stop on the bluebell carpet.

Sunk comfortably into an enormous periwinkle bean bag, with a laptop balanced on her lap, was Alpha Nico. Laid across the distended section of bean-filled material at Alpha Nico’s back, was Riley. As close to resting on the alpha’s shoulders as he could get.

The alpha’s eyes were hard, her limbs suddenly locked stiffly. Riley didn’t bother to open his eyes, but a smirk pinched the corners of his mouth.

“Alpha Nico.” Darcy bobbed her head respectfully. “You wanted to see me?”

“I can’t think of anything I want to see less,” Alpha Nico snarled.

“But I was told-”

Alpha Nico scrubbed her hands over her eyebrows. “Why can’t you leave me alone, Omega?” she groaned.

“Didn’t you send-”

“GET. OUT.”

Darcy scooted back a step. The injustice was squeezing her chest, though. She had been tricked and she needed to defend herself. “Riley said-”

“Leave Riley out of this!” Alpha Nico snapped. “You can blame your problems on yourself, Omega.”

“But-”

Alpha Nico’s volume lowered, but her tone darkened. “Don’t make me stand up and throw you out, Omega.”

“Let me show you to the door, Omega,” Riley cooed. He slipped off the top of the bean bag onto light feet and skipped to Darcy’s side.

She followed him out, hesitating to look back at Alpha Nico for only a moment. She was glaring through her dark hair, fingers hovering crooked over her keyboard. A dark figure in a sea of sapphire.

As she passed over the threshold and back into the hallway, a hand snatched at her back pocket.

“Hey!” Darcy hissed.

“Woops,” Riley said with an angelic smile. He handed her phone back. The recording had been stopped and deleted.

He slammed the door shut in her face.

Darcy walked away, trance-like. One step. Two. Three. Far enough that they wouldn’t hear when she released her frustration in a frenzied stomping and swinging of her arms. A barely contained screech burned in her chest. She would release it in the forest. Scare some birds.

At the very least, she had believed she would get something out of being verbally torn apart by her alpha for the hundredth time. And now she had nothing. No recording. No evidence. No more miraculous excuses as to why she needed to get within the bounds of the same room as Alpha Nico. Darcy didn’t know if she could handle a third reprimand like that in one week anyway.

When she relayed the events of the day to Luca in bed that night, all he could do was hold her.