by Lola Rock
Now that he’s not overpowered by alpha, Craig smells like wet cardboard and damp newsprint.
If he were a color, he’d be beige, and being under his critical stare almost makes me wish I was awakened. If I were, I could tell him to do anything and he’d pant all over me, just like he did with Scorpio.
Then again, ew.
No thank you.
I don’t need pheromones.
I might’ve signed on the dotted fucking line, but today is not the day I cave to some rando beta. There’s no need to be here, surrounded by omegas who want to shiv me for breathing the same air as our Wyvern overlords.
The need to curl up in my nest is strong. Sliding off the couch, I head for the exit.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Craig snatches my wrist.
His touch sends cockroaches swimming through my blood, coating me in wet cardboard that’s more rotted close-up. Like climbing inside a hot dumpster.
My instincts kick in.
I break his grip, quickly skipping away, putting the sofa between us. “You don’t get to touch me.”
“Sit down and listen when I talk to you.” Craig gives a little growl that lifts the hairs on my arms.
Beige and skeezy he may be, but Craig is a threat.
I don’t ignore my instincts.
They’ve been honed from years of shady beta trainers.
Trainer Brock and his foot fetish. Trainer Ethan with his not-so-casual touches. Trainer Isaiah, who everyone thought was an angel, but was actually a mole who infiltrated the OCC to groom baby omegas for sex trafficking.
I knew they were crooked.
Not that anyone listens.
Craig gives me the heebiest of jeebies, and I never want to be alone with him. In this room, I may as well be, because there’s not one person who’ll step in to stop him from touching me again.
Like always, I protect myself.
Craig advances, his thin upper lip drawn back in a snarl. “You’d better respect me if you want to come into my pack.”
“I don’t want to.” Were we not just at the same meeting where I was blackmailed? I glance over my shoulder, trying to find a clear path to the doors, but the floor’s choked with big alphas and bitter omegas who want my scalp.
“Wyvern House appointed me the guys’ beta. Orion couldn’t even function without me. So don’t get any fucking ideas about stealing the pack. I’ll be bitten in long before you are and you’d better believe I’m going to warn them what a nasty, disobedient girl you are.”
He creeps closer, and I can’t.
I can’t deal with this level of batshit.
I take off, dashing between alphas and onlookers, sprinting for the main exit.
My instincts urge me to my nest. I want to curl up in my little dorm room, bolt myself in, and hide under every blanket. But that’s the first place the trainers will look for me.
So instead, I head to my real home—the sports complex.
It’s a ghost town with the showcase afterparty still hopping. I slip past the token security guard, and soon I’m diving into the water, down, down, down, until I can hug my knees to my chest, sitting like a statue at the bottom of the pool.
There’s too much to process.
I can’t even think it through until I’m underwater, not sucking in a new flavor of pheromone with every breath.
I have a pack.
A temporary pack, but I haven’t met them and they’re already everything I feared.
Bought me like a heifer? Check.
Belong to a scary underworld organization? Check.
Sleazy, egotistical beta on the pack roster? Fucking check.
I hold my breath until my lungs near collapse. When I finally kick to the surface, gasping a desperate lungful of chlorinated air, my head clears.
I’m not giving up.
My dream’s a little cottage in the woods with no one to bother me, desire me, or hate me just for existing. I want to do bookkeeping online and drink hot cocoa in my herb garden. I want to start taking suppressants as soon as I can get a black market prescription and be done with heats and hormones and men forever.
I just want to be left alone.
I want to feel safe for one fucking day of my life.
So I have to keep fighting.
I already know everything I need to know about this pack. They need heirs. I don’t understand why they can’t offer a reputable omega—a good little girl who’ll beg to be with them—but they’ve kicked a fucking boulder by choosing me.
I’ll play along so they keep me around. Dodge Craig and their advances. Keep busting my ass to stop myself from awakening, and find all the best hiding spots in whatever hideous McMansion these rich boys call home.
I’ll do what I do best.
Be a ghost.
And before anyone notices, I’ll disappear.
In the morning, Trainer Marc finds me sleeping in the locker room, curled up in a nest of towels.
He’s beefy for a beta, with big biceps that try to make up for his lack of neck, and a scent that’s so identical to the plastic mats they use in the weight room that I don’t notice him until he’s nudging my ribs with his sneaker. “Up, Darling. You’re late.”
I’m groggy, disoriented, but up I jump.
Trainer Marc doesn’t screw around and I don’t want my ass caned by a dude who can bench press four times my body weight.
“Late for what?” I shiver, realizing I slept in my damp swimsuit and nothing else. Or maybe not so much slept as passed out in. I haven’t eaten since the infirmary French toast.
“Your ride’s here. Where’s your bag?”
Ride.
Bag.
Pack.
Oh shit. “They’re taking me today?”
“They’re taking you now. Put on some clothes.” Marc doesn’t move, waiting for me to strip down and give him a show.
Whatever I’m walking into today, I’ll be so fucking glad to be out of this hellhole.
I whip my grey sweats on over my suit and jam my bra and undies in the pockets. I’d leave them, but I’m done donating my unmentionables to the trainers’ spank banks.
Marc grunts. “Hurry up. And behave. Military pack’s not going to tolerate your shit.”
“You mean mercenary?” I don’t know exactly what Wyvern House does, but it sure as shit isn’t handshakes and parades.
“They were good enough to feed and clothe you all these years. Don’t be ungrateful.”
I am so grateful, especially when Trainer Marc stares at my ass the whole way outside. What a wholesome childhood I’ve had here. What a wonderful upbringing.
Although, in its defense, the OCC usually throws a big farewell party when an omega graduates to join their pack. The trainers give speeches, there’s cake and a sappy slideshow, and the lucky omega is sent to their happy new life in a flurry of hugs and tears.
Not us Darlings.
We just fade away.
Like Marisol Darling—my best friend until the morning her dorm room was just empty. We used to share food at lunch and fight off the mean girls shoulder-to-shoulder. Then nothing. Gone. I haven’t heard from her since, and no one will tell me where she went.
There’s no party for me, either.
Marc drops me at the edge of the parking lot where Evgenia waits with a ratty duffel bag and a bittersweet smile. Craig leans against the side of a huge black SUV like a wannabe prep-schooler in khakis, tapping his toe like he’s ready to crush me underneath.
He can try.
If he does, I’ll show him my teeth.
“I packed your things.” Evgenia hands me the bag. Holding my accounting books and all three outfits I own, it has plenty of space left inside. She pats my shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”
My throat closes down.
I want to throw my arms around her and take what’s probably the best, only hug I’ll ever get, but Evgenia’s not a hugger.
My inner omega might be a clinger, but she’s ne
ver driven this bus and she never will. “Thanks.”
“Get in.” Craig jumps into the driver’s seat and starts the car.
I wouldn’t put it past him to make me run for it, so I scramble inside, climbing to the third row of seats.
I want distance between us.
So much distance.
I hope Evgenia didn’t forget to pack the shiv I keep under my pillow.
The interior reeks of cardboard Craig. I can just barely pick up on more scents underneath, but they’re faded, old, and my senses aren’t as sharp as an awakened omega’s.
It’s surreal as we fly down the OCC’s manicured drive, finally passing through the spike-tipped iron gates. I’m an expert at sneaking around campus, but I’ve never snuck off.
I’ve only left a handful of times since my mother sold me.
Maybe being out in the big, wide world will feel freeing someday. For now, I hug my bag and curl up, making myself small in the back seat as I watch the unfamiliar city fly by and plug my nose to keep from inhaling Craig’s scent.
I’m trading one prison for another, but I’m going to survive.
Somehow, I always survive.
Nine
LILAH
I can’t appreciate the scenery as Craig drives us out of the city. It’s all a blur of trees and big sky until at least an hour later when he turns down a country road and stops to punch in a code. The iron gates swing open.
We must almost be there, but we stop again. Another gate, another code for me to memorize.
Then the house appears.
Turns out, the road is a long-ass driveway.
We’re here.
Here being a freaking three-story mansion complete with whimsical ivy-choked pillars that make me feel a million miles away from my dream cottage in the woods.
Rich packs all have country manors.
The other omegas were always lusting over real estate. Underground nests, swimming pools, and gourmet kitchens. I like nice things as much as the next girl, but I don’t for a second think of any of this as mine.
“Get out,” Craig barks, beta-style with zero power but plenty of catty attitude. “The alphas are waiting for you.” He licks his lips, almost bouncing as he glances toward the house.
I’d rather disappear into the tree line and live in a cozy cave somewhere than step a single toe onto this pack’s territory. I’d rather run for days and keep running until my feet bleed.
But I climb out of the car.
I have no other choice.
An ominous vibe hangs in the air.
I don’t know if it’s a scent or an instinct, or maybe the mansion’s just haunted, but as soon as my toes touch the ground, my muscles lock like I’m dangling at the edge of a hell portal.
“You’re not allowed to use the front door. Your room’s in back.” Craig stomps toward a huge garage filled with candy-colored cars but doesn’t go inside. He walks around on the grass, pausing when I don’t follow. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
I’m just trying to breathe, trying to understand what has my body shivering, on the verge of a full-on meltdown. Craig can go sit on one of his alphas for all I care. “I’m not trying to fool anyone.”
Craig snorts. “Like you won’t be climbing into Atlas’s lap in thirty seconds? This scared act isn’t going to work. Nobody’s going to chase you. The guys don’t even want you here. They’re only putting up with you because of their dads. I give it a week before you’re slinking back to the hole you came from.”
What is it with low-tier betas feeling the need to put me in my place? I know my place. Better than they do.
I would LOVE to slink back to my hole. It’s comfy there, with books and snacks instead of beta bastards and asshole alphas.
I’m pissed enough to shake off whatever aura makes the mansion feel so foreboding. I sling my duffel across my shoulder and follow Craig onto the grass, keeping a few feet of buffer between us. “Just show me where to put my stuff. I don’t need to meet the pack.”
“You’re meeting them,” he huffs. “They need to lay down the law.”
I shiver. I mean, I’m expecting these guys to be assholes, but I have a feeling they’re going to surprise me with new levels of bullshit.
It takes a while to walk around the massive property. Craig points to two metal doors in the ground, like the storm cellars I’ve only seen in movies. “That’s your room.”
Fine. Sure.
Like I said, a hole in the ground sounds fantastic right now.
I drop my duffel and keep following. Craig leads us away from the house, back toward the sprawling gardens. That’s a word I don’t use too often, unless I’m sprawling on my bed in my pajamas reading shifter romances.
This place is insane. It’s so green.
I’m gaping at the flowers when pressure tingles between my shoulder blades. I turn to find the house looming behind me.
A figure stands at the third-floor window.
A shadow that makes my ribs squeeze and my skin burn.
But the curtain flutters and they’re gone.
“Don’t look at the house. Don’t even think about the house.” Craig snatches my arm, dragging me behind him, and this time, I can’t catch my feet, can’t shake free of his angry fingers.
He drags me to a fancy gazebo, dropping me on the steps. I stumble, hands landing on the floor, knees banging the stair.
Four big alphas stare down at me like the cockroach who just skittered in through a crack under the door to ruin their tea party.
I’m upwind, so I’m not choking on them yet, but when the pack leader steps forward, every muscle in my body locks.
He’s built for ripping tires in half, with the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen, a thick barreled chest, and rugby thighs that taper down into combat boots. His toes stop a few feet in front of my face.
If he were anyone else, I’d lie here and let him enjoy his dominance play until I could slink away and make sure I never cross his path again.
But this alpha has too much control over my fate, and thanks to Craig, I already look so fucking weak.
I scramble to my feet, climbing the stair.
I can’t meet them at eye level, because holy tall, all four of them, but I can at least look them in the eye. Or I could if I could look away from the pack leader.
It’s a full-body experience when an alpha gives you his attention.
Not just a look, but their full attention.
My trainers said I’d feel the urge to preen. That I’d sink into myself and feel seen. Protected and loved and all those good sappy things.
I feel seen all right.
This alpha sees every inch of me from my shabby sweats to my bruised forehead and my involuntary cringe, because the closer he comes, the more I need to run.
Run and hide and never come out of my hole again.
When he steps forward, I step back, moving down the stairs.
“Stop,” he barks.
The command locks my joints and stills my lungs. My gaze snaps to his face.
Fuck, he’s beautiful.
Furious and beautiful.
His eyes are brown and maybe gold, and I shouldn’t want to climb him to see, because they’re shooting fire like he wishes he could incinerate me. Burn my corpse to smoking ash.
He’s rugged. Dark hair and skin with thick, sexy eyebrows, thick arms.
Just thick all over.
Makes me wonder what else is thick and—holy hell!
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I take another step back. Only now Craig’s standing behind me. When I bump into his chest, I jump like he just grabbed my ass, springing back into the gazebo with the firing squad of angry alphas.
I would introduce myself, do something to break this icy silence, but I can’t. I literally cannot move a muscle, even to open my mouth, hypnotized by the pack leader and his suffocating, world-erasing dominance.
“I’m Atlas,” he announces. “Hunter, Finn, Jett.”
He nods to his boys standing behind him in a half-circle, each more devastatingly handsome than the last. I don’t dare spend more than a nanosecond on Jett because he’d explode my ovaries and I swear his profile looks familiar.
They’re missing their fifth. Orion?
He’s already my favorite because he’s not here glaring like he wants to rip my head off and drink mimosas from my severed skull.
The pressure they’re throwing crushes like the deepest ocean trench. I’m sweating, and I can barely stand up straight.
It isn’t fair how easily they can dominate me.
Just because they’re alphas. Just because I’m an omega.
I grit my teeth and force my head up high, tapping into the willpower that pushes me to run marathons on empty and kick my own ass on the daily. “I’m Lilah.”
“Here’s the deal.” Atlas folds his arms over his broad chest, and it takes everything I have to not to lick my lips. “You will never be a member of this pack. You’re welcome to stay as long as you stay out of our way. We’ll stay out of yours. Don’t go into the house or go looking for Orion. We’ll kick you straight back to the OCC the second you step out of line.” He looms like he’s waiting for me to cry. To fall down in a pathetic, weeping puddle.
The red-headed alpha, Finn, bounces watching me get cut down like he’s a kid on Christmas morning.
But I’m the one unwrapping all the presents. “You won’t bite me?”
“Never,” hisses Jett, the dark-haired, demonic beauty who can’t even look at me without clenching his cut jaw.
“Then I’ll stay out of your way. I didn’t exactly volunteer for this.”
Craig scoffs behind me, but I’d rather forget he’s here.
I have more questions.
So many more questions, like why me, and why can’t Orion speak for himself?
But the wind shifts, blowing their scents straight into my lungs.
My blood turns to liquid fire.
I choke on the scents clawing inside me.
Leather. Smoke. Oranges. Cedar.
The little mouse I’ve spent my life beating down perks up from her long hibernation. Wide awake, she sends my body into a fever, ready to claim what’s ours.
Four alphas.