Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock

Ten

JETT

“Follow her,”Atlas barks as the omega dashes off like an Olympic sprinter.

“I’ll send a drone.” I want her gone. Today. Now. I can’t have her here for a week, let alone a month or more.

This is the only place I can relax. My home with my brothers—the only people I trust.

Lilah.

Her name is the purest poison.

It forces me to remember the girl I refuse to recognize. That girl was sweet and smiling, but somehow always bruised and crying alone. I’d find her hiding in dark corners whenever I followed my father to work.

That Lilah had sparkles in her grey eyes.

I must have dreamed that girl.

This omega is sallow skin and jutting bones. Threadbare clothes and a disciplinary file filled with fights and confiscated weapons. Her eyes aren’t soft or sparkling.

They’re defiant. Angry. Terrified.

Just the way I feel.

She’s a relic from before.

Before Renee showed me there’s nothing sweet or pure about omegas.

They’re predators.

And fuck our history because Lilah is the latest in a string of sluts to come sniffing after my pack.

She needs to be destroyed.

I don’t give a shit if we’re off missions. I’d rather be grounded forever and face our issues head-on than try to keep pushing forward, stuck with another invader in our lives.

“She looks rough,” Finn says, still staring at the spot where she disappeared. He’s not wrong, but I can’t let myself catalog her bruises and scrapes or the hint of a scab in her hairline.

“She was spooked about Orion.” Hunter frowns. “Didn’t she know what she was walking into?”

“Craig,” Atlas barks, summoning the waste of a beta I can just barely tolerate since he’s at least a male. My stomach twists at his dog-eyed expression, the way he yearns for Atlas. The same way he looks at me when I’m forced to acknowledge him.

Alpha chaser.

“You spoke to her yesterday. What did she say?” Atlas asks.

“She disrespected me, Alpha.” The whine in Craig’s voice is the height of cringe. “And then she ran off before I could explain. But there’s no way she doesn’t know everything about you. It’s all online. You have fan sites,” he says in awe.

No doubt, Craig is a founding member.

I pull out my phone and scramble the drones, setting them to search the property, but they come up empty.

She can’t have gone that far.

“I’ll report when I find her.” I leave my brothers and Craig in the gazebo, desperate to escape the air the omega stained.

Thank the gods she doesn’t give off pheromones, but I can still scent the chlorine embedded in her skin.

I retreat to my second-floor office. It’s always been crowded with files and gear, but since I took over our team’s tech from Orion, the monitors have tripled. I’m glad to sink into my leather chair, surrounded by the faded scents of my packmates and the calming whir of electrical fans.

I check the house cams first.

Odds are, she’s already climbing into one of our beds.

But the rooms are empty of anyone except Orion, who’s busy pacing a landing strip in his bedroom carpet.

Orion’s fraying. I’d comfort him, only then he’d know that I am too.

She’s not in the kitchen or anywhere upstairs.

The basement’s just as empty.

A ragged duffel sitting in the grass is the only sign that Lilah was ever here.

I pull the drone feeds up on the big screen.

I have them zig-zagging our acreage when one of the perimeter alarms starts to sing.

“There you are.” I flick to the cam view and catch a glimpse of a girl sprinting like she’s being chased by monsters. Every few steps, she glances back, then speeds up, cutting a wild trail through the forest.

She’s as eerie as her speed.

The girl looks like a warmed-up skeleton. She shouldn’t be able to cover so much ground so fast. Maybe she’s trying to look pitiful. Trying to earn sympathy.

She won’t get any from me.

I pin a drone to her, silently following her desperate run. She’s well off our property by the time she hits the lakeshore.

Lilah barely stops.

She whips off her sweats and sneakers, and already wearing a one-piece bathing suit for some inconceivable reason, dives straight into the water.

She doesn’t come up.

I grip my chair arms, scanning the screen.

Still, she doesn’t come up.

Thirty seconds later and fifty feet farther than I was expecting, her tangled brown hair finally surfaces. She freestyles toward the island at the center of the lake.

I’ve made a point of avoiding omegas, but after a lifetime of their simpering, their fake smiles, lies, and manipulations, I know exactly how they are. Omegas want attention and love. They want whatever they want, whatever calms their hormones and satisfies their insane instincts.

Lilah is no different. So I don’t understand why she’s running away.

The only possible answer is, she already has a pack. Maybe she’s meeting them on the island with plans to flee.

I can’t think of a better ending to this bullshit.

“Atlas.” I ring him on the com. “You’ll want to see this.”

I’m expecting his dominance to roll through the room. Instead, I’m wrapped in cider sweetness as Orion slips inside, moving to my shoulder. “What’s happening?”

“She’s running.”

“Away?” He sounds so hopeful.

“Not sure.” I move the drone feed over to the big-screen TV, zooming in, but making the image bigger doesn’t make it any more logical.

Orion leans in close, his shoulder bumping mine. His apple scent has a sharp, needy undertone that would signal a better alpha to pull him in for a hug. It’s all I can do to stay still, allowing the contact to continue.

I can feel how it relaxes him, easing his nerves and tension.

But the touch does the opposite to me. I fight the urge to cringe and tear away.

Orion is my omega. My friend and pack brother since he stumbled into our lives at seven.

He’s safe.

He would never use me like the others. I can let him touch me. I can give him this little piece of comfort.

I can.

I focus on the screen until Atlas arrives in a cloud of leather and agitation. Even then, his presence settles me, the hit of the pack leader’s dominance a reassurance so deep it soothes my nervous system, slowing my breathing. Orion melts, drifting toward him and breaking contact, finally allowing me to fully calm.

“What’s she doing?” Atlas asks, setting a hand on Orion’s shoulder.

“She was running away. Now she’s swimming away.” I wave to the screen, helpless to explain the girl’s behavior.

“Isn’t that water glacial?” Orion asks.

It’s fed by mountain streams and it’s probably frigid.

But it’s not my concern. “Let her escape if she wants to escape. It’ll be the dads’ problem.”

“Agreed.” Atlas nods. “But keep a drone on her. We don’t need her killing herself on our watch.”

“Is she pretty?” Orion squints at the screen.

Pretty. I scoff. “She’s a mess.”

Bruised and too thin. Ragged with dark circles. The glossy brown hair I remember tangles around her face, hiding the stars in her eyes.

“Ignore her.” Atlas grunts. “I need to check in with HQ on the Redfangs. Keep me posted on the situation.” He squeezes Orion’s shoulder, then disappears.

Huffing out a sigh, Orion drops into the second office chair.

“Can I stay?” he asks with a frailty that shreds my resistance to having another body in my space.

An omega body, no less.

“You can stay. It’s your gear.” I reach over to squeeze his knee, feeling instantly guilty over the way he arches into my hand, craving his alpha’s touch.

I quickly pull back.

He might wear my bite, but outside his heat and its blissfully numbing insanity, I can’t be the one to give Orion the love he needs.

We stare at the screen, warily watching the girl who can fuck us over like no other.

She hits the island and crawls out of the water only to sprint across the narrow strip of land, then dive back into the lake, disappearing for another heart-stopping length of time.

What the hell is the OCC training their omegas?

Pearl diving?

When she finally bobs to the surface, she cuts through the water without a rest.

She doesn’t stop until she hits the opposite shore.

Lilah wobbles, taking a few rubber-legged steps before she catches her balance and starts running again. Only now she’s barefoot in a swimsuit.

The drone keeps following, and with every step, as she penetrates deeper into the endless woods, it becomes clearer and clearer that the girl has no plot. There’s no rendezvous with her lovers. No clandestine meetup or dark web information trade.

She’s just running.

Maybe running for her life.

I keep staring at the screen, needing to see where this ends, if it does.

Or does she run forever?

Before I have an answer, the drone flashes a low-battery alert and sets an automatic course for home.

She outran the drone.

“What the hell is she doing?” Orion scowls, looking as torn as I feel, stretched between soul-deep hatred and the helpless worry of watching my first doomed love destroy herself.

“I don’t know.” I keep staring, mesmerized by the image of her slight figure sprinting as the drone retreats, her body growing smaller and smaller in the distance.