Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock

Nineteen

ATLAS

There’s nevera second I’m not aware of Lilah. She hugs a throw pillow that hides her tiny frame, and I sense every twitch she makes on the other side of the couch.

With the invitation clenched in my fist, I feel like I’m growling every response to the dads’ “friendly check-in.”

Lilah doesn’t glance at the breakfast spread, ducking her head like she doesn’t want to be here.

She hasn’t made eye contact with anyone since Hikaru brought up hormone shots.

We’re in the same shitty boat, both being threatened, both afraid of losing something vital.

The realization makes me sick.

I don’t want to be her ally. I want her gone, off to her own life somewhere else.

The girl is poison candy.

“You should take Lilah dress shopping before the ball,” Max says, not even trying to read the room.

“Of course.” There’s no way I’m watching Lilah try on dresses. Just the thought of her pale shoulders, all her soft skin out—

I won’t betray Orion.

“Why don’t you show Lilah around the facility? Have her sit in on the boys’ classes,” Scorpio suggests.

Show around means show off that our pack’s going to claim her. I won’t take this lie that far. “I’ll drop her off with Hunter.”

She flinches ever so slightly, probably eager to get out of here.

Eager to be back in his arms?

I smelled Hunter on her earlier. Just a whiff, but I need to sit his ass down and find out what the hell’s going on. They shouldn’t be spending time together. They shouldn’t be alone together.

None of us should be alone with her, whether or not she’s awakened.

“I’ll give you the tour.” I stand, reluctantly offering her a hand while the dads are watching.

Lilah lets me pull her to her feet. Her fingers are impossibly small. She’s so much tinier than Orion. All clouds of dark hair and grey eyes, like a storm when he’s the sunshine.

She snatches her fingers away from me, and I can’t help breathing deep, trying to read the scent that would tell me exactly what she’s feeling.

But Lilah’s a blank. Nothing. I can’t even scent her shampoo.

“A moment. Alone?” Hikaru holds me back.

Glancing nervously between us, Lilah darts out, a mouse escaping a flock of barn owls.

The four alphas close in as soon as the door shuts. I draw myself to my full height. I’m taller than all but Uncle Kieran, and I’m just as broad and dominant as any of them, but I feel like a little boy again when they blast me with their power.

“Are you treating that girl right?” Kieran speaks in his same dead-cold voice, but the fact that he’s asking shows he’s beyond concerned.

“It’s not easy letting a strange omega in our pack home. We’re trying.”

“She didn’t eat.” Max frowns. “You need to feed her more.”

As if Hunter and Finn don’t have that fucking handled.

“I expect you to make your best effort,” my father says sternly. “I don’t believe you don’t feel anything for her.”

“She’s not awakened.” Thank god for that.

Hikaru scoffs. “You haven’t spoken to my son about her?”

“We’ve discussed Lilah as a pack.”

“Did you ask him how they met?” Hikaru throws me a curveball when I’m not even holding a bat.

“They know each other?”

“Don’t you wonder why she was never contracted? An omega that beautiful? It has nothing to do with being unawakened.”

I tense, not liking where this is going. “Where did they meet?”

“At the Center when they were five or six,” Scorpio answers. “Jett used to follow her around like a pup.”

“Does he remember?” I don’t believe it. Jett would’ve mentioned this.

He would’ve mentioned her.

Hikaru stares down his nose like an emperor passing a divine proclamation. “Lilah Darling is your pack’s fated mate.”

Mic drop.

It’s not true.

It can’t be.

“No,” I answer in a rush of breath. I take a second to calm myself, responding from my place as pack leader instead of raw instinct. “Based on her behavior? I doubt that’s the truth.”

There’s no way in hell an omega could hold herself back if she scented her fated mates. Especially from me.

The pull to bond the pack leader is too strong.

Lilah barely looks at me. She flinches from my touch. Avoids me just the way she should because I already have an omega.

Case closed.

“Wait and see,” my father says smugly.

“And treat her fucking right,” Kieran growls. “She’s walking like she took a beating.”

“We’d never hit her.” And who the hell would? Lilah’s so small, I could pick her up with two fingers.

“Re-read the girl’s records,” Hikaru insists. “She’s evasive. Jumpy. Always in a fight. Never attended events with alphas unless she was coerced. Lilah’s not going to trust your pack unless you earn it.”

“Is that why you gave her an ultimatum? I thought Wyvern House was above forcing omegas into pack bonds.” I let the statement hang, praying they’ll say that Lilah lied, that she was the one who jumped on the opportunity to worm her way into our pack.

“Lilah’s inevitable.” Scorpio claps a hand on my shoulder. “Take good care of her, son. She’s your future.”

Fuck.

They dragged Lilah into our nest, and we were ready to fight her off like an insurgent.

I never even glanced at her records.

So fucking sloppy.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know because she was an omega.

Turns out, I don’t know the first thing about Lilah Darling.

I need to know every single thing if I’m going to keep my pack together.

When the dadsfinally let me free, Lilah isn’t waiting in the office, and the lack of her sets me rumbling like a tractor. “Where is she?”

The secretary jumps. “Said she wanted some air, sir. She stepped into the hallway.”

A strange sense of unease rides me. The corridor’s empty, and I can’t follow Lilah’s scent.

Male laughter echoes down the hall.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m tearing toward the sound.

Turning the corner to a lounge, I find Lilah sitting surrounded by a pack of trainees. Six big alphas block her tiny frame. They crowd her on a sofa until all I can see between their bodies is the flash of Lilah’s defiant glare.

“The hell is this?”I bark.

Their spines snap straight. The guy on the couch leaps to his feet, pulling away from her thigh like his hand’s on fire.

It’s fucking about to be.

I growl, anger and shame tearing up my throat in a deep bass rumble that makes every one of them flinch. Even Lilah.

I left her alone.

An omega.

I’ve been so stuck on what she can do to us, imagining her as some evil villainess, I forgot that she could be so vulnerable.

Unacceptable.

Their behavior…and mine.

I stalk to the pack leader, the one who touched her. My dominance hits him like a wall of cinderblocks. The asshole wilts, dropping his gaze and shoulders with a tremor in his hands.

“Do you think this omega wants your attention, trainee?”

“We were just being friendly, sir.”

Lilah clutches a makeshift weapon between white-knuckled fingers.

It’s not right in a way that makes me ache. “Your pack needs a lesson in how we treat omegas. Drop your classes and enroll in etiquette until the instructor rates you perfect gentlemen. I’ll see you on the field at five every morning for the next week. Now apologize.”

“Sorry, sir!” they shout in unison.

Goddamned idiots.

“Apologize to Lilah.” Her name feels like honey on my tongue.

Have I never said it out loud before?

“Sorry, Omega,” they mutter.

“Dismissed!”I bark, and the assholes scatter.

When they clear the room, Lilah shudders.

She has dark circles under her big eyes and a hint of yellow bruising in her hair. It’s not a healthy look, and it makes an unwelcome rumble build deep in my chest.

I should be protecting her.

Lilah’s not my omega, but she’s an omega in my care. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” She rubs her arms, chin tipped down and refusing to meet my gaze.

It shouldn’t be irritating, but I need to see the storm in her eyes. If I don’t make sure she’s okay, I won’t be able to sleep. Another sin on my shoulders. “They didn’t hurt you?”

“I had it under control.” She flashes a piece of sharpened plastic.

“Is that a toothbrush?”

Lilah makes the weapon disappear before I can get a closer look, tucking it into her waistband like she’s done it a thousand times. “I can protect myself.”

The announcement sinks a barb in my chest. She shouldn’t have to protect herself.

Fuck.

I’m failing again. Failing my pack. Failing this girl.

I drop into the chair across from her. I owe Lilah an apology, but the words stick in my throat like razors. I don’t want to make peace with her. I don’t want to give her a single thing that’ll give her hope she can stay. I’ll never do that to Orion.

I have to talk to Jett. And Hunter.

Shit. We need an all-hands meeting.

“The five of you can go,” Lilah says softly, dragging my attention back to her.

“Go where?”

“To the ball. I’ll pretend I’m sick.”

Lilah hugs her knees to her chest, flashing the frayed elastic at the bottom of her baggy sweat pants. I can’t scent the truth on her, but she strikes me as sincere. She’s not trying to manipulate anything.

She just wants to survive.

“You have to go. All of us have to go together.”

“I’ll stay out of your way.” She tucks her chin between her knees like a snail hiding in her shell.

I get the sudden urge to cup her cheek, lift her face, and stare her straight in the eyes. With a cough, I clear my head. “You can’t be alone at a party full of military alphas. The Patrick pack has their fingers in too many dirty pies.”

They’re the assholes who hired us to take out the Redfangs, and we’re not their only mercenary friends. Not many in our world have an honor code like Wyvern House.

We’ll have to watch Orion every second, and he wears our bites. Lilah’s unmarked. With or without her perfume, every alpha will be drooling like she’s on the menu.

“I’m used to being alone.” There’s a resignation in her voice that sends a wave of guilt crashing.

All I can do is shake it off. I promise to take better care of Lilah. To watch over her. But that’s where my responsibility ends. I have nothing else to give.

“Let’s go. I need to talk to Jett.” I get up, and Lilah follows a few steps behind me.

When I slow to let her catch up, she stops. I frown at her over my shoulder, aware of the trainees passing us with curious looks. “What are you doing?”

“Staying out of your way,” she answers matter-of-factly.

Goddamn it.

I’ve seriously fucked things up with her. Even worse, I know I can’t fix it.

“Keep up,” I grumble like an ass.

She scurries behind me until we reach Jett’s room. It’s the largest classroom in the training building, a giant arena. When the door swings open just before the bell, every trainee has a front-row seat for Lilah’s entrance.

The chatter cuts when they spot me. Then they spot her and it’s fucking chaos. Gasps, growls, and enough pheromone spikes to start a rutting orgy.

“Settle,”I bark, then turn to her with a softer tone. “Have a seat for a minute.”

Lilah reaches out like she wants to grab my sleeve, but before I can figure out what I’d do if she did, she darts up the steps. Grabbing a corner seat, she hunches so low her delicate chin touches her desk.

Every male tracks her smallest motion. Dogs licking their fangs.

Jett is the only exception, turned stubbornly toward me instead of the chaos I unleashed on his classroom.

“This can’t wait until after my lesson?” He grips the podium.

I drag him into the corner. Not that anyone gives a damn about us with Lilah in the room. “Did you know her when you were younger?”

Our bond tightens with Jett’s fear, and my gut clenches. It can’t be true.

“Hikaru told you?”

“He claims she’s our fated omega.”

“No. We have Orion,” he says with a hint of quaver in his voice.

“That’s what I told him.” I refuse to let the doubt creep in. I know Orion’s ours, and no matter what fantasies the dads cook up, that’s never going to change.

I can’t believe it.

There’s no way.

No goddamned way Lilah is meant to be ours.

She would’ve thrown herself at us.

And we would’ve let her.

“Take her to Hunter’s class. I can’t teach with her here.” Jett angles his body away from Lilah like he isn’t watching her every move from the corner of his eye.

Like I’m not doing the same shit.

Everyone’s watching her.

Jett’s frantic vibration pulls at my instinct to soothe my packmate, but this isn’t the place. Not with trainees looking on and him as skittish as a doe.

All I can do is change the subject. “What’s the news from the Redfangs?”

“They’re plotting. Dom wants blood.” Jett slowly pulls himself together, solidifying into the iceberg we know and love.

“Timeline?”

“Soon. We caught one of their foot soldiers, but he’s too low on the ladder to have any valuable intel.”

“Tell me when—” I cut off, my gaze snapping to the back of the room. An alpha trainee leans over Lilah, trying to cop a sniff.

“Asses in your seats,”I bark.

Metal screeches as a hundred trainees scramble for chairs. Lilah relaxes, and I catch another flash of purple plastic. “Shiv whittlin’,” I mutter.

We need to get her a real knife.

“What did you say?” Jett frowns, a finger-deep furrow forming between his brows.

“Nothing.” I shake myself, trying to scatter the sense of everything crashing down.

Have to protect Orion.

Have to protect the pack.

Have to protect Wyvern House.

The dads’ expectations, the Redfangs closing in, and now Lilah.

It’s terrifying how naturally instinct settles. Just hours ago, I was thinking of Lilah as my enemy.

Now she’s another life I have to protect.

I promise I’ll keep her safe.

And I fucking pray she’s gone before my instincts go any more berserk.