Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock

Three

ATLAS

The last timewe clusterfucked a mission so hard, Finn took three bullets and we damn near lost him. I promised myself.

Never again.

But here we fucking are.

My packmates sit around the conference table while I replay the insane footage that shows every wrong thing that went down tonight.

Hunter scowls, Jett watches with a cold expression that matches the dried blood spray across his face, and Finn—fucking Finn—sits low in his chair, swiveling back and forth and grinning like an addict who just scored a fix.

I can’t blame him.

I blame myself.

I should’ve known he’d go off-book. I should’ve checked in with him before we went out. Made sure he was level.

Now I all I can do is agonize over the tapes and plan so this never happens again. I pause on the drone footage from the moment the first domino tipped.

We were hired to ambush a Redfang Cartel drug pickup in an isolated forest clearing. The plan starts textbook, the four of us camouflaged in perfect position for a quick kill when the Redfangs pull up. Erik Redfang steps out of a black car with his bodyguards, and the suppliers hop out of their van.

It should’ve been easy.

But instead of taking the shot, our sniper jumps out of his tree.

In one fluid motion, he throws his rifle over his shoulder, drives a machete through a cartel soldier’s jugular, and war whoops like a goddamned Highland warrior.

My pack brother, Finn—the copper-headed shit—watches the screen with a twinkle in his eye. “Play the part where I—”

“Shut up.” Hunter claps a hand over Finn’s mouth.

“You fucked this one up,” I tell him flat out. “But so did we all.”

I hit play.

After Finn drops the guy and pulls another knife, going for a second man, Hunter breaks cover. But Hunter doesn’t have knives or even a weapon. No. Hunter dives into the fight unarmed, bare-knuckle-blasting our target’s bodyguard in the face.

“He was reaching for his gun.” Hunter runs fingers through dark, messy hair. “Bonehead move, okay? But Finn was fucked and I didn’t have a shot.”

The scene breaks into more chaos. Jett and I start firing from our positions, our target takes cover in his bulletproof car, and before we can finish dropping bodies, the surviving Redfangs tear away.

We’re still picking off the last drug guys in alternating blasts of gunfire when Finn dives behind the wheel of their van. Jett, who’s supposed to be the level-headed one, grabs shotgun, taking along the tablet that controls our tech.

Finn has too deep a death wish to ever be wheel-man. He plows through a bush, off-roading to follow the Redfangs’ escape.

All the while, my commands crackle over the audio.

Ignored. Unacknowledged.

“Negative. Do not pursue. Hunter needs support. Finn! I repeat, do not pursue. Need backup on the ground.”

“I have him,” Finn insists. “I can run him into a tree before he makes the road.”

Meanwhile, Hunter’s pinned down by three guys, one’s going for his knife, and gunfire has me stuck behind a tree.

My gut roils.

I told myself our bond was fine. The pack is strong. But Exhibit A right here is all the evidence I need.

Our pack is fracturing. “You left us behind.”

The switch flips inside Finn, and in half a second, all his cowboy bravado bleeds to nothing, leaving behind a dead-eyed assassin who drops the room temperature to glacial.

This is the Finn who has more kill counts than any other Wyvern House agent. This is the Finn the stunts and fucking antics keep at bay. This is the Finn who doesn’t give a fuck that I’m his leader and we’ve been pack brothers since diapers.

“You had it under control,” he says flatly.

“And you?” I turn to Jett.

“It was a mistake,” he admits, dropping his gaze. “I was watching the screens instead of the ground. Didn’t want Finn going off solo.”

Reasonable.

Wrong, but reasonable.

This is exactly why we need our tech guy back, but my father has Orion grounded indefinitely.

“We should’ve called Nathan,” Jett says.

“No,” I bark, and my packmates spines’ straighten at the hit of alpha command I didn’t mean to slip. I clear my throat. “Orion’s spot stays open.”

“What if he’s never fit for duty again?” Hunter asks.

“He’ll be fit.” The fact that Hunter could even suggest—could even think—about replacing our brother tells me everything I don’t want to know.

“If—” Jett begins.

“No.”This time, the bark’s on purpose, and the command of their pack leader has my brothers’ jaws snapping shut.

I will not negotiate.

Orion is pack. If we’re not loyal to our own goddamned pack then what are we doing?

Orion didn’t ask to awaken as an omega. He didn’t even ask to be our pack’s omega.

But he is. He’s ours. Our mate.

Mine.

So we can keep his spot for as long as it takes for him to figure out his hormones. When he’s in control, he’ll be back, and the team will be that much stronger.

No fucking way am I giving his slot to Nathan.

The guys know their history. Orion and Nathan are biological brothers, and Nathan takes fucking glee in lording shit over our mate.

I’d rather remove the guy’s teeth with my fingers than trust him to have my back on a job.

Orion’s already going to be upset that we’re struggling.

I’ve disappointed him enough.

I won’t backstab him by cutting him from our squad without so much as a heads up. “Any chatter on containment?”

“The media’s running with the car chase,” Jett says.

“I made the shot,” Finn insists as if he didn’t make the shot after the choppers got there. So instead of an everyday case of road rage, the news is covering a gangland assassination where a masked Finn shoots the spine out of our target in the middle of a bridge before base jumping off the side and disappearing into the water.

God save me from adrenaline junkies.

“Wyvern House will be implicated,” Jett says.

Hunter tsks. “Fucking mess.”

This isn’t a mess.

It’s a goddamned disaster.

As team leader, pack leader, and future leader of every single Wyvern House op and business, I’m the man who has to make it right. “Jett, get your people working on intel. Did the Redfangs recognize it was a Wyvern hit? Hunter. You’re fooling no one with that shitty bandaging. Go patch yourself up. And Finn. Sauna. Find me when you’re ready to talk.”

Hunter grumbles like he thinks long sleeves are enough to hide the slashes. I can smell the blood. A thick, choking reminder of how dangerous tonight’s close call was.

After my packmates leave, I replay the mission footage again and again. If this were any other team, I’d go over it frame-by-frame, pinpointing where the teamwork broke down and what strategies can improve their performance.

Our breakdown isn’t on film.

It’s somewhere else, somewhere deep inside the fabric of our pack, and when I finally pick apart the bloody threads, I know what I’m going to find.

It’s my fault.

Even if it’s not, it is.

I’m the one responsible for keeping us together.

I sit alone for too long, beginning to type up a mission report that makes me want to flip the table. Before I can splinter the conference room furniture, my father walks in.

Scorpio Wyvern drops down in the chair next to me.

His skin’s a shade deeper than mine, hair buzzed military clean. My father’s a big guy. Not bigger than me anymore, but he has this way—this aura. In black camo, he takes up the whole room.

His dominance and familiar musk wrap around me, half comforting, and half gut punch, because this is the one man in the world I can’t disappoint.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks.

“As my father or my commander?”

“Definitely father. Your commander’s gonna rip you a new one over this shit.”

I snort, and it’s almost a laugh. “I deserve it.”

“You know why I named you Atlas?” He tilts his head. There’s more salt and pepper in his dark hair lately.

It gives him a wisdom I hope I can earn someday.

“Because I carry the weight of the world.”

“No. Because I wanted you to know you’re strong enough to carry the weight of any burden you deem worthy. Not every burden’s yours to bear.”

“We just assassinated Dominik Redfang’s favorite younger brother on national news. It’s on me when he comes looking for revenge.”

“As your commander, I’ll be rip-shit over that later. We need to talk about your pack.”

A protective growl builds deep in my chest. “It’s not the time for that conversation.”

“Orion—”

“Dad,” I snap. “We’re mated. It’s done.”

“Orion’s a good boy. I’m not saying otherwise. But your pack’s in fucking shambles and he’s the root of it.”

Blood bubbles in my veins, and I grip the arms of my chair so hard the plastic screams. “I won’t listen to you speak that way about my mate.”

“Your loyalty needs to belong to your whole pack. As your commander...” he pauses long enough to make my throat clench. “I’m pulling you off the mission roster and placing a secondary omega with your pack.”

I distinctly feel the sensation of being ripped in half.

Because no.

No way in fucking hell am I replacing Orion. I’ve wanted him my whole life and denied him just as long, all for the sake of our pack and the hypothetical future omega we planned to mate.

But Orion is that omega. We’re not replacing him.

And yet…

Just the thought, the doubt, yanks my heart.

Something’s wrong with our pack. Orion doesn’t smile, Finn’s acting manic, Hunter’s shooting me pity looks, and Jett won’t say shit about what’s eating his soul.

And me?

I don’t sleep. Can’t. My packmates’ anxieties scream along our bond like sirens, keeping me awake. I stalk the house at night, checking the window and door locks, investigating banging pipes and creaking wood like every sound is an assassin come to take revenge for all the blood we’ve spilled.

Orion sleeps alone.

Our pack bed’s sheets are always cold.

We were fifteen when I looked him in the eye and told him we had to shut down whatever was between us. It was unfair to the omega the five of us would grow up to share.

Our love had to be for her, and her alone.

Ten years later, Orion awakened as an omega instead of an alpha. At the first hit of his pheromones, I one-eightied. Claimed him as mine, and the four of us agreed to take him as our pack’s mate.

To throw him away now?

To tell him he’s being replaced?

I’m not that kind of monster.

“There has to be another way.” I scrub my hands through my hair, torn between two loyalties. Orion is my mate, but my father is my north star, the one who I’ve always followed, and he’s never led me astray.

“Maybe. How much time are you willing to take off to figure it out?”

“None.” Fuck. We don’t have time for this. The Redfangs will hit back hard.

“Then look into some other options.”

“I won’t replace him,” I growl.

“So don’t. The situation can be temporary, but Orion needs guidance, and the rest of you need to extricate your heads from your asses.” My father whips out his phone, and a message pings me. “There’s an event tomorrow. The female we picked you will be on stage.”

My phone shows an invite for four—not five—to tomorrow night’s dance showcase at the Omega Cultivation Center. The screen burns when I shove it back into my pocket.

“I won’t force you,” he says, “But what you’re doing isn’t working. The pack’s volatile. Any other team wouldn’t get a second chance.”

Shame burrows into my chest, the hot wave making my fists bunch and my teeth clench.

He may as well give me an ultimatum.

Lose my pack or lose my position?

I can’t survive without either.

“I’ll go. But no promises. We already have a mate.”

“Fair enough.” Scorpio stands, and the nurturing snaps out of him, leaving behind a hard-eyed commander staring down his incompetent subordinate. “I want that report in my inbox tonight. I’ll see your team on the field at morning call for punishment.”

“Yes, sir.” I press my hand to my heart in salute, and he walks out.

Alone again, I sink back in my chair.

My father never bluffs. I’ve known that in my bones since the day I mouthed off as a toddler and he confiscated my teddy bear.

Now I have so much more to lose.