Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock

Thirty-Five

ORION

I don’t knowwhy I wanted to sleep in the pack bed instead of my own room. I never sleep well in here, always twisting and turning. Like even when I manage to drift, my body knows I’m alone.

Always fucking alone.

Tonight the guys are out scraping Finn off whatever ledge. Tomorrow, it’ll be a mission. Maybe the next day I’ll find them in Lilah’s bed.

I wish I was strong enough that I didn’t need them, but who am I fucking kidding, bed piled high with pillows and blankets like they’re the bodies that aren’t here. I need my pack. I need Atlas like I need air. Now when his attention drifts, I know exactly the omega on his mind.

Because I’m just as fucking gone for her.

This morning, I walked into the kitchen smiling. Smiling because I thought I’d see her and we’d eat breakfast together, talking through this omega shit. Lilah’s the only one who understands the madness. The only one who knows what to say and do without making me feel like I’m a straight-jacket away from a suite with padded walls.

She calms me like not even Atlas can.

She listens to me, cooks for me, makes me want to bite and claim her, which I can’t even fucking do because, oh right, I’m an omega, not a fucking alpha.

I’ve always torn myself up over my omega awakening. Seriously beat the shit out of myself on any and all occasion for ruining the pack and stealing them from the girl of their dreams.

Pretty sure that dream girl is Lilah, and that adds another layer of self-loathing, because I’m not just stealing them from some abstract idea of an omega.

I’m also keeping Lilah from her meant-to-be pack.

Maybe I’m the one who needs to leave.

Just gracefully grab my passport and bounce to another country. It’s easy as hell for omegas to get visas. I’ll spend the last miserable years of my life getting fucked on a beach, drinking straight rum out of coconuts, and pining for them and her like the mopey motherfucker that I am now.

Shit.

Is this really me?

I squeeze my body pillow, burying my nose in a pillowcase that carries the ghost of Hunter’s smoke. The alpha scent grounds me just enough to realize that my body’s too hot, my muscles tight and aching.

Pre-heat?

Shit.

That explains the heavy moping.

I have to text the guys and warn them to clear their schedules. I need all of them here if my heat’s about hit.

Finally.

It’s been too long since I had them all, and I’m praying with all my crazy omega energy that this heat strengthens the pack bonds that are just as frazzled and frayed as my brain.

I’m fumbling for my phone, trying to find it in the mountain of pillows, when I hear the gunshot.

I stop moving at the cellular level, even my heart icing, freezing.

It couldn’t have been…

Lilah.

Fuck, I have to get to Lilah.

I find the phone with laser focus and pull up the cams. Three cars sit in our driveway, doors swung open as more than ten guys creep toward the house.

With our silent alarms going batshit, I don’t bother shooting off a text. Jett’s on it.

I grab a gun from under the hallway table and stalk down the stairs, every muscle torqued, listening for breaking glass.

The kitchen doorknob rattles. I catch a shadow passing in front of the window. Padding silently down the hall, I slip through the gym door and lock it behind me.

The steps don’t make a sound under my soft footsteps. Thank fuck I spent all those years training for black ops.

On high alert, I cross into Lilah’s side of the basement. Her nest door hangs open, and my heart launches into my throat.

Did they already—

The cellar doors fly open.

I take aim but drop the weapon as soon as I realize it’s Lilah stumbling in from the yard. Her hair is wild, her shirt torn and bloodstained, and I fucking rage at the sight of her zip-corded wrists. “Lilah. What the—”

She doesn’t stop running, crashing into my chest. I grab her shaking shoulders to brace her.

And catch a face full of Lilah’s perfume.

Burnt sugar, sweet caramel, vanilla crème brûlée.

World-changing, best-dessert-of-your-life, irresistible sweetness.

My cock goes diamond hard, and I let out a strangled, ripping noise like air escaping a balloon. “Your scent.”

Her plush lips press my skin. She’s flame hot against my bare chest, making my temperature spike to match.

A bead of sweat rolls down my back, and my ass twitches with the familiar feeling of slick dripping to coat my tight balls. She says something frantic, probably important, but the words melt.

I fucking melt.

“Heat,” I choke out.

Hers. Mine.

Look at us, all synced up.

“Shit.” She lets out a ragged breath, swaying, leaning her weight against me like she can barely stand, and it’s all I can do to keep us on our feet with the hormones raging like I’m already buried inside her lush heat.

Her perfume slips down the back of my throat like molten caramel, smoking through every last piece of resistance.

She’s mine.

Ours.

Mate.

That’s why we’ve all been tied up in twisty fucking knots for Lilah Darling.

An omega-omega pairing shouldn’t happen, but I feel it when I scent her and I feel it when she leans into me like I’m the only thing stopping her world from collapsing.

Lilah belongs to me.

Yeah, the others belong to me too, but Lilah’s mine, just mine, in a way that snatches the air from my lungs and slaps my face with the fucking obviousness of how deeply she completes me.

I want to roar, call Atlas right the fuck now, call all of them and lock us in her nest so they can bite her, mark her, and make our bond legally binding and brand it on her body so everyone who sees her knows.

As soon as the guys catch her scent, they’ll be all over her, and I can’t wait to fucking gloat.

“Those guys killed Craig.” Lilah shakes, her words finally hitting. “They’re coming for us.”

“Shit. We have to go—” I pull Lilah, tugging her toward the cellar door, but I stumble on nothing. My ankle rolls.

Lilah grabs my arm, holding me up as my vision flickers.

The dark room wobbles like it’s melting, everything smudged and blurry, my head a staticy fucking mess. My ass aches for my alphas’ knots, my belly already cramping, inner muscles squeezing and ready to coax a cock so deep.

Meanwhile, Lilah’s scent strokes my nose, sharp and needy, making me ache to splay her out and lick her until she’s grinding against my tongue, screaming.

A purr builds in my chest. It’s lower and softer than the sounds my alphas’ make, but just as soothing. When she loosens, yielding to me, it feels like I stole the moon from the sky.

I need to have her, need to—

Shit.

I need to stop.

We’re giving off enough pheromones to fry a chicken. The Redfangs will be able to scent us from fucking Jupiter.

“We have to run.” I tug her again.

This time, we both stumble, barely keeping our feet as we head up the basement steps. Footsteps rustle the grass.

I don’t look, just shoot.

A strangled, gurgling yelp says I hit flesh.

“Both targets, back side of the house!” a voice shouts.

Wobbling like I’m drunk, I take aim, but a third guy jumps me. He knocks Lilah down the steps, grabbing for my gun. I squeeze the trigger, but he wrenches my shot into the trees and snags the gun out of my sweating hands with a grip like a coked-up lumberjack.

He wrestles me to the top step, and I fight, fuck, do I fight with everything I have, but I may as well be roofied. Three, maybe four breaths, and the asshole has me pinned to the grass, thick thighs straddling my waist.

Thank fuck I can’t see the lust on his face, but I can feel his hot cock digging into my back. His sappy pine scent rises as he breathes me in, and his deep rumbling growl hits like sandpaper. “This one’s going into heat.”

“Her too,” says the goon dragging Lilah up the steps.

Frantic, I find Lilah’s eyes.

She looks drugged out, pupils blown, face flushed. It’s like looking in a mirror, both of us trapped in the same nightmare, our bodies dancing the same dance of despair.

After all these months, my heat has to show up now?

The guy’s weight teases my hormone-wrecked body. It craves any stimulation that’ll get me off. Anything that’ll loosen the pinch of these basketball-sized need-to-be-fucked blue balls, and hit that perfect spot inside me, hard and deep.

Disgust keeps me from rolling onto my back and whining for it.

Where the hell are my alphas?

I know they’ll be here soon, riding in to save my useless ass, but they need to be here five minutes ago.

“I have to taste her,” rumbles the sick fuck pinning Lilah.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” I growl, the sound high and aggressive.

“Be quiet and we’ll make it good for you, Omega.” The guy grips my neck, mashing my face into the dirt. Shame burns through me as I taste soil between gritted teeth.

When I buck, he growls like he’s enjoying it, grinding his filthy cock against my ass. “Shit yeah, I’ll rut you so hard.”

Disgust rises up my throat. Or maybe vomit.

Lilah screeches. “Fucking! Asshole!”

Flailing with as little success as me, she looks ready to bite his dick off when her guy yanks her to her feet.

A red snake scale tattoo rings the wrists I’m going to snap when I break free.

The men around us still, their attention snapping to the soft footsteps approaching through the grass.

A pair of loafers stop in the dirt in front of me. Just the fucker’s stance drips dominance, and I catch a whiff of strong, bitter-ass coffee.

“Get the girl to her auction. Check her in on time and then you can do what you want. Hell, she’ll sell for more if you stretch her out and send her onstage dripping.”

A feral growl rips up my throat.

I buck, almost tossing the guy pinning me down.

The coffee-smelling fuck drills a foot between my shoulder blades, crushing the air from my lungs.

“Dominik can’t wait to see you again, Omega. And you’re in heat for him.” He shifts his weight, pushing the guy on top of me out of the way so he can sink his foot into my ass. “Can’t wait to bury my knot in this sweet hole after he rips out your mating bites and splits you in half on his cock.”

“No!” Lilah screams.

Two guys drag her away.

“Tie him up, get him in the car.”

Fuck no.

I’m not being dragged off for torture. Not leaving Lilah to be auctioned.

The second the weight lifts off my hips, I launch myself at the leader, kneeing him right in the fucking knot. He topples with a groan.

I lunge for Lilah, but arms grab me on both sides.

“Sedate him,” snarls coffee loafers on hands and knees.

I kick, throw my shoulders, but I can’t shake the two, then three, then four guys holding me from breaking free while Lilah’s hauled away.

“Orion!”

Her call breaks me.

Because I can’t protect her.

My impossible, beautiful miracle of a mate.

I can’t even protect myself.

There’s a pinch in my arm, and something cold and chemical takes over my veins.