Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock

Thirty-Seven

LILAH

It takesa while to get my shit together. Or maybe it’s not long at all. I can’t tell.

When my knees stop shaking enough to hold my weight, I step over the latest man I murdered. The other car’s side is totally smashed.

Bodies on the pavement. Glass and blood everywhere.

Orion. If I hurt him—

Fire in my belly, I stumble to the car.

Orion sits belted in the passenger seat. His chin rests against his chest, his breathing shallow. His long, blond-tipped eyelashes flutter at the pace of my speeding heart.

I duck inside, and it’s like cliff-diving into an ocean of applesauce, his heat turning the car into an orchard.

My belly flutters and cramps. I need an alpha to stop the pain, but my body wants Orion just as badly as a thick knot.

I grind my teeth, biting back the hurt and mind-melting hormones.

“Orion?” I feel his forehead.

His skin is scalding, the same temperature as mine.

He doesn’t make a noise. Doesn’t twitch as he keeps breathing the same shallow breaths.

But subtly, so subtly maybe I’m projecting my fever dreams, I swear he nuzzles my palm.

My organs turn to liquid.

I slash his zip-tied hands free, struggling not to breathe him in because his scent sets me off so hard.

Alone, I’m a hot mess.

With him, I’m spinning into full-on meltdown.

“Nnn—” he murmurs. “Nesss.”

“Nest?” Sliding one hand to cup his cheek, I use the other to check his pulse.

It’s slow. Like coma slow.

He’s sedated, for now.

It won’t keep him down through his heat—that takes an IV and a round-the-clock anesthesiologist. I check over his golden skin. He’s a little dirty, the collar of his T-shirt stretched, and a few tender red spots that are slowly blooming into bruises, but none of his shallow scrapes need a hospital.

Letting out a breath, I carefully shut his door, then waddle around to the driver’s side, bracing myself against the hood.

When I test the gas, the car still runs.

I buckle up and do a three-point turn that’s more like fifteen points, but there’s no one to witness my heat-drunk driving.

Half praying for, half dreading when the Wyverns catching up to us, I speed back to the pack house and gun down the driveway.

Everything past the first gate is carnage.

Bodies scatter the lawn—some Redfangs in their Ken doll mafia suits and tattoos, some in black Wyvern House camo. I want to throw up.

So much death.

And for what?

This is so far beyond a jealous beta. Maybe Craig was the Trojan donkey, tricked into opening the gates, but this is war.

I ease down the driveway, swallowing the urge to hit the gas, but I don’t want to bounce Orion, so all I can do is look ahead, trying to ignore the twisted shapes and blood.

I park at the front door, skirting Craig’s body where it lies soaking up moonlight.

With the house looming over me, the sense of doom reminds me of the moment I arrived. Only now, instead of a vague idea that something’s wrong, I can smell the blood on the air.

When I unbuckle Orion, he moans.

The low sound strokes my insides like rich velvet.

I consider leaving him in the driveway, maybe running to hide in the lake, but pretty sure I could sink to the bottom of a trench with concrete sneakers and Orion’s siren scent would lure me straight back to the surface.

“Lilll—” he slurs.

“I’m here. You’re okay.” I rub his shoulder, trying to be comforting, but his skin is sexual napalm, and the innocent rubbing motion makes my belly cramp. I settle for a hand on his shoulder, holding it rigid as a lobster claw.

Comfort him, don’t lick his throat.

“Lile. Luh. Lilaa—” he’s not saying my name, but calling it like he needs me. His garbled words ache with the same plea he’d use on his alphas.

My insides shimmer like cellophane.

Don’t read into it.

It’s my name. Not a love spell.

“Can you stand?” I tilt his chin, looking him in the eye.

His pupils yawn like caverns, his blue eyes as glassy as frozen lakes. He blinks, fluttering angel lashes.

“Orion?”

A soft purr rumbles in his chest, and it’s better than a vibrator, shooting straight to my clit. My knees wobble. I grab the roof for support.

“Lilah,” he says low and slow, like a lick of chocolate mousse.

Is he trying to kill me?

“I need you to walk.” He’s literally going to cause my death by combustion.

And I won’t even be mad.

I tug his arm, and thank the gods he responds, letting me pull him out of the car. He stumbles, almost falling, nearly taking us both down, but I catch him, winding both arms around his waist.

His arms slink around my shoulders, and he buries his face in my hair.

I shiver as he drags his nose and chin along my throat, his hands slipping to grip my hips.

“Orion?” My voice is a raspy thing I don’t recognize, like I have a side hustle narrating audiobooks so smutty I can’t even sell my shit on Amazon.

“Drugs.” Orion keeps nosing my hair, but this time my shiver’s one of despair.

Drugs. Right.

That’s why he’s all over me.

Because I’m here, I’m a warm body, and whatever they gave him upped his heat from a cozy bonfire to nuclear fusion. He’ll forget me the second his alphas show.

Or worse. He’ll remember me.

He’ll remember I’m his competition, and his omega instincts will finally kick in the way they should’ve when I walked into his home.

He’ll murder me before he lets his alphas taste my fully awakened scent.

I have to be gone before then.

“Let’s get you inside.” I haul him against me, pretending I can’t feel his warmth, pretending he’s not clinging to me because all of this means nothing.

We stumble up the stairs like drunks. Only, if I were drunk, I would feel more numb. I’ve never felt more alive. Nerve endings I never learned about in class are lighting up, screaming, and begging for cock.

It gets worse with every heavy step to the second floor. My senses are waking up too, and I can scent all four alphas like they’re close enough to lick.

Leather and smoke. Citrus and cedar.

A whine slips from my lips.

Orion groans and his scent rises into the tangle, so sweet and sharp with need, I’m choking on cinnamon cider.

At the top of the steps, I pull him toward what has to be Atlas’s room. Even if I couldn’t taste the pack leader’s panty-dropping musk, I heard them in there. It’s the door that couldn’t hide moans so lust-soaked, a pornstar would have to fan herself.

“Nest,” Orion mumbles with a subtle head jerk to the second set of stairs.

The third floor may as well be a mountain, but he’s right. For his heat, he needs his nest.

Only, that’s the beating heart of his territory, a place I should never even see, let alone step inside while I’m dripping with my own pheromones.

“I don’t—”

“Nest,” he says again, in a muzzy, puppy-dog voice that I can’t refuse.

Gasping, we drag each other up the last flight and step through the door to a full-floor suite straight out of an omega’s hormone-drenched dreams.

The main room has an ultralow ceiling, luxe royal blue wall hangings, and a cushion-turned-floor that feels like walking on a cloud.

But, like, a firm cloud—one comfortable enough to support you while you lay back and get fucked brainless by your rutting mates.

The nest is piled with plush blankets and cushions, the fabric fresh and clean. Clearly no one’s been up here in ages, but it’s the only spot in the house the pack has kept spotless, always ready to meet Orion’s need.

It’s so cozy—so perfect—I want to camp here. I want to leap into the pile of blue satin cushions and curl up, feeling perfectly safe in the dim, windowless space until the alphas arrive and order me onto my knees.

My inner omega is drunk-off-her-ass-delusional tonight.

With a moan of relief, Orion stumbles into the pile of pillows I was eyeing.

He sinks in the same way I’m dying to, instinctively making himself comfortable even though he’s flying high.

I need to leave.

Like right now.

But my soft, stupid heart has me kneeling beside Orion because I know this is goodbye.

I push that blond curl away from his forehead the way I’ve wanted to since the moment I saw him. Clammy with sweat, my touch doesn’t offer any relief from his heat.

My fingers skate down to his neck, and I let myself linger, sipping on sweet apple juice while I check his pulse.

It’s stronger now, a steady beat that may as well be a ticking timer, because the second it’s back to normal, he’ll go for my throat.

I pull away.

Not expecting him to move, I’m not ready when he latches onto my wrist, gripping hard enough to ache in the best way.

“Need,” he mutters, blinking with a glazed expression that makes me suck a hot breath through my teeth.

“I…” My heart pumps, the heat making me hallucinate, because he couldn’t possibly be saying what I think.

“Need.” He swallows, drawing my eye to the long line of his throat with its silvery, shimmering mate bonds. “Atlas.”

I flinch.

Orion isn’t even seeing me.

He’s so heat drunk, he probably thinks he’s gripping one of his mates.

“Atlas is on the way. They’re all coming for you.” I pull his fingers off one by one, even when he clings like he’s suctioned on with tentacles.

“Need,”he echoes roughly, and my heart tears because I can never be the one for him.

“They’ll be here soon.”

I crawl away, heart beating louder and louder and louder, a rhythmic thumping sound—

Wait. No.

That’s not my heart. It’s a fucking helicopter.

The sound of the blades thumps through the nest.

My time is up.

I can’t let the alphas see me here.

I can’t let them scent me.

Panicking, my whirling gaze lands on the bottles lined prettily on the counter of the attached bathroom. I dash inside, grabbing the bottle of de-scenting cologne that looks exactly like the one Hunter bought Orion the night of the goddamned ball that feels like it happened a thousand years ago.

I spritz myself like a dying bonsai, covering every treacherous inch of my heat-soaked body. The chemicals won’t work for long the way I’m cranking out caramel like a candy shop. I clutch the bottle tight, spraying every footstep I took on my way into the nest.

I stop just short of Orion, not daring to spray him while he watches me with that needing, drugging gaze. If they scent me on him…

But there’s no way.

As soon as the alphas scent Orion’s need so desperate it clogs your throat, they’ll forget I exist.

Spritzing to cover my trail, I stumble out of the nest.

“Li—” Orion calls, but I close my ears the way I’m trying to close my heart.

I can’t hear the chopper blades anymore.

I dash down the stairs, one set, two sets, three sets, careening into the basement, spritzing to hide every step.

“Orion!”Atlas bellows, his rough, aching despair jabbing my eardrums like blades.

I stumble into the backup nest and shut the door behind me. Thundering footsteps echo, and for a heart-squeezing second, I think the alphas are on their way to me.

But the shouts fade upward as they dash desperately toward their real omega.

I huddle into myself, hugging my ribs tight.

If one of them comes, I’ll break. I’ll jump into their arms, all my plans of escape shot to hell.

If I even smell one of them, I’ll melt.

But no one comes for me.

Not to check if I’m hurt.

Not to check if I’m alive.

As the seconds tick and the heat drills deeper into my body, pain bites past my muscles until it’s gnawing on my bones like a snarling rat that I can’t stomp.

Needdestroys my last logic.

Willpower? What willpower?

I need my alphas and my omega. They’re just upstairs.

I can’t hide forever. I can’t run away never knowing if maybe, just maaaaaaybe they could’ve accepted me, held me, even…

I can’t let myself think farther than that.

I need to see them.

I need to stop hiding for once in my life.

Clawing to my feet, burning so hot my scent puffs out in a cloud of steam, I climb toward them.