Pack Darling, Part One by Lola Rock
Five
ATLAS
I haven’t beento the OCC in years. I remember why as soon as I step out of our truck.
Omega.
There are hundreds of scents. Fresh and raw. Sweet, sultry, musky. Every flavor.
None smell like mine.
I fix Orion’s crisp apple scent in my brain. Instinct wants me running inside. My quads bunch, my muscles firing.
It shouldn’t be like this.
I have an omega.
Our packhas an omega.
“Holy shit.” Finn bounces on his toes, switch flipped back to wired.
“This’ll be an adventure.” Hunter adjusts himself in his suit pants, locked onto the auditorium building.
“Focus,” I bark. “We’re not shopping.” The two of them nod, but they’re still looking hungrily at the source of these maddening scents.
It really shouldn’t be like this. Orion wears our bites. The pack is complete.
But these scents are screwing with me. Making me restless, fingers twitching, and I’m not the only one.
Jett looks cool as ever, but there’s a wildness in his eyes and a thrum along our pack bond. I grab his arm with one hand, and Finn’s with the other. Hunter does the same, pulling us into a tight square.
Connected, we all settle.
I take my first deep breath in what feels like hours, sending reassurance through our bond.
This isn’t the first time my father’s come for our pack. It’s not even the first time he’s thrown us a new member. The dads thought adding a beta would even us out. Craig will never be pack, but we keep his ass around as an assistant just to keep the dads off ours. This girl is no different.
She’ll never be one of us.
“We’re going to jump through this hoop and pass the dads’ test. That’s all. We’ll prove that our pack can handle its shit.”
Jett relaxes the tiniest fraction.
“It shouldn’t be like this,” Hunter mumbles.
I hope we’re not feeling the same thing—the pull that shouldn’t exist, the draw toward whatever’s inside that building that has me fighting the instinct to turn and barrel the fuck through the crowd.
“Stay together,” I instruct. “We look, then we leave.” I lead inside and the guys flank me. Every step feels like a betrayal, but obligation keeps me moving forward.
I’ll do anything to keep the pack together.
Even this.
The OCC complex is massive, and so is the main auditorium. Their security guys tense when they spot us rolling up with our not-so-concealed weapons. Hunter flashes an ID that sends them hopping back and spluttering.
They know who we are.
We step inside, and the crowded lobby goes quiet.
They all know who we are.
“In and out,” I remind the guys.
An usher takes us to our seats in a private box that overlooks the theater. The ceiling’s painted with clouds, but we may as well be in hell.
“My father’s here,” Jett mutters.
And there’s the demon.
Hikaru Wyvern lords over the show from the box across from us. He looks like an emperor, gazing coldly down at the kingdom he controls. He’s my father’s pack brother, technically my uncle, but nothing says family when his gaze pierces us.
“Ignore him.” I keep Jett close. No matter how chill he looks on the outside, long dark hair tied back, his tailored suit fresh, I can feel him coming apart at the seams. I pull out his pocket square and force it to his nose. “Breathe into that.”
“This is barbaric,” he says, voice muffled through the cloth.
“I know.” I can barely manage in the choking cloud of omega scents, so of course he’s losing his shit.
We’re too visible in the box, the crowd in the seats below peeking up, whispering the Wyverns, the Wyverns. As much as I want to tear out of here, we can’t make a bad impression.
Scorpio taught me that lesson with his belt.
My manners reflect on him. My behavior reflects on him. Everything I do reflects on him.
And everything we do reflects on Wyvern House.
The smallest insult to our reputation could destroy the business and ruin the hundreds of lives, the families who depend on our work. The people we can save where the military and police fail.
Wyvern House first.
But my instincts are torn.
Half of me says protect the pack. Take Jett home and get Orion in my arms. We don’t need this bullshit.
Instead, I sit in my chair, taut and furious, buzzing from strange pheromones.
Fucking finally, the lights go down and the music rises. The program starts with dances from toddling ballerinas who only know they’re omega from their blood tests, then the pre-teens in pre-awakening stage, and the older teen and twenty-something omegas who’re hitting their perfume.
And hitting us with their perfume.
They look too young and they smell too sweet. Like little powder puffs flouncing across the stage. Dozens of scents and not one is tempting.
All they do is make me yearn for Orion’s rich apple taste on my tongue. His mature sweetness.
Hikaru catches my eye before the final performance, giving me the nod.
When the upper-level dance team struts out, my body goes rigid.
She’sthere.
The omega who wants to break up my pack.
The omega the dads think will fix us when all she’s going to do is zero in on every strained, fraying thread of our pack and tear us apart at the fucking seam.
I already hate her.
Then the music kicks on.
A dozen girls move across the stage, but she’s the only one I can see. She’s tiny. Delicate. More eyes than body, with luscious brown hair that makes me wonder if she tastes like chocolate mousse.
And these juicy rosebud lips I want to feel wrapped around my—
No.
Absofuckinglutelynot.
Hunter leans over the balcony, straining to take her in. “That’s her?”
“Pretty,” Finn says breathily, his eyes sparkling.
I can’t deny she’s beautiful. The way she moves, that lithe little body twisting and bending…
I tip my head back, staring at the ceiling, but my hard cock already sees something he likes.
Fucking traitor.
“Look.” Hunter nudges me, handing over his phone with the digital program pulled up.
Her name’s Lilah Darling.
Only the Center’s wards are named Darling. So she’s either an orphan or her family fucking sold her.
“Lilah,” Jett chokes.
I lock on to her photo.
She has huge, haunted grey eyes.
It’s a terrible picture. Her skin’s swollen, her hair a tangled mess. No makeup or coy smile like the other omegas. She purses those rosebud lips in a nasty scowl.
Her bio lists her hobbies as forensic financial accounting and shiv whittlin’—her spelling.
“Unawakened.” Hunter points to the key piece of info.
She’s twenty-three and hasn’t even gone into pre-awakening.
“Makes sense the dads flagged her.” She’s bizarre, damn near a spinster for an omega, and if she never awakens, she’ll stick the OCC with her debt.
I’m still not buying the “secondary omega” line of bullshit. What pack would dare keep two when they’re so rare?
Scorpio, Hikaru, Kieran, and Max, the four founders of Wyvern House never found their fated omega. They had me and my pack brothers through surrogates, and we all grew up chasing the dream of a single unified pack and an omega who’d give us blood-related heirs.
Science says male omegas could evolve to bear children, but that’s a dream a long way off.
Bottom line, Orion can’t give us kids, and the dads are deep in their leave-a-legacy phase, obsessed with the four of us passing on their genes and raising the third generation leaders of Wyvern House.
So they’ll say we need mentorship and guidance when what they really want is to shoehorn a female into Orion’s spot.
“You can’t be considering taking her in,” Jett grits out.
“Biting her into the pack? Never.” She’s a strange little doll, and no amount of parental pressure could make me betray Orion.
But our problem with the dads isn’t going away.
“She’s a Darling,” Hunter says, always seeing the heart of the issue.
The girl’s practically a throwaway, with no family to pay what she owes, and Hikaru the only legal guardian watching over her.
She’d be better off raised by wolves. They’re more maternal.
Wyverns eat their young.
Then again, she’s probably in on the dads’ scheme. I have zero sympathy for yet another female trying to claw her way into our family. Finn almost died the last time our team fell for batted lashes and a sob story.
As much as I’d rather choke the girl out than even let Orion know her name, the sickly possibility keeps churning through my brain. “If we take her, we can keep the pressure off while we deal with the Redfangs. If she goes into heat before then, we toss her into rotation.”
“She’d be in our home,” Jett hisses. “You want her there with Orion? They’ll claw each other to death.”
“She’s not awakened, and she’s not competition. Unless you all want to be off duty for the next six months to forever, we need to bring her in. We’ll stash her in the basement and ignore her while the dads leave us alone.”
“That’s shitty,” Hunter says, watching the girl with a dangerously soft look in his eye.
I won’t look at her. I refuse to. But I feel her moving at the edge of my vision like a feather brushing down my spine. “We’re saints compared to the packs she’ll end up with if all Hikaru cares about is earning back her debt.”
“I want to play with her.” Finn’s eyes glitter like pools at midnight, and for the first time, I have no idea if he’s in dark mode or running high. Maybe a little of both.
Dangerous.
“Vote. Do we offer her a temporary place in the house?” I turn more harshly away from the stage, ignoring the way the hairs on my arms spike when I put my back to her.
“No,” Jett says immediately.
“Hell yes,” Finn says.
“Yes.” I hate myself, but I say it anyway. I can’t let Scorpio sideline us.
Hunter takes the longest to decide, staring at the girl on stage. I don’t know what he sees, but he finally shakes himself. “It’s a terrible fucking idea, but yeah. As long as it’s temporary. We can’t afford to be off the mission roster right now.”
This is a means to an end, I remind myself as I type out a text to the dads. No doubt all four are in on the scheme.
Atlas: We’re not biting her. She’s out if she causes trouble or Orion says so. We have the right to kick her at any time for any reason. She only stays on a trial basis.
Scorpio: I’m here. Hikaru and I will handle the offer personally. Do you want to meet her?
I glance at my pack.
Hunter and Finn are mesmerized by the girl on stage, both big men leaning over the balcony like they’re being lured.
Finn probably wants to fuck with her.
Hunter’s all puffed up like a tattooed mother hen, itching to feed the girl a sandwich.
Meanwhile, Jett stares at nothing, as blank and pale as white paper, and I can’t look too closely at my own gut-twisting urge to drink her in.
Atlas: We’re going home. Have Craig make the arrangements.
I don’t want to know anything about her. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to have to look Orion in the eye and tell him that I made this happen.
“We’re out.” I stand. The motion snaps the guys out of their shit, and they march out of the box behind me. Jett moves like he’s striding down death row. My other brothers put their heads close, whispering secret schemes, and Finn sparkles.
I keep my heart fixed on home.
And how the fuck I’m going to explain this goddamned train wreck to our mate.