Pack Darling Part One

by Lola Rock

  Clearing my throat, I shake away thoughts of the too-pretty mate I’ve barely even let myself look at. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Just fine?” Max drops into his armchair. “What do we need to do to make you more comfortable?”

  “Nothing.” I blink at the guy, seriously thrown off by his attitude. Max has Hunter’s same jacked build and dark, tanned coloring, though a few curls of grey sneak into his beard. He’s disarming in the same way as Hunter, especially because I’m always off balance when someone wants me around.

  “Craig says you’re not integrating with the pack?” Hikaru narrows his eyes.

  “Craig isn’t a reliable source.” Atlas’s knuckles crack. “I want to have him transferred.”

  “That can be arranged.” Scorpio steeples his thick fingers like he’s negotiating an arms deal. “Assuming Lilah integrates instead.”

  More threats.

  Fun.

  Atlas’s jaw clenches. Guy’s going to crack a tooth. “She’s integrating. She was doing our grocery shopping before you called in a meeting.”

  Instead of rolling my eyes, I pull the pack’s card from my bra and flash the room. It’s my win that Craig has to pay for the cart. I would’ve thrown in more shit if I’d known. “They gave me the pack card. I’ve been making myself at home.”

  “She doesn’t carry your scent.” The man in the corner has a voice like a glacier cracking.

  He rises from his chair, dips to grab a carafe, and refills his coffee, never once glancing at the mug.

  Smooth and deadly, he bleeds the same killer instinct I catch buried under Finn’s mischief.

  But Kieran Wyvern doesn’t hide his darkness.

  Maybe he can’t.

  “We’re taking things slow,” Atlas says cautiously.

  “And I’m not awakened,” I offer, feeling like my secrets will spill out any second while Kieran watches me with that killer’s gaze.

  Hikaru’s deep hmm is a hive of wasps. “That could be changed. Easily. Shall I make you an appointment at the Wyvern Clinic?”

  I tense like he just jabbed the needle in my throat. “You said you wouldn’t force me.”

  “We won’t,” Scorpio says, “But the option is there. It might even make the transition easier if you can awaken in a controlled environment. Your perfume’s a time bomb.”

  I swallow.

  That’s always been a risk, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. The pheromone shots would be final.

  Permanent.

  “What’s the hold-up? I want to be a grandfather.” Max has a freaking twinkle in his eye, and I need to drill down into the carpet and die.

  “No one’s thinking about kids,” Atlas says through gritted teeth.

  I nod enthusiastically. I’m not sure I ever want to be a mother. And with this pack? I’d be beyond trapped.

  I’d be…theirs.

  Theirs in a way that terrifies me even more than going into rotation. At least then, I’d be the one throwing males away, a new pack for every heat.

  “Put some thought on your future,” Hikaru says in the outwardly pleasant, but actually threatening tone that he spews like breathing. “If you can’t integrate, you have many other options.”

  He’ll put me in rotation so fast.

  I scoot closer to Atlas, hoping against hope that he’ll have my back. “I’m not looking at other options.”

  “It’s good to see you getting along.” Scorpio smiles like we’re already picking baby names. “Is the pack up for a team-building mission?”

  “A mission?” Atlas asks.

  Scorpio offers him the thick card that was hiding under the donuts. It’s fancy stationery, the kind you only use for weddings. “The four of us were planning on representing Wyvern House at the Patrick Pack’s fundraising ball this weekend, but our younger generation should make the appearance. It’s past time for you to take over the networking side of the business. Bring your omegas.”

  Omegas? Both? At a public event?

  Orion will slaughter me, and I won’t even be mad.

  I’m honestly starting to pity him. It makes sense none of the Wyverns care about me or what I want. I’m just some Darling bought on clearance and they’ve known me for thirty seconds.

  But Orion is theirs.

  Atlas freezes halfway to the invitation.

  “Problem?” Scorpio asks.

  “No problem.” He restarts, grabbing the invite so hard he crumples the thick paper.

  “Good.” Scorpio gives a crisp, military nod. “Prove to us that you have your pack under control and you’ll be back on the active-duty roster.”

  “Yes, sir,” Atlas says, crushing the invite in his grip.

  Pressure thickens the air.

  Scorpio watches Atlas with mountains of expectations while Hikaru side-eyes me, making sure I don’t forget his threat.

  Meanwhile, Max glows like he’s already bouncing grandkids on both knees, and I’m afraid Kieran might snap our necks just because.

  I hug a throw pillow while they chat, throwing me the occasional softball question.

  As Atlas relaxes and the conversation turns to their business instead of his pack, I can’t help observing this new side of him.

  He speaks confidently, with a rich, deep voice that would sound sinfully delicious barking me to flip over and let him do whatever the fuck he wants.

  Treacherous butterflies take flight in my belly. I swallow hard, hoping they drown in stomach acid.

  I need to shut down the horny ravings of my inner slut.

  The Wyvern pack and I aren’t meant to be.

  I don’t know how the six of us can survive a social event. If the pack treats me like Atlas has been, letting me walk on my own, so obviously unclaimed, the other alphas will gobble me up like a side of hash browns.

  Orion won’t even have to dirty his hands. The ball will have plenty of omegas happy to gut me on principle.

  You don’t move in on a mated pack.

  But here I am. Wyvern Pack’s secondary omega.

  No one with a single brain cell will believe I’m not in this position because I begged for it.

  I sigh, ready for the inevitable fight.

  Better carve a few more shivs to hide in my ballgown.

  Nineteen

  ATLAS

  There’s never a 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 awake
ned.

  “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 dads finally 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.