AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I promise, Hazel. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to,” he vowed.
18
Crew
The sleeping omega in my arms had finally settled, but there was still a groove carved into her brow. Like she couldn’t find peace even in her dreams. And that pissed me off. Every single one of my alpha instincts screamed at me to protect her, and not just because she was an omega.
The truth had hit me like a goddamn freight train when I’d smelled her scent on Kellan.
She was our scent match.
As the omega population dwindled, so did scent-matched packs. Over time it had become less about the match and more about compatibility. And thanks to a shift in congress and politics giving more power to alphas and a fuck of a lot less to omegas, even that had gone out the window in recent years.
Yes, omegas were to be protected and, sure, even coveted. They weren’t the helpless airheads the media portrayed them to be now.
My mom and my sister were both omegas, and they were two of the strongest people I’d ever known. I’d been raised to respect women, no matter what their designation.
But I was also painfully aware that I was in the minority of alphas who felt that way. The political landscape had changed a lot in the last fifty-two years. Ever since the Variant O influenza epidemic had swept the globe, killing millions of omegas indiscriminately.
In a little over five decades, omegas had gone from having the most power to virtually none. Where omegas were once allowed to select their own packs and hold almost any job they wanted, now they were parceled out to packs, most of their freedoms stripped away.
The newest anti-omega legislation, passed just last year, made it illegal for an unmated or unsponsored omega to even attend a co-designation university. That meant if my sister, Calla, had wanted to start her academic career over, she would’ve had to have been a member of a pack that allowed her to go to pack-approved classes, find a potential pack to “sponsor” her—essentially be engaged to a pack already attending the university that would allow her to attend classes with them—or go to an omega university. As it was, one of our dads had to take responsibility for her while she was on campus.
A shudder of revulsion rolled down my spine. The United States had three omega universities, and each one was more problematic than the last. These places had zero to do with academics and everything to do with finding the perfect pack, being an obedient omega, and taking care of a home.
Gone were the days of meeting a cute omega in a bar and starting a relationship organically. Everything was transactional now. Omegas were required to register with the federal and state governments. Packs also had to register and pass a battery of tests before they could even apply for an omega to join their pack.
Only government approved packs that demonstrated pack stability were able to even attempt adding an omega to their pack. And there were plenty of rumors that a lot of unstable packs were being greenlit when enough money and status came into play.
It was a fucking shit show, and every day it seemed like omegas were being more and more oppressed while alphas got even more power.
Even more troubling, groups like the Alpha Preservation Alliance were becoming more and more frequent. When omegas became scarce and were heavily guarded by the government, to be distributed like toys to packs that fell in line, people got desperate.
As much as it killed me to admit it, I understood it. Looking down at the sweet little omega nestled against my chest, I knew she was worth fighting for. Worth breaking any law for.
Fuck me.
This wasn’t just some random omega we’d saved; it was Hazel Jones. I’d known her for-fucking-ever.
Even if Kellan was right and she was our mate?—
She is, a low voice snarled in my brain.
I’d grown up the oldest of four kids with two younger brothers and Calla. I’d known I was an alpha before I’d ever presented as a kid. And the alpha nature in me that recognized her not just as an omega, but as my omega, hated me even thinking about her in a hypothetical sense.
I shook the voice away.
My pack had made the choice not to pursue an omega years ago. Our lives just weren’t conducive to having an omega. Too much danger and risk. Plus, it was hard enough on Rhett and Jude when one of them was called away on an assignment for weeks at a time. I couldn’t imagine the emotional strain an omega would feel if abandoned by one or more members of her pack for an extended period of time.
Kellan and I had been friends since we were paired in the same dorm room our freshman year at college. We’d both been on the football team, but our focus had been criminology with an end goal of joining the FBI. I trusted Kellan with my life.
We’d met Rhett our senior year when he’d transferred in from Westbridge University in London. He’d been in two of our classes and we’d felt a kinship to the alpha.
Jude we’d met at Quantico. He and Rhett had been like gasoline and a lit match from the second they met; combustible and inevitable. It wasn’t long after Jude and Rhett got together that we made the decision to become a pack.
I’d never regretted that decision. Sure, there had been women over the years, but none that we’d wanted as a whole. As a pack.
The closest we’d come was when Rhett and Jude dated Lydia, a beta with more drama than a theatre. I’d gotten along fine with her, but Kellan absolutely hated her and she detested him as well. Then she’d made the unforgivable demand that Rhett and Jude leave the pack for her. Jude, who was already becoming disenchanted with the way she tried to use emotions to manipulate Rhett, sent her packing.
