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CHAPTERONE
I wokeup with a mouth full of mud and a feral cat curled up on my chest. Even half-awake, I recognized that this wasn’t the weirdest way I’d ever returned to consciousness; there was that really memorable morning where I’d woken up dressed as Pikachu in a dumpster on the other side of town.
But this? This was definitely top three.
Prying both eyes open despite the organ-grinding monkeys doing their best rendition of “My Heart Will Go On”inside my brain, I looked around my surroundings. Or I should say,lackof surroundings.
I was in a dark hole, the scent so earthy it was almost overwhelming to my senses. Shit, had someone buried me alive?
The cat on my chest woke too and pinned its ears back, growling low.
“Nice kitty,” I said softly. “If you’d just move…” I tried to shift it onto the ground beside me, and it swiped at my hand, leaving behind a huge scratch mark. Fuck, I was going to get rabies. Did cats even get rabies? Pulling my hand back to my chest, I hissed back at it. “Fine, you fucker. Stay there. I don’t even care.”
It was a lie; I not only cared, but I was beginning to panic. I was definitelyinthe ground. Had I been kidnapped and buried in a shallow grave? Was I a motherfucking zombie? A deranged—and increasingly hysterical—part of me protested that I hadn’t even learned the choreography to “Thriller” yet.
Okay, maybe I was well into hysteria town.
I shifted around, trying not to anger the spicy cat demon on my chest, and breathed a sigh of relief that there was a large opening to the surface. Had I crawled into the cat's den, and that's why it was pissed?
I wracked my brain about how this could have happened. I’d been studying, and my roommate wanted me to go to a party, but I’d been feeling gross so had decided to stay in. I’d been feeling gross all week. Maybe I was sick.
I had to get out of here. I moved to shove the cat off my chest, potential rabies be damned. I’d just bathe myself in iodine. But I stopped when I noticed my hands were all scraped and bruised, and I had mud caked painfully under my nails.
I also realized I was naked.
Guess what, Pikachu Past Me? You’ve just been kicked from the top spot.
Naked. In a hole that I probably dug myself. No memory.
Oh. Oh no.
Panic had me scrambling out of the mud den, not even giving the feral cat time to react. It hissed at me, and I hissed back as I crawled my way to the surface. When I emerged, I sucked in the sunshine-filled air. Mountains and trees rose up all around me, and the air was cold. I had no fucking idea where I was, but I had a sneaking suspicion aboutwhatI was, and it wasn’t a zombie.
Omega. A zombie would have almost been preferable.
I looked around, but had no idea where I was or how I’d got here. I couldn’t see a trail, though there was a beautiful vista. Apparently, my deranged, brand new Omega self had good taste in scenery. I mightn’t know exactly where I was, but I recognized the trees and mountains from growing up hiking through the wilderness. I was back in Canada, in Yukon probably.
Panic was chasing its way through my veins. I was an Omega. This was the worst thing that could happen to me. Hell, it so rarely happened where I was from that it wasn’t on anyone's radar.
It could be worse—I could be a citizen of the US, meaning then I’d have to be raffled off to a whole Pack of lucky winners. I shuddered at what my neighboring Omegas had to go through.
I slumped down onto the grass, getting a stick in my ass cheek. I tried to remember how I got here, but kept coming up blank. Just studying in my dorm, then nothing.
A flash of yellow caught my eye, and I let out a whoosh of relieved air as I spotted my phone banged up against a tree, partially hidden by leaf litter. I scrambled over to it on my hands and feet like Smeagol, raising it in the air as if it were the One Ring.
One bar of reception, and I was on the red for battery life. Fuck.
I moved around the leaf litter, but couldn’t find my clothes. My phone flashed the ten percent battery warning, and I felt myself panicking. Who did I call?
I couldn’t call the authorities, because then they’d know I was an Omega. I mean, the situation for Omegas mightn’t be as bad as in the US, but Alphas and Omegas here in Canada still had… problems. Mainly the fact that they couldn’t hold certain occupations, like cops or lawyers, because they had pheromonal influence over the jury or some shit.
Guess who had crippling student loan debt and was in her final year of a law degree?
Yeah, this bitch.
Tears welled in my eyes. All my hard work, my dreams—all for nothing just because a fucking insane twist of fate.
No. I refused to give up now. No authorities. Maybe my roommate… but how would she know how to find me? My biological parents had died years ago, and I’d been raised by foster parents in a tiny place in the Yukon. They’d both been elderly, and Pa had died when I was teen, with Ma dying just after I started college. My heart still ached when I thought about my foster parents, the only real family I’d ever had.
