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ONE
DUSK
I’d come for a thief.
Instead, as I crouched upon a time-worn stone windowsill cloaked by faded red curtains and the darkness of night, I found something entirely different. Entirely more valuable.
The omega was strange and anxious as she fiddled with her room decor and talked to herself. She was small, with summer-warm skin, and an impressive—if messy—cascade of honey-brown waves that swung to her waist. I’d been around enough omegas to maintain the conviction that our pack was broken beyond repair. We never had, and never would, be drawn to one, our normal alpha instincts long since scorched away.
Until now.
Just in time.
The price of coming to this godforsaken academy meant we would have to choose an omega tomorrow at the ball. It was a task I had been dreading before this moment.
I’d come for… something in particular, I thought, though I couldn’t remember what anymore. I remained frozen as I watched her work. She adjusted her suitcase on the floorboards at a peculiar angle. She moved to her wooden bed, shifting sheets, blankets, and pillows. She tugged the edges, so the corners tumbled from the middle of the bed.
Wasthisbeauty? It was a word I had begun to believe society had fabricated to keep us chasing fairytales.
It wasn’t until she backed up, pretty eyes narrowed on the sheets, that I realised her intention. She’d turned all the squares or rectangles in the room on their sides, and her chest loosened as she took them all in. Then she got to work on the wall hangings, turning each to odd angles. If she couldn’t balance one quite right, she’d tug it off the stone wall and tuck it under her bed.
When she finished, she grabbed a silk nightgown from the suitcase.
I only just stopped my groan as I watched her pull off her dress, revealing smooth tanned skin beneath black lace. I was rock fucking hard when she stood before the mirror, taking a deep breath through her nose, eyes closed briefly before returning her chocolate brown gaze to her reflection.
“Tomorrow it’s all going to be fixed,” she told herself.
I cocked my head, a smile on my face as she tucked a misbehaved lock of honey brown hair behind her ear.
She was right.
I didn’t care who she was or where she came from, nor about stolen pills—or even that she had no detectable scent right now.
I didn’t care for her plans or dreams.
Tomorrow, I would select her: a gift for my brothers, because I knew in my soul that this omega, clenching her fists at her sides nervously—shewas mine.
She took another breath. “They’re your mates,” she said, voice breathy and gentle. “They have the best scentsever, and they’regoing to pick you.”
Mates?
My heart tripped, elation crashing into a brick wall. She couldn’t have caughtourscents; we’d suppressed them since we’d arrived.
Was she matched to another pack?
I halted an unnerving growl on its way up my chest as I heard her words. My lips drew in a snarl, and it was only pure shock at my own primal instinct that halted me from revealing myself right then.
And thank the heavens, because next she reached for her eye, tilting her head, and carefully removed a coloured contact with the tip of her finger. And with that movement, she gave me everything I needed. Beneath the brown of her contacts, her eyes were golden.
She was a gold pack omega.
An omega left behind.
Vulnerable.
One the world wouldn’t even punish me for dark bonding.
All rational thought fled me completely.
