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Being a gold pack omega was a choice—that’s what society said. To become gold pack, an omega had to fail to turn up for the injection the Institute said omegas should get within the first year of perfuming. Without it, their eyes would turn gold at the end of the year, marking them an outcast. An enemy. Omegas who broke the rules set in place for everyone, and were capable of birthing rogue alphas who could risk the safety of the rest of the population.
If I had chosen not to get the injection on purpose, it wasn’t a choice I remembered making. Another thing stolen by memories, and I resented these eyes, wishing instead I could be worth more to the pack I was chasing.
I was a freak,evenwith the colour of my eyes—an omega so broken, only a pack would fix me. And my strange scent had nothing to do with that at all. Gold packs, at least, could have sweet scents. They, at least, were destined for scent matches like I was told I shouldn’t have had. But I was broken, even for an omega with golden eyes.
I had reached up to remove the second contact when I heard a sound that made my heart stop.
The shuttering click of a phone camera.
My heart dropped, and I spun, wide eyes fixed on the window.
I’d left it halfway open to enjoy the warm breeze before autumn arrived. Only, someone waited on the windowsill beside the curtain, tucked away and easy to miss.
The alpha leaned forward from the drifting curtains, eyes fixed on me. His phone was out as he snapped another shot of my mismatched eyes. One of true gold—damning me—one brown, a deception surrounded by a dozen laws that would damn me all the same.
I recognised the sweep of black hair against dark skin, and my heart sank.
He planted his boots on my floorboards and he straightened, still not standing as he gazed about the room unhurriedly. I opened my mouth to speak, but terror left my throat dry.
Dusk Varis.
An unbonded alpha from a pack as powerful as my mates.
Dusk and Umbra Varis were brothers even if they didn’t look it one bit, while their third pack member, Ransom, had yet to make an appearance at the academy.
I knew who he was for two reasons.
First, I’d overheard more gossip about them than I had of my mates. Cold and quiet, they received no visitors and ignored all the attention directed their way by omegas.
Second, was because I’d broken into his pack home only days ago. Unlike most packs and omegas who flaunted their scents about, Dusk and Umbra had been scentless every time I’d passed them. I’d known what that meant. His pack’s student apartment was on the third floor, conveniently close to a fire escape, and I’d snuck in through his window during dinner two nights ago. Sure enough, I’d found a bottle of scent blockers to replace the one I’d almost finished, and I’d taken it.
Now the cold, dark eyes of Dusk Varis pinned me in place. His head was cocked, as if witnessing something curious; his scent still as imperceptible as mine.
We stared at each other for ages. I couldn’t move, as if the phone he held had me in a vice. Then he lowered it, eyes darting down as he tapped on the screen.
I stumbled toward him, desperation hot in my veins, speech finally returning.“W-wait!”
He could ruin me with that photo.
Ruineverything.
Dusk glanced up at me, haltingbriefly. “Came for a thief. Found a stowaway,” he murmured. He reached over, plucking the pill bottle from my bedside table. I drew up a few feet from him, gaze flicking between the bottle and his face. An entirely different sort of panic seized me.
“It’s… It’s not what you think,” I said.
“So youdidn’tsteal this from me?”
“I-I would have given them back.” I only needed them for a few days.
“Begs the question…” he mused, standing at last. His towering height had me taking a quick step away, no matter what desperation had to say about it. He twisted the top, examining the contents. “Why not just take a few?”
Self preservation.
That was the answer I couldn’t give him though, not with the damning picture he now had on his phone. If something went wrong—if my mates couldn’t save me—and I was found to be a gold pack among the predators in this place… These eyes left me vulnerable to cruel packs and alphas who would enslave an omega without blinking an eye. The law wouldn’t even punish them for it.
My voice was rough. “I would have given them back.”
Dusk gave me a lazy half smile, setting the open bottle back on my bedside table. My eyes darted to it, and then along the surface to the knife he’d left untouched. It rested behind my glass of water, my only self defence—and a weapon I didn’t truly know how to use.
