Page 1 of Zoinks! Nice Pack, Bro

CHAPTER 1

FREE FALLIN’

Sadie

My flats smack against the concrete as I step outside of work. I shiver, because of course it’s colder than I expected.

Not bothering a glance towards the stairs that lead out to the parking lot, I rush down them without thinking about anything but getting to break.

I just want to hunker down, in my car, for the next thirty minutes.

I want to take my time and drink my coffee. The coffee that has way too much heavy cream and absolutely is going to give me a tummy ache.

Maybe I’ll even socialize virtually with a few texts. Bitching about the book I’m reading to my best friend is the perfect way to spend a break and will make me feel just human enough.

My heat ended a couple weeks ago.

A heat that I spent locked in my bathroom, losing my mind as I refused to go to Omega Service’s to have someone help me through it.

It’s embarrassing to have to ask someone for help during a heat, especially as an omega of my age.

It feels like I’ve constantly been rejected, never good enough for a pack. Not even good enough for the pack my family had. Not good enough for more than a heat clinic to be a hole for alphas.

It was fine.

All of it fine because my next heat would be in a few months . I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a week off of work as I make a nest in my bathroom, coating my bathtub in slick as I die from heat brain until then.

Fine.

Everything is fine.

I’m back at work after the ordeal with my heat. Maybe I’m wishing I was home and hidden in my bed or at least in my car which is like a mobile nest for me to feel safe in.

After heat hormones are the worst.

Just one minute away from my safe place.

Safe. Nest. Peace.

But that all changes, as my foot wedges in the crater of concrete of the last stair, that has been broken since I’ve started this job.

My ankle turns, my body flies forwards. The only form of self preservation I have is to tighten the hold on my coffee as I tense my body ready for impact on the ground.

I will protect this coffee at all costs.

I’m already thinking about how to make my escape from the embarrassment of my impending fall, when an arm wraps around my bicep and my waist, turning and pulling me down the last step to the safety of the sidewalk.

Camping.

Pine trees and smoke. Maybe a hint of burnt marshmallows in there.

Oh no.

Alpha.

My heart is beating, cheeks burning red as the realization I didn’t fall but, someone saw my fight with gravity, washes over me. And I look up as the hand slides from my waist and loosens so its laying on my bicep instead of squeezing it.

Jesus Christ.

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