Page 102 of This Pack of Ours

First of all, it cost alotof money.

But… I still had some savings. My heart wrenched when I thought of how it would shave off a few extra months that we could stay open, but what was the use of prolonging the inevitable? I could spend it on this.

Besides the cost, there was our social status. Packs that submitted their scents to the Valentine Division may not want a gold pack. But still, there might be some that would.

And the last reason was that—if I was being honest—it was a stupid idea for a gold pack to opt into a scent match. We knew there were things thatwouldpush even the most Angel-like alpha to try to dark bond us.

Scent matches were biology—they didn’t equal love. Or even always like. You could scent match a dick. Vander’s face popped into my head and I pushed it away.

The problem was, dangling a scent match in front of a pack; a one-and-only, never again, irresistible temptation—and then trying to walk away?

They had a way to stop you. To control you.

A gold pack omega would have to be dumb or desperate to willingly roll those dice.

I was fucking desperate.

I took a breath.

Kit. Jhin. Vander. Ez. Adrian. I pictured their faces, and the pain that blossomed in my chest pushed me to finally move.

I got out of the car, hugging myself, and walked up the cold stone steps to the rotating door.

The building was massive, and I’d only been here once before, to get my photo taken as I registered for my AORN. The memory was not a pleasant one.

I took another breath and walked up to the front desk.

“Hello. I’m looking for the Valentine Division?” I asked.

The clerk didn’t look up and pointed to the board next to her. I walked down the halls until I found the registration desk.

“Oh, you’re gold pack. Don’t get a lot of those here. Do you have an appointment, dear?" said the next clerk. She was a plump beta with thick, purple glasses and blue hair. She was also the first person who I’d ever met here who’d greeted me with a smile.

“No,” I said, feeling stupid. “But this is an emergency.”

She chuckled.

“Don’t hear that one very often, either. I’ll see what we can do, okay? Wedohave a cancellation, and the samples are already prepared,” she assured me, clicking away on her computer. Her voice dropped to a mutter, and I wasn’t really sure if she was talking to me or herself. “Hmm, but you’re gold pack so we’d have to cross reference that.” She frowned, clicking on the screen before her face lit up with a grin. “Oh, a lot of them didn’t exclude that. You’re lucky, you know, with all the high-profile gold packs showing up in the news, we’re getting lots more packs willing to expand their match options. Okay, I could slot you in, but you’d have to be okay with the selections the other omega made. That means the price as well.”

“What selections?” I asked. She clicked some more and a sheet of paper printed behind her. She put it onto a clipboard and handed it to me.

“Just review these here. Look, give me your card and I can start running the background check just in case.”

“Oh, just so you know, though, they do require the payment up front.” Her eyes turned sympathetic. “You’re aware of the cost, right?”

“I know it’s…pricey,” I said.

She turned her screen so I could see it and I blanched at the number she showed.

Shit.

That was nearly all my savings.

I took several shallow breaths, feeling lightheaded, but I steeled my resolve.

If this was what it took to forget about Kit and his new pack, so be it. I’d do it.

“Okay, we take a 10% deposit now, and the rest after. If you don’t get a match, you’ll only have to pay another 70% but if you do, it’ll be the full amount.

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