Page 77 of This Pack of Ours

“But this is her apartment —” moustache said, uncertainty lacing his voice.

“Wrong,” hissed Vander. “Theybothlive here. They share a nest.”

“But she’s unbonded,” Weasel-face said faintly, eyes flicking to my AORN card.

I wanted to scream.

I already fuckingtoldhim that before they went in and he’d scoffed at me. But the Argo pack appears and now they’re ready to drop and lick boots.

“That doesn’t change the fact that they share a nest,” Jhin snapped.

Moustache swallowed.

“Do you have any actual evidence that Juniper was breaking the law?”

“Sorry, sir,” the moustache said, “We had a reliable report that this omega was wearing illegal contact lenses. We are required to take reasonable measures to ensure they are not hidden here.”

“Reliable? So you’re sure this report came from someone who has no personal vendetta against Juniper? No motive to give a false claim?” Jhin’s voice had settled into a deadly calm, his intense eyes boring into weasel-face. “I can tell you that we’ve been with Juniper all week, even through her heat, and her eyes have been gold the whole time.”

The officer took a step back.

“Ah,” said moustache, I could see sweat beading on his reddened forehead. “W-we didn’t realize you had an arrangement with her. We can add your testimony to the file. That should be enough to, um, drop the charges, right?” He shot a worried look at weasel-face, who gave a nervous smile.

Shock was beating through my system. God, I had underestimated how desperate the GPRE were to kiss alpha ass.

Drop the fucking charges?

Jhin wasn’t impressed. His aura, paired with the intensity of the look he was giving moustache was terrifying, making my hairs stand on end just seeing it. He was the only thing I could focus on in the room, everything else blurring out as I heard my heartbeat thump in my ears. Jhin was something else; this must be what it was like to stand before an emperor’s judgement, though I’d never say that out loud.

It was so intense I was half-expecting the officer to collapse with a heart attack. Or maybe drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness.

“Come to think of it, Ortega, we should also record their omega’s testimony about her previous assault charge,” weasel-face said nervously. “It’s a bit of an oversight that we didn’t get both sides of the story. Think they could apply to clear it from her record?”

Clear it from my record?

There was a faint buzzing in my ears, and I thought I might throw up. That assault charge had barred me from getting a gold-pack work pass, effectively making me unemployable.

I’d been told it waspermanent.

“That’s the least you can do,” Jhin said. “You will leave. Now. And expect to be hearing from me if you don’t sort both of those charges out.”

Moustache gave another nod, and the officers fled the room. The sounds of their footsteps on the stairs made my head pound, and I flinched as they closed the front door.

Kit burst into tears.

I unfurled and launched toward our room with a scream, barreling past Jhin and into the tattered remains.

Our nest was destroyed.

I stood, panting, taking in the damage. Our pillows and duvet covers were ripped apart, our mattress cut open, even two of my lava lamps had fallen and cracked, leaking out onto the hardwood floor. My eyes blurred again, and I felt a painful tightness around my lungs and heart as I struggled to reconcile what they’d done.

We’d spent so long trying to find the right fabrics and textures. We couldn’t afford to buy anything new, having to get everything second-hand from the thrift shop down the street. It had taken months of heavy-duty laundry and scent marking to make each item’s old smell fade so that when we crawled in there, it only smelled of us.

I could still hear their words.“We don’t need a warrant for gold pack omegas.”

And now, because of me, Kit had lost everything, too.

I looked down to see the remains of Kit’s favorite pillow at my feet.

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