Page 2 of The Pack Next Door
“I…”
This was why I never came back to Moon River. After the public rejection, I left with Mum, travelling from town to town in what felt like the world’s worst dating show. I’d be presented to the local alphas, and they’d take a look at me, breathe in, and then shake their heads, making clear I wasn’t the one for them. Mum had wanted to keep going, to drive all across Australia, if that’s what it took, but the fifth time we’d rolled into a new town and I’d been rejected, I made clear I was done. I’d gone to the city to see if there was something wrong with me.
Only to find myself.
I was the owner of a successful online homewares store, I told myself, my heart beating fast and loud in my ears. We had a turnover of several millions of dollars, growing larger each year. Omega Core had been featured in all the high-end fashion magazines. I’d been interviewed forVogue Living, for goodness sakes. But when I came back ‘home,’ suddenly I was reduced back down to my designation all over again.
“Briar!” A masculine voice had me turning around. Damien, or Omega Hart as he was known in town, was the mate of theruling pack of Moon River, and the man whose chest I’d cried into when it became clear I wouldn’t find my fated mates. “Your mother said you were coming back to town.” His arms wrapped around me, curiously strong even for his slim build, but before I could sink into his embrace, he held me at arm’s length. “Look at you! How do you become even more beautiful every year? You must’ve sold your soul to the devil. Reckon you could give me his contact details?” His hands smoothed over his cheeks. “Not sure even infernal forces could do much for me now that I’m over sixty.”
“You’re trying to tell me the Hart pack isn’t still chasing you around the alpha compound?” I cocked my hip and shot him a sceptical look. “I doubt it.”
“They do.” Damien’s face transformed into an expression of self-congratulation. “Probably still when we’re truly ancient, even if it means we’re all using Zimmer frames to get around.” He dropped a black card on the counter. “Just put whatever Briar wants on the card, Di.”
“Of course, Omega Hart.”
My old school friend’s demeanour changed completely, becoming instantly obliging. She put through the transactions before I could protest.
“Now, it's good you’re in town.” The omega retrieved his card, then linked his arm with mine, leading me out of the store. “The alphas and I, we’re stepping down.”
“What?”
Damien had the typical omega complexion, barely even showing a wrinkle, though there was a lot more silver in his hair than before.
“It’s time to find a new ruling pack,” he replied.
“So the Gregorys and Johnsons aren’t contenders?” I asked.
“They’re not worthy of taking our places.” Damien sniffed at that. “I wanted to banish the lot of them after what happened to you.”
The fact that the other alpha families had made a fuss about Damien becoming the Hart pack’s omega might’ve also coloured his judgement. When they were all young, male omegas were seen to be an aberration. They couldn’t provide an alpha with what he needed: sons. The expectation back then was that the alphas would either find a female omega to take as a mate or at least use their male omega’s sister as a surrogate. The Hart pack was one of the ones that had enforced the change. Destiny decided who an alpha’s mate was and rejecting that went against nature. Now alphas pursued the omega that fate decided was theirs, and their gender didn’t matter.
He shot me a sidelong look. “If those idiots didn’t have the good sense to choose you, then what chance have they got in running this town?”
I snorted and shook my head.
“As if the two things are interdependent. Look, I’ve got to run. Mum will be…” I looked down at my phone and saw the messages had started to come in. “Wondering where the hell I am, it appears. Maybe you and the pack could come by for dinner. In a few days,” I amended, knowing how much of a flap that would put my mother in.
“Or you could come by the alpha compound.” Damien’s smile was gentle. “Bring your mother, of course. I’ve been meaning to catch up with her. You could have dinner, see how I’ve displayed all those beautiful items you sent me.”
I made sure to send him a shipment of our best items each time a new lot of stock came in. Damien was the one who convinced his alphas to provide me with seed money for Omega Core, so I figured he’d earned it.
“You could also meet some of the alphas that have arrived in town…”
That was a gentle suggestion, his soft brown eyes finding mine, making clear he meant no harm by it. That’s why I smothered my reaction. Muscles tensed, heart racing faster and faster, forcing my lips to part to suck in more air, something I hid with a smile.
“No alphas for me,” I said, placing my hand on his arm. Let him think it was due to heart break or fear of rejection. Anything but the truth. Because when I went to the city, when the very nice people at Crowe Institute had run a barrage of tests, I’d discovered why no alpha would ever want me. “Now, I’ve gotta run. Mum?—”
“Look after your mother,” Damien said with a nod, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. “And we’ll look after you, Briar. You might’ve left Moon River for the big smoke, but as far as me and my pack are concerned, you’re still an omega under our protection. I’ll be in touch about dinner.”
Before I could protest, he marched off, sliding into the back seat of the pack Range Rover, an enforcer driving him to wherever else he needed to go. I shook my head, finding myself smiling at Damien’s high-handed antics, before getting back into my own car.
No enforcer to chauffeur me around. No pack to ensure I was happy, comfortable, but I’d learned to live with that years ago and had come to realise there was a freedom to that. When fate decided to turn its nose up at you, you got to determine your own. Forging my own destiny? I nodded as I turned the key in the ignition. Yeah, I was down with that.
And my mother’s.
Getting over not having fated mates would be a whole lot easier than trying to convince Maggie Reynolds to move to thecity. I focussed on that, coming up with ideas and discarding them, right until I rolled up to my old street.
Only to find it blocked by a massive van.
