Look To Pass (Willow Falls Omegaverse #1)

Chapter 1

WREN

“He had his tongue in her ear. His tongue. In. Her. Ear.” Slowly enunciating each word with a hiss, I cup my mouth into the phone. “I don’t even want to know where else that appendage has been. Gross.”

My sister makes a faux retching noise. “Don’t ruin my perfectly good cereal for me. Thank god you dumped his ass.”

“More like thank god his floozy of the week was dumb enough to tag him in a photo.” Or twenty. Nothing like stumbling upon a Pandora’s box of Instagram posts proving that the guy I’d been foolish enough to think was a good idea, was in fact Captain of the S.S. Douchebag.

“You’d already broken up with him before the holidays, though?” she mumbles through a mouthful. “Wren Murphy, do not tell me you were still with the guy?”

“Ew. No way.” Scrunching my nose, I shift the phone to pinch it between my ear and shoulder while I rummage for my wallet. The blissful scent of caffeine and sweet almonds swirls around me. “He was already ancient history, but bimbo Beta confirmed my suspicions.”

“Hmmmphf,” Lark huffs down the line, talking around the crunch of Lucky Charms. “Asshole.”

“This is what I get for having a summer fling. A Beta I should have said ‘boy, bye’ to the minute he first wore shoes inside the house.”

My sister’s tone drops low as if she’s about to divulge state secrets. “Can you imagine what would get tracked inside? All those scents brought in? The horror.” I can hear the shudder roll through her body. She’s an Omega, too. She gets it on a cellular level.

Making a face, I’m right there with her. The day he did it, I vacuumed for three hours afterward… and that’s coming from me… someone who is pathologically avoidant of housework. “Can you imagine if I had been a scent match with him?”

“Ugh, and sometimes those bonds don’t jump up and grab you for ages. I’ve heard about Omegas who waited five years before their bond finally woke up and confirmed the scent match.”

“Fucking designations. I hate it.”

“I mean… it’s kinda a good thing, right?

What would it be like if we had to go through the bonding process with all our scent matches at the same time?

Imagine if your pack was something as intense as like five different Alphas or something chaotic like that.

It’d be too much to handle.” Her dishes clank in the sink in the background, water running as she rinses them under the tap.

“I swear to god, this being an Omega thing is bullshit. Someone should have really invented a scratch-and-sniff test by now. Get it over and done with. I don’t want options to swipe left on dudes posing with fish. I want to have a scent code to punch in an app.”

“Oh, look at you. Doing the mostest to keep the romance alive.”

“Well… after a waste of space like Brett… you can see why my hopeless romantic card has been voided.”

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay, knowing he’s on campus?”

“Yeah. He’s here, but lives across town, studies law. Hopefully, I won’t run into him too often since he’s already been here two years. I’ve done a little snooping, and the law building is waaaay across the other side of campus.”

“Well, you know I’m only a text or call away, anytime you need to talk.” She pauses. My sweet baby sister just turned twenty. She’s still gotta wait three years before she’ll be eligible for an Omega scholarship. By the time I’ve graduated, she’ll only just be starting her two-year intensive.

Such is reality for those of us living on this path in life. We’re not exactly rare, but we’re not common, either. We sit somewhere in a gray area of society where plenty love to pretend we don’t exist or have real rights.

“I wish I could be there with you.” Lark gets that soft edge to her words, a little wistful and a lot trying to once again guilt-trip me for moving to the East Coast.

“Boo hoo. You’ll just have to endure the pain of being resident spoiled lil Omega baby of the family.”

“Uhh, lies, you know that’s categorically untrue.”

It’s so true. My aunt’s pack spoils her rotten.

“Have you seen Finch since you moved into your dorm? What are your roomies like?”

“Nope. Mr. Pro Rugby Star is too busy preening himself in the mirror, no doubt. His sister’s arrival on campus isn’t gonna be on his radar.

” Puffing out a long-suffering breath—as always where my brother is concerned—I shuffle forward in the coffee queue, with only one more person ahead of me now.

“It’s not a dorm, really. We have a proper semi-detached place for the three of us.

” I haven’t met the other girls yet, but we’ve been texting to get to know each other a little over the past few weeks since we found out we’d been assigned the same house.

“They’re on their way from the airport right now.

I’m picking them up coffees and cupcakes as a new roommate treat. ”

“Super cute. They’re gonna adore you, Wrennie.”

Gnawing on my bottom lip, I feel that slight glitch in my pulse.

Meeting new people is always a little nerve-racking, especially as an Omega.

But whatever, the three of us are all gonna be in the same boat, so we can all be neurotically awkward and fueled by anxiety and sugar and the fundamental need to smother ourselves under soft blankets as a trio.

Hence, treats and caffeine as a little team icebreaker.

“Okay, I love you, but I gotta go. Talk later, yeah?”

My baby sister blows me kisses down the line and makes me promise to send selfies with my new place so she can visualize the energy flow before we hang up.

My eyes are rolling as I agree, but gotta love her, even if she’s the matching color palette and ambient lighting, to my pure vibes and organized chaos.

Our distinctly different tastes in living arrangements have been a running joke for years.

That girl is gonna end up hiring an interior designer for her nest when the time comes, I’m sure of it.

My phone vibrates with messages popping up in the group chat with my new roommates for our time on campus.

Gabriella:

At last! We’re here!

Nikita:

Look out, bitches. Two hot new Omegas have entered the villa.

Gabriella:

Thank you for doing a coffee run, Wren.

I’m about ready to shrivel up and die after nothing but horrid airport coffee on that red eye.

Me:

Sorrows. RIP your taste buds.

One peppermint mocha, and one caramel latte, coming right up.

Nikita:

Tap a main vein and slip it right in there, thanks, babe.

Me:

See you in five!

Armed with a coffee tray, six-pack of frosted double chocolate cupcakes, and confidence sourced from a pending sugar high, I tuck my chin under my chunky scarf.

It’s an easy trip to make my way along the little alley shortcut linking our street with the Toasted Acorn Café.

One glance and I already know it’s going to be our local.

The place is cute as heck. Big comfy armchairs by a roaring fire to curl up in on the cold days, and potted geraniums out front with sidewalk seats awaiting the sunnier days to come later in the year.

It’s easy to get everywhere on campus on foot, and our shared house is at the heart of college life.

There might be a hell of a lot of downsides to living as an Omega in society, but this scholarship Willow Falls provides isn’t one of them.

The two-year accelerated program the three of us enrolled in provides full board for the duration of our degree, with all amenities provided, right down to a meal allowance.

It’s not ideal starting partway through the year, considering it’s the tail end of winter—we’ll blink and it’ll be approaching spring before we know it—and other students have had the benefit of being here since the start of the academic year.

But it’s better than nothing. Another strange requirement of our Omega scholarship: understanding and agreeing to the premise that our places are allocated based on housing availability and number of current Omega students enrolled.

The three of us have been waiting until these places opened up, and now here we are, arriving on campus for the first time while the Alphas and Betas have already been settled in since fall last year.

We might not have a pack to take care of us yet, but the college has set us up so that we can at least be as comfortable as possible. We’ve even got a specialty Omega counselor on campus, who is there to help us if we need assistance with servicing heats as they arise.

God, I hope mine is late onset.

As much as I know in theory what’s to come—I’ve sat through more What to Expect When You’re an Omega classes than I can count on my fingers—I’m still like any regular twenty-three-year-old.

I want to dance under the stars, I want to travel, I want to get my degree, and I’ve got everything crossed for making it to the podium in cap and gown… without having to deal with the figurative and literal mess of heats.

Look, I’m a modern woman, I’ll get them serviced if it comes down to that. What I can’t stand is the idea of being seen as some weakling Omega who’s only attending college with the sole aim of landing herself a pack. That’s the last thing on my mind.

There are trophy hunters galore who attend Willow Falls. I’d rather chew off my own arm than be lumped in as one of them.

Turning the corner, I spot the duck-egg blue front door of our brick townhouse and take a deep breath of crisp late winter air.

These girls seem cool, we’ve had a chance to get to know each other a little beforehand—kinda essential since we’re basically gonna have to be as tight as family over the next two years.

Part of the gig living as Omegas. We gotta stick to each other like glue and have each other’s backs for the two years of our accelerated degrees.

We’ll live together, study together, and graduate together.