Grace & Her Sinners (Pack Bonds Omegaverse #11)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Lobby, Omega Hotel

Grace

“I bet that we’ll each match with a guest Alpha and their elite pack at the Christmas Ball, sis.

” My brother’s playful voice vibrates with a hopeful purr.

“I know that staff are forbidden to take part, but we’ll find a way.

Mom may have branded us as Reject Omegas but she can’t deny that we’re part of the Frost pack forever. ”

I tighten my hand around his. My heart aches.

I’m optimistic. But my college aged brother, Bird, is delusional if he thinks that my stepmom will treat either of us as anything but two Omega workers again.

We were raised together in our pack but we have different parents.

In this vast, luxury 1920s hotel, staff don’t mix with guests or the billionaire owners, the Frosts.

Bird knows what it is like to be rejected from one pack. But I have been rejected from two. I can’t risk believing in pack bonds anymore.

They won’t save either of us.

I may as well believe in a Christmas miracle.

Or Santa.

And I stopped believing in that knotless Alpha fraud when Maya, my stepmom, sat me down aged five and explained that magic, fairies, and Alphas with Omega naughty lists didn’t exist but something better did — money.

Of course, she married my widowed Omega dad, Cooper, for his money, as well as control over his franchise of Omega Hotels.

This Omega Hotel is the original, flagship branch in Haven, a small town in Virginia.

I didn’t understand it then. But I did as I grew older and witnessed the luxury that half the people in the hotel wallowed in, while the Beta staff toiled in poverty, and the Hotel Omegas were owned like property.

Fucking greed.

I don’t wish to Santa or on a shooting star to change our fortunes.

I’m going to battle to change this system myself.

Can I tell Bird that stark truth?

Bird stands in the shadows of the narrow staff corridor with its peeling beige wallpaper and concrete floor, as well as fusty smell that makes my nose wrinkle, with wide, excited gray eyes.

Lively 1920s jazz music with trumpets, trombone, double bass, and banjo playing “White Christmas” bleeds through the archway behind me.

The archway leads into the back of the grand hotel lobby like the wardrobe into Narnia.

Bird and I are not meant to be here.

Yet we’re both drawn to this secret passageway as often as we can to catch a glimpse of the bustling outside world.

Staff are wards of the hotels. It’s part of the strict discretion, which the hotel offers the celebrities and billionaires who stay here as guests, that the staff don’t have access to phones or electronics. And that none of us can leave the hotel.

Perhaps, “Hotel California” was written about us?

Bird is handsome with warm brown skin and sharp cheekbones. Black curls fall to his waist. He is willowy but about a head taller than I am.

But then, everybody is.

I smooth my hand down the front of my housekeeper uniform, which is an elegant violet dress with a white apron wrapped around the middle.

My feet already ache in my heels.

I adjust my platinum hair, which is carefully pulled back with a purple ribbon as per the rules in my six hundred and sixty-six page long Rules for Staff Handbook.

666 is about right for this hell beneath the heaven of the luxury rooms, which the guests don’t even take a moment between sipping champagne and enjoying their spa treatments to think about.

“We’ll always be the Frost siblings,” I reply, boldly.

“Hatton, you, and me were the pretty Omega siblings with different dads, who Maya used in her PR. She’s an Omega obsessive who flaunts that she’s bonded three Omegas and only birthed Omegas.

But she threw you and me out like trash the moment that we weren’t good for that PR.

So, fuck those elite packs. Fuck the guests. And fuck Maya.”

Bird’s eyes widen in shock. “That’s a lot of fucking.”

I grin. “What can I say? This Omega has needs.”

Bird splutters a laugh. “Kinky.”

Then he drags me around in a twirling dance to the music.

There are deep shadows under his eyes. He always looks tired.

But then, he isn’t staff like me. He’s wearing the violet tailored shirt and black trousers of a Hotel Omega.

The letters HO are embroidered over his pocket.

My stomach gnaws with worry. Of course, that could be the hunger. I only had a slice of dry toast for breakfast.

My stepbrother is one of the Omegas who make these hotels unique in America. They are also a dark secret that the Traditional elite hold. Because Hotel Omegas are a commodity, product, service that can be chosen like an extra pillow, room service, or any other extravagant desire for the wealthy.

They pick the Omega that they want, then have them delivered to their room because they’re traveling alone, need one to help balance their pheromones, or to support them through their rut.

It’s wearing Bird out.

“As kids we swore that we’d be outlaw Omegas.” I let Bird twirl me around the dusty tunnel, which is divided by a single wall from the opulent lobby on the other side. “We’d steal all those Alphaholes’ shit and give it to the Omegas in the staff quarters who have earned it.”

“Steal from the rich and give to the poor.” Bird’s hair swirls around him in a wave of curls. “I was going to be the Robin Hood Omega.”

“Hey, I was the Omega in tights,” I reply, outraged. “You were Little John.”

“Hatton made a frighteningly good Sheriff of Nottingham. He should have been born an Alpha.”

“What if he secretly has a knot, and Maya has hidden it to keep up her perfect score of Omega babies?” I mean it as a joke, but it falls flat.

Actually, it’s the type of thing that she would do.

Bird stumbles to a stop.

My chest is tight at the thought of my brother, Hatton, who was born to the First and most cherished of the Omegas in the Frost nest, Ellington.

Ellington is beautiful but cruel. He rules every Omega in the hotel.

Hatton should be safe because Ellington loves his son more fiercely than anything.

Yet love has made Ellington separate his precious son from us. Love has made Ellington terrified that his own son won’t be favored, until he’s pushed him to always be perfect. Love has broken our family.

I pull away from Bird, wrapping my arms around myself. The memory of a freezing Christmas, playing Robin Hood in an outfit that Dad had sewn for me himself, floods back.

Dad and Jelani, Papa, were sitting together on the couch with their arms casually around each other. They were relaxed and comfortable, drinking mulled wine.

I remember feeling happy seeing them like that.

Jelani is Bird’s pretty but anxious Papa who rarely speaks.

When Ellington was in the penthouse, Jelani wasn’t allowed out of his room because Jelani was only a Hotel Omega who Maya had chosen as a breeder.

I didn’t understand that then.

Yet I fucking do now.

I’d wrapped up Alphas Today magazines to turn into swords. Bird, my Merry Man, had my much younger brother backed against the wall with his sword.

I was trying to look menacing, but it was ruined by Hatton’s giggling.

Hatton was overdressed, as he always was, in a fussy designer suit and waistcoat, despite not even coming up to my shoulder. His tumble of brunette hair fell over hazel eyes and soft olive skin.

I put my hand on my hip. “I will not rest until every Omega within this hotel is free. Now, show me where you are storing the taxes, Sheriff. I am Robin Hood and I will return the gold to every Omega you stole it from.”

“You tell him,” Dad praised.

Dad has always encouraged my independent streak but only in private. In public, he has taught me to follow rules that would keep me safe.

It was like we were playing a game, dressing up.

I nodded at Dad.

Dad had the same platinum hair as I did, turning now to gray, as well as sparkling aquamarine eyes. He was small for an Omega, which was why I was. He was dressed simply but still more warmly than the threadbare t-shirts and joggers, which were all I ever saw Jelani in.

Hatton tossed his head in a way that he was well practiced from in his role as the pampered, favored son. “Stole them? You are the outlaw.”

Jelani chuckled.

Bird grinned, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Papa to make sure that he was paying attention.

He was as happy as I was to hear Jelani laugh, before dramatically sticking his play sword to Hatton’s throat. “Robin is not the outlaw. She’s a hero.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Maya’s shrill, educated voice called from the doorway. “Why are you attacking your brother, Bird? Why the fuck is Jelani out of his room and in the presence of my precious Hatton?”

The stink of burned coffee, furious Alpha, made me gag.

Bird and I cowered in horror.

Dad scrambled off the couch, putting himself in front of Bird and me. He attempted to shield Jelani as well like he always did.

But I knew that it wouldn’t matter.

Mom could use Alpha Commands to control all of us.

How could Omegas fight back against the Head Alpha?

I balled my hands into fists.

I was the Omega Robin Hood. One day, I would free all the Omegas. Then I would steal the money that Maya loved more than any of us.

Now, I shiver in the cold, wishing that the staff uniforms were warmer.

“Hatton isn’t an Alpha; he’s not a liar. You can’t trust an Alpha’s love.” I clench my jaw. “Omegas must be the ones who take the lead and court the people who they let into their lives. I’m going to teach that to my daughter.”

Bird’s face scrunches in concern. “I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t mean to trigger you. I know that those assholes Alcotts matched with you at the Christmas Ball three years ago. Did you…? I mean, I know that you weren’t their scent matches, but did you like them?”

I wander away from Bird to lean against the wall.