Chapter One – The Day We Quit #2
Jay follows, grumbling under his breath the whole time, and ends up pressed against Shane, shoulder to shoulder, their legs jammed tight together with no room to move.
I go last. I have to crouch low, back bent at an awful angle, and wedge in sideways before dropping into the remaining sliver of seat. My head bumps the ceiling as I try to straighten up. No chance.
The door shuts with a dull thunk.
If Shane were human, he’d be up for a commendation instead of being treated like this. He saved that kid, and we all know it. But because we’re aegis and not human, none of that matters. The only thing that does is that he disobeyed a direct order from a human superior.
But it’s not the unfairness of this situation that breaks me. Not even the discomfort. What pushes me over the edge is the resignation on my brothers’ faces.
Like there’s nothing they can do but accept it.
I can smell their rage, their outrage, hanging thick in the air, sharp with aggression pheromones. But still, they don’t move. Don’t speak. Faces blank, bodies bent, doing everything they can to stay docile. To obey, taking this humiliation like we did something wrong.
My chest aches knowing this is all on me. If it had been their choice, we’d have left the force in our first year. But I kept us here.
I’d wanted to be a cop since I was eight years old.
My mother had been missing for a year by then, and it never once crossed my mind that the police, including my dads, wouldn’t find her.
Not until the day they sat me down and told me her case was being closed.
All the leads had gone cold, and there was nothing more they could do.
That day, I hated my dads for the first time. And I made myself a promise: I’d become a cop and find her.
Twelve years later, when my pack graduated and joined the force, I knew the odds of reopening her case were just above zero.
But I tried anyway.
I didn’t know back then that we’d be treated like scum by the human cops and every aegis pack we crossed paths with. It was brutal. Every single day. But I spent every spare minute studying her case, chasing leads, digging for anything that could give me a reason to reopen it.
At the time, I thought everything we endured was worth it.
But eventually, it was my turn to give up on her, just like my dads had all those years ago.
I didn’t want to. But I had tortured myself with every piece of evidence, every angle, every dead end.
There was nothing left. It was time to move on.
And I was ready, I had done everything I could.
We had one foot out the door when the force gave us a reason to stay: a scent bond.
There’s nothing an aegis wants more than a scent-bonded nyra. The perfect mate. But they’re rare, more than half of all packs never find one. Most settle for weaker, non-scent bonds, like my dads did with my mom.
Some aegis mate with humans. Some even try to mimic human marriage, living as couples apart from their pack, like Jay’s father tried to do.
And some packs stay unmated.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Like my brothers and me.
The same week we decided to leave the force, they announced the Matching Program to help law enforcement packs find their scent-mates. So we stayed.
But that was over three years ago. Since then, we’ve kept our phones close, hearts pounding every time they rang, but the Matching Center never called.
Not once. Jay and Shane gave up hope a long time ago, but before today I hadn’t.
I made us stay until the last possible moment, just in case she showed up.
She didn’t.
And now, I have to stop dragging us through this for the sake of ghosts.
My brothers deserve better.
I deserve better.
After six years, I’m finally tapping out. The weight of it presses against my chest like a stone.
The cruiser rolls to a stop in front of Nine’s station and the Greenster Two officers don’t say a word. They don’t even kill the engine, just wait.
Shane opens the door first, squeezing out with a grunt, and the rest of us follow.
One officer taps something into his MDT, probably logging the drop-off. The other one jerks his chin toward the building. “Your Captain’s expecting you.”
Of course he is.
We head inside, still stiff from the ride. The lobby’s quiet, but a couple of uniforms glance up, pure disgust in their expressions. Word’s already out.
We go straight to the captain’s office.
It’s empty, so we cram ourselves into the chairs in front of his desk to wait. Shane’s foot starts tapping against the floor almost immediately.
“Stop fidgeting,” I snap.
He shoots me a look, but his leg goes still. It came out harsher than I intended, but we’re all on edge, and the tap, tap, tap of his foot on the floor was getting under my skin.
Jay sighs on my right.
I lift my head, stretch my neck, and take a deep breath, trying to ease the pressure on my lungs. Between the three of us, the air in this tiny room is so thick with aggressive pheromones that I’m sure any aegis within a mile of the station can smell it.
Now that my mind’s made up, I just want to get it over with .
“When Balls gets here, I’m putting in for our dismissal,” I say.
Their heads snap toward me, and my chest unclenches a little, watching their faces change, their features lighting up.
Jay’s the first to speak. “It’s time, Kory. It really is.”
Shane lets out a breath that’s half a laugh. “We’ll be better off. There’s a decent cage-fighting league in Pittsburgh. We could start there.”
There aren’t many paths left for packs like us. Once you’re out of the force or the military, it’s either private security, usually for some crime-adjacent asshole, or fighting. At least in the cage, it’s legal.
Jay nods. “The money sucks if you’re not a name, but it’s not like we’re getting paid well here, anyway.”
“We’re Tier-Four. We have two years of military training and six on the force,” Shane adds. “We could be a name.”
Some of the tension slips off my shoulders. They’re already thinking ahead, already trying to make the best of it. Even if it’s not much, since we’re trading a stable paycheck and a few basic benefits for a cut of whatever tickets the league sells.
But Shane’s not wrong. Most cage fighters are Tier-Five: packs at the very bottom of our society. Their bonds are weak; their hormone regulation barely functional. They can’t control their aggression, not even with their own brothers. Tier-Fives are smaller, unstable.
We are bigger. Disciplined. Trained. So yeah, we’ve got a shot at making something out of it, even if it’s just fighting for scraps in a ring. At least there, no one expects us to bow. No constant pressure to stay tame, stay harmless. No need to prove day in, day out that we’re safe to be around.
In the cage, they want us unleashed.
The real loss is the Matching Program. Once we’re out, that’s it; we’re erased. But after three years of chasing nothing, I’ve finally given up on the fantasy that our nyra ever existed.
The clock ticks loudly above the door. Ten minutes feels like a lifetime.
“Come on, where is the motherfucker?” Jay mutters.
Shane and I grunt in agreement. I can’t wait to get out of here.
The sharp clack of the door lock is like an angel choir in my ears. Captain Balls starts yelling before he even steps inside.
His name isn’t actually Balls, but Shane came up with the nickname, and it fits so well that it stuck. The man is tiny — maybe 5’5” — and round all over. Especially his head. His bald, round head.
He looks like a little ball on top of a ball, with arms and legs awkwardly stuck to it. The nickname is so good that even the human cops call him that.
“You’re suspended, Larsen! All of you!” His face is red as he storms in. “Suspended! Do you hear me?”
God, I can’t stand this little man .
As a human, he’s untouchable. If an aegis lays a hand on a human outside an operation, it’s a one-way ticket to jail. But if I’m honest, even if I could swing at him, I probably wouldn’t. He’s so damn small it’d feel like hitting a kid.
“What the hell were you thinking, you little shit?” He glares at Shane, squinting his piggy eyes so much they’re almost shut. “You could’ve killed that damn kid! You have no discipline! No respect! When I asked for dogs, I meant purebred. If I knew I’d be stuck with strays, I never would’ve asked!”
Strays.
There it is again.
I am so done. Knowing we’re walking away makes it ten times harder to swallow any more shit from this tiny man.
I glance at my brothers.
Shane is about to lose it. His fists are clenched so tight his knuckles have gone white. His body leans forward, every muscle taut. If Balls pushes him one inch further, Shane will finally snap, and if he does, he won’t stop until all fourteen bones in Balls’s face are shattered.
And honestly, I wouldn’t blame him.
I exhale slowly and rise to my feet.
Balls falls silent the moment I stand. He turns to me, and his squinted eyes widen in fear, like he thinks I’ve lost my mind and I’m finally going to give him what he deserves. That would be funny if I weren’t so pissed off.
I meet his gaze, my voice calm but firm. “My pack formally requests dismissal from the police force.”
Nine words.
They’ve been in my head for years.
I’ve whispered them under my breath more times than I can count, imagining how it would feel to finally say them out loud. Maybe like a failure. Maybe relief. But now they’re out, and all I feel is rage.
Balls is still staring at me, stunned.
I can sense my brothers behind me, silently waiting for him to acknowledge the request and dismiss us.
But for once in his miserable life, the man’s speechless. I give him one more minute. After that, screw doing it the right way; we’re leaving.
I glance at the wall clock, my fingers twitching. When the minute is finally over, I feel the relief I’ve been chasing for years. We are free.
I turn and look at my brothers. “Let’s go.”
Their reaction is immediate. They’re on their feet in a second, just as eager to leave as I am.
Two steps, and I’m at the door. I grip the knob and breathe deeper, easier than I have in years.
“Inside, Larsen.”
Fuck. My. Life .
The voice slams into me like a hammer. Commander Elias Eneas.
Half the weight I just shed crashes right back onto my shoulders.
I’ve seen the commander a few times, mostly at military events. But this is the first time I’ve seen him alone. Every other time, his brothers were with him: the two Deputy Commanders of Special Operations, never more than a step behind.
I spoke with them once, back when my pack graduated and joined the force. It wasn’t much of a conversation; they congratulated me as pack leader, shook my hand, and walked away.
In six years, not once has any member of the Eneas pack set foot in this station. And of all days, the commander had to show up today.
The day Shane killed a fucker without permission.
The day we quit.
I consider ignoring him. Technically, we’re no longer in his command chain. We’re no longer in anyone’s command chain.
But this isn’t some human who’s been treating us like shit for years. This is a Tier-One aegis. A legend in Special Operations. I’ve got no reason to disrespect him, so I figure if I gave fucking Balls a minute, I can give this guy one too.
My brothers pick up on my decision without me saying a word. Silently, they return to their undersized chairs. But they don’t sit, and neither do I.
“It’s an honor, sir, but we are leaving.”
Unfortunately, Balls chooses this moment to recover his ability to speak.
“This little shit disobeyed a direct order, jeopardizing a high-risk operation—”
He’s barely started squeaking when the commander cuts him off, not even sparing him a glance. “You are dismissed, Captain Smith.”
For a second, I think Balls will argue, but he seems to have regained his common sense too. It’s all over his face how much it kills him to take an order from an aegis, but this isn’t just any aegis. It’s the fucking Commander. So he swallows it, inclines his head, and walks out.
“I know you’re all on edge, Larsen. I could smell it from outside the building, and I wish I could let you go and make the air a little more breathable, but we’re all going to have to suck it up for a little longer.”
He shoots Shane a sharp look. “Let’s hear it from you.”
Shane drops into his seat, and Jay and I follow. He takes a deep breath before speaking, calm and controlled, even with tension pouring off him. I’m impressed and proud.
“Around 09:30 this morning, right after wrapping our night shift, we got a dispatch call about an active shooter at Saint Marie High. Patrol units were already on site and had called for tactical backup.
“We got there within minutes. Officers from District Two were attempting to secure the perimeter and were coordinating with incoming SWAT unit. We were directed to enter the building and hold position in the hallway outside the classroom.
“Orders were clear: wait for SWAT. But the suspect stepped out, dragging a student with a gun to the kid’s head. The student tripped, and I saw the man’s trigger finger move. I believed he was about to shoot, so I made the call. One shot.”
The commander exhales heavily, then turns to me.
“Do you want to add anything, pack leader?”
“No, sir.”
He looks at me with intensity for a second longer, then shifts his gaze to Jay.
We’re used to this kind of stare. Like every other aegis we’ve encountered since our pack was formed, he’s searching for a crack, a weakness, a fracture in our bond.
But he won’t find one.
Because there isn’t one.
No matter how suspicious they are of stray packs like ours, we’re brothers in every way that matters, just as much as any blood pack.
Whatever the commander sees in our eyes, it seems to satisfy him, which honestly surprises me. I’ve always felt like people wanted us to fail, like they resented how strong our bond was. Proving them wrong has always been extra motivation to keep us as unified as possible.
“I won’t lie, Larsen,” the commander says. “You’ve put me in a difficult position. My information is that Captain Smith wants you suspended, and leadership is going to give me hell for interfering in this kind of station bullshit just to get you off the hook.”
I blink.
I glance at my brothers, searching their faces, because surely I misheard that.
Commander Eneas, a Tier-One aegis, is on our side? That’s a first.
I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone in our corner before. Every aegis we’ve ever crossed paths with has treated us like we were beneath them.
But in the end, it doesn’t matter if Eneas is treating us with some basic respect.
We’re done with law enforcement.
We quit.
“Sir,” I say, “I requested our dismissal from the police force to Captain Smith. We are leaving.”
A slow grin spreads across the commander’s face. “Oh, I don’t think so, Kory Larsen,” he says. “The Matching Program found your pack a match.”