This Pack of Ours (Poisonverse)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

KIT

“Let your aura soothe and heal. Feel it mixing with your alphas, calming them.” Professor Orson’s voice rang through the classroom, and my anxiety skyrocketed. “An alpha’s aura lends them strength and power, but also instability. An omega’s place is to balance the alpha.”

I looked blankly up at Lincoln, the alpha whose hand I was holding; he winked at me. I felt my face go hot, and closed my eyes, trying to focus on what Professor Orson was telling us. Soothe. Heal.

I could feel his aura. It was out—a force in the air around me. It was hard not to read it as a threat, based on where I grew up. But just like every other time I tried this exercise, I couldn’t focus on truly reaching him.

The timer on Professor Orson’s desk went off, and I released Lincoln’s hand with a nervous smile, turning to pack my books into my bag.

“Hey, Kristofer,” Lincoln said, and I could feel all the muscles in my neck tense as he used the name my grandmother called me. She was the one who’d secured a massive loan to send me to Hawthorne Academy, a school that in reality served as a matchmaking service for alphas and omegas. It was supposed to be our ticket out of poverty. “ It’s perfect, Kristofer, ” my grandmother had said as she marched me to my dorm room, her bony fingers digging into my arm. “ You were made for this. Pick the right pack and you’ll never have to work again. ”

“Hm?” I turned back to Lincoln and forced another smile on my face.

“You wanna come back to our dorm after?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Usually, I’d say yes. I was surrounded by a smorgasbord of insanely hot, flirty alphas, and sex was about the only fun thing to do around here. Besides, I knew my grandmother would hate my promiscuity. Just like she’d hated that I’d dyed my hair pink, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

“Oh, not today,” I said, tucking my hands in my sleeves as I picked up my backpack.

“Sorensen. A word?” Professor Orson said, and I suppressed a sigh as I walked up to her desk. I bounced on my toes as she set down her pencil. She fixed me with her stern gaze.

“You need to try , Sorensen,” she said.

“I am,” I replied, fiddling with my sleeves.

“You can go far as an omega. Your scent is compelling, and you have a perfect temperament to balance alphas. It should be easy for you. Yet you continue to fail with the most basic exercises.”

My face was hot again. Her disappointment was palpable, and one more thing I didn’t need today.

“I’m sorry.” My voice wavered.

“Don’t be sorry. Do better.” She flicked her hand at the door, and I hurried out of the classroom, ignoring everyone I passed.

I found an empty bench in the front garden and perched on the seat, pulling out a piece of paper and staring down at it. It was my grandmother’s list of all the packs available at Hawthorne Academy. In a month, I’d be leaving to spend the rest of my life with one of them—at the age of 19.

Crumpling it up with both hands, I flung it at the metal garbage can by the bench across from me. I rested my head on my knees, fighting back tears.

I fucking hated it here.

I shifted my button-up shirt, adjusting where it rubbed against my neck. My preferred clothing was either comfy or slutty, and neither was acceptable on campus.

For an omega who lived topside—in the well-off part of the city—perfuming was a celebration. You could expect a life of being desired and cared for; packs would compete to secure your attention.

But I wasn’t from the good part of town. I was born and raised across the tracks in the Gritch district. And perfuming as an omega in the Gritch was a life sentence. Desired, but not cared for. A life in hiding, of surviving heats, of dreaming of finding a pack that might just protect me instead of using me up.

I was lucky to be here. Lucky to be facing the rest of my life living as some kind of pez-dispenser for unstable rich alphas.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have any interested packs. I was shy but still managed to catch attention.

“It’s a good thing you’ve got that pretty face,” grandmother’s snippy voice had reminded me as she left. “People will be too busy staring at it to realize you don’t have anything else to offer.”

My eyes prickled again as I wondered if I was losing myself. If Kit was being erased by this fucking Kristofer , who wore button-ups and went to tea parties and sat up straight. Because if a pack picked Kristofer, I could never go back to being Kit. It’s not like they’d bring me home and I’d say, “Thanks for picking me as your omega! Excuse me, I’m just going to go get high, eat Cheetos, and stay on the couch all day while I binge five seasons of Honey Omega Club: Go!”

Fuck, I wanted my vape pen back so bad. They’d confiscated it on the second day, saying it wasn’t becoming of a proper omega .

As I sat wallowing, I heard footsteps approaching down the path, making me look up.

I was hunched on the bench, hugging my legs, which was sure to earn me a lecture about posture. But who I saw approaching wasn’t any of the staff here.

She was tall, the kind of unhealthy-pale and gaunt I hadn’t seen since I’d arrived at Hawthorne Academy. There were deep bags under her eyes. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore no makeup, and had on a huge, faded hoodie that screamed Gritch.

I recognized the imprint of brass knuckles in her legging pocket. Her eyebrows were pulled down in a scowl, practically radiating anger as she stomped down the path. Her eyes flicked to me, and I saw they were a brilliant gold.

Not just a grinch omega, but a gold pack, too. Omegas with golden eyes were barely considered citizens.

Our modern age had brought ‘safety’ and ‘civility’ to the existence of alphas and omegas. The Institute had all but eradicated rogue alphas, who were feral and dangerous, and they’d done it by targeting their parents; omegas.

When you perfumed as an omega, you had one year to report to the Institute and get an injection. The injection would stabilize you and ensure your alpha children would all be nice and stable— for the safety of society . However, the injection was voluntary. Fail to show up within the year, and it was too late. Your eyes would turn gold. Because you’d chosen to endanger society with your potential offspring, you were considered an outcast, not protected by the same laws that applied to other omegas.

I didn’t give a fuck about the Institute, but my grandmother had taken me the week after I perfumed so I didn’t “ mess up my chances ”. Gold pack omegas were low, not considered worth a regular bond to most. I’d gone along for my own reasons. Being gold pack meant you weren’t legally protected from the worst thing that could happen to an omega—a dark bond. Becoming dark bonded to a pack meant becoming their slave for life.

Gold pack omegas were a big ‘fuck you’. To society. To civility. To alphas.

This gold pack omega definitely had big ‘fuck you’ energy. She looked fierce. Competent. Tough. Kinda scary, actually. Like she would have been able to look my grandmother in the eyes and say, no, I’m not going to that stupid academy.

Unlike me . I’d shuffled my feet and said I’d rather not. My grandmother had scoffed and that was that.

The omega walked past me, not giving me a second glance, but hesitated as she approached the main entrance, pulling out her phone, then looking around. She started down one path, then paused again, before peering at her phone, clearly lost.

Scary or not, I couldn’t just leave her to struggle. I warred with myself before pushing through my discomfort.

“Need a hand?” I asked, giving her a small smile. My shoulders hunched with a bit of nerves. I’d worked so hard to hide my Gritch-side accent since I started here, and it was nice to let it out. She looked relieved as she turned around, but her brows bunched in suspicion when she saw me.

Her eyes were stunning, large with dark eyelashes, and I caught a whiff of her scent; sour cherries and spice. Usually omega scents soured with our mood, but hers smelled like sour cherry candies, like it was meant to be sour. God, that was so perfect. Another big ‘fuck you’.

Her cheeks were flushed and she gripped the strap of her backpack tightly. I’d thought she might be older than me at first glance, but now that I could see her properly, I’d put her close to my own age.

She just stared for a moment and I stared back, trying not to gawk.

I gave an awkward shrug and waved at her legs, my hands clutching the ends of my sleeves.

“Um, just… you might want to hide your weapon better. They’ll confiscate it if they see it.” Mine had been. Apparently, omegas didn’t carry weapons in Hawthorne. Then again, the dangers we faced here were less the street-assault kind and more the spiked-drink kind.

“I’ve got two,” she said flatly.

I opened my mouth, caught off guard. Two?

“Genius,” I muttered before I could stop myself. “Or maybe I’m just dumb as a stump. Never thought of that.”

Her eyebrow rose, as if she was trying to decide if I was taking the piss or not.

“You’re definitely dumb as a stump,” she finally said, her lip twitching. I laughed, half at the joke and half in relief that she’d lowered her hackles a bit. She put down her phone and folded her arms.

“I’m looking for the pack dorm rooms. 514,” she said. With her anger gone, she just sounded tired.

“They’re back that way.” I nodded over my shoulder toward the south side. I knew intimately where the pack dorms were, having visited most of them at least once.

The omega stepped closer to me, peering in the direction I’d indicated. Then, without warning, she doubled over, her fingers digging into my arm. A faint whine came from her gritted teeth, and her sharp scent swept over me, arousal prickling down my back and blood rushing to my cock. Her other hand grabbed my shirt, pulling hard enough that a button ripped off. Fuck, that roughness was hot. Her scent was sharp in my nose, and I found myself leaning in, hoping that maybe she’d push me back to the bench and look at me with that furious stare as she ripped the rest of my top off.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my hand coming up to cover my nose. My head was spinning as I took a step backward, afraid of the intensity of my reaction. I’d never felt something so potent.

“Shit,” she panted. “S—Sorry.”

“It happens,” I said, readjusting my glasses on my scorching face. Thank god she’d untucked my shirt. It hid the rock-hard erection in my fancy dress pants. I might actually die if she saw that.

She was near heat, that much was clear. Really near. And looking for an alpha’s dorm.

“You here for heat helpers?” I guessed.

An omega without a pack had two options for their heat: ride it out, preferably while sedated, or fill their body’s need for knots by finding a pack of willing alphas. Not that there was anything official to organize heat helpers.

I knew for a fact most of the packs here were part of a covert online forum as heat helpers. My grandmother had somehow found it. She kept sending me photos of the bidding wars—blurry, bright pictures of her computer screen followed by a wall of her commentary.

“Yeah," she said, recovering enough to straighten a bit.

“Wait, 514?” I wrinkled my nose. “That’s the Aven pack, right?”

She nodded, and I grimaced, rubbing my face with the end of my sleeve.

“Cancel,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Her eyebrow raised. “Cancel… my heat?”

My face went hot again.

“N—No, but you can’t go with them.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“I caught them trying to spike someone’s drink last month,” I said in a low voice. It was the rich ones who got away with shit like that. I’d reported them, but I didn’t have faith that anything would come of it. I swear, the richer they were, the worse they thought they could treat omegas. I’d heard rumours that at Rookwood Academy—where super rich packs went—an omega had shown up to a ball covered in bite marks. Like permanent scars, head-to-toe. That was some vicious shit.

“Just… can I take you to a sedation clinic or something?”

“Fuck. No, I… can’t.” Her expression crumpled and then, without warning, she burst into tears.

Shit.

It was too much. She was this fierce gold pack omega. She couldn’t break down in front of me. I launched forward, tugging her into a hug.

She froze.

God, Kit, you can’t just go around hugging people like this , I told myself. Before I could turn away, though, she curled into me, hands gripping my shirt again. Sobs wracked her body, and my eyes were watering too, because I knew how unfair this was. We were at the mercy of our heats—we’d all felt that at one time or another—and it was worse for her as a gold pack. But maybe I could help her a little bit. For the first time, I felt a purr in my chest as she sobbed, trying to soothe her, one hand stroking her hair and the other her back.

Soothe .

I found my aura reaching out to hers—a storm of fear and misery. Our auras weren’t like alpha’s auras, they didn’t give us any extra strength, they were just instincts mixed with our scents. I breathed, slowly letting my scent mix with hers, drawing her into the calm.

I held her until her tears subsided, and then she just clutched me, her eyes closed. Warmth spread through me as she held on. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, with her resting in my arms, her only movement an occasional hiccup.

She gave a stuttering sigh, and then pulled away, wiping her tear-streaked cheeks.

“Sorry,” she said with a sniff, not meeting my eyes. “I was sedated last heat. There was an alpha—fuck—” She choked off, not able to finish as another tear slid down her already soaked cheek.

“Shit.” I pulled her close again. Given our cycles, that couldn’t have been more than a few months ago. She took another steadying breath. “God, I’m just trying to survive this heat,” she said, her voice wobbly. “And I thought maybe… if I got helpers from an academy….”

I rubbed her back and looked down at her, offering a shy smile.

“I’ll make sure you’re safe, okay? I know all the packs here, and there are much better options.” I pulled back, and those beautiful gold eyes met mine, looking… hopeful. My heart skipped a beat. “I’ll take you there—ask them myself. What’s the Aven pack paying you?”

She blinked at me, cocking her head, clearly confused.

Fuck.

“You’re not charging them?” I asked. I didn’t think my opinion on the Aven pack could drop any lower, but here we were. They’d let her travel here all by herself while she was in pre-heat, and they weren’t even offering a dime?

I’d seen what they were willing to pay. She must not know about the forum; probably found this pack via a sketchy KevinsList personal ad.

“What if they say no?” she asked.

I snorted. “Okay, let me handle that.”

I was ninety-nine percent sure the Levine pack would say yes, and they were the most bearable of all the packs here.

She nodded but sniffed again, taking my hand in hers.

“I’m just… scared,” she said, almost too quiet to hear. “It’ll be my first time… awake.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Juniper.” Her gold eyes lifted to mine again.

“I’m Kit,” I replied, and it was the first time I’d felt like Kit since I’d come here. She gave me a tentative smile, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything more beautiful.

She kept holding my hand as we walked across the grounds, and it lit a warmth in my chest. She scrubbed at her face and straightened her back, that angry mask settling back into place as we neared the dorms.

I knocked on the door of the Levine pack’s apartment and waited for the answer. I glanced down at my shirt, missing a button from the rough treatment earlier. I tugged another button loose, biting my lip nervously and shooting her a shy look. Exposing a little more skin certainly wouldn’t hurt our chances of convincing them. Garrett Farwood opened the door, raising an eyebrow and giving me a cocky grin. His scent was actually kind of nice; green tea and cloves.

“Back already, Kristofer?” he asked, his gaze blatantly lingering on my half open shirt, before noticing Juniper at my side. He eyed her golden eyes and her worn outfit. “Who’s this?”

“A friend. Look, she came for some heat helpers, but they bailed. Help us out?” I gave him a small smile and may have batted my eyes. Just a little.

“Bella.” Juniper offered a fake name, stepping toward him and extending her hand. Her arm only betrayed a slight tremble. She’d gone close enough to make sure he could smell her, and I could see his nostrils flaring, his pupils dilating as he took her in.

“I know it’s really late notice,” I said. “We dropped the offer down to five grand.”

Juniper gave a tiny, shocked squeak. I squeezed her hand. That might be a harder sell for an omega with golden eyes, but my presence legitimized the offer. They could afford it. Five grand was pennies to this pack, and it could make a world of difference to people like us. Garrett shifted on his feet, his expression torn.

“Well, we’d have to cancel two dates—” he started, glancing back inside.

“Oh, of course,” I said, letting my face fall.

I tugged him to the side, lowering my voice. “Sorry to bug you. I just thought she’d want to actually enjoy her first heat with alphas, y’know?” I ignored his renewed glance at Juniper and stepped away, taking her arm. “C’mon, I’ll show you the way to the Aven dorm.”

I started tugging her away, and she gave me an alarmed look as she started to follow. Oh, there was no way they were actually letting us go. I’d delivered the perfect magic words. They’d lost every bidding war they’d had with those Aven bastards. grandmother had made sure to point that out in the last batch of distorted, fuzzy photos of their secret heat helper group.

“Hang on.” Garrett’s eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t take her to those—um, them . I just meant I gotta go talk to the others. Come inside.” He glanced around before ushering us through the door. We waited there while he left us to get his pack mates. Inside, the pack’s scents covered everything, and I saw her tense with what was likely a cramp.

“They’ll be good to you,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Trust me.”

With Garrett gone, she’d started to look so fragile again, her scent spiking.

“Your little lady’s in luck,” Garrett said as he walked back toward us, Lee Levine in tow. “We can clear our schedules for the next few days.”

He gave her a smile, and she nodded. She was still very tense, her eyes darting to me for a second.

“We’ve got a nest room. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable there and we’ll come check in on you?”

“Okay,” she said, letting go of my hand at the mention of a nesting room. She’d put on a cool expression, her jaw ticking, but I could still see the fear in her eyes.

“Thanks, Kristofer. See you round?” Garrett said.

“Oh, I’m staying with her,” I said, stepping forward and reclaiming her hand. She looked at me, surprised for a second, before relief crossed her face.

“ With her? The whole time?” asked Lee.

“The whole time,” I said firmly. “We’re heat buddies.”

And it wasn’t even one week later that I dropped out of the academy for good.