Chapter One #2
No sooner than she's finished reading that email than her inbox dings again with another message.
Her eyebrows furrow as she looks it over.
The email just a series of numbers, not giving away any information about who this pack might be.
But they were awfully quick on the draw, she could tell that much.
From: 372616920379@
To: hiney333@
Subject: Arrangements.
Hello, Lottie. We received your email and information from Gwen.
It's nice to hear from such an impressively accomplished young omega.
An acceptance to a graduate program is no small feat.
Gwen has told us she thinks you would be a good match for us and we are interested in meeting you for a date, although we are aware you are likely wading your way through many other offers from alpha packs, and we appreciate your consideration of our bid.
We are an established pack with connections in many parts of the business world.
Although we are not looking for a permanent connection at this time, we would value any of your time that you may offer us, and we hope that this arrangement might benefit both us and you.
We have recently experienced an upheaval and would benefit from the moderating influence of an omega.
Perhaps we should share some more about us personally? We each have our own graduate degrees from a few Ivy Leagues you may recognize. We enjoy travelling, culinary excellence, and reading. And we also quite enjoy clever women.
We look forward to hearing back from you.
She rereads the email twice. They sounded.
.. nice. Nothing like she would have imagined a pack of alphas looking to purchase an omega's time might sound like.
Not domineering or sexually suggestive or demanding anything.
No unsolicited photos of their knots. And they were educated as well, so they understood what she was doing, her lifestyle. Was this real? Could it be real?
Looking for "the moderating influence of an omega" was a very nice way to put that they were looking to balance their hormones by having sex with her for money.
Having sex with an omega did have a scientifically proven benefit to alpha physiology and hormonal regulation, but they put it in such a refined and respectable way it didn't even sound threatening to her like she thought it would.
Maybe she really could get through this. Yeah, she could do this. She could definitely do this. She told herself that until she was able to click reply on the email and formulate her own response.
From: hiney333@
To: 372616920379@
Subject: Re: Arrangements.
Thank you for your email. You've put me a bit at ease, if I'm being totally honest. I've never done anything like this before and, in the interest of full disclosure, I was quite worried about the sort of response I was going to get.
I'm from a small town in the Northern Provinces and the sorts of alphas I have encountered in the city have been. .. different.
Travelling is an expensive hobby. Where are your favourite places you have visited?
I know nothing about culinary excellence, and I expect I could burn water if I tried hard enough.
Reading, however, is something I could talk about for hours.
What genres do you read? Please don't tell me it's all autobiographies and economics.
Lottie
She reads her email over, hoping she doesn't come across as too unsophisticated or needy. Both of those things would turn a pack off from her, right? She couldn't afford to do that, not with this pack. Not when she had first-hand experience of what all the other packs likely would be like.
All the alphas at the bar seemed to be interested in was groping her or making sexually suggestive comments that made her nauseous.
Maybe this pack would be nice and wouldn't make her feel cheap.
Wouldn't force her to do... she didn't even know what awful things some of them would ask her to do for that amount of money.
From: 372616920379@
To: hiney333@
Subject: Re: Re: Arrangements.
There's nothing wrong with autobiographies and economics, but the occasional fiction novel does grace our desks. By far, Italy is our favourite destination. Perhaps you might enjoy visiting it with us in the future. Let's discuss this in person. Gwen will contact you with the details.
Her heart stops as she reads the short email and she forces it to restart on sheer willpower. Discuss it in person? Panic builds in her chest. It was so soon. She hadn't even expected to get a response so soon, let alone talk with a pack, let alone meet them for a date!
Oh my god, they were a pack. As in, not just one alpha. She didn't even have any experience with one of them, let alone a whole pack of them. Alphas in packs were formed by close bonds with each other. They came in a package deal. And there would be multiple of them, and one of her. Like an orgy.
No, no, no, she can't let herself panic. This pack seemed nice. She could meet them, right? That was all, no pressure. She just had to meet them.
Another ding lets her know there's yet another email waiting for her in her inbox. How did these people send emails so quickly? Maybe that's what happens when your screen isn't broken right over where the E, D, and C keys were?
From: gwen@
To: hiney333@
Subject: Re: Re: Interested?
I just heard back from them and they really like you. Meet me at Cleveland Club at 8PM tonight, doll. Wear something cute. xoxo Gwen.
Tonight? She freezes, panic building in her chest. How was this all happening so fast? Her head was spinning. Just this morning she wasn't even sure about this whole thing and now suddenly she's going on a date tonight with a pack of alphas?
She quickly googles the term "mutually beneficial arrangement," trying to understand what she's getting herself into. The first result on the search engine is a "sugar baby lifestyle forum." With trepidation, she clicks on it and reads through the top few posts, her breath quickening as she goes.
The first post is by a "sugar baby" in a "mutually beneficial arrangement" asking what she should do about developing feelings for her "sugar daddy.
" The responses from the other posters range from telling her to "grow up and get that bag, bitch" to telling her that she ought to try baby trapping him into a marriage.
She quickly moves onto the next post, which describes top five tips for giving head to your "alpha daddy's fat knot." With a strangled gasp, she quickly closes the tab and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block those words from taking root in her brain.
She drags herself through the rest of the day, fretting about what to wear as she busies herself with scrubbing her apartment from top to bottom. The only apartment she could afford in the city was old and musty and she was constantly at war with it to keep it to her standards.
Omegas needed clean, simple, private spaces for comfort, and this space was hers. Her safe space, her nest. But if she wasn't careful, it would stop smelling like hers and start smelling like mould and dirty oil and burning pizza that wafted in from her neighbours' units.
She washes a few of the blankets from her nest and turns the mattress over so it doesn't get musty sitting on the ground like it does because she can't afford a proper bedframe.
One day, she thinks, maybe she'll have a nest on a platform bed, with soft blankets that only smell like her and her mate, and no mould constantly trying to grow on the walls that she has to scrub off every week. ..
When she's cleaned everything top to bottom, she looks at the clock.
It's only 2PM. She groans, and settles in her nest, pulling out her ancient laptop and getting ahead of some work.
Classes didn't begin again for another month and a half, and she had already begun the readings for the classes she was registered for, then began a side project tracking down all the manuscripts of a fifteenth-century omega author.
She settles herself in for an afternoon of work, only having to reboot the computer four times as she browses another Italian archive's manuscript catalogue, searching for more copies that may have been catalogued incorrectly. It's tedious work and by the time she's finished, her eyes are bleary.
Finally, 7PM rolls around and she looks down at her outfit.
She had chosen the only thing that seemed even a little appropriate, which was a black sheath dress that hugged her slight figure and plain black flats, both things that she had previously worn to work.
She had attempted to dry her hair in some semblance of groomed respectability and tied it back with a clip, deciding it would just have to do.