Rogue & Her Hunters (Pack Bonds Omegaverse #12)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Adonis Hall, Virginia

Rogue

“Do you think that this enemy could be my scent match?” My short king younger brother, Mars, asks excitedly. “Rosa’s mob family may be rivals to our Adonis pack, but I can’t wait to bond my Omega.”

I grit my teeth.

I’m an Alpha like my brother.

Sort of.

Yet Mars is the only one who will be allowed to bond an Omega and start his own pack.

He’s the heir.

I’m nothing.

Rogue, the secret Alpha sibling.

No one outside the immediate family know that I am biologically Mars’ sister. They believe that I was adopted and now work as one of the enforcers.

I’ve always known my role.

Stay quiet and discrete.

In the shadows.

I’ve tried to convince myself that staying by my brother’s side and keeping him safe was what mattered most to me.

Yet sometimes, I can’t help but yearn for more.

Romance isn’t real. Pack bonds aren’t.

They are a bullshit fairy tale.

Bullets, blood, and pain — they’re real.

I glance away.

My small, basement bedroom smells of mold. The walls are blood-red. The only furniture is a mattress on the floor, a tiny, fake white Christmas tree that was smuggled in by my brother with homemade baubles, and a rack of black suits and joggers.

A single book lies next to the bed. It is called The Rogue Scare: Dark Myths, Fables, and the Hunts.

I’ve memorized the book.

It is the one present I have ever received from Mom, Chief Alpha Fiorella.

Not that I am allowed to call her mom. To me, she’s simply boss.

The Rogue Scare tells the truth of my designation.

I am the dark secret of this pack, which they hide away, pretending that I am merely an Alpha.

Except, I’m not.

I was born as the rarest dynamic: A Rogue Switch, who can change between being an Alpha and Omega.

When I was born, Fiorella told me that my Omega Dad, Nico, begged on his knees that I not be killed or turned over to the authorities.

Fiorella only kept me because she knew I was dangerous. I could be raised and trained by instructors into a weapon to be used against her enemies.

I was forced to disguise my identity.

I had to suppress my Omega side. I was banned from building nests, suffering through my heats alone without an Alpha.

The only person who has witnessed my Omega side, buried in this dank basement, is Mars.

Touch starved, I am a feral Omega because of this suppression, unable to talk. Instead, I chirp or purr.

Mars quietly holds me, while I lick and nuzzle him. He calls me Switch, when I am an Omega.

I call myself lost, alone, desperate.

When I first read the book, The Rogue Scare, it broke me.

I learned what I needed to about what I was, along with how the world viewed me.

Afterward, I would never allow anything to break me again.

Rogue Switches have been hunted to extinction

Once the fourth dynamic, Rogues can switch identity between Omega, Beta, and Alpha.

This unnatural ability led to violent hunts and burnings in the 1600s, followed by the Switch Act of 1801.

The Act states that Rogue Alphas are forbidden from claiming a bonded pack. Rogue Omegas are banned from being knotted.

Officially, no Rogue Switches remain in America. Unofficially, there are a handful of sightings each year.

It is illegal to fail to report Rogues to the authorities. Any pack who harbors them will be executed.

What is the government hiding? A facility like Area 51 where they are secretly holding Rogues?

Is there a conspiracy? A cover-up?

A Rogue’s enhanced pheromones are known as Rogue Powers.

These powers trigger heats and ruts in others. They are deadly.

Be afraid.

If you try to hunt a Rogue Switch, they are likely to hunt you back…

I was only six years old when I read this section of the book about my dynamic. I curled up on the mattress in the cold basement. And I cried for hours.

When I had no more tears, and my eyes were dry and red-rimmed, I never cried again.

No one comes down into the basement apart from my brother, and he’s not meant to. It never stopped him sneaking to see me.

He is the only person I love, apart from Nico.

I still call Nico Dad in my mind.

It is only because of Mars and Nico that I believe love is real. I would slaughter the world for them.

That’s love, right?

I have grown up here alone because I am different. Dangerous. Wrong.

My chest hurts, but I blank my expression, pulling on the cuffs of my sleek suit, which is the same as the other enforcers in the Adonis pack wear. I am also dressed in a long, black woolen coat, ready to leave on the journey to escort my brother on the flight from Washington to Las Vegas.

I pat Mars on the shoulder.

My steel blue eyes cool. “This is an alliance. It is an arranged bonding between the mafia heirs of the most powerful mob families in America. The Billionaire pack own nine casinos on the strip. This is your first meeting with Damio Billionaire’s spoiled Omega daughter.

Don’t forget that. This is about power and money.

It isn’t about forever love or soulmates. ”

“Unromantic.” My brother flicks my forehead.

If any other Alpha had done that, I’d have broken their fingers. I’m the only Alpha, however, who would protect my brother with my life.

I have been trained to be Mars’ personal bodyguard when he needs it, after all.

Well, also as an assassin. I have never wanted to be the pack’s enforcer but I’ve had no say in it.

My brother doesn’t need to know the darker side of my job. I wish that I could be his permanent bodyguard. It’s my only dream.

I don’t need to hope for more than that. It’s too painful.

Mars gives a dreamy smile, wandering around my small basement bedroom like he’s already imagining holding his Omega in his arms.

Mars is too soft for this pack…for this alliance with the Billionaires.

The thought screams through me.

How will my brother survive?

I run my hand through my raven, wavy hair, attempting to force the thought away.

Except, I’m right.

This is my brother who secretly writes romance novels, which Fiorella would burn before allowing him to publish them, and who will order a milkshake over a whiskey.

Although, it’s not surprising that my brother is drawn to drinking milkshakes, when his Alpha scent is sweet chocolate milkshake.

Mars is the best man I know. Also, the most likely in this mob pack to be shot.

I’m the one with blood on my hands.

I glance at my watch, impatiently.

It’s almost time to leave.

My pheromones become stronger, washing through the basement.

My gaze still softens when I study my brother.

Mars is beautiful for an Alpha.

He has a tumble of black hair, which he doesn’t appear to have brushed, despite the importance of the day.

He forgets things like that. He is a year younger than I am, just out of college.

He has changed out of his normal relaxed outfit of jeans and crumpled pastel sweater, as if he’s an absentminded writer, into the suit that Fiorella insisted he wear for his first meeting with Rosa.

I sigh when I notice that Mars’ fingers are still stained with ink.

The suit matches the cornflower blue of his eyes. His waistcoat, suit, and tie are embroidered with red roses, which is the emblem of our Adonis family.

In mythology, when Adonis was mortally wounded by a wild boar, his lover rushed to his side. Her tears mingled with his blood to create the first rose.

Mars thinks that the story is romantic.

I would prefer to be the wild boar than the tragic lovers.

Mars wanders across the concrete floor to me, before drawing something out of his pocket with a flourish. “I wrote a poem for Rosa!”

Oh, fuck. He didn’t.

He did.

I stare at the sheet of rose embossed paper that Mars is shaking enthusiastically under my nose. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

I hate the way that Mars’ expression falls. “My poetry isn’t that bad.”

I straighten his skewed tie. “I’m sure that it’s brilliant. But Rosa may not be able to appreciate good poetry.”

Mars stuffs the paper back into his suit pocket. “What if she rejects me, Ro? I’m not the typical Alpha. She probably expects someone who is…taller…bigger…a fighter…different.”

I growl.

Different.

How many times have I heard that?

I firmly adjust the wilting red rose in Mars’ suit pocket. “Then fuck her. You’re perfect. You’re the heir of a fucking mafia empire. The Adonis pack are assholes, but we command respect. So, you walk in there like you own the world. Because we do own it.”

“Thanks, sis.” Mars catches my hands between his; his gaze holds mine.

“I swear, bonding Rosa won’t change things between us.

It’s the first of December. Nico made an advent calendar for us like always.

It’s up in his bedroom. When we return from our trip, you can open it and enjoy the chocolates.

Nothing will change because of the new bonded Omega in my pack, okay? ”

I shutter my expression. “Sure.”

It will.

Everything changed when my older sister, Gianna, bonded with her male Omega, Elio.

My sister became a threat.

She began to plot to take over the entire pack.

“It won’t,” Mars rushes to reassure. “As either Alpha or Omega, you’re everything to me.

I would never put anyone before you. I promised when I was a kid that you could be part of my pack when we grew up.

I meant that. Nothing has changed. I will fight for you to become my personal bodyguard.

We made a deal that you would help me to become heir. Then we’d take over and stop…”

“The Chief Alpha,” I supply. “The Omega trafficking. Change how this pack is run.”

Mars nods like the takeover of a mafia pack that is steeped in black market Omega trafficking and corrupt politics will be simple.

It won’t be.

Yet I have been plotting the same thing since I was a kid. In fact, from the moment that I found out how the Adonis pack made their money from the misery of Omegas.

My brother and I, unlikely rebels that we may be, united.

When Mars’ smile dims, however, I crouch to reach underneath the mattress. I pull out the pack of cards that I stole from one of the Beta bodyguards.