Page 103 of Pack Plus One

I place the note on top of the folded clothes and turn away before I can second-guess myself.

Outside, the air is cool and fresh, the first hints of dawn painting the sky in pale gold and pink. I walk briskly, putting distance between myself and the pack house with every step.

Back to reality. Back to being who I truly am.

It’s better this way, I tell myself. Better to acknowledge the truth before anyone gets hurt worse than they already will be. Before they try to change who they are to accommodate me. Before I try to become someone I’m not just to keep them.

I don’t look back. I can’t. If I do, I might give in to the irrational hope that somehow we could make it work. That I could be what they need without losing myself in the process.

But deep in my chest, where my omega instincts live, something howls in protest—a keening, mournful sound that follows me all the way home. Because even as my mind knows this is the right decision, my heart isn’t convinced.

Some part of me, the part I’ve spent years ignoring, wonders if maybe, just maybe, what they need isn’t a traditional omega at all.

Maybe what they need is me—exactly as I am.

But that’s a fantasy. And I’ve never been one to live in fantasy.

So I walk away from the only pack that’s ever made me feel like I might belong, carrying nothing but a chipped mug and the memory of four males who almost made me believe I could be enough.

21

JUDE

Iwake up to the sound of Caleb breaking something.

Not like,oh no, he dropped a coffee cupbreaking something. More likeoh shit, he just put his fist through a wallbreaking something. The distinctive crack of drywall giving way under alpha knuckles is a sound I’ve become unfortunately familiar with over the years.

I roll out of bed, blinking sleep from my eyes and trying to make sense of the commotion. It’s barely 7 AM according to my phone, which means something catastrophic must have happened. None of us are morning people except Mason, who’s probably been up since dawn categorizing his sock drawer or whatever responsible betas do at ungodly hours.

I stumble into the hallway, nearly colliding with Liam, who’s already dressed in a crisp button-down and slacks, keys jingling in his hand. His reading glasses are slightly askew, which is how I know this is serious—Liam would never leave his room with crooked glasses under normal circumstances.

“Leah’s gone,” he says, his voice clipped and precise, like he’s delivering a medical diagnosis.

“Gone as in... getting coffee?” I ask hopefully, though the hole in the wall down the corridor and Caleb’s thunderous expression as he emerges from his bedroom answer that question before Liam can.

“Gone as in packed her things and left,” Mason explains, appearing from the direction of the nest room, a leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He’s methodically checking the contents of what I recognize as our emergency first-aid kit.

“She can’t have gone far,” I reason, running a hand through my hair. “Her heat just ended, and she was still moving like someone who’d been thoroughly?—”

“Don’t,” Caleb growls, the sound rumbling through the hallway with enough force to make the framed brewery blueprints on the wall rattle. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, she’s probably at her apartment. Or getting muffins. You know how she is about those blueberry muffins.”

“She left a note,” Mason says quietly, holding out a small piece of paper.

I take it, reading the neat, careful handwriting:

Thanks for everything. You deserve an omega who fits.

Well, fuck.

I pull out my phone, thumb flying across the screen:

Leah, where are you? Call me.

Send. Wait. No response.

“She must have heard us,” Liam says, adjusting his glasses. “Last night. The conversation in the living room.”