Page 37 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Cam

T he house is quiet when I head upstairs, but it’s the good kind of quiet, now. There’s no simmering tension, no side-eyes or awkward silences. Just the soft hum of a pack finally settling into something that feels… right.

I’m still smiling when I pass Aimee’s door. It’s cracked open, warm light spilling into the hallway, and I pause when I hear the soft, muffled sound of her snoring. Curious, I knock once—barely a tap—then peek inside.

She’s out cold, curled sideways in bed, laptop still open beside her, face smushed into the pillow with just enough drool to make me grin. One leg’s kicked out from under the covers, her shirt riding up a little, and there’s a crease between her brows even in sleep.

God, she’s perfect. Not just because she’s beautiful, or because she smells the way warmth would if it had a scent, but because she’s here, with us. Still here, after all the chaos and sharp edges and Wes being, well… Wes .

Things are different now. Calmer, lighter .

The bond conversation’s coming—I can feel it.

The talk about claiming, about making this something permanent.

It doesn’t scare me anymore. Not the way it did before she showed up and turned the whole house inside out with her silly voice memos and her late-night questions and her absolute refusal to be anyone but herself.

I love that about her. I love... her .

I step further into the room, keeping quiet. She doesn’t stir as I reach for the laptop, planning to close it and nudge her under the covers—

But then the trackpad clicks under her hand, and the screen shifts.

She’s leaning on the mouse, and her fingers are half-mashed against the keyboard. A mess of tabs scatter across the top bar—document windows, notes, drafts. The one in focus is open in Google Docs.

How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates.

I freeze, narrowing my eyes as I lift the laptop and read over the words on the page.

Step 1: Reappear like a heat-triggered fever dream.

Step 2: Start spending more time at the pack house—linger in doorways, sit in his favorite chair, leave just enough of your scent behind to make him feral.

Step 3: Seduce the gym rat with commitment issues until he can’t stop texting you voice notes and calling you “trouble.” Step 4: Make the golden retriever alpha fall a little bit in love by being sweet, soft, and just unattainable enough to keep him up at night.

Step 5: Blow off the next pack dinner with a casual “I’ve got plans” and let them all spiral.

Step 6: Post a story from your couch, wearing one of their hoodies with zero explanation.

Step 7: Make the whole pack question who’s actually in charge here. Step 8: Make Wes question every decision he’s ever made—including letting you go. Step 9: Walk away before it explodes. Before the bond claws back in. Step 10: …Try not to look back.

The blood drains from my face.

I freeze, completely still, like if I don’t move, maybe the words will rearrange themselves into something else. Something that makes sense.

But they don’t. They stay exactly where they are, staring back at me in black and white like a punch to the chest.

Each line slices deeper. Steps. Tactics. A goddamn checklist of every soft, private moment she’s had with us, framed like a game and outlined in strategy.

We were nothing more than bullet points in her fucked-up experiment.

I stagger back a step, my ears ringing. My hands are shaking, and my heart’s hammering so hard it hurts.

I read it again, and again, and again; each time hoping I’ve misunderstood, that there’s another explanation. That this is some kind of joke or placeholder text.

But it’s not. There are multiple drafts: untitled tabs, notes in the margins, and our names repeated over and over.

My name. She wrote about me. About me . About making me fall in love just enough to keep me up at night.

And it worked. Fuck , it worked.

The floor feels like it tilts. I back up again, a strangled sound catching in my throat, something between a laugh and a sob.

Wes warned me. He said it didn’t make sense; that she was too charming, too effortless, too perfect at getting under our skin. He was paranoid and angry and impossible—

But he wasn’t wrong.

And I defended her. I defended her every single time. I believed every look, every soft smile, every whispered word that made me think—for the first time in my life—that maybe I could have something whole, that maybe I could be enough.

And now I’m standing here reading proof that none of it was real.

Her eyes flutter open. She’s groggy and confused as she blinks up at me, sitting up with sleep-mussed hair and creases on her cheek from the keyboard. She follows my gaze to the laptop in my hands, and everything about her changes in an instant.

“No—Cam, wait—it’s not what it looks like—”

But it is. It is.

I open my mouth, then close it again.

What the fuck could it possibly be if it’s not exactly what it looks like?

“You were writing about us,” I say, quietly. “About how to tear us apart.”

Footsteps creak behind me, and I turn to find Jace stepping toward us, yawning.

“Everything okay?”

“Jace,” I say hoarsely, moving back from the bed. “You need to see this.”

“What?” He steps closer, eyes narrowing at the title. His whole body tenses. “What the hell is that?”

“I told you, it’s not what it looks like!” Aimee says quickly, voice high with panic. “It’s not the real article. I wasn’t going to post it—”

Footsteps move down the hall, and the three of us freeze immediately. A few moments later, Wes appears in the doorway, quiet and still.

He takes in the scene: me frozen, still reeling; Jace standing tense; an Aimee—wide-eyed, breath caught in her throat, flushed with something that might be guilt.

“What’s going on here?” he asks. His voice is low, but there’s an edge to it.

I swallow hard. “You need to read this.”

Aimee lets out a small, strangled sound as Wes moves beside me and leans down, his eyes scanning over the open document.

His voice is quiet when he starts to read.

“ Ten steps to dismantling a scent-matched pack before they even know they’re being tested…

” A pause. “ Evidence gathered over six weeks suggests that scent matches are emotionally manipulable, and not biologically absolute. Alpha behavior follows patterns under stress, even when bonds are forming. Omegas have more power than they realize. ”

He stops reading, and the silence thickens.

Then—his voice, dark and final: “I fucking knew it.”

Aimee flinches like he struck her.

“I knew you were playing us. I knew this whole thing was bullshit.” He turns to Jace and me, voice rising. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you something was off, but you—” he jabs a finger toward Jace, “you defended her.”

“Wes,” Aimee starts, stepping forward. “It’s not what you think. There’s—there’s another version of the article. One I actually meant. One that’s real.”

He laughs, loud and humorless.

“Real? Real ?” he practically snarls. “Real? You mean the part where you detail how to emotionally detonate each of us like we’re fucking landmines?”

“You wrote steps ,” Jace adds. “You don’t accidentally write that, Aimee.”

“It was a joke,” she snaps, but there’s panic curling under the words. “It started as a joke! I didn’t think any of this would happen. I didn’t think I’d fall for—”

“Oh, don’t you dare ,” Wes cuts in. “Don’t stand there and say you fell for us while keeping a goddamn playbook on how to screw us over open on your laptop.”

“I was writing the real one!” she yells, fists clenching. “The one that matters ! The other draft—I kept it because I was scared and confused and spiraling, and I didn’t know what else to do—”

“That’s your excuse?” I frown, stepping in, heart hammering. “You were confused? You were scared? So you just… kept playing us?”

“No!” she explodes. “I panicked ! Everything happened so fast, and I didn’t have a plan anymore, and I didn’t think I’d actually—”

“Feel something?” Wes barks. “Bullshit.”

“Yeah?” she fires back. “Then why the hell do I feel like I’m being ripped in half right now, Wes?”

A breathless silence.

Jace shakes his head. “If you felt anything , you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she spits, rounding on him. “Don’t act like you were some wide-eyed innocent in this. None of you were! You all made assumptions and never once asked what I was thinking. You just wanted to believe the pretty omega fell into your laps and magically belonged to you.”

“No one forced you to lie ,” Jace sighs.

“And none of you ever gave me the space to tell the truth ,” she shouts. “You think I’m the villain? Fine . But don’t pretend this wasn’t convenient for you, too. I made you feel wanted, needed; and what, now I’m the monster for not being perfect while I drowned in it?”

“You made them think it was real.” Wes steps forward, fury radiating off him. “You made me think it was real.”

“Maybe I wanted it to be!” she screams, voice cracking. “You think I wanted to be this confused? That it was fun watching you glare at me like I’d already failed before I even started?”

“You did fail,” Wes growls.

Aimee’s chest heaves. Her voice drops, raw and cold.

“Yeah. I did.”

She turns away, grabbing her denim jacket off the floor. Her hands are shaking as she yanks it on over her tank, her movements stiff and fast as she begins to storm away.

“I hope the article’s a hit,” Wes mutters. “Maybe next time, you’ll get a better ending.”

She stops halfway to the door, then turns, just a little.

“No,” she says, voice hoarse. “ You’ll get the ending you always wanted. One where I’m the problem, and you get to stay angry.”

Her scent is chaos—grief, heartbreak, and fury all mixed into one. I want to reach for her and stop her, but I don’t. There’s too much going round in my mind, too much happening in front of me to process. She looks at all of us like she’s memorizing something, and then she walks.

She slams the door behind her. The weight of it crushes me immediately, and I feel the shift inside me: the absence, the loss .

None of us move. None of us speak.

And for the first time since she showed up…

The house feels empty.