Page 26 of Pack Choice

“They have no reason not to like you.” Except she’s pretty and has obviously caught the eye of their boss. Plus she’s a Stormgate and an omega. They know she’s rich and privileged. Any of those reasons would be cause enough.

“I thought the workplace would be different,” she muses.

“Different to what?”

“All my life I’ve been shuffled along from one omega event to another. First omega elementary school, then omega prep, then endless omega social events after social events. I promise you, omega cattiness would make the army look like a walk in the park. You know I once had an omega try to scratch my face because I deigned to turn up at an event with the same purse as her. I managed to dodge her, but not before she’d snatched my purse and ripped it in half.”

“Aren’t omegas sweet and–”

“Kind and motherly and nurturing?” Molly rolls her eyes. “That’s what they’ll have you believe. I mean, don’t get me wrong, some are – Bea and Ava are lovely. The rest of us? Nope.”

“You’re not sweet?” I ask, the twitch dropping from my cheek to the corner of my mouth.

“You’ve known me for …” she checks her watch, “just over twenty-four hours, what do you think?”

I blink. What do I think? I think she’s sweet as candy. Okay, maybe not the type that dissolves simply in your mouth and leaves a contented buzz in your stomach. No, she’s the type of candy with a kick, the kind that gets stuck in your teeth, the type that will pull out a filling if you’re not careful. The kind that has you on a pumped-up high for the rest of the day. The best candy there is.

“I think it would be wise if I didn’t answer that question.”

“Very wise,” she says, eyeing me.

She twists back to face the line, leaning forward to examine the sandwiches laid out behind the glass counter.

“If you don’t like the job, you should quit.” And never see the boss again.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like the job. I’m just going to have to be smart.”

“Smart?”

“Yeah, smart. Find a way to win the others over.”

“I don’t know why you’d bother.”

“Because I know how mean girls work. If I don’t, they’ll go out of their way to make my life miserable. Next time I’ll probably find myself locked in the broom cupboard.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“They’ll probably lock you in with me.”

I try to ignore how good that sounds. “I’d like to see them try.”

“They could. You’re used to tough guys, I bet. They’re more straight forward than mean girls. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m a highly trained soldier and an alpha. I think I’d do just fine.”

“A highly trained soldier who let me give him the slip in the parking lot yesterday.”

“For about three minutes. I caught you up almost immediately.”

“Still,” she says, “us omegas may look small and sweet but we can run rings round you alphas when we want to.”

I shake my head. She may think she could, but she’s wrong.

She shakes her finger at me. “You wait. You wait until it happens to you. When your pack finds their mate you’ll see.”

“I don’t have a pack,” I tell her.

Her mouth falls open in astonishment.