Page 1 of The Pack Next Door (The Wolfverse #4)

Briar

“Hey, boss!” I smiled as I heard my warehouse manager, Emma’s voice through the car speakers. “How’s your mum?”

I sighed and then smiled to myself as I drove into the pretty town of Moon River.

I took in the newly painted sign, the big jacaranda trees lining both sides of the main street, strewing purple petals everywhere, then looked past them to the park beyond.

The children’s play equipment had been updated from scalding hot steel to bright and colourful plastic, but the massive tree in the centre was the same one I remembered climbing along with all my friends when I was a child.

“Not sure,” I replied, focussing back on the road. “I’ve only just got into town. Did the big shipment arrive?”

“Ye-es.” Emma replied warily. “But?—”

“Did the new pottery pieces arrive? The blue ones?” I asked, almost able to see them in my mind.

We’d found this potter who created the most incredible vessels.

Rather than flawless commercial pottery, they were perfectly imperfect, the marks of the potter’s fingers on each one.

We’d sold out of the green and red glazed pieces, but he’d branched out into the most heavenly blue line, just for me. “Tell me none were cracked in transit.”

“Briar.” Emma was supposedly my subordinate. I hired her to take on the logistics side of my online business when I could no longer fulfil the items from my lounge room. “You’re on leave. Your mum had a fall and you’re taking a week or two off to look after her.”

To see if I could convince Mum to move to the city with me. I had some brochures for some incredible assisted living places in my bag. If I could just get my mother to look at them…

“Don’t worry about the shipment, boss,” Emma said. “Me and Seb–” He was her offsider. “–we’ve got this.”

But every single bowl was already sold, I wanted to say. If one was damaged, we’d have to decide which customer missed out. The thought of having that conversation with people who had supported me from the very beginning of my business, Omega Core, had my chest hurting.

“OK.” Emma laughed because she could tell that admission was dragged from the depths of my soul. “Just… let me know if there’s any damaged items. Tom is an amazing craftsman, but each bowl takes ages to build, fire and glaze. We’ll have to let?—”

“Trust us to look after the stock,” Emma said firmly. “You look after your mum.”

Easier said than done.

After saying our goodbyes, I turned off the main road and into the nearest petrol station.

Getting out of the car, it felt like every muscle protested after being forced to sit behind the wheel for the last five hours.

I popped the petrol cap, then filled up the tank, staring blankly at the interior.

I used to ride down here with my friends, and after filling our bike tyres from the air compressor, we’d go inside and buy icy poles on a hot summer day.

I found myself smiling, almost able to see those spindly legged little girls giggling as they exited the shop.

I just didn’t expect to see one of them standing behind the counter, looking a lot older, when I walked inside.

“Hi,” Diana said, looking up with a professional smile. “Just pump number…” Her voice trailed away, eyes widening as she took me in. I could almost see the cogs whirring inside her head. “Briar? Are you, Briar?—”

“Reynolds.” I sketched a little bow. “Class of 2009. Damn, Diana Garrison. It’s been a long time.”

We hung out in the same friend group at school. I wouldn’t say we were super close, but we’d held each other’s hair back after a night of drinking cheap wine and that forged a bond that wasn’t easily broken.

“It’s Diana Kirkland now.” She held up a hand, revealing a very pretty diamond solitaire wedding ring.

“Oh my god,” I said, my hand going to my chest. “You married Gary Kirkland?”

He was a beta that crushed on Di badly when we were in high school.

“No.” When her cheeks flushed pink, I saw a girl of sixteen, not a woman in her thirties. “Cory.”

“Cory!”

The alpha packs were the ones that caught most girl’s eyes, and some of the boys, but Cory Kirkland ran a close second. He was the local football star, never having found a sport he couldn’t master with ease. Being a beta, that made him seem a lot more attainable to most of us, including me.

Right before I revealed as an omega.

He and all other betas were suddenly out of my reach.

“But what about you?” This was the moment when I told someone from my whole home town about my life.

In my head, I’d practised talking about my apartment, my business.

We’d both be happy for each other and… Instead I watched Diana crane her neck, not so subtly checking mine out for mating marks.

“You left town after… the whole mating debacle.”

A moment so damn embarrassing I’d left Moon River and barely been back.

Why would I when the whole town had watched me get rejected by each of the local alpha packs.

Two were already mated by the time I turned eighteen and the one that hadn’t found their omega a town over. They just neglected to tell me that.

“Did you find your alphas?” Di asked, her excitement evident. “And bring your mates here?” A glance out the window made clear there was no alpha pack lurking outside. “Have they come to put themselves forward as potentials as they decide who the ruling pack is?”

“I…”

This was why I never came back to Moon River.

After the public rejection, I left with Mum, travelling from town to town in what felt like the world’s worst dating show.

I’d be presented to the local alphas, and they’d take a look at me, breathe in, and then shake their heads, making clear I wasn’t the one for them.

Mum had wanted to keep going, to drive all across Australia, if that’s what it took, but the fifth time we’d rolled into a new town and I’d been rejected, I made clear I was done.

I’d gone to the city to see if there was something wrong with me.

Only to find myself.

I was the owner of a successful online homewares store, I told myself, my heart beating fast and loud in my ears.

We had a turnover of several millions of dollars, growing larger each year.

Omega Core had been featured in all the high-end fashion magazines.

I’d been interviewed for Vogue Living , for goodness sakes.

But when I came back ‘home,’ suddenly I was reduced back down to my designation all over again.

“Briar!” A masculine voice had me turning around.

Damien, or Omega Hart as he was known in town, was the mate of the ruling pack of Moon River, and the man whose chest I’d cried into when it became clear I wouldn’t find my fated mates.

“Your mother said you were coming back to town.” His arms wrapped around me, curiously strong even for his slim build, but before I could sink into his embrace, he held me at arm’s length.

“Look at you! How do you become even more beautiful every year? You must’ve sold your soul to the devil.

Reckon you could give me his contact details?

” His hands smoothed over his cheeks. “Not sure even infernal forces could do much for me now that I’m over sixty. ”

“You’re trying to tell me the Hart pack isn’t still chasing you around the alpha compound?” I cocked my hip and shot him a sceptical look. “I doubt it.”

“They do.” Damien’s face transformed into an expression of self-congratulation. “Probably still when we’re truly ancient, even if it means we’re all using Zimmer frames to get around.” He dropped a black card on the counter. “Just put whatever Briar wants on the card, Di.”

“Of course, Omega Hart.”

My old school friend’s demeanour changed completely, becoming instantly obliging. She put through the transactions before I could protest.

“Now, it's good you’re in town.” The omega retrieved his card, then linked his arm with mine, leading me out of the store. “The alphas and I, we’re stepping down.”

“What?”

Damien had the typical omega complexion, barely even showing a wrinkle, though there was a lot more silver in his hair than before.

“It’s time to find a new ruling pack,” he replied.

“So the Gregorys and Johnsons aren’t contenders?” I asked.

“They’re not worthy of taking our places.” Damien sniffed at that. “I wanted to banish the lot of them after what happened to you.”

The fact that the other alpha families had made a fuss about Damien becoming the Hart pack’s omega might’ve also coloured his judgement.

When they were all young, male omegas were seen to be an aberration.

They couldn’t provide an alpha with what he needed: sons.

The expectation back then was that the alphas would either find a female omega to take as a mate or at least use their male omega’s sister as a surrogate.

The Hart pack was one of the ones that had enforced the change.

Destiny decided who an alpha’s mate was and rejecting that went against nature.

Now alphas pursued the omega that fate decided was theirs, and their gender didn’t matter.

He shot me a sidelong look. “If those idiots didn’t have the good sense to choose you, then what chance have they got in running this town?”

I snorted and shook my head.

“As if the two things are interdependent. Look, I’ve got to run.

Mum will be…” I looked down at my phone and saw the messages had started to come in.

“Wondering where the hell I am, it appears. Maybe you and the pack could come by for dinner. In a few days,” I amended, knowing how much of a flap that would put my mother in.

“Or you could come by the alpha compound.” Damien’s smile was gentle. “Bring your mother, of course. I’ve been meaning to catch up with her. You could have dinner, see how I’ve displayed all those beautiful items you sent me.”

I made sure to send him a shipment of our best items each time a new lot of stock came in. Damien was the one who convinced his alphas to provide me with seed money for Omega Core, so I figured he’d earned it.

“You could also meet some of the alphas that have arrived in town…”

That was a gentle suggestion, his soft brown eyes finding mine, making clear he meant no harm by it. That’s why I smothered my reaction. Muscles tensed, heart racing faster and faster, forcing my lips to part to suck in more air, something I hid with a smile.

“No alphas for me,” I said, placing my hand on his arm.

Let him think it was due to heart break or fear of rejection.

Anything but the truth. Because when I went to the city, when the very nice people at Crowe Institute had run a barrage of tests, I’d discovered why no alpha would ever want me. “Now, I’ve gotta run. Mum?—”

“Look after your mother,” Damien said with a nod, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. “And we’ll look after you, Briar. You might’ve left Moon River for the big smoke, but as far as me and my pack are concerned, you’re still an omega under our protection. I’ll be in touch about dinner.”

Before I could protest, he marched off, sliding into the back seat of the pack Range Rover, an enforcer driving him to wherever else he needed to go. I shook my head, finding myself smiling at Damien’s high-handed antics, before getting back into my own car.

No enforcer to chauffeur me around. No pack to ensure I was happy, comfortable, but I’d learned to live with that years ago and had come to realise there was a freedom to that.

When fate decided to turn its nose up at you, you got to determine your own.

Forging my own destiny? I nodded as I turned the key in the ignition. Yeah, I was down with that.

And my mother’s.

Getting over not having fated mates would be a whole lot easier than trying to convince Maggie Reynolds to move to the city. I focussed on that, coming up with ideas and discarding them, right until I rolled up to my old street.

Only to find it blocked by a massive van.

It was just a narrow suburban street, so the cars parked on either side made it difficult for the van to pass through.

Some of Mum’s neighbours were coming out of their houses, obviously wanting to make sure nothing happened to their vehicles.

My teeth ground together as I heard my phone start to buzz.

Mum was ringing, wondering where the hell I was, but right as I went to answer it, the van edged closer, then the neighbours started to shout and wave their arms at the driver.

I shook my head, putting the car in park, then got out, ready to explain to the van driver that he’d need to reverse and ask the neighbours to move their cars if he wanted to get his vehicle up this road.

But right as I reached the rear of the van, he pulled open the driver’s side door and dropped out.

Golden, that’s what I noticed first, the sun limning the ruffled strands of his blond hair.

That wasn’t the only part of him that seemed to be made of gilt metal.

The day was warm, but that didn’t seem to be an excuse for driving around in a truck shirtless, and yet here he was.

Broad shoulders, muscles flexing as he dropped down out of the cab, his skin perfectly tan.

He was big, strong, and perfect looking.

Alpha, that’s what my wolf said, right before she had me moving.

She stayed very quiet in the city. I’d only managed to shift three or four times, because she was not a powerful presence inside me.

Some theorised that’s why I’d never found my alphas, that if she was bigger, stronger, fate would’ve deemed me worthy of mates.

But right now, it was her paws that moved me forward, her whining that I could hear in my ears as we moved closer.

“You’re not getting that truck up here!” Old man Smith grumbled, stabbing his finger in the direction of the truck.

“If you back it up,” Mrs Dennis said in a far more polite tone, “I’ll get my husband to move our car for you.”

“I’d appreciate…”

His voice was deep and husky, producing a visceral reaction inside me as soon as I heard it.

Like fingers stroking through my fur, finding that perfect spot behind my ear to scratch.

That whole-body shiver? It had nothing on the way I felt when those bright blue eyes swung my way.

I felt hot, then cold, then hot again as my cheeks burned bright red.

The skin around his eyes crinkled a little as he grinned, a sparkle of mischief the only warning I got of what was to come.

He pushed past the concerned neighbours, striding down the side of the truck and stopping when he came to me.

“Jace Whitlock,” he said, holding out his hand. “And who are you, beautiful?”