Page 21 of Pack Apollo

I nod, but look down quickly as I add, "Yes, but Palmer did tell me the situation with the last omega that was horrible to your pack."

"Ah, yes," he says, "there's that. But, this is neither time nor place for her. This is you, me, giving us a chance to prove that whatever stigma you've been brought to believe, packs can be so much better than you can imagine."

"You had me the moment I saw this view and wasn't sure if I'd actually died on the trail and made it to heaven," I confess.

His head falls back as he laughs. "I told you that I had no plans to murder you. Although, I will say that we need to do this more often and possibly trade some yoga days for cardio."

"Ahhh, just the sweet words that every woman wants to hear," I tease.

Raising up, he brings his lips to mine and chuckles against them. "In all seriousness, we probably don't want to get stuck walking the trail back at dark, so we need to pack up and leave."

He brushes our lips together. "One more kiss. And another."

Several kisses later, we've got everything back in his bag ready to head down the ridge. Before we packed, I'd asked to get some photos of him and us together, quite possibly to post later. He'd said yes, without hesitation, and been a good sport when I asked him to pose. They'll probably be some of my most favorite pics I've taken. I can't wait to get back to my room to go through them.

Chapter Seven

The next morning when I wake, the previous day feels like a dream. It's so surreal that I have to pull the pics up to believe it. Out of all the things on my bingo card for my first year of college, being courted by a damn pack wasn't one of them. Especially, by a prominent one full of some of the nicest human beings I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

Butterflies start their round in my belly again as I scroll through the pics. I skip over the ones I took of just me, though, they turned out great and will make good material for posting. They're by far not my favorite. No, the best ones, by far, are the ones that captured the exact moment Cordell gave me as a gift that I'll treasure forever.

I'm so caught up in my thoughts that I'm late rolling out of bed. Tossing my hair up in a messy bun, I throw on the first pair of jeans that I can find and a clean top before stuffing all of my things into my messenger bag and walking out. Of course, sometime during the night, my roommate decided that she needed to stack all of her dirty laundry in a hamper right beside the door. It goes toppling over, spilling its contents across the floor.

She skulks into the room just as I'm putting the last handful back into the basket. "What are you doing going through my dirty clothes, weirdo?"

"I wasn't," I tell her, trying not to get angry. "This fell as soon as I opened the door to go out."

Her dark eyeliner looks caked on, like it's been there for days and she just keeps putting more on to cover it from the day before. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be trying to accent or hide the gaudy blue eyeshadow that she's wearing, but it's failing and doing neither. She looks like she went digging through the damn basket I knocked over to find her clothes for the day sincethere's a giant red stain that looks suspiciously like spaghetti right smack in the middle of her chest. Normally, I wouldn't go out of my way to be thinking mean thoughts about someone, but her rotten attitude is killing my vibe that I woke up with. I kind of hate her for it.

"Whatever," she spits out at me, stomping over to her side of the room. "Leave my freaking stuff alone."

She starts mumbling something about omegas thinking they own the whole damn world and can do whatever they want as I'm shutting the door behind me. We're going on months of knowing each other and having to share a space and never once did I take her for being a salty, omega-hating beta. Hell, when I first got here, I even went out of my way to bring her things if I went out. Like a coffee or a smoothie. After the third time of seeing it sitting where I left it, I stopped doing anything nice. Then we just started ignoring each other.

"Make it through this year," I tell myself out loud as I'm now walking across campus. "New year. New roommate."

"Do you talk to yourself often?" a voice asks, coming up beside me.

I glance over and up into an icy-blue gaze right above a bright smile. "Only on days that end in y."

Brent nods a couple times. "That's good to know. Maybe we ought to tell the others, though. That way they don't think we've invited a crazy into the house."

"How do you know that I'm not?" I ask in my most serious tone, fighting a smile.

Giving me a once over from my head to my toes, he shrugs. "Meh, it's worth it."

I laugh, making a few heads turn around us. "You Pack...wait, I haven't found out the name of your pack yet. Here I am letting one of you convince me to change my stance and I don't even know your pack name."

He stops walking and stares at me funny. "We're Pack Apollo."

"Okay, good. That's a good name. I like it. Why Apollo? Why are you looking at me like that?" I ramble.

"There's a whole lot to unpack that came from a few sentences," he says slowly. "Can we go back to what you said about your stance? What are you talking about?"

I fidget with my hands nervously, and I know that my cheeks are turning pink. I hurry up and answer him before I make the situation any more awkward. "Cordell took me on a hike yesterday, and I thought it was because he was going to murder me, but then we got out there and I figured out that he wouldn't have to do the murdering, because I'm apparently, super unfit and almost didn't make it to the top of the bluff, then when we get there he says a lot of sweet things that counterbalance the gross humus that he'd brought as dinner, and he convinced me that I should let your pack court me in the real way and not just as friends, because he believes in fate and said, in a nutshell, if there's no risk there's no reward."

Once I finish talking, I stop to take a real breath since I started my rambling. Brent's lips are parted in surprise, and I can't help but to reach out and push on his chin to close them.

"Sorry," I tell him. "I think maybe Cordell should've been the one to tell you. I'm completely out of my element with this and have no idea how packs work. I hope I didn't step on toes and do something wrong."

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