Page 8 of Pack Frenzy
The locker room could almost pass for normal: benches, peeling paint, a half-empty vending machine unplugged in the corner. We line up as a floor lead checks names against a tablet.
Halfway back, a panel of safety glass throws me my reflection—pale skin, bruised eyes, posture of someone waiting for the next order. I square my shoulders. If they want presentable, they can have it. They don’t get broken.
Lily’s hand brushes mine, and I give her a small smile.
“Eyes front,” a voice shouts, making us both look up.
They’re going to place us.
I knew Nexus placed Omegas with Alphas, but knowing and feeling it in your bones are different things. We showered. They made us presentable. Because someone’s coming to evaluate, and I’ve never felt more like an item to be bought until now.
“Oh God,” someone whispers. “Oh God, oh God?—”
“Quiet,” Rachel hisses.
We funnel intoASSESSMENT HALL A, a long room with taped rectangles on the floor and a mirrored strip along one wall. The air is overconditioned and smells faintly of citrus cleaner. Staff line us on the marks—shoulders back, hands at sides, eyes front. The slip-ons squeak as we settle. Fourteen of us are in this group. Fourteen gray silhouettes under fluorescent glare.
A compliance lead paces with a tablet. “You’re here for evaluationand placement review. Stand still. No talking.”
I find Lily two Omegas down. She feels me looking and exhales, almost a nod. I hold my ground and try to keep my breathing even. In for two, out for four.
A chime sounds that’s pleasant, but out of place. Someone unlocks the far door.
The air changes.
It starts as a pressure shift, like weather moving in. Then scent threads the room, subtle at first, then undeniable—sandalwood and cold iron, bergamot, cedar, clean rain and ozone, warm leather with a curl of spice, and something darker under all of it, ambered heat that prickles along my skin.
My body recognizes before my brain does. Heat floods my skin, and something low in my belly pulls tight—an instinct I’ve spent years learning to ignore at the Institute, suppress with pills and sheer willpower. But there’s no pill now, no barrier between me and the primal response that sayssubmit, present, soften.
No. God, no.Alphas.
My hindbrain doesn’t care about my dignity or my defiance. It lights like a warning flare…except the warning isn’t danger, it’swant, and that’s so much worse.
I lock my knees so they won’t show the shake, bite the inside of my cheek until I taste copper. The pain helps. Pain reminds me I’m still Jess, still me, not just biology waiting to roll over.
Conversation on the staff side drops to a hush. Shoes on polished concrete. Eight silhouettes cross the threshold, with two more in their wake and Eli shadowing the flank, tablet in hand.
I force my breathing to slow, but my scent is already responding—blooming without permission, betraying me to every Alpha in the room.
Jasmine and vanilla, soft and sweet andeager. I hate it. I hate that my body is negotiating surrender to strangers while my mind is still building walls.
The Alphas’ scents layer, separate, test the edges of my composure. Pine-smoke pauses near the door. Orange-and-cedar strolls, unhurried. Ozone tracks the line like a storm about to choose where to break. Leather-spice lingers, assessing. Amber heat doesn’t move much at all—just exists, heavy as gravity.
“Group A,” someone says, voice smooth as glass. “We’ll proceed in order.”
Clipboard smiles skim. Notes go in. Names are checked against a roster.
Lily’s gaze drops, but I keep my eyes front and pretend I’m not freaking out right now.
An Alpha whispers something to a guard, and she nods.
“Lily Watson, step forward.”
She gives me a wide-eyed look, but I nod. The Alpha who asked for her has brown eyes that look kind. True, never can tell, but my gut says he’s a good one.
He holds out his hand, and Lily, after a second, takes it, then the guard leads them out into what I imagine is like a meet-and-greet room or something.
Then another girl is called, this time it’s two Alphas with the guard and her. Since the Alphas aren’t puffing up like roosters, I assume they’re in a pack.
