Page 106 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

“Now what? I don’t like this,” I mutter. “Not one fucking bit.”

Gigi said she has a bad feeling about this, and I agree.

“The only other clue would be the pack he’s being sold to,” Ronin says. “Who might know their name and address?”

“I have no idea,” Sawyer whispers. He looks crushed.

We all look crushed. Ronin starts kicking at the rail around the porch, swearing under his breath. Grey is holding Gigi who looks like she’s about to cry.

But then she straightens. “Packs in the city usually take the top alpha’s surname as their official name. But out here, what sort of names would a pack choose?”

“Can’t see how that might help us,” Grey says. “But I’m from another small place, far from here, and you get all sorts of fantastic names sometimes. Usually, weird names are a hint to stay away from those packs. But you get names like the Bad News, or the Neighborhood Kings, or the Hansome Bandits?—”

“You’re shitting me,” I mutter.

“—or the Sex Guns, or?—”

“The Black Dogs?” Gigi whispers.

“Never heard that one,” Grey says.

“Who told you that name?” I grab her hand, pull her to me. “Gigi? Did Casey tell you that name?”

“He did, but I hadn’t realized… I thought he was joking.”

“What exactly did he say?” I demand.

“Something about not being able to go back, about the Black Dogs getting a whiff of where he was. I thought he was talking about actual dogs, but what if…”

“What if he was talking about a pack?” I say slowly. My pulse is thumping painfully in my temples. “How do we find them? They won’t be in the Pack Registry unless they make themselves official, and it looks like they didn’t have the requisite omega… until now.”

“Right, but if they believe they have him now…” Grey says, “they’d have to file a request.”

“Requests aren’t open to public viewing.”

“I might know someone,” James says. That’s Bee’s blond top alpha, James St. Laurent, whose name their pack bears. CEO and owner of his company, when he says he might know someone in the system, I believe it.

Bee wraps an arm around his hips and smiles up at him. “Thank you, James.” She’s tiny beside him.

When Nate takes her other side, and Kaden and Jae close in, forming a circle, I clench my jaw. They all bare mating marks on their necks, I realize, pale bite scars given during mating sex. I like that they all have them, not just the omegas.

I want that for us, that equality, that trust. I want my pack around me. I want them all safe. I want that circle for us, that closure, that new beginning.

And my chest expands when Ronin and Grey step closer to us and put their arms around us. Not a circle yet, we’re not yet complete, but we’re getting there. My mates’ scents mingle and wrap around me, and it eases a pain in me I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying around all these years. I lift my arms, putting them over my other alpha and my beta as they wrap theirs around Gigi, and I trust them to hold her tight, to take care of her and of each other.

And this is what makes a pack. This trust, this need, this love.

We have it in spades already. Can’t wait to get Casey in here with us. Fingers crossed he’s game.

James is on the phone, frowning and demanding information while being polite. It’s an art, this diplomacy, one I can never hope to learn. But his frown slowly clears, and I hold my breath as he says goodbye and cuts the call.

He grins at us. “We have an address. Let’s go.”

29

GIGI

Idon’t know why this is hitting me so hard. We’re still at the speculation stage about where Casey might be and what all this is about, but hearing about how he grew up has really hit me in the feels. I know about the plight of omegas, I’m aware of their history of suppression. But silly me, I thought all that was in the past.

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