Chapter One – Jess
How did I get here?That's the thought that runs through my head as I drive along the city streets. My knuckles tight on the wheel, countless thoughts race through my head.
Am I really doing the right thing? Is this a mistake? I don't have the answers to either of those questions yet, and I don't know how long it'll be until I do. I can say this isn't something I ever thought I'd have to do.
What am I doing? I'm running away. Sort of. I'm doing what I have to do because I am, for lack of a better word, petty as hell.
My name is Jessica Dryers,and I'm an omega. For the last ten years I've been living with my aunt, Cecilia. It wasn't so bad when my uncle was alive, but five years ago he passed away and joined my parents wherever they wound up. Now that it's just me and Cecilia, things have been… strained.
She's a fine enough woman, I guess. It isn't like she goes around killing people in her free time, but she's not someone I enjoy trusting with my life. Because I'm an omega, she and my uncle became my guardians after my parents died.
I had no choice. I was a kid of ten and I barely survived the accident myself. The doctors said it's a miracle I survived, but I don't know if I’d go that far.
The Dryers are what remains of a founding family. Our bloodline goes way back. Yet, I'm the only true Dryers left. My aunt married into the family before she realized she was sterile and couldn't have kids of her own. Plus she's a beta. From what I remember my grandparents always looked down on my uncle for marrying her in the first place.
Doesn't matter now; they're dead, too.
To get back to me, everything changed when I turned eighteen and my aunt started to push me to find a pack. Nothingnew when it comes to being an omega, but after seeing nothing but loss, the last thing I want is a pack of my own.
Nothing against alphas, but they just don't do it for me.
That's why I'm now twenty years old and still don't have a pack, much to my aunt's chagrin. My twenty-first birthday is coming up, which means my heat will be coming up as well. It's well known that omegas need alphas to help get them through their heat. Some omegas can make do without, but it's a painful process.
Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do. This whole thing could be a mistake. Running away is just prolonging the inevitable.
That's why I need to keep reminding myself I'm not doing this for me. Well, it's partially for me, but it's mostly for my aunt. The bitch doesn't deserve a single cent.
My mind flashes back to the day I first realized why my aunt has been pushing me so hard to find a pack. The memories are alive and vibrant in my mind, replaying for me like they just happened yesterday.
It was the day before my ninth time at the Omega Garden. I had a hair appointment tomorrow morning our family’s driver was going to take me to. I was so close to breaking the record of most unmatched sessions at the Omega Garden, a little goal of mine I never told my aunt about. If I did, she'd lose her mind.
If she knew I wasn't taking any of this seriously, she'd sit me down for a long lecture and go on and on about how I, as an omega, needed to find myself a pack, preferably with more than one alpha. She'd lectured me before, and yet she'd never dared to come to the Omega Garden with me as a sponsor, probably because she was a beta and she was worried the alphas therewould try to use their dominance against her, force her and I to accept a match she did not approve of.
She took it upon herself to review every single potential match I received, but of course she didn’t know I purposely bombed all of my introductions to said alphas because the last thing I wanted to do was be married off.
After so many visits to the Omega Garden, after so many fruitless sessions, she was starting to get suspicious of me. The pressure she applied towards me and finding a pack had become stronger, harder to ignore.
I didn't know why I decided to go snooping. Maybe it was because I felt weird walking into the office that used to belong to my father. I hardly ever went in there before, when he was still alive. Something was different today. Something I just couldn't describe. Maybe it was the feeling in my gut, the one that told me something wasn't right, or maybe it was the fact I never really liked my aunt to begin with.
And how could I? She always treated me as lesser, like she was better than me. Like she knew better. Like, just because I was an omega I should listen to every single word she said and never question her.
Haughty. Superior. The kind of attitude typically reserved for alphas.
So, as weird as it felt to venture into that office that morning, I did. I walked into her office and searched that thing from top to bottom. All of the bookcases, the filing cabinet in the corner, and every single drawer on her desk.
I didn't know what I expected to find, if I really thought I'd find anything, but when I came across a locked drawer in that desk, I could honestly say my stomach fell to the floor. I ran my thumb over the small keyhole as I wondered what could possibly be so important she’d keep it in a locked drawer.
It was just us in the house. We had a chef, but he never came upstairs, and the housekeeper, but my aunt was so anal about everything she always took it upon herself to oversee the cleaner’s work.
I didn't waste much time thinking about how to get inside that drawer. One way or another, I was getting in. I left the office and went to my bedroom. In my adjoining bathroom, I searched until I found my bobby pins. I had a few different kinds, some that were way older than others, and on those older ones the little rounded bit of plastic over the edge of the metal had worn off.
It might not work, but I was willing to try. I had to. I had to do something. I knew my parents left me a fortune, more than enough money that I could stay in this house for the rest of my life, without a pack, and be totally fine. Coming from old money had its perks.
I took those bobby pins back to my aunt's office, and I got straight to work. I didn't see any cameras in the room. My dad had always valued his privacy, and my aunt was the same way. As long as I got in and out before she got back from the country club, I'd be fine.
To be honest, I didn't think it would actually work. But the desk was old. The lock wasn't exactly high-tech. Those old bobby pins did the trick somehow, and after a few minutes of struggling, the lock clicked open and I was able to open the drawer fully.
And what did I find in that drawer? Nothing really. Just a folder lying flat, totally nondescript and plain-looking.
