Page 33 of All Packed Up

They couldn’t take in another cat.

The last one had passed away from old age, and Arlo had gotten way too attached to the damn thing. Broke his fucking heart when they had to bury him.

He wasn’t doing it again.

“No,” he said, voice stern.

He turned away for good this time and heard the couch protest as Tate rose to follow him. Bare feet slapped across the hardwood as he stalked him through the apartment.

“I can’t just throw him out on the street, what if—”

Tate’s scent was bittering the more they talked, and Arlo sighed, hand stuck on the knob.

“We don’t need another cat. We can barely take care of ourselves, you know. Just… I’ll be back in a bit, okay? Figure something out.”

Arlo pulled open the door and stepped into the dimly lit hallway, closing it on any of Tate’s remarks. He breathed a sigh of relief and made his way back down the hallway. He took the steps to the ground floor, and he was halfway down the last set of stairs before he paused.

There was a new scent on the air. Several of them. Alphas.

Just past the glass lobby, standing on the street, was a group of them. He didn’t recognize them, and from the way they were dressed, they didn’t seem like they were moving in.

Arlo squared his shoulders and crossed the lobby floor before pressing the door outwards.

The alphas turned to him, and their gazes lit up like he was just the person they were waiting on.

“Hey, do you live here?” one of them asked.

Their gazes traveled over Arlo’s shoulder, searching the lobby behind him. The one who’d spoken inhaled, nostrils flaring as he tried to scent whatever he could.

Arlo let the door slam closed, hurried by his foot kicking it, and shut out their curious gazes and noses.

“Hello there,” another one greeted, a more polite tone to his voice.

Arlo gifted him his attention, and the alpha tugged at his suit jacket before slipping something out of his pocket. “My name is Derek. We’ve been searching for someone, and evidence leads us to believe she might be here. Do you recognize this woman?”

The alpha turned the photo toward him, and in the pixelated image was a pale woman with big, gray eyes and long dark hair. She was cuddling a cat in the image, staring up at the photographer as the cat nudged at her cheek, a single paw pressed into her sternum.

With very familiar white stripes crossing his paws.

Arlo’s stomach dropped as his suspicion rose, puzzle pieces beginning to fit together.

“I haven’t seen anyone new around here. But you say she’s an omega? What does she smell like?” There was one way to see if his assumption was correct. Hadn’t Nic said his omega had a cat? It could all be a coincidence.

The alphas shared a glance before shrugging. “She smells sweet, but in a fruity way. Kind of desserty?”

Arlo wanted to laugh, but he swallowed it down. Most omegas smelled sweet, desserty.

But the hallway had been flooded with a decadent, fruity scent recently. Coming from Nic’s apartment.

Coincidence my ass.

“Nope, sorry, guys. Doesn’t sound familiar.” The lie rolled off his tongue effortlessly. He didn’t know the full picture and Arlo wasn’t the type to sell out his, well, he considered Nic a friend at this point.

The polite alpha, Derek, narrowed his gaze. “Thanks for your time.”

“What’s a pack of alphas looking for an omega for, anyway? That’s what the omega center is for,” he drawled. Just an innocent bystander.

Derek tilted his head, and his brows dipped in worry. “She’s sick. We just want to get her home so we can have her treated before something bad happens.”