2. Jeremy

My team and I have been hunting the wilds for weeks, and I would give anything to sleep in my own bed again.

My back is stiff from sleeping on the ground, and I am sick of shitting in the woods.

I haven"t even caught the trail of a single deserter—an Omega who"s had enough of the harsh rules of the government, deciding to seek a better life elsewhere.

It"s my job to convince them that pack life is the better alternative and that they should be honored to register at the Academy.

They should want to be auctioned like cattle and treated like a bitch at a breeding farm, and sometimes, I don"t even know how I can look myself in the mirror.

But at the end of the day, it puts bread on the table. Well, morethan bread. It"s good money, and I guess being a trained government dog has its perks.

Still, I can"t help but wonder if there is more to life than hunting down desolate souls who only wish for freedom.

Maybe one day, I will stumble upon that special Omega—the one who"ll turn my whole world upside down.

My cousin tells me it"s life-altering once your pack finds its Omega and that bastard should know. His pack has two.

But I"m not an idiot. That shit only happens in fairy tales, or to other packs.

Not to me or the rest of Pack Snow.

Leo is always hopeful. He even built a nest in the hopes that we may just find our Omega. Troy couldn"t give two shits, and Rian… well, Rian is a pretty new addition to our pack.

He"s a Beta, and he only joined us a few months back, around the time of the Beta Trials.

After many years of advocating and struggling, the Beta government finally had enough of its people being treated as second best, never getting to experience the strong bonds that are formed between Alphas and Omegas.

So, they created the Beta Trials, making it mandatory for a Beta to join every Alpha/Omega pack.

But even when the trials stopped temporarily a few months ago, Rian remained.

We weren"t ready to part with him.

I heard that other packs didn"t take so well to their Betas, and I"m just grateful that we got along with Rian.

Well, we more than got along with him.

Is it normal for Alphas to be attracted to a Beta?

The flap of my tent opens next, and speak of the devil himself…

Rian has started joining me on my hunts. It gave him a purpose. Since we don"t have an Omega, there was no one for him to protect.

When Rian turned up that day on our doorstep, a greenhorn fresh from graduation, the poor thing was lost.

So, instead of taking care of a hypothetical Omega, as the Beta government intended, he took up the role of our pack bodyguard.

Not that we needed one. We"re all nearly twice his size, but I"ve seen how he fights.

He"s military trained. We"re all military-trained for that matter.

"Find anything?" I ask him.

Rian shakes his head. "No. Not a single trail. Maybe these Omegas are getting smarter."

The Beta flops down onto the futon opposite me, running his fingers through his dark curly hair. "Sorry, Jay. I wish I had better news…"

I sigh, shaking my head. "It"s fine. We"re all getting restless. We"ll be back home soon enough. Don"t you worry."

Rian is still grumbling, and I step across the tent, grabbing his shoulder. "Rian, it"s fine… you did the best you could."

The poor thing has to feel useful somehow. I see it in his big green eyes, and he just needs something to do. He still thinks of himself as an outsider.

But that couldn"t be farther from the truth.

Rian is as much a part of our pack as the rest of us. Sure, if it weren"t for the Beta Trials, he wouldn"t even be sitting in front of me right now, but he"s here.

We let him join our pack bond not long after he came to us, so he wants to prove himself worthy.

Troy was the first to bite him into our pack. Since Troy was the one he grew the strongest bond with, it made sense. Then the rest of us followed, and now Rian wears all our bite marks on his neck.

Normally, it"s the Omega who"s at the center of a pack bond, but in the absence of an Omega, the Alphas will create a bond with each other instead, usually via the wrist.

I met Leo and Troy back at the Academy, and then we all decided to form a pack bond not long after.

It took Rian weeks to settle in after he joined us, but he was more than happy to let Troy bite him into the pack.

I can tell Rian is missing Troy, and I can sense them speaking through the bond. Though it"s distant, I detect Troy"s tendril of affection wrapping around the Beta male, but I want Rian to know that he has me too.

He can always count on me.

Normally, it should be a weaker bond because Rian is a Beta, but our bond feels as strong as the one formed between an Alpha and an Omega, and I wonder…

He does smell pretty sweet for a Beta, like baby powder or lilac.

Whatever the cause, I can"t deny this strong urge to comfort and reassure him, so I purr.

The Beta closes his eyes, relaxing at last. "Sorry… just… I"m supposed to be good at tracking…"

And he is. Some of the best tracking and scouting skills I have seen.

I continue to purr, and then I take his face in my hand, pressing my lips to his. "Hey, one more day, and we can return home. And then all this will be over."

The weeks are wearing down on Rian, and I bet he just wants to get back to Troy as soon as possible.

He soon falls at the sound of my soothing purr, and I smile, curling up behind him as I lay him down on my sleeping bag in his military fatigues.

I just hope none of the rest of my team knows he"s in my tent. As I said, it"s strange for a Beta and Alpha to get this close. Taboo even.

Again, I will never quite understand how three Alphas took so quickly to a Beta.

We even gave him our last name Snow.

It doesn"t matter. Sometimes, these things don"t require an answer.

Hopefully, we will find a runaway Omega soon because I just want to get back home.

I am sick of hiding my relationship with Rian from my team. We have avoided sex as a result, and it has been painful. Many nights, I have had to rely on my right hand to get myself off.

But we need the money.

In the absence of an Omega, we don"t get paid a stipend. The government pays Alphas to look after their Omegas, so we have to find money elsewhere.

Leo and Troy have their "appointments", and they"re often gone for days on end.

Still. I hold on to hope.

Maybe an Omega will just fall into our laps.