1. Riley

Chapter 1

Riley

The woman shook her head and looked up from the computer screen. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have availability for a single omega.”

I turned up the collar of my coat and nodded. “Yeah, I understand. It’s fine.” My tattered backpack felt particularly heavy as I adjusted it on my shoulder. “Have a nice night.”

At least one of us should. My night would be spent shivering in the backseat of my car, wondering if every breath I took would be my last. But that wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t sure it was completely my fault either.

What I did know was that my parents made choices. My ex-alpha made choices. And I made choices. All those contributed to me living on the streets for the past eight months. The worst choice on my part being that Joe had access to my bank accounts, and when I got laid off over the summer, he knew his gravy train was about to end, so he emptied my accounts and bailed.

If I had a support system back home, I might have crawled back with my tail between my legs and asked for a place to stay for a few months. But I didn’t have that.

When I refused to marry the pastor’s son after graduating from college, my parents cut me off. I was given twenty minutes to pack whatever I could into my car and told to go as far as I could and never come back. So I hadn’t. That was three years ago, and living on my own was getting harder and harder.

During the summer and fall, the weather was mild enough that when I had to sleep in the park or in my car, it wasn’t so bad. But as the temperature started to drop, so did availability in the only omega shelters that allowed singles on a drop-in basis. Being an unmated omega came with risks under the best of circumstances, and living on streets was not the best of circumstances.

On days when I could get into one of the shelters, it wasn’t so bad. There were clothes closets, hot meals, and twenty-four-hour security. As much as I appreciated clean clothes and food, the security was the most important service they offered. Especially with that tease of a headache and the subtle ache in my muscles that meant I was probably gonna be going into heat soon.

A heat I could not survive in my car.

Notwithstanding the fact that the weather would drop below freezing, if an unmated alpha happened to pass by, there was no way to mask my heat. I’d be fully at the mercy of fate to decide if I made it through the night unscathed and with all my fingers and toes.

But if I didn’t, that would be okay too.

I was just too damn tired to care. After all I’d been through over the past few months of trying to find a job without an actual address or daily access to a shower and clean clothes, it was getting harder and harder for me to find the will to keep fighting.

With no other options, I climbed into the backseat of my car and kicked off my shoes so I could shimmy into my sleeping bag. It wasn’t rated for freezing temperatures, but it would do.

Or it wouldn’t.

My whole body was shivering, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was wearing all the layers I could fit underneath my jacket and had long underwear beneath my jeans. I was as warm as I could possibly get as I curled up in a tight ball and tried to fall asleep. Without access to the supplements I’d been taking since puberty, I knew my heat would be bad. The only good part was that I’d get a fever and that would warm me up. I chuckled sadly to myself as I screwed my eyes shut, hoping that would make me fall asleep faster. How sad was it to be excited for a full-body fever just to get some warmth.

But this was my life now, and it was time for me to stop pretending I was anything better than unwanted omega street trash.

Whether I survived the night or not, that was all I’d ever be.