Chapter One
Alaska, Tupilaq Pack
Aria
“Aria!” My aunt called from the bottom of the stairs. “Aria, come down here, please. We need to talk.”
She always did that. Shouted my name from afar. Why didn’t she just act like a normal person and text me if she wanted to speak? No, she always had to shout. It drove me nuts.
As much as I’d like to ignore her, I couldn’t. Besides having superior hearing as a ware, I knew she’d just get louder until I obeyed.
That’s how it worked around here. Not just this house, but with the pack. You did what you were told, or else there’d be consequences. And I’m not talking about losing phone privileges. I’m talking about being on lock-down for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, until the pack decided you’d learned your lesson and were free to go.
I lived with my Aunt Clara and Uncle Klive. I had since I was twelve and my parents died in a plane crash. I loved my aunt, but her husband, one of the pack’s elite trackers, I could do without. In short, the man was a dick. Constantly pushing me around. Telling me what a woman’s place was. The ware was insufferable. Unfortunately, he was also in charge of me even though I was twenty-two years old.
I’d fantasized about leaving the pack a hundred times since coming to live with my aunt and uncle. Unfortunately, I had nowhere to go, and even if I did, they wouldn’t let me leave. You see, I’m an omega, a highly sought after female meant for breeding. That meant fuck-all to me. But to the pack, I was an important bargaining chip, a way to keep the men in line. Which was every bit as disgusting and dehumanizing as it sounded.
“Aria!” My aunt shouted once more. “If you don’t come down here this minute, I’m going to-”
I didn’t hear the rest of her threat. I didn’t need to. Setting my computer aside, I exited my room and headed toward the stairwell. As soon as my aunt’s face came into view, I could see she was wearing her most serious face. I loved my aunt but hated that face. It was the same one she’d worn when I’d learned about my parents’ death when I was twelve.
My heart sank in my chest. Something big was about to happen. Something I wasn’t going to like. That expression never boded well.
“Meet me in the living room. There’s something important we need to discuss,” my aunt ordered, before turning on her heels and disappearing around the corner.
As I slowly descended the stairs, I quickly ran through the list of things I could have done wrong. A LOT came to mind. I wasn’t troubled or anything, just strong willed. I hated to be told what to do, especially seeing as I was an adult woman being sheltered like a freaking teenager.
Losing your autonomy chafes under the best of circumstances. Under the worst, it’s like a choke chain constantly being cinched tighter and tighter around your neck. If I didn’t fight against it now, one day, it would squeeze too hard and I might cease to exist altogether.
When I entered the living room, I spotted my uncle. Since I didn’t really consider him family, I called the loser Klive behind his back. And sometimes to his face, which he so didn’t appreciate.
Klive was my aunt’s second husband. Her first, my Uncle Darren, had been killed in a pack dispute with the Armingtons before my parents died.
The Armingtons were another dominant family in Alaska who lived in a compound much like ours, only with far fewer resources. To be honest, they were kind of like the poor relations to the Tupilaqs, acknowledged, but not so secretly looked down upon whenever we had to associate with one another.
I just never connected with Klive. Hell, my aunt really hadn’t either. The only reason she’d married the Alpha-hole was because the pack had ordered it. Though I’d never seen her argue against the match, I knew the proud woman could get frustrated with him from time to time. I didn’t blame her. He was a total megalomaniac. Everything had to be Klive’s way. Being the “alpha” in this home, he’d demanded complete and utter submission.
Well, fuck that! I was an omega, not a slave. He could take his high-handed authority and shove it right up his arrogant ass.
“Took you long enough,” Klive sniped as soon as I entered the room. “That attitude of yours is going to get you into trouble one day, Aria.”
Going to get me into trouble? Shit, that was the understatement of the year.
My aunt jumped in then, wanting to smooth things over as she often did. “We’ve called you down here to have an important discussion, Aria. It’s about your future.”
My heart began to thump wildly in my chest. Thankfully, Clara didn’t make me wait; she came right out with it.
“The time has finally come for you to be mated.”
I’d suspected that was what this was about. But that didn’t change how I felt about the terrifying announcement. I wanted to throw up at the mere thought of being bartered off to the highest, or most aggressive, bidder.
Yet, it had been a long time coming. Most girls I knew were mated off by seventeen or eighteen. At twenty-two, I’d had a surprisingly good run of quasi-independence.
“To who?” I demanded in a strangled voice.
My aunt’s face became pinched like her answer hurt her as much as it was about to hurt me. “Well, that hasn’t been decided yet. Right now, there are two names being considered.”
A bitter taste flooded my mouth. “I’m not getting mated, Clara. I have no interest in being tethered to anyone right now!” Or ever. “I need to finish my degree first. You promised me I could,” I pointedly reminded her.
“I know I did, sweetheart,” my aunt agreed, appearing defeated after a quick glance in Klive’s direction. “But this order came straight from the top and so can’t be denied.”
Shooting out of my seat, my face grew hot and red with anger. “Who decided I needed to be mated before I graduate college?”
Klive grinned nastily. “Oh, Aria, you aren’t finishing college. An omega doesn’t need an education. Your future husband doesn’t care about nonsense like that. He’ll only care about how well you take orders and his knot. Worry about that instead of a degree that won’t improve your place in this pack one iota.”
This was barbaric. To not know or have any say in who I was going to be mated with was abominable.
“Who made this decision for me?” I persisted even more fiercely now.
“Our pack leader, Leonidas,” my aunt revealed.
There was silence for a moment before I could recalibrate. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of my lungs.
I’d known for a long time this was coming. My aunt, to her credit, had been a staunch advocate of me getting my degree before I had to take a mate. But, like all women in the Tupilaq pack, she’d been overlooked and disregarded in yet another major decision that affected our lives directly and over which we women had no say.
“Stop complaining,” Klive arrogantly spat. “You’ve been given far more freedom than any other omegas in your position. If it had been up to me, I would have had you mated by seventeen. You’ve grown too headstrong and independent as it is. This can’t wait another year.”
Oh, I was sure Klive would have liked that fate for me. The only thing he might like more is being the one to do the “honors”.
I wasn’t blind to the way the man looked at me. To the hunger in his eyes whenever he glimpsed me in my towel after a shower. Hell, the foul ware was the sole reason I’d purchased a robe that covered everything but my head and was so long it dragged behind me on the floor. Though that robe hadn’t stopped him from following me with his gaze like a sick gazelle whenever my aunt wasn’t looking.
“There are two men being considered as your mate,” Clara explained. “Alfred Jones and Shepard Hill.”
This revelation didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it only made me feel worse.
“You should consider it an honor, being hand-selected to be mated to our Alpha’s immediate family,” sneered Klive. “Hopefully, the young pup is ware enough to break your rebellious spirit. If not, I can show him how it’s done.”
I was too disgusted and frightened to respond to what either my aunt or uncle had said.
Alfred. Of all the men in our pack I could be given to, it had to be our Alpha’s crazy nephew! Was I cursed? At this point, that seemed a certainty.
Though it had never been said outright, I was pretty sure Alfred was a sociopath. Relatively new to the pack, the ware had grown up on the west coast with his beta mother. Six months back, Leonidas had summoned him to Alaska. In that short time, the young ware hadn’t made much of a positive impression on the Tupilaqs. His off the wall antics, like street fighting and carousing with the locals, hadn’t helped with that negative reputation any.
Alfred had even, on a few occasions, started fights with his own pack members. He’d also been accused of assaulting beta women in our community, compelling them to couple with him after cornering them in isolated places around town.
Of course, nothing had happened to him, being our packmaster’s close relative and all. He was, for all intents and purposes, untouchable. And this was the man they wanted me to wed.
How horrifying.
“Who’s Shepard Hill?” I hadn’t heard that name before, and the unknown seemed just as terrifying and dangerous as Alfred.
“The Armingtons’ Enforcer. He’s…” my aunt paused while she considered how best to put her response, “a bit older than you, Aria. His wife recently passed away and he desires children, as all wares do, to solidify his legacy.”
Translation, he married his close relative and they’d been infertile. The Armingtons were known for being inbred and it was starting to show in their inability to birth healthy, living children. As far as I was concerned, the only thing worse than marrying into the Tupilaq pack, was marrying into an inbred one like the Armingtons.
I snorted in open disgust. “Were none of his sisters available for mating then?”
Klive actually laughed out loud. “That’s what they’re trying to avoid by mating you, Aria. The Armingtons are looking for new blood, and you seem to have caught Shepard’s eye when he saw you in town recently.”
Not that I wanted to stay with the Tupilaq Pack, but I couldn’t understand why the Armingtons were being considered as mates for our female omegas at all. I didn’t care about things like old blood or social status, but those in power certainly did. The deal was suspicious, to say the least.
“It seems like there was an issue recently between the two packs that Leonidas is trying to work out. You might be the solution to that dispute,” Klive explained.
I see. In my mind, that meant Alfred had somehow insulted or picked a fight with the Armingtons. Now, in an effort to stave off a pack feud, I, or some other unfortunate Tupilaq female, was being dangled like bait to keep the men from all-out war. Fabulous.
“I won’t do it!” I interjected without thinking. My temper had gotten the better of me, and I hadn’t considered my words before I’d passionately shouted them.
Klive’s face stormed over and his body became tense. “Omegas don’t make decisions about mating, Aria. Alphas do!”
We’d see about that, Klive.
“Aria,” my aunt interrupted, “you knew this was coming. You’re an adult now, not a child. This year or the next, it was always going to happen. You have to mate with an alpha, sweetheart. It’s your destiny. It’s all of our destinies.”
She was right about the timeline, but wrong about the outcome. However, it wasn’t an argument I was willing to have at the moment. I was never going to change Clara’s mind about my place in the pack any more than she would mine.
Right now, I needed to put my focus on what really mattered. How I was going to escape this awful no-win prison colony I’d been born into with a deadline looming over my head.
Going cold all over, I asked the only question I cared about now. “When?”
My aunt sighed when she saw the familiar stubborn set to my jaw. I guess she wasn’t the only one in the family with recognizable expressions.
“The decision will be made by the end of the month. The mating ceremony will take place directly after that.”
That meant I had only a few weeks to come up with an escape plan. It could be worse. I’d known omegas who’d only been given mere hours before being forced into unexpected unions. Four weeks was going to be tight, but it was at least feasible.
I’d make it work. I had to.