Lucky Angels (Omegaverse Smutfic) (first draft)

Five

I awoke, gasping for air and shivering, with a cold sweat shining on my exposed skin. Empty and alone, I wrapped my arms around myself to shield most of the cold. I'd thrashed in my sleep, and my blanket was thrown off the couch and tangled halfway in my ankles. The deep ache in my stomach switched to a stabbing pain that made me gasp as I reached to free my feet from the blanket's confines. Bending makes it worse. Noted.

By the beat of the sun shining harshly through the window, I could tell it was already midday. I'd slept in, stuck in mindless paralysis as my worst memories played through in my dreams. The other alphas were gone, their blankets and pillows long abandoned from when they'd gone to bed the night before.

A series of texts from Jack led me to Janson's office, where the boys were huddled in front of one of the large computer monitors facing the doorway. Their backs were turned to me as I entered, but my perfume preceded me. I winced as they all turned to face me.

"I found a list of omega buyers," Jan said. "Going through them now."

"Take a look," Jack suggested. He stepped back to offer me his space so that I could see the many monitors across the desk.

What I saw made me gasp for my breath. My father's face was centered on the screen, framed by a news article about a fundraiser for the Omega Center. Bank accounts, business trails, and black market deals spread across multiple screens on Jan's desk.

"What is this?" I said. My voice was stone cold, and my perfume scented of burnt cake and seared sugar, my stress tasting in the air.

Jan rolled around in his swiveling chair to face me. He scanned my face with piercing caramel orbs. "What is it, Wren?"

I backed up a step, but Phoenix was over my shoulder as he always was, and there was nowhere to go.

"You know, don't you?" I said.

Jan shook his head, dark brown eyebrow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

I raised a shaking hand and pointed toward the monitor. "That's my father," I said.

"What?" Jack hissed. He glanced between me and the monitors, probably recognizing the resemblance in our matching black eyes and small noses. "That's the bastard you ran from?"

I wrenched Jan from his rolling chair and sat down in his warm tobacco aroma. I tapped away at the keyboard until I'd pulled up a series of files on my father's known associates. I scrolled down until the mouse hovered over a file marked "daughter" in green letters. I clicked the file.

A picture of my teenage self popped up on the monitor. I stood resolutely in frame with my bony arms crossed over my chest, my black tangle of hair reaching just past my hips. There was a bruise around my swelling eye, a cut on my lip, and a red welt on my cheek where my father had hit me before "picture day" when I had told him I didn't want my picture taken. Other injuries and scars peaked out from behind the white sheet I wore for a dress – the only clothes I'd had in the lab.

My eyes flicked over the file.

Name: Serenity Aurelius

Designation: Alpha or Omega

My entire body tensed, and I reached my hands to grip the seat of the chair in a white-hot grip. A low growl vibrated around my erratic heartbeat. Alpha OR omega? What was that supposed to mean? I had always been an alpha – only emitting omega-smelling pheromones when I was what Jack called feral. It had been that way since I was a child. I may not have ever had a rut, but that wasn't unusual for female alphas.

The air in the room was ripe with my burnt sugar perfume and something I'd never smelled from my alphas before – fear.

"Did you – Did you know?" Alex growled. There was a bark in his voice commanding me to answer and answer truthfully.

"No," I said hollowly. If I'd known I was an omega, I would have stayed as far away from the Dark Angels pack as humanly possible.

Silent and frowning, Jan leaned over me to use the keyboard and mouse, filtering through my file. I'd told them some things, but not this – not the depths of shame my past torture brought out of me. My whole life was in there.

"This says..." Jan cleared his throat, his voice icy cold. "This says you were a failed experiment to blend alpha and omega biology."

"Did you know?" Jack repeated, no bark in his voice.

I shook my head. "I remember... I remember what they did to me, but I never knew why, or I would have never come here, I'm sorry I didn't know, I'm sorry." I was suddenly pleading, looking up into Jack's green eyes, begging him to believe me. I knew what this meant – knew they would exile me from the pack for lying to them – knew I was a goner out there on my own.

Phoenix wheeled the desk chair around to face him and kneeled between my knees. A neverending darkness stared into my black eyes, glinting with an evil I'd only seen once bfeore when my life was threatened.

"I knew you were my fated mate from the first time I smelled you," Phoenix said. "I'll kill them all for you."

Fated mate? I didn't know anyone but Phoenix who still believed in fated mates. But I'd never smelled anything as delicious as chili peppers and honey, and my hindbrain screamed yes, mine.

Alex let out a barking growl, but he said nothing. He opened the door, walked out, and slammed it shut behind him. My heart sank. He was angry that I had lied to him. Angry that I had brought my past here, to their front door, without him even realizing it.

"Shit, we're being tracked!" Jan said suddenly. His hands flew at the keyboard.

The three of us turned to the monitors as Jan crouched near the desk without his chair, fingers racing across the tiled keyboard so fast I thought one of them might fly off. The screen was straight black with illuminated green text running by so fast I didn't catch more than three words:

TRACKING
LOCKED ON

"Are we made?" Jack asked. His hand was on the doorknob – He was ready to gear up.

"No, no – I think... I got it!" Jan's victory pranced the room in his wafting tobacco and leather smell. "I got the data downloaded too."

"You were still in their servers?" Phoenix sneered, the accusal low in his silky tone.

Jan knew how to get in and out quickly. It was me that caused the breach, distracted him.

Jan sat back on his heels, his shoulders sagging with the weight of a looming threat – my father, August Aurelius.

Dizzy, I sat back in Jan's desk chair. Sharp pain squeezed like a crown of thorns around my skull. Stress makes it worse, I thought. Too late. Not like I knew I was an omega.

Pain like a knife shredded my insides, and I doubled over so fast I nearly bumped Phoenix's head with my own. White stretched across my vision in the wake of a wave of sudden sharp stabbing pain in my stomach.

Phoenix coughed. My perfume was thick, a heavy sweet vanilla cream radiating from me like a cloud of candy. Phoenix's brown eyes blew black, and his eyebrows raised in fervent curiosity. He saw with awe, "Your heat is starting soon, isn't it?"

I wrenched back from Phoenix so forcefully that the chair wheeled backward, flying into Jack, who caught it easily.

Jack crouched in front of me. All of the alphas sat at my height now, large shoulders hunching forward toward the object of their worry: Me.

"Send you away? You're our pack," Jack said, and he had the audacity to sound hurt when he said it.

Jack opened his arms at the same time I dove into them. I settled between his legs as he held me.

"We do have to do something about this heat, though," he said. "I don't know anything about omegas."

"I'm on it," Jan said. He stole my abandoned chair and rolled back to the drawing board of his massive computer setup.

Tears sprung to my eyes. Phoenix scooted in close to rub my back in small smooth circles.

"You're not getting rid of me?" I murmured. My face was flushed with the shame of crying in front of my alphas.

Jack tipped my forehead up so I was looking into his forest green eyes. "Pack is forever."