Page 19 of Puck Your Charity

Lawrence jogs down the stairs. He wears a pair of loose gray sweatpants. His dark curls still drip water onto his bare shoulders. He clutches his phone in his right hand. Walking over to the far corner of the basement, he taps the screen and brings the device to his ear. His voice drops into a low, persuasive murmur.

We wait for another agonizing ten minutes.

Lawrence ends his call. He shoves the phone into his pocket. His face looks grim. The charming smile vanishes, replaced by a cold, hardened stare.

He walks back to the center of the room.

"Tell me." I stand up to meet his gaze.

Lawrence crosses his arms over his bare chest. "I called the director. The news is bad."

Finn stops pacing. "Is she hurt?"

"He cited privacy laws and refused to share her medical chart." Lawrence drags a hand over his face. "But he confirmed she survived the heat and discharged an hour ago. He also let it slip they gave her suppressants to break the fever fast."

A wave of relief washes over me, followed by a sudden spike of anger. Suppressants act like poison to a late-blooming Omega. They crush the fever with brutal force. They replace the slick arousal with violent nausea and hollow, aching joints. The drugs leave the Omega feeling battered. They tortured our Omega with pills instead of calling for us. My teeth grind together until my jaw aches.

"If she discharged, we can find her." Finn takes a step toward the stairs. "We get her address from the hospital database."

"You don't understand." Lawrence shakes his head. "They fired her."

The room falls silent.

I stare at Lawrence. "Explain."

"The director confirmed the hospital board terminated her employment this morning." Lawrence grips his biceps. "State liability laws prohibit unbonded Omegas from working in high-stress medical environments. They fired her for presenting."

Victor lets out a choked gasp. He drops his head into his hands.

"It gets worse." Lawrence looks at the concrete floor. "I called a private investigator to get her home address. Then I called her building manager to see if she made it back safely. Her apartment complex enforces a strict Beta-only policy. The landlord gave her four days to break her lease and move out."

My chest caves in.

She is a complete stranger to us. We barely know her name and her job title. But she stood outside that Make-A-Wish room like a fierce protector. In the span of forty-eight hours, our packstumbled into her world and destroyed it. We cost her a steady paycheck. We cost her a roof over her head.

We left our traumatized, unbonded Omega out in the city. She has no income. She has no safe haven. She has a status she never asked for.

The guilt hits me like a concrete block. I failed to protect her. A pack Alpha provides security. I provided a nightmare.

Finn lets out a broken sound. He grabs a spare weight plate off the rack and throws it against the concrete wall. The iron smashes against the stone with a deafening crack. Dust showers down onto the rubber mats.

"We ruined her life!" Finn kicks the metal equipment rack, sending a shockwave through the gym. "She sits somewhere right now, sick from the suppressants, thinking her entire future is gone!"

Victor stands up. He looks furious, his icy eyes burning with a desperate need to fix his mistakes. "We find her. We buy the damn apartment building if we have to. We get her job back."

"We can't buy her trust." I step forward, forcing them all to look at me.

My towering frame casts a long shadow over the rubber mats. "Victor ruined the first impression." I keep my voice low and steady. "After today, she has every reason to hate the rest of us, too. We acted like arrogant pricks. We cost her everything. Throwing money at a woman who despises this pack gets us nowhere."

Finn clenches his jaw. "So what do we do?"

"We step up." My voice leaves no room for argument. "We find her. We fix the mess we made. We provide for her. We protect her. We prove to her that this pack brings more than just ruined lives. We earn her trust, and we bring her home."

Chapter 7

Two burly Alpha men carry my mattress out the front door and down the stairs. I hired a bonded Alpha moving company so I wouldn't have to worry about an incident. Since they both have Omegas at home, my unbonded scent doesn't affect them at all.

I still wear a thick layer of clinical scent blocker paste under my nose and a disposable blue hospital mask, just in case I run into any unbonded Alphas at the storage facility. The intense menthol and eucalyptus vapor burns my sinuses and brings tears to my eyes, but I need the barrier. I want nothing to do with the intoxicating scent of the men who ruined my life.