Sweetheart part one a re.., p.1
Sweetheart: Part One (A Reverse Harem Omegaverse Bully Duet Book 1), page 1
SWEETHEART: PART ONE
AN OMEGAVERSE BULLY DUET
BOOK 1
MARIE MACKAY
Copyright © 2023 by Marie Mackay
Edition 1.0
All rights reserved.
Edited by Caity Hides
Cover design by Marie Mackay
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Content
Three Months Ago
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
What’s next?
The PoisonVerse
Thank you!
To Skye and Olivia <3
CONTENT
HOLD UP! Is there anything I should be aware of as a reader?
Yes! Let me get you a list so you know what you’re getting into!
Reference to SA off screen. Bully between love interests. Dark bonds—alpha (villain) coercing the behaviour of an omega via a bond.
Self harm via compelled actions via dark bond, not by intent. Humiliation/degradation from villains. Cliffhanger.
Anything else?
Passing references of drug use, mental health issues, past sexual, emotional and physical abuse, and suicidal ideation.
Oh, also! I write in British English (Realize/realise) I was born in England and now live in Canada. Sometimes my language and dialogue has some funky flavour (I’ve given up fighting it)
THREE MONTHS AGO
r/ABOConfessions
I (19/F/Omega) made a huge mistake.
I’m obsessed with the Crimson Fury pack and have been since forever. I’ve watched every movie and interview. They hosted a signing last week, but their events are betas only. They avoid contact with omegas to stay focused on their careers.
I know it was wrong, but I went. I used contacts and scent dampeners and my fake beta I.D.
Here’s the problem: I scent-matched them.
So… my movie star crushes are my mates and they have no idea because I panicked and ran.
I’m still panicking. Sure, I’ve loved them for years, but everything just got so real. I don’t want to ruin their lives—and they’d never want a gold pack omega like me.
But it seems wrong to ignore the match. They’ll never get another mate.
I’ve been losing my mind. Should I just pretend it never happened? Or do I tell them?
What will they do if they find out they have an omega like me for a match?
DARK BOND
Arkology: Studies of Alphas and Omegas, Vol.2:
A dark bond is a bond of ultimate control of an alpha over an omega. It can be claimed by a bite, and without consent.
“Rarely examined, is a lesser known and rather curious phenomenon. Despite the fact that most scent matches dissolve upon a unification of omega and pack, the recipient (omega) of a dark bond—if bitten without consent—will retain a scent match despite being bonded into a pack.
I take it as a cautionary tale: dark bond an unwilling omega, and her mates may still be out there somewhere.” - Professor A.Rhufus.
ONE
Day One
VEX
I broke a dozen laws as I wrung my fingers anxiously, staring up at the iron gates before me.
Contacts altered the golden eyes that marked me an outcast omega. Drugs smothered my scent, leaving me identifiable only as a beta. And finally, makeup covered a poisoned bite on my neck: a pack bond that the world demanded should be visible.
And the pack who had claimed me against my will lurked in the back of my mind. Present with me always. A vile promise that I couldn’t fail at the task they’d sent me here for.
The car door slammed behind me, leaving me alone with my suitcase in the warm summer air. Leaving me free of them for the first time since they’d bitten me what felt like an eternity ago. How long had I been locked in a room, visited only by the pack lead I never wanted?
And now, before me was a mansion of a million dreams.
I had seen it in pictures in magazines. It was the home of the Crimson Fury pack: actors famous not only for their films, but also their charity work across New Oxford.
This was a pack I’d grown up obsessed with. But now that I was here, I wished I wasn’t for what I was about to do.
Because these alphas were my mates, and I was here to deceive them.
I pressed the button on the stone pillar, my stomach twisting tight as I thrust that thought away.
They were in that house right now.
I hugged myself in the lingering silence, broken only by the rustle of privacy hedges obscuring the property ahead. Around me were the peaceful sounds of a suburban neighbourhood, the rustle of trees or chirping of birds; and it was starkly unfamiliar to anything I’d ever known.
I wanted Aisha or my mom.
But like everything else, they were gone.
I had nothing and no one left.
After being stolen from my home, I was kept in a windowless cell with peeling wallpaper, then sold to the pack who’d bitten me. A pack who’d locked me in a room until today; whose only interest in me was the mates they knew were mine, waiting in the mansion ahead.
I jumped as a crisp, bored voice crackled through the comms. "State your purpose."
"I'm here for the… job." I tried to sound confident, but my nerves came through. “The… Sweetheart position.”
"Ah." There was a clear sigh through the intercom. A louder buzz sounded, and the gates creaked open.
An alpha’s Sweetheart.
Against my will, I’d been trained for this job. Against my will, I was here at last, under dark bond commands that forced me in mind and body.
But commands or not, I needed it to work out, because it was my only escape.
I was disguised as a beta because Sweethearts were beta companions to packs of alphas who didn’t want omegas. It was the only way to get close to a pack as isolated as these celebrities. To my mates—even if they didn’t know it yet.
And I didn’t have room to fuck this up.
I had to do better than any Sweetheart before me.
Because the Crimson Fury pack had never accepted a contract of a Sweetheart beyond the first week.
LOVE
I felt a flash of anticipation from Ebony, and then my phone buzzed. I glanced down at it to see group chat was going off.
I sighed, rubbing my face and standing from the couch.
Another Sweetheart?
Jas had to leave off at some point, right?
She was our manager, and she went through Ebony to sort the Sweetheart visits. I was pack lead, but in this, I gave in to my brother.
Only, we were on the third this year. One week they'd stay with us, then we'd reject the contract—if they even made it that long—and Ebony would settle down for a little while.
That was how it went every single time.
I headed down to the office where we met them. It was always the same: they’d start off with stars in their eyes and simpering voices that scraped at my sanity.
It would end with a swift exit cloaked in the NDA they’d signed before they even got here.
He never went too far—Ebony knew how to toe the line so he’d never have visiting Sweetheart privileges revoked. But no Sweetheart finished the week glad we were the pack they were assigned.
Some were still willing to stay. Those irked me the most. The status that came with being our Sweetheart was worth enough to them to tolerate Ebony.
We only had to make it a few months more, then we were off to Germany for the biggest movie deal of our career. The Dragon Hunters franchise was set to take our name global, but that wasn’t why I gave a fuck about our acting career. It was about the stimuli of being on set. Ebony and Rook were the most balanced they’d ever be when we were working.
I sighed.
Two months. That was all, and if tolerating another Sweetheart week was the cost of keeping Ebony sane, I’d unhappily pay it.
Around me, cream wallpaper lined broad hallways, an d the heels of my oxfords clipped marble, each sound a claw scraping the back of my brain. Unwilling to linger on age-old irritants of a life I’d never wanted, I returned to lighter issues—like drugs and ruts and Sweethearts.
Drugs worked just fine to keep our ruts manageable, and had for the last few years, but none of us were stable alphas. It came with the territory. It was a high bar, becoming as successful as our elite pack had in the last four years, and it wasn’t an environment mellow alphas survived in. We were all high strung in our own ways; vicious, territorial, obsessive.
Eventually, we needed to look at other options. Even with more frequent acting schedules, with less time off between, Ebony was cracking around the edges.
He could always use another outlet, and until I had a better answer, marble floors and Sweethearts would continue scraping away at my sanity. Because this life I’d built up around us was the best I could manage. And it still wasn’t enough.
He didn’t want them here because of what they should offer—touch, or sweetness, or love.
No.
One thing I’d never been able to get on Ebony, was a solid diagnosis. Instead, I was left covering for him at every misstep, with the words antisocial personality disorder, or psychopath suspended between us.
Undefined and uncharted.
But I was his brother, and I knew more than anyone else on this planet that Ebony wasn’t capable of love.
TWO
VEX
The beta who met me at the gates was the same one who'd spoken over comms, and he looked about as enthused as he sounded. Rob—as he’d introduced himself—was their house manager: a spindly man in his mid-thirties wearing a neat grey suit and a pair of white runners.
He'd raised his eyebrows when he'd seen me, and quietly uttered the word, "Fascinating."
I could only assume—based on what he was eyeing—the statement was about my outfit.
I didn’t care. How I looked today was one choice I’d all but drawn blood for. Dark bond or not, no other alpha would tell me how to seduce my mates.
Up close, the home was even more extravagant than I’d imagined. It was a modern, sprawling building, with tall windows through which I could see a broad spiral staircase. Even the double doors we entered through were twice my height.
I felt a pang of grief as my gaze swept across the foyer and the cream marble floors leading to the stairs. To the right was an open concept kitchen, and off the main area were several doors and hallways.
It was lush to the extreme, and there was an omega buried deep within me who might, once upon a time, have lost it to excitement, even stepping foot past the door.
This was the home of my mates.
My idols.
The Crimson Fury pack.
But the woman I’d become—the one broken over and over, worn thin and tired—she didn’t see any of that. Instead, all I felt when Rob shut the door behind me was an earth-shattering relief. Not at the building, or glamour, or because the marble beneath my feet was the home of my mates. But because it was the first time in months, there was a solid, safe wall between me and the pack who’d stolen my freedom.
“They live upstairs,” Rob was saying as I stared around numbly. “Downstairs are the offices, main kitchen, garage—the practical stuff.”
“Where will I be?”
“The Sweetheart room is central on the second floor with the pack.”
I nodded.
He bustled me into a small conference room that overlooked vast gardens from a window spanning the far wall.
"They'll be in to see you..." He checked his phone. "Whenever they decide to show."
I nodded, trying not to hug myself as my throat tightened.
They were coming.
I'd seen them once at a signing I’d snuck into. I’d been on scent blockers, so the scent match between us had locked in with them none the wiser, and I'd fled without speaking to them. But now they were here to see me.
"You are going to be their destruction." Those were words from the men who owned me. And I was a foolish, lying omega who—for the second time—would deceive this pack I’d once been in love with.
With my panic, rose that familiar horror. The cycle of memories that ripped me from reality whenever I gave them an ounce of power.
I’d been locked in that horrible cell for an eternity in silence but for my own singing. It was in those times I could feel my mother here with me. I wanted her so badly it shook me to my bones.
After more days than I could count, I was blindfolded and dragged from the room.
"Get yourself pretty, or I’ll do it for you." The command was dispassionate as the blindfold was ripped off. I’m sure it was my fear, but the alpha before me smelled like gross old wheatgrass. He wore a mask that covered his face, but I could see his hazel eyes intent on me right now.
I glanced around nervously to find I was in a bathroom. A bath was hot and waiting for me.
The alpha didn’t leave, folding his arms as he waited; the gun at his belt was an unhidden threat.
When I’d climbed in at last, I was still dressed, and I only removed my old clothing once I was submerged.
I didn’t look over at him as I dropped each sopping item onto the floor, but I heard his snort.
I’d been with men before, but I’d stayed away from alphas, leaving them where they belonged for a gold pack omega like me: in day dreams. Wheatgrass was clearly here to make sure I didn't try to escape, but every time I felt his attention on me, his leer burned hotter than the scalding water.
Safe now, and in the home of my mates, my chest felt too tight. My vision dimmed. Spots of black blossomed to match the abstract art that stretched across the walls.
My fingers fumbled for the epoxy river desk, and I dropped into one of the seats.
If I failed here, the threat was clear by the commands I’d been given only hours ago.
“You’ll never tell them you’re an omega. You’ll never tell them you’re their scent match. And never, under any circumstances, will you let them learn that you’re a gold pack omega.” His commands had settled on me like a weight. The voice of a man I’d come to hate more than I knew it was possible to hate someone.
“Why?” I asked.
“Your mates are an elite pack. Their reputation is their life. Bonding a gold pack omega like you would ruin them. If they want you—and that’s a big if—they’ll want to hide those eyes of yours. That secret is the most important bargaining chip you have, besides your scent match.”
Something cold coiled in my stomach. “Ebony’s a rogue.” I said, my voice weak. “Everyone knows it.”
Rogue alphas and normal alphas were indistinguishable at a glance—until one went into rages and people got hurt. Gold pack omegas and normal omegas—we weren’t that different either. Only for us, we could be identified by our golden irises. For us, society hated us because we’d chosen this, and to the rest of the world, choice was black and white and easy to blame.
But… hide my eyes for the rest of my life?
I’d done it before—despite the risk of the law if I ever got caught. But now my mates would want to hide them, too? A life of contacts, and the dread of being found out.
