“You all set, boss?” I heard a voice behind me say as I stared out across the wooded front lawn of the camp. I turned to face Dwayne, my second in command, his dark caramel skin glowing under the warm summer sun.

“If everyone else is ready, I’m ready.”

Dwayne smiled and headed back into the main building of the camp where we’d been living the last few months. It had been the cafeteria, so we’d kept it that way, and it was where we had all of our meals together. It helped remind us all we were a family.

His voice rang out inside as he let everyone know we were ready to go. Today was a celebration day. After all the hard work we’d put into the camp, fixing it up and making it habitable, I thought we all deserved a nice break and a day of relaxation, so we were all heading out for a swim.

Blue Hole, Maine. That’s where we were living; a tiny little town named after the tiny swimming hole at the base of a waterfall. It wasn’t much, but it was deep and allowed for diving. It wasn’t well known by locals and even so, hardly anyone bothered to come out this far so we had the place to ourselves. We’d get the occasional tourists or visitors from Portland or Portsmouth, but they were few and far between.

“Goddamn it’s hot out!” It was Charles, and even if I hadn’t heard his voice, I would have known it was him without even having to look. Charles was the size of a house, and his footsteps couldn’t be confused with anyone else – except maybe a grizzly bear. He was by far the biggest guy I’d ever met, and while he looked intimidating as all hell, was a real sweetheart. He was, however, loud. Very loud.

“Well that’s the idea,” I whirled around, turning around to face him as he sauntered out into the sun, letting the screen door slam behind him.

“No use staying inside on a day like this.”

“You see,” he laughed, greeting me with his signature slap on the back that felt like being hit with a canoe paddle. “Thinking like that is why you’re the pack leader.”

“I’d like to think it’s for better reasons than deciding to take everybody swimming,” I laughed as the rest of the pack came outside.

There weren’t as many of us as when we first started. At first, when I’d taken over the pack, there had been more than twenty omegas. But once Kade was gone, many of them went back to their families.

Kade had been a cruel son of a bitch. Plucking omegas up from wherever he saw fit. Keeping them prisoners. Forcing them to work or be his sex slaves, giving him pups as frequently as possible. But once he was gone, they were free to return home.

To be honest, I was happy to see them go. It’s not that I didn’t like them – many of them were great guys – it was just the size of the pack would have been unmanageable. Even now, we still had seven omegas, and that wasn’t counting Patrick or Noah, the top two omegas who basically looked after all things omega.

I never thought I’d end up being a pack leader. Sure, I was an alpha, but not all alphas had a pack of their own. Some were cut out for it and others weren’t. I’d been second in command, “head of security” to Kade, my last pack leader. He was cruel, and I hated having to serve under him, but at the time, I had no other choice.

But then I met Seth, a member of the Scarlet Mountain Pack, and his leader Tate and all the rest of them. They made me realize this was something I could do, and after Kade was gone, the pack was mine.

It was a big responsibility. We’d been living at a terrible old apartment building with our omegas packed into rooms together, practically living on top of one another. It just wasn’t decent for anyone. So I’d found this place.

It was in terrible shape, and we needed to put a lot of work into it, but with the little money the pack had, we were able to buy it outright. Tate and his pack had been more than generous with shipments of wood. Seth had come down every weekend with fresh pine, and Tate had built us a beautiful table for the cafeteria that could seat everyone with room to spare. But yesterday, we’d put the final coat of autumn red paint on the exterior walls, and for the first time since I’d taken over the pack, I felt like I had a minute to breath.

The screen door opened again and I turned to see the rest of the pack coming outside. I was already sweating from the sun, but my heart warmed at the sight.

There was Patrick, with his pale skin, brown hair and brown eyes, shuffling slowly as he always did. He smiled at me and gave me a cute little wave.

Behind him was Noah, the short little nugget with a head of curly dark hair. He squinted in the sun, holding the door for the line of the other seven omegas who made up the rest of our back.

There was Jimmy, Terry, Carl, Andy, Steve, Nate and Chris. Being terrible with names, it had taken me a few weeks to get them all straight. Sometimes I felt like the seven dwarves were part of my pack.

“What a day!” Noah exclaimed as he stepped off the porch. Behind me, I heard the truck roar to life as Dwayne gave it some gas. We’d started out with a caravan of tractor trailers. Kade had used them to transport all the omegas under his control. We’d sold all of them but three, and given one to Tate and his pack as a thank you for all the help they’d already given us.

“Get your butts in the back!” Charles roared at the omegas, who jumped at the volume of his voice. He loved screwing with them, relishing in his size compared to them. He flashed me a grin as he yanked open the back.

The hinges squealed as always, reminding me that I should probably oil them. What had been a truck for hauling lumber, was now open topped and lined with benches for everyone. It was probably totally illegal, but we were pretty much on our own out here and the couple of local police didn’t really bother us.

“I cannot wait to get in the water,” Patrick said with a sigh, brushing his hair from his eyes. Patrick had been working hard the last few days, as we all had, and I was happy to see him so ready for this day I’d had planned.

“Everybody here?” I asked as the back of the truck filled up. Charles counted quickly, then flashed me a thumbs up.

“Looks good, boss,” he said as he slammed the back of the truck shut and hopped in with the omegas. Grinning, he lay flat, sprawled out and took up more space than the rest of them. Shielding my face, I smiled and walked to the cab of the truck, opened the passenger door and hopped in.

“All set, boss?” Dwayne asked from the driver’s seat.

“Why do you guys always call me boss?” I asked him. The term still hadn’t become something I was comfortable with yet. Even calling myself leader felt strange. But if this was going to work, it was something I was going to have to get used to.

“Because you are the boss,” Dwayne said, shoving the old truck into gear. “Boss.”