"Do you know there is a pack famously known as Paradise?" the old woman asked the new omegas. Her voice was thin and reedy, like the rustle of dry leaves, but it carried a strange, hypnotic quality that commanded attention.
"What?" they asked back, listening to her with wide, eager eyes. She had all their attention. The new arrivals—young, terrified, and still clinging to the fragile hope that this was all a terrible mistake—leaned forward, desperate for anything that might offer a sliver of comfort in this nightmare.
"Yes," the old woman said, nodding slowly. Her gray hair was matted and unkempt, and her eyes held a distant, dreamy quality that made her seem like she was looking at something far beyond the grimy walls of the breeding house. "It was right next to the pack I grew up in. It was a pack where you could be everything and anything. A place where dreams and hope existed and flourished. There was no hunger, no fear, no cruelty. Everyone was free to be who they truly were."
