by J. L. Wilder
© Copyright 2020 by J.L. Wilder- All rights reserved.
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Omegas Harem
Feral Wolves of the Arctic
By: J.L. Wilder
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Table of Contents
Omegas Harem
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
About The Author
Omegas Harem
Prologue
PAX
It should have been raining, Pax thought as he stepped out of the long log cabin he’d been staying in for the past two weeks. It should have been a gray and dismal day. The sun shouldn’t have dared to show its face. Not today.
A titan was gone. A noble wolf, one of the finest warriors Pax had ever known. They were gathered here to honor him, and to mourn his death.
He crossed the yard to the place where Josh was to be buried. The hole had been prepared by some of the betas late last night, but Pax hadn’t personally examined it. Now, though, as he approached, he saw that Victor was sitting at the edge, his legs dangling morbidly into the grave.
Pax sat down beside him, though he crossed his legs beneath him rather than let them hang down. That idea was a little too upsetting. “I’m sorry about your father,” he said.
“He died too young,” Victor said. “He wasn’t even sixty.”
Pax nodded. “He was a warrior,” he said. “If he had to go, it’s fitting that we lost him in battle.”
Victor took a long drink from the bottle of beer in his hand. Then he tossed it across the yard. “It isn’t fitting,” he said. “It’s not right at all. He wasn’t killed in battle. He wasn’t engaging with an alpha from another pack. That’s what my father would have wanted. He was just attacked by a wild bear. There isn’t anything noble about that.”
Pax didn’t know what to say. Victor was right, of course. He hadn’t known Josh well, but he had known him well enough to understand that this death wasn’t one that did honor to the kind of man Josh had been. He had been an alpha who prioritized the strength and dominance of his pack above everything else. He had seen them through numerous battles, and he’d helped them grow strong and prosperous. Being ambushed by a bear on a run through the woods...that wasn’t a noble death.
But he couldn’t say that to Victor. Victor wasn’t just mourning the loss of a strong and powerful shifter. He was mourning the loss of his father. Today was twice as painful for him as it was for anyone else.
“It’s nice that so many people came,” he tried.
“They’re just trying to suck up to me,” Victor said moodily. “They know I’m the alpha of the Vancouver Wolf Pack now that Dad’s gone. We’re the strongest pack there is, and everyone wants my ear.”
“That’s not why I came,” Pax protested.
Victor glanced at him. “Maybe not,” he acknowledged. “Maybe you’re here because you owed my father something. After all, he did save you when the rest of your pack was destroyed.”
“That was twenty years ago.” Pax had been a child at the time. He hardly remembered it.
“You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for my father,” Victor growled.
“I know that,” Pax said. “I’m not trying to downplay what he did. He took me away from the scene of the attack that killed my whole family. He found a home for me among a new pack. He is, in many ways, my savior.”
“That’s right,” Victor said.
“But he meant more to me than that,” Pax said. “And those things aren’t the reason I came here to help you put him to rest. He was the strongest alpha I’ve ever met, and he led the strongest pack of wolf shifters in the world. He’s a legend among our kind.”
Victor shook his head. “Not the strongest pack in the world,” he said.
“You don’t think so?” Pax asked.
“You know we’re not,” Victor said. “We might be the strongest civilized pack. But there’s another out there, one that bested us and got away with it, back when you and I were barely out of babyhood.”
“Oh,” Pax said, awareness dawning on him. “You’re talking about the Arctic Wolves.”
“Who else?” Victor asked. “Just knowing that those beasts were still alive and strong tormented my father until the day he died. He hated them. He never got over the fact that they’d beaten him.” He shook his head. “He should have died fighting them, not some common bear.”
“If he’d fought them again, he would have beaten them,” Pax said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Victor snapped. “You don’t know what they’re like.”
“And you do?” Pax asked. “You never met them.”
“My father talked about them all the time,” Victor said. “They were vicious brutes. They were horrible. They fought to kill. And the way they live...” He closed his eyes. “It isn’t natural.”
“What do you mean? Because they live in the wild?” Pax asked. “That’s not exactly unheard of. Lots of packs do it. I mean, no one I know does, but I’ve heard stories, and I’m sure you have too.”
“I don’t care where they live,” Victor said. “I’m talking about how they live. Their pack doesn’t submit to the charge of a single alpha. Instead, the whole thing is structured around a woman. An omega.”
“A matriarchy?” Pax asked. “I didn’t know that was possible for our kind.”
“It’s not,” Victor said. “There’s something sinister going on up there. She’s a witch. Father always said there was something strange about her, that she had the power to trap men by twisting their thoughts. She probably tricked the alphas into thinking they had imprinted on her somehow.”
“What are you saying?” Pax asked. “That she has some kind of supernatural powers?”
“She must,” Victor said. “She must be a kind of creature that you and I have never seen before if she’s capable of overpowering three strong alphas and bending them to her will, as my father described.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Pax said. “She was near your father’s age, wasn’t she? She must be getting old. Whatever power she might have had will almost certainly die with her. I know you wish your father could have been the one to snuff it out, the way he wanted. But at least it will be gone.”
Victor got to his feet. “It’s bad enough that my father is gone,” he said. “The fact that he died without having the opportunity to resolve this matter, though...I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with that. It was the one thing he wanted to do before he died.”
“Why didn’t he do it?” Pax asked.
Victor glared at him. “Are you trying to be a dick?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Pax said. “If your father wanted the Arctic Wolves brought down so
badly, why didn’t he go north and fight them?”
“He tried to,” Victor said. “They beat him back. They routed him. And after that—” He shook his head. “They said they would kill us all if we came into their land again. Father couldn’t risk that. He had his family to protect.”
“It sounds like he did the wise thing by choosing to stand down,” Pax said.
“But that omega of theirs was pregnant,” Victor said. “If she passed her abnormality along to her children...it could change the nature of shifters forever, if something like that is allowed to spread.”
“What are you saying?” Pax said.
“I’m saying that I’m going to need to do what my father never could,” Victor said. “A funeral is nice, but it’s not the best way to really honor his legacy. I’m going to have to go north, find the Arctic Wolves, and put an end to their line. That’s what my father would want me to do.”
“You’re the only alpha your pack has, Victor,” Pax protested. “You can’t leave them alone.”
“I won’t leave them alone. You’re here.”
“I’m leaving in a few days.”
“You can’t leave,” Victor said. “I need you to do this for me. I need you to stay and look after the house and the pack.”
“Victor. Be serious. I have my own life to get back to.”
“You don’t have a pack,” Victor said. “You’re on your own.”
It was true. Though Pax had grown up among a pack of wolves that Victor’s father had found to take him in, he had never really belonged to them. One of his adoptive brothers, Donovan, had been the alpha of that pack, and he had never grown comfortable with the fact that Pax was an alpha by birth. The adults of the pack had theorized that Pax would learn to submit to Donovan in time, but that hadn’t happened, and as soon as he’d come of age, Pax had gone his own way.
But being on his own didn’t mean that he could be called into service by other alphas to suit their convenience. “I came here to pay my respects to your father,” he said. “But you’re not my alpha, Victor. I don’t take orders from you.”
“My father would want you to stay,” Victor said. “You owe him for saving your life.”
“There’s only so many times that favor can be called in,” Pax said.
“Consider this the last time, then,” Victor said. “Stay here and protect my family while I go north. If you do, your debt is paid, and I’ll never bother you again.”
Pax sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I suppose the things I’d planned to do in the coming weeks can wait. But I hope you’re not planning to be gone for too long. I don’t want to spend months here waiting for you to get back.”
“This is just reconnaissance,” Victor said. “I know better than to think I can take them on alone. I’ll find out what I can about their activities, and then I’ll come home and put a hunting party together. It shouldn’t take me more than a week. And maybe you’ll join my hunting party when the time comes.”
“Don’t count on it,” Pax said. “Remember, you said the debt would be paid after this week.”
“And it will,” Victor said. “I won’t try to compel you to come with me. But think about it, Pax. This is going to be one of the biggest battles between wolf packs that our generation will see. Do you really want to sit it out?”
“Yes, I do,” Pax said firmly. “I’ve never had a bloodlust, as you seem to. I don’t want to put my life on the line over something like this. I know you think it’s what your father would want. But your father spent his life protecting your family. He saved my life. He wouldn’t want us to throw our futures away.”
“You didn’t know him like I did,” Victor said.
“No, I didn’t,” Pax agreed. “You’ll do what you feel you have to. I understand that.”
Victor turned. “I’d better go inside,” he said. “If my brothers find out I’ve been out here drinking all morning, they’ll question my ability as a leader.”
Pax nodded. He wasn’t sorry to see Victor go. He had never gotten along all that well with the man. The fact that he was now the alpha of the Vancouver Pack was worrying, and Pax was determined to go east as soon as he could and leave Vancouver far behind him. He would seek his fortune in Quebec, maybe. But he was ready to be done with this part of the world. This funeral was the last bit of business he had to attend to.
He went to the bottle Victor had thrown across the yard and picked it up. There was no sense in leaving it to deface the landscape. Besides, Victor hadn’t wanted his packmates to know that he had begun drinking early. Pax didn’t much like the guy, but he was happy to keep that secret for him.
Donovan now emerged from the log cabin and jogged over to his side.
Pax hadn’t seen his adoptive brother in three years. The time had been good to Donovan. He was a head taller than Pax now, his skin sun-darkened, his dark blond hair thick and long. “Are you coming inside?” he asked.
“Do they need me?” Pax asked.
“They need pallbearers,” Donovan said.
“I thought Josh’s sons would do that,” Pax said. “Hasn’t he got several?”
“Most of them are pretty drunk,” Donovan said. “At this point, they’re looking for anyone who can walk in a straight line.”
Pax snorted. And Victor didn’t want them to know he’d had one beer. “All right,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
He followed Donovan into the house, and the two of them took up positions on either side of the rough, unpolished coffin that Josh’s pack had spent the last few days making. Donovan counted to three, and the men surrounding the box lifted it to shoulder height and walked it out into the yard.
They eased it into the ground slowly. Victor approached with a shovel and began to heap dirt back into the hole. After he had dropped a few spades full of dirt on his father’s coffin, he passed the shovel off to one of his brothers, who continued the process.
Pax stepped back, away from the grave. Rather than standing next to Donovan, he moved away from the crowd and stood by himself. He had come here to pay his respects, yes, but he didn’t belong to any of these groups. He wasn’t part of any pack. As Victor had so kindly reminded him, he was alone.
He found himself wishing, as the last of the dirt was deposited into the grave, that he had not agreed to stay here while Victor completed his reconnaissance mission. He wanted to get away. He hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. It had only been his respect for Josh’s strength that had brought him here. But Pax was a man who was most comfortable when he was on his own. He always had been, and he suspected that he always would be.
As the assembled group made their way back to the house to get something to eat and relax after the stress of having laid their old alpha to rest, Pax instead walked across the lawn toward the tree line. He wouldn’t be missed right now. It was an ideal time to try to steal a few moments alone, to relax.
He gazed into the woods, wishing that he could shift and run off in his wolf form. That would really be relaxing.
Then he frowned.
He thought he had seen something move in the trees. And had he heard the sound of footsteps?
“Is someone there?” he called.
There was no answer.
Pax jogged a few paces into the woods, looking around as he did so, but there was no one to be seen. The forest was empty.
And hadn’t he seen everyone go back up to the house? He was the only one who was still outside.
I must have imagined it.
Chapter One
LILY
“Lily! I know you’re around here somewhere. I can smell you!”
Lily leaned back against the trunk of the tree she was sitting in, drawing her limbs in close to avoid detection. She was high enough that she was probably impossible to see from the ground below. But her scent was the one thing she could never hide.
“You’re up a tree, aren’t you?” her sister asked. “Get down, for God’s sake. You know you’re not supposed to climb tree
s.”
Lily sighed. The rule against climbing trees was one of the stupider ones her older brother and alpha, Caleb, forced her to follow. She knew that he would have made it a binding order if he could. But Caleb wouldn’t be the official alpha of the pack until he either branched off from their family of origin and started a pack of his own or until their fathers died. So far, neither had happened.
Lily was going to make the most of her freedom for as long as she had it.
Still, she knew that if she caused too much trouble, Carolyn was bound to report what she had been doing to their parents. And if they found it objectionable, there would be an official order, the kind Lily didn’t have the power to break. Then she would be confined to the ground.
She dropped out of the tree, landing in front of her sister. “Hey, Carolyn,” she said.
Carolyn sighed in exasperation. “Finally,” she said. “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“About twenty minutes,” Lily said. “I could hear you from up there.”
“And you were just going to let me wander around the woods?” Carolyn said.
“You weren’t wandering,” Lily pointed out. “You were following my scent. And you found me. You should be proud, not pissed off.”
“You should come when you’re called,” Carolyn retorted.
“Oh, relax,” Lily said. “What’s so urgent, anyway?”
“Darren is back from his scouting mission,” Carolyn said.
“So what?” Lily asked. One of her brothers or sisters was always away on a scouting mission. It was nothing new, nothing to be remarked on. “He’ll make his report to our fathers and Caleb, and they’ll send someone else out. What’s it got to do with me?”
“I don’t know,” Carolyn said. “But he says he wants everyone to be present to hear his report.”
“He doesn’t mean me,” Lily said patiently, surprised that her sister could make such an amateur mistake. “They never want me around.”
