by Lisa Oliver
Oh, so Sean was shitty too? Well, too bad. Caden thought about refusing, but he didn’t want to be manhandled in public, not even by Sean, so he got in the car when Sean got it unlocked, and put on his seat belt. Sean took off down the road, but Caden realized quickly that his mate wasn’t heading for his apartment.
“Where are we going?” Caden knew that Sean couldn’t hurt him, at least not physically. But he was never comfortable in places he hadn’t been before.
“My place. It’s closer.” Sean’s tone of voice made it clear he wanted no argument, and Caden settled against the passenger door of the small but powerful vehicle and watched the passing scenery. If he needed to get a cab later it would help to know his location. At least he had his phone, and money on him this time.
Sean didn’t say anything on the short drive, and Caden couldn’t be bothered trying to fill the silence. It’s not as though he had a clue about what he could say. He was seething with anger, worried about his mate’s safety – something he was sure Sean hadn’t even thought about - and nervous about having to explain about his home pack when Sean was clearly pissed off with him. No matter how he tossed it around in his head, Caden couldn’t see the night ending on a positive note. His wolf was unhappy, anxious and didn’t like the thought of upsetting their mate, but there wasn’t much Caden could do about that either. He had feelings and opinions too, and if Sean was going to be the proper mate he claimed he was, then it was about time the Alpha started showing some respect.
When Sean let him into what appeared to be a fair sized house, Caden was surprised to see how warm and comfortable it seemed to be. The couches were a deep blue, and sat large and proud on thick cream carpet. Sean had all of the technical gadgets a person could possibly need surrounding an 80-inch television. There was a low wooden coffee table, with business magazines stacked neatly against one corner. But like the club there was no artwork, no knickknacks and no personal pictures. It was cozy, but impersonal.
Sean came up behind him, and took his coat, hanging it carefully on a rack by the door. Caden debated sitting on one of the couches. He didn’t want his mate to think he was taking liberties or getting comfortable in the stronger wolf’s space. But Sean surprised him by coming back and wrapping strong arms around his waist, nuzzling his hair. Caden could handle that. He leaned back against his mate’s more than capable chest and allowed himself to savor the moment. He was still angry but he would always crave Sean’s touch.
“We’ve had a fucked up night, most of which was my fault,” Sean said softly from behind him. “I’m not trivializing what went on in the club with those other men, and I don’t want to make the situation any worse between us, but I had always thought that you were shy. Now I’ve learned you’re hiding, I have to know what’s going on if I am going to be able to protect you.”
“Could we sit together?” Caden suggested. Two weeks ago, he would have stood tall, preferring to rely on himself, never daring to ask for comfort from someone else. But this wasn’t a random person, Sean was his mate. And Sean was right, he should have shared his past and the dangers he was in, before allowing his mate to claim him. There was a very good chance his Alpha mate was going to seriously regret that decision in the next ten minutes.
“Come, sit on my lap.” Sean led them to an oversized single seater, and sank down into it, pulling Caden with him. Caden was happy to curl up in his mate’s arms. Now that he’d made up his mind to spill his pathetic story, he wanted the conversation over and done with as quickly as possible.
“I was born just outside of Cannon Falls in Minnesota,” he started without being prompted. Maybe if he spoke quickly things wouldn’t seem so bad in his head.
“Where’s that exactly?”
“Roughly between Rochester and Minneapolis. It’s not a big place, which suited my Alpha. He had land that stretched for miles on the northern side of the town. Anyhow, we all lived there, probably thirty, forty wolves, including women and children. I was the smallest of the lot.”
“That’s understandable, you’re an Omega.”
“Yes, well where I came from Omega was a dirty word. My Alpha was all about might is right, and the stronger you were, the higher ranked you were in the pack. It applied to all of us, women and teenagers too. As you can imagine, I was at the bottom of the pack.”
“Ranking amongst shifters is perfectly normal too,” Sean’s soft voice was supposed to be soothing, but Caden wasn’t feeling it. “However, Omegas have always been special. My Dad used to say you could tell a lot about an Alpha, by the way he treated his Omegas.”
“Well, your Dad wouldn’t have thought a lot of my Alpha then,” Caden said, certain of that point at least. “I was the only Omega, and my whole life was spent being abused physically and mentally. I don’t see the point in going into detail, because it is in the past. I learned to survive on scraps of food when I could get them. I was doing the dirtiest chores in the pack from when I was about six years old, and when they found out I was an Omega, my life got a whole lot worse.”
“What about your parents?”
“They were almost as bad as the Alpha and the inner circle. I was born small, I was never normal weight or height growing up, and when I shifted and everyone copped a look at my white fur, that was when my position in the pack was cemented for life. Omegas are nothing more than slaves or whores according to my Alpha. Until I met you, I didn’t think it was possible for an Omega to live any other way.”
Sean’s arms tightened around him, but initially he didn’t say anything, which was probably a good thing. Caden didn’t need to be reminded of the stark difference between how he lived his life, and how Sean had told him Omegas were raised in his home pack. But eventually curiosity must have won out for his mate because Sean said cautiously, “So what changed? I’m not denying it sounds horrific, but you seemed to be accepting of your life to a point, no matter how bad it was. What happened that caused you to risk life as a lone wolf? That must have been a hellishly hard decision to make when pack life is all you knew.”
“The Alpha happened, just after I turned eighteen,” Caden said, shivering in Sean’s arms at the thought of the man who often had a starring role in his nightmares. “Apparently there was a pack meeting about me – I didn’t know about it because I had never been invited to any of them. But the pack second, a beta wolf, came and told me that the Alpha had proclaimed before the pack that as an Omega it was my job to service his sexual needs. He effectively told the pack that I was his personal possession, and that while anyone else could do what they liked to me, no one else would be allowed to touch me sexually.”
“He was taking you as a mate, without even asking you?” Sean sounded shocked, and Caden was quick to disabuse his mate of his erroneous thinking.
“He was taking me as a sex slave. He used that term specifically. He already had a mate, and a lot of casual sexual partners, mostly women, but a few men. He was bonded, but not true mated, and spent most of his time horny and looking to fuck. My virginity was his to take anyway under pack law, but the Alpha wanted to take it a step further. In his eyes, he owns me.”
“Owned, passed tense,” Sean corrected. “You’re mated now.”
“Owns, present tense.” Caden shivered as he thought about the ruthless man who claimed ownership of his body. “The Alpha has never let something like a mating mark stop him from doing or having whoever he wanted before. I was born into his pack, his is the only pack I’ve ever belonged to. In his eyes I could be gone fifty years and still belong to him. A slave doesn’t have the right to change packs. He’ll be looking for me because he owns me, and because I ran, he will probably kill me, after he’s fucked me first.”
“That is positively archaic, and totally against council laws.” Sean’s deceptively calm voice wasn’t making Caden feel any better.
“What council?” Caden had never heard of a council before. He’d always believed the Alpha’s word was law, and it was the Alpha who set the rules that everyon
e else lived by.
“The Shifter Council. Surely you’ve heard of them,” Sean said. “They set rules for the welfare of all shifters. They even have a special section designed to protect the rights of Omegas. Any shifter has a right to lay a complaint with them about any mistreatment – the council has enforcers, a court system and everything.”
“Well, in a pack, everyone has to abide by pack laws, and those are set by the Alpha. I don’t see what a council can do about any ill treatment, if no one in a pack even knows they exist.” Caden wasn’t sure why he felt so agitated at the thought of some faceless council. From as far back as he could remember, he’d been told the Alpha’s word was law, and that as an Omega he would spend his life obeying those laws.
“Sweetheart, your Alpha would definitely know about the council. Whether he told anyone outside of the inner circle about it is another thing, but believe me, all packs know about the laws of the council. A council member visits every pack, every year to check over territory lines, and to ensure that the welfare of every pack member is taken care of.”
“I must have been scrubbing toilets those days.”
Caden felt Sean stiffen underneath him and wondered what he’d said wrong now. His skin was still itchy and he had to stop from clenching his jaw – he felt like he wanted to bite something, or go on a run, or smash something just to watch it break…
“Sweetheart, did you ever have a birth certificate?”
Caden shrugged. “I doubt it. I never saw anyone in the pack with formal identification. Felix had a friend who got me a birth certificate and a social security number when he was helping me get set up with my art business. Because of the shifter angle, I told Felix that I could be traced under my real name, even though I doubted the Alpha could do that. He thinks Caden Wolfe is an alias, but he got me papers anyway.”
“But surely some of your pack members would have attended a local school, got a driver’s license, a passport maybe if they wanted to travel?”
“We’re shifters, we don’t do that sort of thing.” Caden remembered that much. A young guy, bigger, but around the same age as him, had wanted to get his driver’s license because he wanted to travel the country. The Alpha had refused him permission to leave, and told him categorically that no shifter could risk exposing themselves to human authorities.
“Pack children were homeschooled,” he continued, trying to get Sean to understand how well his pack had stayed hidden from humans. “Everyone lives and works within pack grounds. Some of the inner circle can drive, because they get any supplies the pack needs from town, but no one else is allowed the leave the territory unless they are an Alpha wolf – I’m not sure what happens to them, but none of them stay after their eighteenth birthday.” Didn’t Sean know all this? Wasn’t that how all packs were run?
“Sounds more like a cult than a pack.” Sean’s arms were still holding Caden close, but his mind was clearly miles away. Caden calmed himself by listening to the steady beat of Sean’s heart. Hopefully he had shared enough that Sean would do something about the wretched photo that had been taken. The Alpha would never have dreamed that Caden would get a birth certificate, but he would have friends scanning pictures on Google, for any trace of him.
As Sean stayed silent, apparently lost in thought, Caden thought over the other unpleasant side of the evening. In particular, the stream of men interested in his mate. King of Cocks indeed. He resisted the urge to snort. Sean was a very accomplished lover, at least in his opinion, but if any of those humans thought they were getting another ride on Sean’s ample appendage, they had another thing coming. His wolf snarled unexpectedly in his head, and Caden felt empowered knowing that he could take on any human in a one-on-one situation. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to Sean’s club anytime soon, although those walls did hold a lot of promise as a canvas.
“Precious, I need to make a phone call,” Sean said suddenly. Oh, okay. Caden made to get up, but Sean held him tight with one hand, while the other one fished in his pants pocket for his phone.
“Stay with me. I want you to hear this,” Sean whispered as he found the number he was looking for, and clicked to connect. Caden heard the call being answered on the second ring.
“My Number One Son, how is life in the land of the mated? Are you treating that Omega of yours properly?” A deep, but jovial voice came out of the phone.
“Of course, Dad,” Sean said, looking at Caden, a faint hint of pink on his cheeks. Caden was hardly going to call his mate out about his shortcomings within hearing of his father, and he gave his mate a weak smile. “Caden and I have been mated two days and I like to think things are going well.”
“Then what are you doing on the phone with me? When I met your mother I didn’t get out of bed for a week. Are you lacking in stamina boy?”
The red on Sean’s cheeks got brighter. “We have no problems in that department, thank you Dad. I took Caden out for a meal tonight and a…yeah, it’s too long a story to go into, but what I wanted to ask was, when the council member comes around for his yearly inspection, does he check on the welfare of the Omegas you have in the pack?”
“Of course he does. How an Omega is treated is a direct reflection on the powers of the Alpha and how well the rest of the pack members might be treated. Every Omega in a pack is registered with the Council as soon as they complete their first shift, and their welfare is checked at least once a year. If the council isn’t happy with the way our smallest pack members are treated, then they intervene pretty quickly and the punishments for harming an Omega are pretty harsh, I can tell you.”
“Dad,” Sean looked at Caden, but Caden couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Caden’s never seen a council member. He didn’t even know the council existed until tonight.”
“Fucking hell.” Caden jumped when the previously jovial voice swore harshly through the phone. “No Alpha has the right to hide an Omega. That’s an offence in itself – why the hell would he do that?”
“Caden was the pack punching bag and gopher boy for as long as he can remember. The Alpha proclaimed Caden as his personal sex slave when he turned eighteen. That’s when Caden escaped. He’s been a lone wolf ever since.”
“Oh mother of God, that is so wrong. No Alpha has the right to do that to any person, let alone an Omega.” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded broken, but then Caden heard a deep inhale and the voice was back, a lot stronger this time. “I know you’re an Alpha in your own right, but you are still my son, and this concerns your mate. This is what you need to do. First thing in the morning, you ring the council. Tell them you have claimed an unregistered Omega who has been living as a lone wolf. They will probably send someone out to visit you to record Caden’s story, and Caden can make a complaint against his pack and Alpha then. That man needs to stand trial and be fucking killed for what he’s done.”
“He’ll find me and kill me.” Caden couldn’t stay quiet, not even with two freaking Alpha’s making plans on his behalf. “Don’t you understand? I was deemed my ex-Alpha’s property at that last pack meeting before I ran away. If he finds me, he will kill me for leaving pack grounds. If this council of yours gets in touch with him about me, then he’ll know where I am.”
“No one is going to kill you,” Sean soothed, even as he growled. “They will have to go through me first, and believe me I can best most Alpha’s around.”
“If the danger is too much for you and Liam to handle, then you can all come here. The pack will protect you if necessary,” Sean’s dad said. “But, Caden, I don’t mean to make light of your fears but you can’t be killed for leaving pack grounds. Any wolf can leave their pack, whenever they want – either permanently or simply to travel. There’s no laws against it and never has been.”
“Seems Caden’s ex-pack was run more like a cult or a dictatorship than a pack, Dad,” Sean said softly, rubbing his big hand up Caden’s back. “Alpha word was law, Caden had no rights and was treated like dirt. Even his parents we
re in on it. But there were some weird rules for others as well - no one allowed to leave for any reason, mating marks weren’t respected, the Alpha took every pack members virginity when it was time, none of the kids attended any public schools, interaction with humans was limited to the inner circle. Caden thought I was telling fairy tales when I told him about your pack.”
“My God, Caden, that ex-Alpha of yours is living in the stone age,” Sean’s dad said. “No one has the right to do that sort of thing anymore – there’s so many breaches of shifter rights there, it’s hard to know what to address first. If you don’t mind me asking, Caden, where were you born, which pack?”
“Cannon Falls, it’s in Minnesota. The Alpha’s name was Robert Collins.”
“Cannon Falls, Cannon Falls.” Caden could hear the rustle of papers through the phone and the click of a keyboard. He looked up at Sean, wondering what was going on. Sean gave him a smile, but was apparently happy to sit and wait out whatever his father was doing. It didn’t take long.
“Shit, Sean, this is worse than you thought.” Sean’s dad sounded worried, and Caden wondered what was wrong now. “You’d better get onto the council right away. I’d also feel a lot better if the pair of you came here, until this matter is sorted. Bring Liam and his new mate as well.”
“Dad, I’ve got a business to run, and Caden lives for his art. What’s got you so worried?”
“Caden’s pack of Cannon Falls isn’t listed with the council.”
Caden was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. “It’s Cannon Falls, it is. I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t do that. I can show you where it is on the map.”
