by J. L. Wilder
Athletics, meanwhile, was the one thing Zoe excelled at among her fellow Omegas. It was painful to have to realize that no matter how good she was in a race with other omegas, when betas entered the picture, she would never be able to keep up.
Daphne turned to Logan. “Tell her she did good, babe.”
“You did good,” Logan said. He wasn’t even looking at Zoe. As was usual when the two schools got together, he had eyes—and hands—only for Daphne. The rules of Shifter and Omega Universities prevented them from seeing each other whenever they wanted, even though they were officially registered as a mated couple and had been for over two years.
Zoe didn’t really begrudge them paying so much attention to each other on the rare occasions they were allowed to do so. She imagined she probably would have been the same way if she’d had an alpha of her own.
“When’s your next event?” Daphne asked Zoe.
“Not until after lunch,” Zoe said. “I shouldn’t really enter these sprints. I know I don’t have a chance. I should always just wait for the distance running.”
Logan leaned around Daphne now. “I think it’s cool that you do it,” he said. “I think it’s cool to try something even though you don’t think you can win at it.”
“He wants me to enter one of the events,” Daphne said, pouting a little.
“Maybe you should,” Zoe said.
“That’s it, Zoe,” Logan said. “Talk her into it. I’ve got to go get ready for the shot put.” He took Daphne in his arms and kissed her deeply, then got to his feet and strode off, leaving Daphne looking slightly dazed.
Zoe grinned. “You all right?” she asked her friend.
“There should be a kissing event,” Daphne said. “I would enter that.”
“Yeah, and I have no doubt you’d win,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes. Daphne had been one of the first omegas in their year to find her mate. It had happened in the second semester of freshman year, at the spring social.
“Well, I’d have a chance, at least,” Daphne said unblushingly. “Logan wants me to enter the long jump. Can you believe that?”
“You might do well,” Zoe said. “You do have nice long legs.”
“But nowhere near the muscle it takes to do something like that,” Daphne said. “Plus, I’m sure there’s technique involved. I’d be terrible at it.”
“You don’t have to win,” Zoe said. “It’s okay to just compete for the fun of it. Logan probably just wants you to have a good time.”
“You just finished complaining about the fact that you lost your event,” Daphne said, rolling her eyes. “And now you want me to believe that you think entering an event you’re going to lose is fun?”
“For you, it would be fun,” Zoe explained. “Not for me. I’m too competitive. But you don’t have anything to prove.”
“Meaning what?” Daphne pulled the hair elastic out of Zoe’s hair and began to work it into a tidy braid.
Zoe turned, allowing her friend better access. “You’re good at everything,” she explained. “You could enter one of the Track and Field Day events and come in last place, and it wouldn’t matter because everyone here already has so much respect for you. Everyone knows how great you are.”
“What do you mean, great?” Daphne protested. “I’m not any better than anybody. I’m not any better than you.”
“You’re at the top of our class,” Zoe said. “For one.”
“Okay, but you’re not failing or anything,” Daphne said. “You do fine in class.”
“I work like crazy to get by in our classes,” Zoe said. “Omega life doesn’t come naturally to me the way it does to you. Look at how you were when we did that seminar on healing and bedside manner last semester. You picked it up in a day. I felt like I was acting the entire time.”
Daphne tied off the braid. She took Zoe’s head between her hands and tilted it gently from side to side, examining her handiwork. “You’re good at things, too,” she said. “Everyone has different skills.”
“I know that,” Zoe said. “But my skills aren’t the kind of things people respect in omegas. I can run well. That’s good, and it’s good for an omega to be in shape, but nobody ever faulted an omega for not being able to run.”
“You’ve got style,” Daphne said. “My wardrobe is twice as big as yours, and you’re still able to put together nicer outfits.”
“That’s just because I was raised in the city,” Zoe said. “When I was growing up, the adults in my pack had jobs, and they took us to museums and things. We had to blend in. It wasn’t like it was for you, growing up on that farm.”
“Sometimes, I can’t believe you actually grew up in downtown Toronto,” Daphne said. “I can’t believe shifters even live there. How do they manage it?”
“I don’t know,” Zoe said. “But sometimes I wonder if living there rubbed all the wildness off of me. Sometimes I wonder if I would be better suited for omega life if I hadn’t spent so many years essentially living as a human.”
“I don’t know why you think you’re not well suited for omega life,” Daphne said. “There are a lot of people who have to work hard to keep up in class. And there are a lot of people who are doing worse than you are. I know you’re competitive, but it’s okay not to be the best at something. That doesn’t mean you’re doing badly.”
“It’s junior year, Daphne,” Zoe said. “It’s spring of junior year.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m starting to think I’m never going to find a mate,” she said. “That no guy is ever going to imprint on me. That’s what I mean. I’m just not—I don’t know—omega enough to appeal to the alphas in the way you and some of the other girls do.”
Daphne stared at her.
“Zoe, that’s crazy,” she said at last. “Any alpha would be crazy not to want you.”
“You know they can’t always help it,” Zoe said. “The imprint doesn’t happen because the alpha likes a girl or thinks she’s clever or funny or even good looking. There’s something more primal about it. They don’t get to choose.”
“But not everyone who’s mated got that way because of an imprint,” Daphne pointed out. “There are lots of couples around here that are just together because they want to be. You could have that kind of relationship. It’s just as good, really.”
“I know,” Zoe said, opting not to argue that Daphne wouldn’t know whether that kind of relationship was just as good or not—she had only ever been with Logan. “But those relationships can be broken up if the alpha imprints on somebody else. I would hate to fall in love and then lose my mate because of something he couldn’t help like that.”
“It’s not likely to happen,” Daphne said. “If an alpha chooses you, the only way an imprint could get in the way is if he spent time around another omega.”
“He wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time with her,” Zoe said. “Imagine if Logan hadn’t imprinted on you. Wouldn’t you have felt a little nervous just now when I sat down with you guys, in case he imprinted on me? It can happen that fast.”
Daphne frowned, her immaculately groomed eyebrows pulling together, and Zoe remembered the occasion a few days ago when she had helped her best friend and roommate tweeze them in preparation for seeing Logan today. “I never think about things that way,” she admitted. “I know Logan loves me.”
“Of course he does,” Zoe said. “But he’s also imprinted on you, and that gives you a measure of security that not everybody has.”
“But I know you want to find a mate,” Daphne said. “What about your trust fund?”
“Yeah,” Zoe said. “That is a factor.”
The trust fund had been established by the alpha of Zoe’s pack back in Toronto as a means of helping the beta girls and Zoe herself get off to a good start. Anyone who made a respectable match would be awarded a substantial sum of money—enough to enable her to buy a house, at the very least.
For the betas, it was easier. They could choose almost anyone as a mate
, and they’d still come into the money. But Zoe’s mate had to be an alpha. If she didn’t mate with an alpha by the time she graduated, she would forfeit her share of the trust fund money.
It wasn’t the only reason she wanted to find an alpha to settle down with. But it definitely weighed on her mind. If it hadn’t been for the deadline imposed by the trust fund, Zoe thought she might have been happy to take her time and let her mate find her whenever he happened to find her.
Or I might be happy enough to settle down with a beta.
As much as she hated to admit that she was allowing the money to drive her decision making, she couldn’t allow herself to just ignore it. She had grown up in the city, after all, and she was used to a certain kind of life. When school was over, she was going to need a place to live, and she would want to be able to shop and take herself out to nice dinners from time to time.
Doing all that would require money.
If the money had been on offer for something Zoe was opposed to, something she emphatically didn’t want, then she probably wouldn’t have accepted it. But having a mate, an alpha—that sounded nice. And she could see how happy it made Daphne.
“Go talk to some of the single alphas over there,” Daphne suggested, pointing across the track at the bleachers on the opposite side. A group of guys had gathered there and were jabbing one another playfully in the ribs and laughing, passing a flask around, occasionally pointing at one of the omegas as she walked by.
“That’s so desperate,” Zoe said.
“It’s not desperate,” Daphne said. “It’s confident. Assertive.”
“Omegas aren’t supposed to be confident and assertive,” Zoe countered.
“Sure we are,” Daphne said. “Omegas can be anything we want to be. It’s just a matter of finding the right way to be those things and finding the right alpha to deal with them.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Zoe said. “Alphas want us to be submissive. That’s the basic tenet of omega life.”
“No,” Daphne said. “That’s just a simple interpretation of the truth.”
“Which is?”
“Alphas don’t need us to be submissive people,” Daphne explained patiently. “They just need us to submit to them. Some alphas are really attracted to omegas with a strong personality. They see that as a challenge.”
“You think that if I go over there and flaunt myself in front of them, they’ll see me as a potential conquest,” Zoe said.
“Sure,” Daphne said. “They’ll realize you’re available, and I’m sure a few of them will be tempted to see whether or not they can bring you under control. Lots of alphas like omegas who aren’t timid.”
Zoe shook her head. “I’m not timid,” she said.
“Then why don’t you go over there?” Daphne challenged.
“It’s not my job,” Zoe said, surprised to find that this was the truth. “They can come to me if they want to. I’m sitting right here. I’m not invisible. I’ll talk to anyone who wants to make the effort. But if they’re waiting for me to come to them—in a way that’s assuming I’ve already submitted, isn’t it? They’re too important to make a move, so they’re going to wait for me to do it. No, thank you.”
“If you don’t take your fate into your own hands,” Daphne said, “then you can hardly complain when things don’t turn out the way you want them to.”
“Okay, fine, then I can’t complain,” Zoe said, shrugging.
“Zoe,” Daphne said, her tone expressing clear exasperation. “You want to find a mate. You know you do. You said it yourself. Are you really too proud to go introduce yourself to some alphas?”
“They’re not right for me anyway,” Zoe said. “Look at them, showing off over there. I want an alpha who’s strong but doesn’t need to make a production about it.”
Daphne shook her head. “For someone who was just calling herself a failure, you really do have high standards.”
“I’m not going to compromise,” Zoe said firmly. “I’m not going to settle for less than what I want.”
She got to her feet. “I need to go start warming up for my race,” she said and jogged away from her friend.
Chapter Three
XAVIER
Xavier sprang to his feet the moment the sun peeked over the horizon.
The whiskey bottle, which he supposed must have been in his hand, rolled away as he jumped up. It was empty. He looked over at Louis, who was still asleep by the faintly glowing embers, and saw that his friend also clutched an empty whiskey bottle. They must have finished off the drink last night, though the finer points were lost in the haze of Xavier’s memory.
Not for the first time, he felt thankful for the fact that he never experienced hangovers. He had witnessed humans going through that torture before, and he wanted no part of it. Just another of the many ways shifter physiology—and shifter lifestyle—was superior to that of humans.
He stoked the fire, wanting to make sure Louis was warm enough in his absence, then set off at a jog. They were going to need breakfast, and the only thing they had bought in town yesterday was the alcohol. Hunting wasn’t easy in this form, but he would be able to spear a rabbit or a squirrel, he thought, and bring it back for their morning meal.
And maybe, if I prove I’m capable of hunting in human form, Louis will relax about me spending so much time as a wolf.
He picked up a stick from the ground and pulled out the pocketknife he kept in the front pocket of his jeans. It was one of the few human tools he had held onto when he had come to live permanently in the wild. He flicked it open and used the knife to whittle the stick into a sharp point.
He jabbed the air a few times, testing the weight of his makeshift spear, and decided it would do. Now he only had to wait for prey to come along. He fell into a crouch behind an oak tree, eyes scanning back and forth, ears perked for the sound of movement.
It was easy for Xavier to lose himself in the hunt. It was easy to relax into the familiar pattern of surveying the territory around him. And even though he was human now, and that meant tweaking his process ever so slightly, it was easy enough for him to pick up on the sound of rustling in the underbrush.
Something small and quick was on the move.
He sniffed the air. He thought it was probably rabbit, which was good, because rabbit was definitely more appetizing than squirrel. His predatory instinct was to make a move, to pounce on the thing immediately, but he forced himself to wait a little longer.
Let it come to you.
The one good thing about being in human form was that his aroma was neither as strong nor as threatening as it would have been in wolf form. The rabbit would never have come close if it had smelled a wolf nearby. But today, Xavier was nothing but an innocuous human.
The rabbit poked its nose out of a shrub.
Lightning fast, Xavier moved. He darted forward, jabbing with the spear. There was a high-pitched sound of protest from his quarry, and then silence.
He withdrew the spear. The rabbit had been handily caught. Perfect, he thought. Breakfast.
He turned and began to walk back through the woods toward the cave where he had left Louis, thinking of nothing but how good this rabbit would taste once it was fried up. So distracted was he by his hunger that he almost didn’t notice the sound of something else moving through the trees.
Something much larger.
There was no time to hide, no time to scale a tree or duck behind a boulder. By the time he realized that he was not alone in the woods, the creature had appeared behind him.
A bear.
He recognized it for what it was right away—no ordinary bear, but one of the others. One of the outsiders who had encroached on the land that was his home. This bear was a shifter, just as Xavier himself was. But bears were the mortal enemies of wolves in even the most polite and civilized spaces. Here in the wild, Xavier knew what Louis seemed not to realize—it was only a matter of time before one of them killed the other.
He set
off at a run, knowing that the bear had seen him and that taking flight was his only chance at getting away without a fight.
It was no use. The bear pursued him, its stride strong and powerful. And as it gained on him, Xavier quickly realized that he had no hope of outrunning it.
Not in this form, anyway.
He stuck the spear, with the rabbit still impaled on the end of it, between his teeth and bit down hard. Then he focused inward, paying attention to the flow of blood to his muscles and the scent of the bear behind him. The sounds of the forest around him.
His animal senses.
His wolf form came to him easily—it was more natural to him than his human form was. As soon as his paws hit the ground, he was running hard, harder than he would have been capable of as a human. He was putting distance between himself and the bear.
It might be strong, he thought, satisfied, but I’m faster. It can’t catch me.
He couldn’t head directly back to the cave. Louis was there, unsuspecting, and he didn’t want to bring a fight to his friend. He also didn’t want these strangers to know where they were staying. He angled west instead, heading for the river, hoping he would be able to lose the bear there. Could bears swim? He wasn’t sure.
He heard the rush of water in the distance. Encouraged, he pushed himself to run harder. He burst forth onto the bank of the river—
And stopped short.
Three more bears were there, engaged in fishing for their own morning meal.
Xavier banked, running along the river’s edge, but he could tell by the pounding of feet behind him that the other three bears had joined the chase. And they were much closer to him than the first one had been.
Shit. He had forgotten to be aware of his surroundings, and he had allowed himself to be herded into even greater danger.
He felt a sharp pain and looked back. One of the bears had raked his thigh with a claw.
Damn it! That meant there was going to be a blood trail. Even if he managed to lose them, they would be able to follow him back to the cave if they wanted to.
At least Louis won’t be able to pretend they’re harmless anymore, though. Not if they pose a direct threat to our way of life.
