He took the hint, just as I expected. What I didn’t expect was the look of thunder on Fin’s face when we finally came to a halt. I gave him an apologetic smile, ruffling my hair. “For the record,” I said, “I’m not here to hang out with anybody else. I called you for a reason.”
“Oh, I’m not…” He shook his head down at the ground. The backs of his ears were burning, and though he tried to hide it, I could still see tension in his jaw. “I’m not jealous.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not!”
“Easy, sharp-claws.” I bumped my shoulder into his, playful and deliberately slow. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re way too easy to tease?” I felt the heat of his body through his clothes, like a portable omega-scented furnace. As much as he tried to pout playfully at me, there was a glimmer of fondness behind that pout — and he didn’t try to move away from me, either. There was no room for the chill of the night-time wind between our bodies; instead, it buffeted around our sides, as if even the weather wanted to nudge us closer together.
Only every now and again did I remember that there were omegas around the clearing vying for my attention. It had been a long time since a single one had occupied my attention like this, and it only enchanted me more that he seemed not to know it. Despite the biting wind on my face, I could have waited there a lot longer in his quiet, absorbing company, but Ryker didn’t keep us hanging around for much longer. Once the clearing had almost filled, I saw him step into a circle at the center that cleared just for him. I was filled with an incomparable pride at my cousin’s achievement, and at how lucky our pack was to be led by him. I felt a little guilty for being distracted as he spoke, and made a concerted effort to focus on his final words instead of on the omega beside me.
“With that, I won’t hold you back. Welcome again to our home, and take care of each other tonight. You honor me with your attention.”
The others drew back, leaving a path in the circle pointing out towards the trees. Ryker rolled his shoulders back, pulling off the last of his human clothing, and shifted with a leader’s confidence into his fur. His joints stretched and limbered as the grass caught his paws, and the near-white of the moonlight feathered the edges of his coat. As we all watched with bated breath for this milestone, he took a solid stance and threw his head back to the sky, fulfilling an alpha select’s most sacred duty of calling to the moon.
Others followed around him. Fabric landed on the ground in little forgotten piles, and our pack leapt from the relative discomfort of their bare and furless human bodies into their lupine forms. I stepped back from Finley, searching his eyes. Nakedness around our entire pack was common, but this was different. Whatever we were to one another, new and ill-defined as it was, sharing our bodies with each other for the first time would be a different kind of intimacy.
He bit the inside of his lip — a tiny little gesture that he might have thought I wouldn’t see. If so, he was mistaken. I wanted to drink in every detail of him now, as fascinated by his reaction and his vulnerability as I was by the thought of his nakedness. Even so, my eyes jumped to his hands as soon as I saw him start to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, following them down as they bared more and more of his pale skin. The moonlight shone against him, and the white-blond of his hair, so that it almost formed a glow around him.
When his eyes lifted to meet mine, shy but sure, he didn’t break away. As he shrugged off the shirt and let it fall to the ground, starting on his belt instead, it was his eyes that kept me arrested still — kept me pinned in one place, challenged and entranced, until his pants were on the ground, and he peeled the sky-blue fabric of his briefs away from his skin.
Beautiful. Just like I knew you would be.
He was beautiful when he shifted, too — snow-white fur that looked soft and fluffy enough to bury myself in. As he approached me, I reached to smooth over the fur on the top of his head, and instead let out a barking laugh as he caught my hand and nipped at my fingertips instead.
Well, sure. I knew what he was getting at, and he’d earned it.
Unlike him, however, I had an agenda. I made him wait, wind teasing through his fur, as I lifted my t-shirt slowly up over my head. I wanted his eyes rooted on me, eager for every inch — and they were. Not for the first time, I remembered how nervous he’d been when we met at Owen and Lukas’s shower, and wondered whether he’d ever watched me from a distance before. Whether my body was a sight he knew and craved, or something new to savor.
Either way, his attention was so rapt, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on.
After the slow torture of my shirt, I dropped my jeans and my boxer-briefs all at once, stepping out of them as casually as if I were peeling off only an outer layer of clothing. I stepped towards the clearing, stretching my human shoulders. Was he staring at me? He was, and unabashedly at that. I grinned and gave him a few seconds longer before I shifted, immediately taking off in the direction of the forest, and leaving him yelping and scrambling to catch up.
The pack run was supposed to be about community, but tonight the emotional bond I felt was almost solely to Fin. As a result, my wolf only had eyes for him. I could feel him beside me, paws hitting the ground as rhythmic and reliable as a drumbeat, and close as a shadow but with fur light as a star hovering just out of sight. There were others around us — omegas spreading their scents for me, hopeful but invasive. I rebuffed them all, no matter how persistent they and their pheromones were.
If they knew the truth about my lack of fertility, they’d find other alphas to chase. They wouldn’t come anywhere near me, let alone try to tempt me in.
Fin, on the other hand? It was all guesswork, sure, but in this moment I had a feeling about him. I believed that even if he knew the truth, he’d still be here, running by my side.
When we finally slowed, emerging from the woods once again to the clearing where all our human clothes awaited us, Fin pulled up beside me. He was a smaller wolf than me, if only by a hair, and swayed with a playful whine as I bumped into him. We stopped by our clothes and looked one another in the eye, wolf to wolf. Our breath ghosted the air between us.
Yeah. I made the right call, spending this run with him tonight.
He shifted back first. Back in human form, the confidence of the run had worn off, and he had crouched away from me. I wasn’t about to make him uncomfortable, so I went to move my pile — then felt his hand scratching behind my ears for a second, gentle and fond.
I tipped my head back, throwing all my weight into it. Shit, that feels good.
“You’re a handsome wolf,” he said, as cautious as if he were telling me a secret.
Maybe he was.
After all, I still didn’t really know how much experience Fin had with other alphas. He didn’t seem the type to have a plethora of past partners. Not that I’d mind if he did. That’d be mightily hypocritical of me. There was just a certain innocence about him that made me wonder if he’d ever confessed his attraction to anybody before.
He hadn’t said that exactly, but when I shifted back into my skin and started pulling on my clothes, I could see the appreciation in his averted eyes.
If he wanted to pretend that the wolf and the man were two different creatures, then bad luck. I gave him a broad smile as I pulled my shirt over my head. “I’m flattered. You are, too — both ways, may I add.”
Fin smiled, fastening up the last of his buttons. “You’re kind, but we both know who was attracting all the attention out there.”
“Uh-huh?” I said. “And that guy they were all chasing. Who had his attention?”
He opened and closed his mouth, and blushed.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought. Let’s eat.”
As it turned out, eating didn’t seem to be in the cards. As we approached the house and the adrenaline of the run began to wear off, I could feel Finley fading beside me. He leaned into me, and I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose. I wound an arm around his shoulders, guiding him ins
ide into the firelight warmth.
“Thank you for inviting me,” he said. Aha, there it was — a telltale sluggishness in his voice. He really was falling asleep. I was surprised he hadn’t yawned halfway through the sentence. “I had fun with you.”
“Me too,” I assured him. “I like an omega who can keep up.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, “but I think it pretty much wore me out.”
“You don’t say?”
I sneaked a glance down at his dopey-eyed, sheepish smile. If the heat of all my fellow pack members and Ryker’s home hadn’t melted the January cold away, that face certainly would have. “Sorry. I’ll stand up by myself.”
“Nah, I don’t mind,” I said. I took a quick glance around the room. The buffet smelled good, but my desire to get Fin comfortable superseded my food-motivated instincts. I paused. “Y’know… are you hungry?”
“If you’re hungry, I-”
I shook my head, and began leading him through to the family room where we’d all be piling up. “Nope,” I said. “Time for rest.”
Part of Fin clearly wanted to protest. His voice curled into a small, wordless noise of dissent — but the rest of him was sinking into me with gratitude. He was tired, and I could tell I was making the right call.
“Here we go,” I said, tossing a couple of comfy-looking pillows into a cozy corner, and grabbing a blanket. “This is us.”
“Mm-hm. Are you sure…?”
I settled down and patted the space beside me. Fin didn’t need any persuasion now. He slipped down beside me, snuggling right up against my side even before I had a chance to wrap an arm around him. I heard his croaky, barely conscious voice from against my chest.
“Goodnight, Vaughn.”
I grinned, tossing the blanket over us and then settling back down to hold Finley again. “Sleep tight, Blondie.”
When I closed my eyes, I felt grateful that we’d skipped out on the food. This was nothing I’d admit to Owen or Ryker. Frankly, I could barely admit it to myself — but if the trade-off was getting more time curled up with Finley like this? I would have sacrificed just about any part of this night. Judging by how exhausted he was, I should probably sacrifice a little speed so he could keep up better next time.
My brow furrowed slightly as sleep tugged me closer to the edge. I could barely remember what I was confused about. As the dark of sleep finally washed over me, the last clear thought I had was:
Wait. Next time?
6
Finley
I was still thinking about Vaughn’s arms around me a full month after he let me go. That night of the full moon run, something had changed in me that I couldn’t identify or understand. Whatever it was, it had made me so possessive about Vaughn that I embarrassed myself, especially right there at the meet. Even V had noticed how frustrated I got at the other omegas who swarmed around him.
The fact that I still thought of them as a ‘swarm’ rather than friendly members of my own pack spoke volumes.
Plus, that run was way back at the end of January. Now we were running out of days in February, and my heart still skipped every time his face showed up on the screen of my cell for a video call, or I heard a text message vibrating away in my pocket.
I didn’t want to use a big word so early in the game, but… was this what the first stages of love felt like? Since we texted each other every day, and pretty much all day with on-and-off texts, I’d already been given plenty of opportunities to calm down and stop reacting like this. Apparently, my heart just didn’t want to quit. The kids were as wonderful as usual. I could pay attention to them without any difficulty, but all the stupid busywork tasks that Mr. Kyle had me doing?
Well, they weren’t so easy to focus on.
This Friday alone, I had misplaced a stack of very necessary Post-it notes and left behind half a stack of copies on the printer after it jammed. I still wasn’t over it — and today was Sunday.
“It’s just not like me,” I told Sutton as we ate together at Leti’s diner, leaning over the table as he finished his first drink. “I don’t mess up like that. I wouldn’t mind so much if Lukas was back at work. He’d understand, but… the substitute is such a jerk. Every time I blink wrong, he’s right there.” I scrunched up my brow and my nose in a poor imitation of the guy. “Ah, just a note for future improvement, Mr. King…”
“Tell him to wedge it up his ass,” said Sutton helpfully. “Although I don’t know if he’d get it up there. He sounds a little anal retentive.”
“Yes, thank you for that mental image,” I said, polishing off the last of my milkshake. “It’s just… it’s like I’ve forgotten how to focus. Is that normal?”
Sutton hummed. “I mean. If you were getting good dick…”
“Shut up!”
“All right, all right,” said Sutton, holding up his hands. “You aren’t screwing him. He’s just a friend. He’s in Miami right now anyway. So you keep saying.”
I shrugged, giving him a lopsided grin. “I’m sorry. I know I’m a broken record right now.”
“We’ve all been there,” Sutton assured me. “I just wish you’d be a broken record about the right kind of details. For instance… I’ve never seen him at a pack run. Before a pack run.”
“You better not mean what I think you mean.”
“Just show me with your hands,” said Sutton, moving his hands repeatedly closer together and further apart. “Half the unmated omegas in this pack are obsessed with the guy. I need to know if he lives up to expectations.”
“Sutton!” I reprimanded him. Then, a few beats later: “And it’s not my business or yours, but I can tell you that he wouldn’t disappoint anybody, so-”
“Ha!”
“We’re not friends,” I joked, shaking my head at him with raised brows. He was still laughing when I laid my fork to rest and pushed the bowl of salad away. “Honestly. Can’t you tell me about what’s-his-name and his arms again?”
“Sage,” said Sutton, as if he were savoring a dessert. “And if you insist, then yes. I will. At this point, I’m pretty sure I could map out his biceps with a blindfold on — but I’ll be right back, okay? I need to throw a couple of coins in the jukebox. “Be My Baby” just played four times in a row and I think I’m going to die if I hear it once more.”
I grinned, watching him make a beeline across the diner before anybody else could reach the jukebox. Thanks to Sutton’s inappropriate line of questioning, my mind had just drifted back to the shape of Vaughn’s body in the moonlight when my phone started ringing. I glanced down at the table and saw my mom’s name on the screen.
I sighed, giving a weak smile, and picked up.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey! Happy Sunday.”
“And to you. How’s home?”
The sound of her voice was comforting, especially as she rattled off a list of people and things that were fine. She was my mom, after all, and she sounded like home and warmth, but it could be hard to listen to her sometimes. I got long phone calls from her at least once a week, so almost none of this was information I hadn’t already heard. Worse, I knew what was due to follow right after the stream of updates ended. They were camouflage for her — just an excuse to call and assuage her anxiety.
I loved and cared about her very much, and I certainly understood what it was like to deal with anxiety, but that didn’t make it easy to stay patient through the same basic safety interview every seven days.
I smiled, finding a rare moment to cut into the stream of not-news. “Mom, just so you know, I’m out with Sutton. I can’t talk for too long.”
“Oh, that’s great! Don’t let me stop you from having fun!” she insisted. “You can call me back later. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
I knew from hard-earned experience that this meant ‘tell me you’re okay now, and then we’ll have the rest of our long call some other time’ — not ‘let’s hang up and you can tell me later’.
“Of cou
rse, Mom. It’s just like home. Everything’s… just going along as it should.”
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s what I like to hear. You’re eating okay, of course.”
Here we go.
“Always,” I promised. “I’m eating a salad as we speak.”
“And protein?”
“Mom, I promise you — lack of protein is not an issue a wolf is likely to have.”
“For all I know, you’ve gone vegan,” she said. She pronounced it wrong, with a J. Veejan. I imagined her listening to one of her poorly cited podcasts, hearing tall tales about whole generations of malnourished veejans. The mispronunciation tugged at my heartstrings. Sure, I missed home. Missed living close to her and Dad, even if it meant I had to face her inquisition in person instead of over the phone.
I smiled at the server as she cleared our plates, covering the phone to mouth ‘thank you’.
“I bet you’ve at least thought about it,” she pressed. “It sounds like something you’d do.”
“I pinky promise I’m not a vegan.” I paused. “And that if I ever am, which I’m not intending, I pinky promise that I’ll eat a balanced diet. Protein and all.”
“That reminds me. Did you cut down on caffeine like we talked about?”
“Yep,” I lied smoothly. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
“Oh, good. I am happy about that. I can’t believe they’re just allowed to sell it in stores. To anyone. As much as you want! It’s like alcoholism for CEOs.”
“I think CEOs are still susceptible to alcoholism, Mom.”
“Well, you know what I mean. And just while I’ve got you — how are the roads in Blackwater? Did you switch your tires?”
“Yes,” I said. “But Mom, listen. Sutton is coming back. I’m going to have to call you back later. Okay?”
“Okay, sweetie. I’m glad you’re well. We’ll talk later. Hugs and kisses!”
Claiming My Omega: Blackwater Pack: Book 2 Page 6
