Lorcan eyed the healer with a patience he reserved only for the oldest pack member. “We all know what he needs, Healer. The issue is consent. We keep coming back to that impediment. He won’t allow Bard to touch him.”
That hurt. It cut deeper than any other pain Bard had ever experienced. After giving Loki an hour to calm down, Bard had finally gone to him. Destin had cleared it. So had the alpha. But once the omega realized Bard had crouched beside him, he scooted into the wall. His delicate hands had punched against Bard’s chest with a surprising amount of power. No amount of coaxing could convince the boy to let down his guard.
“He doesn’t want me.” Although he hadn’t intended to sound defensive and defeated, his tone conveyed it anyway.
“He doesn’t want anyone, my friend,” Destin responded quietly. “I am to blame for that.”
Bard wanted to reassure him that it wasn’t so, except it was. Destin had been right in fleeing their old pack with Loki. The decision not to explain the why of it, however, was one Bard understood, yet was beginning to disagree with. In that sense, the beta was at fault for the current situation. Although perhaps not. There was no guaranteeing that an omega who’d been raised to mate with an alpha would have ever accepted anyone of lower status.
Lorcan shook his head. “You’re guilt is useless, Destin. We need a solution now, and with your brother refusing to be mounted by Bard, is there anyone else we can offer that he might accept instead?”
The very idea of someone else claiming the omega caused Bard’s wolf to freeze, then snap and lunge. When Bard successfully kept him in check, his wolf howled in fury. “There is Griffin.” He forced the words out of his mouth.
“I don’t trust him enough yet,” Destin said. “The gammas running with him even less so, before you offer them as choices.”
“If it’s the difference between your brother living and dying…” Even as Bard made the case of calling in the beta, he remembered how the guy had seemed to fret about Ryan’s well-being. Would it be fair to ask him to breed Loki given that his affection clearly lay elsewhere? He didn’t bother making the case for the gammas, either. He knew so little of them, the thought of delicate Loki being in their control was insupportable.
Destin’s expression went extra grim. “It must be you. There is no one else who knows Loki well enough to do it right.”
While Bard appreciated Destin’s confidence in him, he wasn’t sure it was well placed. Bard had done a crappy job so far of managing the omega. If he’d been better at it, the boy would have accepted him by now. Wouldn’t he?
“I’m afraid your view is irrelevant,” the alpha interjected. “Accepting a mate has to be Loki’s decision. I won’t force a mounting on him. We are not that kind of pack.”
Andrea leaned over the table. For a small, older female, she presented a looming figure. “Normally I would agree with you, Alpha, but this time it’s different. Loki’s life is on the line. If he doesn’t get bred, he will die. Slowly and agonizingly, he will die.” She punctuated her last words with a rap of her fist.
She may as well have been beating on Bard’s chest. His heart skipped a beat and his lungs heaved with the effort to take in air. Loki dead was unthinkable.
Lorcan opened his mouth, and still the healer overrode him. “Please, Alpha, do not let your misplaced guilt over how you came to mate your own omega blind you to the right course.”
It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Everyone froze, except the healer. Her face relaxed into a sympathetic expression. “You couldn’t have known how he’d been coerced by his sire to mate with you. And you did what was necessary to give this pack a chance to settle and thrive. All I ask is that you make the same hard decision to help Loki.”
Whatever Lorcan would have said in response was cut short by Deirdre racing into the room. “Forgive me, Alpha,” the beta female said, “but, I’m going to need some help out here. The sigmas and the omegas are becoming too agitated for me to handle alone. They need a lot of firm dominant hands to soothe them. We’ve moved all the pups out to the weaving hut, although Loki’s cries are carrying all around the compound. There are a lot of tears and whining even there.”
“Sorry,” Daniel barged in behind her, obviously frantic. “That’s not all. Reed has gone into labor early. Loki’s fussing has stressed him out and I couldn’t calm him.”
Andrea got to her feet. “It’s all right, Beta. It’s not too soon to whelp the pup. They will be fine.”
Another wail pierced the room. Daniel’s face hardened. “I won’t have my mate listening to that while he brings our pup into the world. It can’t be good for him. Please, Alpha, do something. Otherwise we end up with three dead because of it. And, I will not risk my mate and pup over one bratty omega.”
Anger flared in Bard. He stood and glared at Daniel. “Loki is not doing this out of selfish reasons.”
“Isn’t he?” Daniel demanded.
“Of course not. He’s scared, that’s all.”
“So am I, right down to the bone, of losing my family.”
“That’s not going to happen, Daniel. I won’t let it.” Lorcan’s pain over the decision was written across his face. “Healer, is there nothing you can give Loki to ease his discomfort?”
Andrea’s eyes blazed as she stared down the alpha. “You would have me drug him without his consent, yet you won’t allow Bard to mount him?”
“Only in the hopes of calming him long enough to make a rational decision,” Lorcan clarified.
“Impossible,” the female declared with a certainty that brooked no questioning. “His heat is too strong for anything other than a drug that would render him senseless.”
“Perhaps that would be for the best,” Lorcan murmured, staring at a point past Andrea. His troubled thoughts were written across his strong face.
The healer shook her head. “No, sir. Throw me out of the pack if you must for my disobedience, but I will not make that poor boy’s death easier for the rest of you to stomach. You only think you know what an unbred omega’s demise is like. I know it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to help Reed whelp. They, at least, I can save.”
With that stand taken, the healer sailed out of the room, Daniel in her wake. Everyone remained silent, not looking at each other, and especially not at the alpha. The man stood with a shove of his chair that knocked it to the ground. Bard’s wolf stopped its frantic pacing to whine at the show of anger by a dominant pack member. His distress didn’t ease while the alpha paced the room to the background of Loki’s cries.
“She misunderstood my meaning,” the alpha finally said to the room at large. “I don’t intend to allow Loki to die. I was thinking she could help ease for him what must be done.”
“What is your will on this, sir?” Destin asked with a tight voice.
Lorcan’s expression hardened. “I will breed Loki myself.”
There was a collective gasp, and Bard’s wolf came close to succeeding in overtaking Bard’s human form. The idea of the alpha claiming Loki made his wolf rabid with fury. “Sir, you can’t,” he blurted out.
Lorcan turned his gaze to him. “How can I not? Who could I order to do the unthinkable and force an omega? I will not be that kind of alpha. This painful thing must be my burden alone.”
“Your mate…” Bard had no right to question his alpha like this, but he couldn’t imagine Lorcan’s breeding Loki as a viable option.
“Kyle knows I love him and that I would never choose to breed another pack member if there were a more palatable option. However my own mating occurred, our bond is strong. Hopefully he will understand. Even if he doesn’t, I have to put the needs of the pack ahead of all other considerations.” He began to pace the room.
As strong as the alpha was, his misery couldn’t be hidden. Everything about the man, from his expression to his tone to the set of his shoulders, screamed out how much he didn’t want to do this terrible, yet necessary thing. He would take on the agony of breeding Lok
i rather than order anyone else to do it. The situation had reached a peak of potential disaster, and Lorcan was going to do what an alpha was always supposed to do—what was good for the pack and his own wants and needs be damned. While this problem continued, the pack would be vulnerable. No one could do their job, the perimeter was thinly covered with only two on patrol. Prolonged stress might cause the pups and other servients to become sickly. And, no matter what Andrea said, Reed whelping under such conditions had to be dangerous to father and pup.
I have to make this right.
With sudden clarity, Bard understood that he was in the best position to fix the problem. Lorcan’s sense of honor and the right way to treat pack members had boxed him into an impossible corner. Destin had lost control of both Loki and his planned end game for him. Loki dying was untenable. Bard, alone, could help them all. He could lift the burden from his alpha, save his friend from a lifetime of guilt, and save the omega who had become the most important thing in Bard’s life. If mounting the boy against his will caused Loki to hate Bard more than he might already, it was simply the price to pay.
His decision made, he calmly stood straighter. He caught Carr’s eye for a second. His friend nodded to him, obviously understanding what he was going to do and giving his support. Bard appreciated it because soon he was going to be forcing himself onto and into the boy he loved.
“I will do it,” he said quietly, so much so he wasn’t sure anyone had heard him. They had. Every pair of eyes turned in his direction.
Lorcan stopped his pacing. “This is not your decision, Gamma.”
“Respectfully, sir, it is. I am making it mine. You can stop me, physically, if you wish. I doubt I’d best you in a fight, although I’d certainly try. For Loki. I do this for him. I can’t let him die, and I don’t need you to order me to mount him against his will.”
“And if I order you not to?”
Bard let his alpha see his vulnerability. “Please, sir, don’t do that. This is something I want to do, for myself as much as for Loki and the pack. Saving him is paramount. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to him, and frankly, my wolf and I can’t stand the idea of you or anyone else possessing him. Besides,” he added with a grimace, “there’s no sense in more than one of us living with this guilt.”
He moved toward the door before the alpha could respond and stopped. “If when it’s done, Loki hates the sight of me, I will go and leave your pack in peace.” The idea was almost as painful to him as Loki’s distress. He’d come to love this pack in the short time he’d been here. But it was better than allowing Loki to die and once the boy had become a father, hopefully he’d settle down sufficiently for Lorcan and Destin to find him a mate that he’d accept.
Before he could leave, Destin rushed up to him and grabbed him into a tight hug. “Your friendship is humbling. I can’t express what this means to me.”
Bard returned the hold for a brief second before pulling away. “I love you as a brother, Destin. I would have followed you to the ends of the Earth if need be.” He managed a weak smile. “This journey to the end of the hall is short in comparison.”
Bard made his feet move, one step in front of the other. The sound of Loki’s agony made him want to run away. Instead, he moved forward.
Chapter Four
The omega’s scent hit him like a physical wall barring the entry to the healer’s room. Bard all but tripped past it, his feet stumbling over nothing as he made his way inside. He blindly shut the door while his focus was taken by Loki’s writhing figure. The omega lay on a pallet in the far corner, his naked body shiny with sweat even at a distance. Because he was lying on his back, his hard shaft rose unfettered. It called to Bard along with the smell of a hole ripe for penetration. The painful noises the omega made faded into the background as Bard’s wolf homed in on what it wanted.
Bard couldn’t strip off his clothing fast enough. He wrenched his shirt over his head and clawed at his jeans with partially shifted hands. His human guilt over what he was about to do melted in the face of such primitive need. His cock sprang forward, leaking and leading the way. His balls ached as they tightened against his crotch. He could practically feel them getting ready to unload into his omega’s ass.
My omega. That thought gave him deep and guttural satisfaction until his rational brain reminded him that it was temporary. Mounting to breed was not the same as mating. He would force Loki to accept his seed but he wouldn’t bite the boy. Not without consent. That was a line he would not cross.
Loki arched his back and his eyes flew open before Bard reached him. His pupils were blown wide and the whites were tinged red from his crying. The sight tore at Bard’s protective instinct. It also spurred him on. Soon he would make all that misery go away. He would make the omega cry in a different way. A pleasurable one.
But, Loki was not so far gone that he didn’t understand what an aroused gamma stalking up to him meant. He twisted away. “No!”
The vehemence behind the rejection gave Bard pause for a moment before he hardened his resolve. Loki no longer understood what he was doing, if he ever had. To do nothing meant certain death. Surely the boy didn’t want that.
Kneeling down beside the pallet, Bard made one last effort at getting the omega’s consent. “Loki, please listen to me. You’re in the throes of your heat. If I don’t breed you, you’ll die. Please,” he begged. “Let me claim you. I promise I won’t mate with you. Once you’re in whelp, you can send me away from you forever if that’s what you want.”
He practically choked on those last words, yet he meant them. Saving Loki was all that mattered.
The omega thrashed his head from side-to-side. “N-no hope. No g-going back.” The words were stuttered out, breathless and almost unintelligible.
Bard understood what the boy meant, however. With every bratty thing that Loki had done since running away, he’d always punctuated it with an underlying resentment of having to leave his home. Bard had held out an optimism that being part of the Rogue Pack would be an end to it by now. But, no, obviously not. Now there was no more time for any path other than the one he’d resolved to follow.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he reached out to grab the slick body. “Forgive me,” he added while he wrestled with the writhing form to get Loki onto his stomach.
The omega was so small, it took nothing for Bard to wrap his hands around the narrow hips and draw them back. The sight of the slick tight globes of the boy’s ass made Bard’s wolf howl and his cock swell. He might have impaled Loki then and there, except he was stronger than his diminutive size would indicate. He tugged forward harder and faster than Bard could compensate for. He kicked, as well, missing Bard’s balls by inches.
The attempt at mounting turned into a slippery wrestling match that might have been funny if not for the desperation underlying Loki’s every move. This was no game. The omega didn’t want Bard to mount him. Bard had to tighten his grip and redouble his efforts. They would both be sporting bruises when it was all done.
Bard forced himself to dig his fingers deeply into the boy, so much so that the skin he gripped turned white. White as snow. That was his last clear thought before, yanking the tight ass in close, he slipped his dick into the cleft. It slid in easily, the omega slick aiding the effort. A millennia of evolution gave his dick an unerring route that had him piercing the hole and sinking in balls deep.
A shriek rent the air, stinging Bard’s ears and tearing at his heart. Being mounted forced more anguished cries from Loki. If he’d been stabbed with a knife rather than Bard’s dick, Loki couldn’t have made more horrifying sounds.
Bard almost pulled out to stop Loki’s yowling. But, the heat and the grasp of the soft channel overrode his guilt. Being embedded in Loki’s ass sent Bard into a blind bliss that made him groan. His wolf howled loudly, undisturbed by moral uncertainty, and drowning out Loki’s distress.
It shouldn’t have fit, his huge shaft filling such a small, tight space. Bard sho
uld have had to fight to get it inside. But it did fit, like the proverbial human glove. Despite the noises he made, the primitive part of Loki’s body welcomed the breach, unfurling and massaging Bard’s erection down inside with undulating waves. The rational or perhaps irrational part of the boy’s brain, however, that understood the magnitude of what was happening still fought on. Bard had to hold on tight while he worked on setting a rhythmic thrusting.
His efforts were stymied more once his knot formed, which it did with alarming speed. Bard had only pulled back and pushed in a few times before it swelled up to trap his cock within the ever wiggling confines of Loki’s ass. Pain shot through Bard’s shaft when the struggle tried to tug the unmovable knot. Loki shrieked again, as well.
“Easy, baby,” Bard grunted out. “Please stop fighting me, or you’ll hurt yourself.”
The warning didn’t get through. Loki was way beyond reasoning with, and Bard’s own rationality was quickly ebbing. He needed to use his superior size and strength in a way that made him ashamed regardless of the need for it. He pressed down with his whole body, forcing Loki forward and onto his face. Then Bard lay flat on top of him front to back, using his arms to keep from squishing the boy.
Through Loki’s sweaty braid, his pale, slender neck showed. Bard’s snout shifted without conscious effort. His fangs hung down, dripping with saliva. His wolf egged him on. Bite! He wanted to. Gods knew he did. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t violate the omega in this one last way. It killed him to shift back to a purely human face. He did it, although he made no attempt to speak further. He was busy avoiding a nose-cracking blow as Loki threw his head back in an effort to throw him off.
Omega Lost (The Rogue Pack Book 7) Page 6
