Omega's Wolves: Hell's Wolves MC

by J. L. Wilder

  Chapter 14

  Daniel was in the corner of the yard, where two sections of the fence met, crouching beneath an apple tree. He looked more lupine than the others in the moonlight, despite his slender build; maybe it was the way the moon made the green of his eyes shine. His fingers were pulling up pieces of grass, shredding a small pile around him.

  “Daniel.”

  He glanced up at me, then went back to his pile.

  I sighed, then walked off the back porch, closer to Daniel and his apple tree. My bare shoulders glinted, the pale skin cold even though I tended to run hot.

  “Daniel,” I repeated. “I’m sorry.”

  He said nothing but did begin to pick even more viciously at the ground.

  “Can you please say something?”

  His plucking stopped, and his shoulders rose and fell. After a moment, he met my eyes, and went to his knees, as though he was buckling under the weight of an unknown force. I glided toward him, a willow wisp in the wind of the night.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, rubbing a hand over my exposed arm. “I know you and Caine didn’t trust Pelt, he said as much to me.”

  Daniel began to braid the strands of grass together with his nimble fingers, like he was Pan, god of the forest.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said at last.

  “Then why do you look so mad?”

  He rolled his head back, stretching out his neck in pensive circles.

  “I’m mad,” he replied slowly, “because Tristan’s miscalculation nearly got me and Caine killed tonight. Which isn’t your fault. But I’m also mad, despite my better angels, I am also mad that you kissed him.”

  I took a step back, as though he’d pushed me.

  “What do you mean?” I stammered, hands beginning to shake.

  He licked his lips. “Emma, you guys didn’t break it up until you heard the door handle turn. Shifters have excellent eyesight, certainly good enough to see through glass.”

  Oh god. Of course, he’d seen. How had I convinced myself otherwise? You believed what you wanted to believe, my inner voice said with disgust. That’s how.

  I blurted out the first question that came to mind. “Did Caine see too?”

  Daniel threw down his grass and abruptly rose to his feet, planting his dark boots beneath him, their soles making indents in the already bruised ground. I could see his face, normally placid, closed off, ripping open to reveal a deep-burning rage.

  “What does it matter if Caine saw?” Daniel shouted loud enough to wake the neighborhood. My hands flew to my mouth, wide with shock, but he continued. “I just told you that I saw you, the woman I love, kissing my alpha. Can you think about me for a second? Can you think about how that must have hurt me?”

  “You love me?” I whispered.

  “Of course, I do,” he said, his voice harsh and rasping. “But you already knew that.”

  I nodded. Deep down, I had known. They all loved me. And I loved all of them. And I was absolutely powerless to change that.

  I took one step, then another, back toward Daniel, who was standing, fists balled at his side, like an avenging angel on his first tour out of heaven. He was righteous, and at the same time, so, so hurt.

  “Nobody ever sees me as the priority,” he said bluntly. “I’m a drifter. I have no ranking in a pack. In our world, I’m worthless.”

  “Please don’t talk like that,” I begged. “You’re kind, and gifted, and patient. You are important.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “I’m not,” I insisted, moving forward a bit more, carefully getting closer to him, the way one would approach a dog with a big bark.

  “Then why won’t you pick me?”

  There was no more lying. I didn’t understand my feelings, and knew that this wasn’t an answer to my problem, just a complication of it. But I’d also come to accept that, if I was going to break the rules, I’d better break every last one of them. No point going out if there’s no blaze of glory.

  “I do pick you,” I murmured, closing the remaining distance between us. Daniel’s bright green eyes found me, their depths searching my face for clarity. He really was majestic in the night.

  “What does that mean?”

  I answered his question with a kiss.

  Daniel’s lips were soft, softer than the other men’s. He was gentle, his hands afraid to touch any other part of my body. They hovered above my hips, and I had to clamp them down with my own, forcing him to feel me surging beneath him. He tasted like what I imagined absinthe would taste like—bittersweet, poignant. A unique flavor for a unique man.

  “What are you doing,” he asked between my lips, his breath moving into my mouth. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  I kissed him harder, but he didn’t return the force. I could feel the doubt enveloping him like a cloud. His lips moved mechanically, like they were performing a service and nothing more.

  With a soft moan, I pulled away to look him flush in the face. His cheeks were burning crimson, a startling color against the pale white.

  “It’s simple,” I said. “I want to kiss you, so I’m kissing you. I don’t want to think about the future anymore, or the past, for that matter. My body wants this, I want this. We’re Wolves, we’re supposed to move on instinct.”

  Daniel said nothing, but his gaze was racing across my face, as if searching my micro expressions for tells. His silence was deafening over the silence of the cul-de-sac; if only there’d been some crickets or a stiff breeze to drown out his quiet.

  “Unless,” I added with hesitation, shame mounting in my breast. “Unless I misread things, and you don’t want—you like me, I get it, but don’t want to be with me. In that way.”

  I sounded so stupid, so young, and so heartbroken. I wished to shove every word back inside me, and tamp them down so they could never escape again. Why did I keep telling everybody my truth, especially when none wanted to hear it?

  And then, without warning, he seized my face between his hands, and was kissing me with an almighty fury that floored me.

  He whispered, “I want this too.”

  Daniel caught my bottom lip between his teeth, biting just hard enough to draw blood. I groaned, which encouraged him; he moved to my ear and began to nibble. Before I knew it, his hand was on my thigh, hitching it up to his hip, pushing me back against the tree for leverage.

  The boys inside could’ve been watching us, but in that moment, my head was too filled with Daniel to give a damn. I’d now kissed them all, and each kiss had driven me only further into confusion. I thought, maybe, just maybe, if I gave everyone a shot, I’d be able to narrow it down to one. Instead, I found that I was more torn than ever. Can one girl have it all? No, no way.

  But I kept kissing Daniel. This could be the last time we’d ever be able to kiss. I imagined that the Hell’s Wolves would expel me, on the grounds that I threatened the pack, that now I’d kissed all the boys, a line had been crossed. That was a price I was willing to pay, if it meant submerging in this touch forever.

  Could Caine and Tristan see us? If so, what were they thinking? Would they try and break it up? Would they sit back and let it happen? My mind raced with questions, but Daniel’s other hand found my thigh, and now I was straddling him, both feet off the ground. The bark scraped my exposed skin, but I didn’t care.

  I wondered how much further this would go. With Tristan and Caine, it had felt like a kiss stolen in a moment. With Daniel, it felt like I was flagrantly violating the rules, like because of my indiscretion, we had all the time in the world.

  How could I show him that I felt the same way about him as I did about the other Wolves, to prove that he might be the last man I kissed, but was certainly not the least?

  I knew the answer immediately. I pushed him back so I could slide off the tree, down onto the ground, until I was kneeling in front of his groin, my eyes inches from the thick outline in Daniel’s pants.

  I looked up, anxious to see if he wanted t
his too. Daniel nodded, and slowly unzipped his pants, yanking them down to his hips, and pulling from his underwear a thick, throbbing cock. I’d known all of the boys were well-endowed from our naked time together, but I’d never seen them hard. It was a sight to behold.

  Without taking my eyes from his, I licked my lips and moved my mouth onto his cock. I’d just tasted his saltiness when a sound burst across the backyard.

  “Oh, to hell with this.”

  Chapter 15

  We both whipped our heads toward the door.

  It was Caine, trembling in the doorway. He was trying hard to look angry. Instead, he just appeared heartbroken.

  Daniel turned away, zipping up his pants before offering me a hand with which to lever myself up. Out of the corner of my eye, checked his face. At least he didn’t look ashamed; rather, he seemed concerned about Caine, about how harmful our, er, activities, had been to him. That’s a good friend, I thought. Not even worried for himself but for his pack mate.

  Caine’s voice broke as he asked, “How could you, Daniel?”

  “I’m sorry,” Daniel replied, pivoting back to face Caine, his cock now safely tucked away. “But you’ve kissed her too.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  Caine shifted uncomfortably. “Because it was … was spur of the moment. And we weren’t doing anything like that,” he added accusatorily, gesturing to my knees.

  “But we’d all agreed not to do anything with Emma,” Daniel countered, gesturing toward me. “Swore it on the first day she arrived.”

  Well, that was interesting information, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Just because I messed up doesn’t mean you get to do the same,” Caine argued. “Two wrongs, like, don’t make a right.”

  Daniel shook his head. “I won’t apologize.”

  Caine’s expression turned stormy, earnest anger this time. “Then I’ll make you.”

  He lunged from the porch, flying across the yard, and mid-air, he shifted into his Wolf form.

  I screamed, shutting my eyes, but not before I saw Daniel transform as well.

  There were sounds of teeth gnashing, jaws clamping, yelps of rage and pain. And my screams, I suppose, but those seemed distant, unmoored to me. I opened my eyes, to make sure I was really still there, that this wasn’t a horrible dream. Sure enough, the boys—or rather, the Wolves—were tearing at each other’s fur, using sharp claws and sharper teeth. Neither appeared to be winning, both were rather violently losing.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. “Please, for God’s sake, stop it!”

  That cry must have done the trick, because Tristan burst from the house, exploding onto the lawn with a fury.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” he bellowed, but Caine and Daniel ignored him. I noticed, with a latent corner of my mind, that their fight was beginning to wreck the grass.

  With a small roll of the eye, he shifted into Wolf, and threw himself between them. My scream arose again, fearful that, between the three of them, somebody wouldn’t make it out of this fight. I had to do something. This was my fight as much as it was theirs, and only I could bring it to a peaceful end.

  Without shifting into my Wolf form, I ran across the yard, putting myself right in the middle of the tussle, feeling their hot breaths across my form, knowing that any of them could snap me in half. That was a risk I had to take. I prayed to whoever was listening to get me out of this in mostly one piece.

  And then, as if a vacuum had sucked the anger from the air, they broke apart, each retreating to a corner of the yard. In almost perfect unison—maybe because of their mind link, I surmised—they all transformed back to humans. They stood, naked and panting, in their respective corners, staring at one another with distrust and anger. Just your average night in the suburbs, you know?

  I was triangulated between the three of them, the neutral territory of the backyard. I held up my hands, the flesh and blood equivalent of a white flag.

  “Enough,” I snarled. “No more fighting. You guys are pack mates. If you turn on one another, you’ll have no one left.”

  None of them would meet my eyes, despite my repeated attempts to catch their gaze. They were hanging their heads like kids caught rough-housing at recess.

  “You’re family. And…,” I inhaled deeply, astounded that I was about to say this, “and kind of my only family too.”

  There, it was out, the thing I’d been keeping inside for so long.

  Daniel glanced up at me, but it was Caine who asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean … I mean that I’m an orphan. My parents both died when I was younger. And I got exiled from my previous pack because my major omega status was dividing the men. They decided it was easier to get rid of me than to lose half the pack.”

  I spit the last part out, the memory still bitter on my tongue. Though it wasn’t my fault, I’d been excommunicated, as it were. Back then, with that pack, I hadn’t even kissed any of them. It was my mere existence that had driven the men wild. So, this time, I’d decided to at least pursue my affections. Like, if I was gonna be kicked out again, might as well take some memories, right? But, if I had my druthers, the boys would let me stay.

  “I’m sorry, Emma,” Tristan murmured, finally unlocking his eyes from the window shingles and fixing them on me. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yeah, it was.” I felt tears choking up in my throat, and I was so ashamed of them (and the fact that I couldn’t stop them). “And you guys are about to do the same.”

  I covered my eyes with my palms, trying to sop up the water, as I blubbered, “Everybody says I’m so desirable, but when they finally have me, no one wants me. I’m tired of being so alone.”

  Around me, I heard the rustling of footsteps, slow movements in my direction. I paid them no mind, and continued.

  “I’m sorry I kissed you all, but I like each one of you so, so much and it’s making me crazy. I’m trying to resist. The pull is too strong. It’s the Wolf inside of me; she wants to be sated.”

  Suddenly, I felt a number of hands on my body, and opened my eyes to see that Tristan, Caine and Daniel were all pulling me into a large group embrace. I sobbed in their arms, feeling sweet relief from their comfort. We stayed like that for a long time, drinking in one another’s physicality, drawing strength in our mutual bonds.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “I love you all so much.”

  “After just a week?” Caine joked, his snicker filling my ear. “You’re such a romantic.”

  Daniel interrupted, “He’s trying to say he loves you too.”

  “As do I,” Tristan murmured, and I knew how hard won the words were.

  At last, I pulled free from their hug, and stood back, looking at my semi-circle of men. An alpha, a beta, and a drifter. Who was I to them?

  An easy answer:

  I was their omega.

  “So,” I said, rubbing my eyes, clearing away the hot tears. “What now?”

  Caine and Daniel looked to Tristan, who reluctantly admitted, “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a situation like this before.” He paused, thinking, then continued with more uncertainty, “But I’m pretty sure I want to explore what’s between us.”

  His eyes fell upon mine, and they were open, willing. Scared, yeah, but … definitely excited too.

  Daniel, tapping his fingers against the legs of his jeans, slowly added, “And I as well. Though, I imagine you knew that already.”

  Caine puppy piled on, saying, “Same here. We’ve got a thing, and that thing is super-hot.”

  We all had to laugh at that.

  “Well, a lot has changed these past hours,” Tristan admitted. “But at least Caine is still a dope.”

  More laughs around our little circle, which, after a few moments, quieted down once more. None of them seemed ready to speak again; they had all opened up far more than I believed they had in a long time, possibly ever. That vulnerability needed a refractory period.
So, I stepped up, because every now and then, an omega has to be an alpha.

  “Okay,” I began, not positive where I intended to go next. “How about…”

  I trailed off. Damn, was there an easy solution to this? I didn’t think so. Ugh, it was gonna take some sacrificing on everybody’s part, mine included.

  Bolstering myself for what needed to be said, I continued with more confidence, “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I like you all, and all of you like me. Maybe more than that. Maybe love. And you’re kind of the only family I’ve got left, and it would suck to ruin that. Plus, I still need protection, to be honest, so please don’t leave me out in the cold.”

  Every man nodded, and Caine piped up. “We’d never do that.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I dunno, Caine, seemed like y’all might’ve for a second back there.”

  He blushed, but shook his head and said nothing.

  With that handled, I went on. “Everybody is just going to have to deal with their jealousy issues, because … because … because hell, I want to be with all of you. Or at least try it.”

  “Try?” Daniel queried, brows knitting together.

  “Yeah, try. You heard of a thing called dates?”

  Caine raised his hand. “Most definitely.”

  The others nodded a little wearily, which I understood. Within the shifter community, ‘dates’ weren’t really a big concept. You kind of just matched with each other, like the universe had created this other perfect half for you. It was too big of a thing to not notice, or to resist. I hadn’t heard of a person getting that feeling with three shifters, mind you, but hey, I guess most of the planet doesn’t even know shifters exist. Not like we’re exactly playing by ‘natural laws’ or whatever.

  “I’m gonna date you guys,” I concluded. “And if my connection is stronger with one person than another, I’ll be honest about it. Maybe my connection is equal with all three of you. I don’t know yet. It feels like that might be the case, but I have to give it a fair shot, right?”

  I paused, waiting for some kind of response. The men looked to one another, gaging everyone’s reactions. I rolled my eyes, waiting for their little stare downs to come to a halt.