Mating the Omega (MM Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 1)

by Ann-Katrin Byrde

  I hadn’t seen much of the place, and it was dark now, with just the streetlights marking our path. There didn’t seem to be a lot of construction near the gate, but it wasn’t long before we were moving through tall buildings, some of them with lights still on. People roamed on the sidewalks, talking, carrying coffee—it almost looked like a human town. Then we were into a section filled with apartment buildings, then farther, into neighborhoods of duplexes and row houses. I didn’t have many memories left of Montana Border Pack, but I was sure it didn’t look as nice as this. Seeing this, happy shifters, nice homes—it made my decision sit a little easier. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. An Alpha that looked after his pack like this would make a good mate; we’d be well looked after. I reached across the car and grabbed my dad’s hand, and this time, the smile I sent him was real.

  Mac pulled up in front of the end house in a row of townhouses about six long. “This is it.” He pulled a keyring out of his pocket and hung it over the back of the seat towards Dad. “Keys for front and back and the shed in the yard. It’s furnished and there’s food.” The trunk thunked open. “I’ll give you a hand bringing your stuff in.”

  “Thanks,” Dad said.

  I gathered my laptop and my blanket, holding them tightly, and got out of the car to get my first real look at my new home. Well, my home until my next heat. I wondered if they’d let Dad stay here after I moved, or if they’d make him give the place up to a family with more members. Mac was already at the trunk, our backpacks swinging two apiece from each massive hand. He gestured at my father to lead the way up the walk, and I felt a hand at the small of my back.

  The Alpha.

  “I thought we should talk,” he said in a low voice.

  I stared back at him, as blankly as I possibly could.

  He watched me a moment, then shook his head. “I hope you’ll be happy here. There’s no need to be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted them back. I dropped my eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be. But I suppose that will take some time.” He put his hand under my chin and made me look at him. “I promise, I’m not the big bad wolf.” He smiled, and I made myself smile back at him, though now that we were here, all I could think about was curling up in a corner and going to sleep. Weirdly, the thought that I preferred Mac’s clean-shaven face to the Alpha’s beard kept circling around in my head.

  He patted my shoulder. “You’re exhausted and I’m keeping you out here in the dark. Go on in. I’ll send Mac to check on you in the morning.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, and let him push me gently in the direction of the door.

  “It’s Abel. You don’t need to call me sir.”

  He wanted me to pretend I thought I was entirely safe here with him, so I did. I smiled at him again, and said, “Thank you, Abel.” But I didn’t feel it, and I couldn’t tell from his expression if he knew or not.

  He nodded, the faint moonlight outlining the arch of his eyebrows, the bridge of his nose. “Go on in and get settled. Tell Mac I want him—if you don’t, he’ll stay and fuss until he drives you crazy. We can talk more later.”

  I wanted to go—fuck, but I was tired now—but still I hesitated. If Orvin didn’t specifically tell me I could leave, I couldn’t go, and even then it wasn’t always right. The rest of his alphas were all the same, and I hadn’t ever met any others, except the ones who’d been chasing me. I wasn’t sure if his telling me to go was a real command, or just him thinking he was being kind.

  Then Dad called from inside the house, and my stasis was broken. I ducked my head and scurried inside, and the Alpha let me go, so it must have been all right. Strange how old behavior comes out again once you’re back in the same circumstances. I hadn’t been this…omega-like in years, since we left my old pack.

  Dad and Mac were in the kitchen.

  “There you are,” Dad said. “Your room is at the front of the house. Mac says the water pressure’s good here, and there’s plenty of hot water, if you want to go take a shower.” He turned to Mac. “Thank you for your help.”

  Mac waved it away. “I’ll come by tomorrow and take you around. Ten okay?”

  Dad looked at me. “Jason?”

  I shrugged. All I wanted to do was get clean and go to bed. “Sure.” A yawn caught me in the middle of the word and I would have fallen over if Mac hadn’t caught me.

  “I’ll leave you two to settle in.” He set me on my feet, making sure I was steady before he let go completely. “Have a good night’s sleep.” He nodded to Dad and left, the click of the door closing behind him like a signal for us to drop our roles.

  I sagged into one of the chairs at the round kitchen table.

  Dad came over to sit beside me. He took my hand and squeezed until I looked up at him. “We’ve got two months to come up with a plan. You’re not bound to this. We can disappear, just like we did in Montana.”

  “Can we talk about this tomorrow?” I wasn’t sure what I thought. Fatigue made everything seem hopeless and I felt as locked into this mating as if it had already happened. And I couldn’t shake the feel of Mac’s hand on my arm. “I really want to go to bed.”

  He smiled and kissed the top of my head. “Yeah, me too. You go grab a shower, and I’ll get a start on unpacking.”

  “Thanks.” I hugged him, and headed for the stairs, holding onto my blanket like a lifeline.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mac pulled his truck up in front of his former house and parked. Ten o’clock on the dot. He wondered if Jason and his father had even woken up yet.

  No point in sitting out here procrastinating. He got out of the truck and walked up to the house. It felt strange to be knocking on his own front door, but this was the omega’s home now, and Mac the guest.

  He heard noises inside, shuffling and voices, and then the door opened. It was Jason’s father. William was his name, according to Abel’s search. Mac arranged his features into something he hoped looked like a friendly tour guide, and said, “Good morning. Ready to get the lay of the land?”

  William turned his head and shouted back into the house. “Jason, he’s here.” He turned back to Mac. “Come in.”

  “Thanks.” Mac followed William into the kitchen. “Here, I have the money Abel took out of your wallets. And we’ll set up an account with Central to keep track of your credits here.” He held the small stack of bills out.

  William took the cash. “Thank you. You want a coffee? He might be a few minutes.” William chuckled lightly. “In some ways, you’d never guess he was omega. And then there’s ways where he’s entirely typical.”

  “How?” Mac accepted the cup and took a sip.

  “Cleaning. Himself, and the house.” William sat down at the table and waved Mac into a chair opposite. “By the time I got up this morning, he’d already wiped down all the floors, cleaned the bathroom, and made a shopping list. Now he’s having another shower.”

  Mac winced internally, wondering how much of that the solar water heater was handling, and decided that the pack could afford the extra power. Especially if Abel’s new solar collectors worked in reality the way the testing said they should. “I can come back later if you want.”

  “No, now that he’s had some sleep, it would be like trying to contain a firecracker. He wants to look around and get a feel for the place. And start a garden.” He drank from his own cup, then put it down and sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we made the right choice.”

  “Running, you mean?”

  William nodded. “I didn’t want to see him change. He was afraid of it, afraid of the interest the alphas showed in him. When he started his spring heat…” His voice trailed off, but Mac nodded anyway.

  The thud of feet on the stairs interrupted them. Mac looked up to see Jason walking down the hallway toward him, wet hair dripping onto a loose black tank, worn jeans stained at the knees, and bare feet making a soft hrush hrush
noise as he padded over the tile. “I’m ready.” He opened the closet under the stairs and pulled out his jacket. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  He looked much better today, brighter and not so hunted. Still tense, but the change in circumstances, and maybe thoughts of a future here, had made a huge difference in him. He met Mac’s gaze without yesterday’s resentment and suspicion, although he couldn’t hold it long. But then again, Mac could have been Alpha if he’d wanted it. He hadn’t, and Abel had been better suited anyway.

  Mac raised his cup of coffee in a salute. “I’ve been well looked after.”

  Jason gave him a small smile and turned to his father. “Did you add anything to the list?”

  “A couple of things. You should decide what you absolutely have to have.”

  “I wrote it all down in order.” Jason cast another submissive-omega glance at Mac. “Do you think the owner of this house would mind if I set up some planters?” He looked down again. “I miss my plants.”

  “You’ll have to bring them in at night if you do—we still get the odd frost. But I don’t see any problem. Housing is all pack owned, anyway.”

  “It is?”

  Mac nodded. “It makes more sense to keep everything under one umbrella. With how crowded we are, we can’t afford to waste space, so all housing agreements include a clause about moving to more appropriate shelter when they don’t need the space anymore.” He didn’t add that it kept sub-packs from forming, and ensured that pack members learned to get along with everyone they met. But he did add, since he’d spent last night there, “The teenagers can’t wait to get into bachelor housing though, even though they have to share a bathroom and kitchen with about twenty other people. It can be hard to get a night’s sleep, with all the partying that goes on.” Not last night, though. The presence of the Alpha’s unofficial second-in-command had put a real damper on the goings-on. He might have to take Abel up on his last-minute offer of the spare room after all; some of his fondest memories were getting into trouble with Abel and watching the future Alpha talk them out of it. Be a shame to rob the current crop of near-adults of the same experience.

  “I’m not much of a partier.” Jason picked up a piece of paper—Mac assumed it was his list—and looked it over. He gave off an uncomfortable vibe, but it took Mac a few seconds to realize that neither of the new wolves were going to make decisions about their timetable with an unfamiliar alpha in the room. He suppressed a sigh, and reminded himself to spend more time with Bram and familiarize himself again with an omega’s situation. “If you two are ready to go, we can head out. Otherwise, I’ll sit here and finish this excellent coffee.”

  Jason looked up, and William said, “We can wait on your coffee.”

  Fuuuuuuck. “No, if you don’t have anything you need to do, let’s go.” He felt like a jerk. “I want to show you the basics, then we can run by the Job Center and see what we can set you up with. You,” he added, looking at Jason. “Are already good for a job, but your father should have one.”

  “Do you need electricians?” William asked.

  Mac nearly dropped his coffee. “You’re one?”

  William nodded. “I can do some rough carpentry work, but nothing fancy. Framing and such. Getting kind of old for it now, though.”

  “No, electrician is fine. Electrician is fantastic. You have your papers for it?”

  “No, but we could send for them. I went to a human school for it—they set up a small class for us in the evening.”

  “Abel’s going to love me for this,” Mac muttered, his mind already plotting on how he could use this leverage. “Come on, we’ll stop there first.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was two weeks to the day after our arrival, and I was feeling fine. More than fine. I was home. Dad had been to the hospital and they’d told him he was okay to work part time, and that they’d look at him again in a month. Mac had found him a job wiring for some project of the Alpha’s, with flexible hours in case his headaches became a bother. As for me, my little portable herb garden was doing fantastic, and I’d broken ground on the new section of community garden yesterday, and the soil was rich and dark and perfect.

  The only fly in the ointment was that, as soon as they realized I hadn’t been to school in years, I was immediately saddled with a tutor, and now I spent three hours a day, five days a week, working my way through the local high school curriculum. But today was Saturday, which meant no tutor, and I could go lose myself in that lovely patch of land.

  They called it a community garden, but it wasn’t one the way the humans used them. For humans, it meant that you rented a patch of land and grew your own crops. Here, a community garden was meant to feed the community, and pack members with either an interest, or no preference, worked the land to lighten our debt to the human watchdogs. Now I understood why it had been so easy for the Alpha to offer me extra help with my garden, and why he’d agreed so readily to allow me to do it.

  Mac was coming with the truck today and a load of heavy poles that I was going to use to support tall greenhouse tomatoes at one end of the patch. I planned to sow clover underneath them, for the nitrogen the tomatoes needed, and then tall pea plants beside them, because the peas would also provide nitrogen for the tomatoes and they weren’t hard on the land.

  I was so excited, singing along to the pack radio, dancing around the kitchen while I cooked breakfast, using my spatula as a microphone, that I didn’t hear Mac’s knock at the door, or hear him come in.

  I sure as hell noticed him when I pulled off a fancy spin and nearly ran right into him, though.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I brushed at the spot of grease my spatula had left on his shirt, then blushed and ran for the sink and some dish soap. “I’ll get that right out.” It was kind of awkward, how I responded to Mac when he came around. Once I’d gotten my feet under me here, I’d realized how high a price I’d actually set on myself, and it made me determined to be the best omega mate the Alpha could ask for. Which meant that the lusting after the Alpha’s second-in-command had to stop.

  Tomorrow.

  “It’s fine,” Mac said, in that deep, easy voice of his. It slithered down my spine and made my knees weak. If I’d been in heat, I would have been all over him. “It’s just an old shirt. It’s meant to get dirty.”

  “No need to start now,” I said, with what I thought was a credible attempt at nonchalance. I approached him with the soapy cloth, hardly bothering to watch for his displeasure any more—I knew I wouldn’t see any. He was either the most easy-going alpha I’d ever met, or he was making a concerted effort not to set off my omega tendencies. He stood still while I scrubbed at the spot, then rinsed and scrubbed again. “I think that’s the best I’m going to manage. If you want to leave it, I’ll make sure it comes out and bring it back to you.”

  “Maybe at the end of the day. I don’t want to burn.”

  “True.” I wondered if he did burn. He didn’t have many freckles, despite the fox-red hair, and his skin had that creamy-golden undertone that usually meant someone tanned easily. But if he wanted to keep the shirt, I’d be a good little omega and let him.

  “So what are you making for breakfast?” Mac wandered over to look into the frying pan. “Are those apples? And eggs?”

  “Yes,” I said, slipping past him to see if they were done. “Apple omelets. I felt like something sweet and decadent today.”

  “Never heard of that,” he said, helping himself to coffee like he did every morning when he dropped by to take Dad and me wherever we needed to go. I was kind of wondering if he actually worked, except sometimes the Alpha would show up instead, though usually it was Mac. I preferred it when Mac showed up, to be honest. It felt like I could be myself with him, but when the Alpha came, I had to show him what a good omega I could be. Our meetings were still kind of strained and awkward; I couldn’t quite figure out what he wanted from me, and it left me flustered and flailing about in an attempt to define his expectations.

&n
bsp; But Mac, Mac was cool. “You want to try some?” I asked him.

  “Sure,” he said. Not that I’d doubted he would. He tried everything I made.

  I slid the omelet in the pan onto a plate and set it in front of him with a fork and a knife and plain white paper napkin. Before he could say anything, I raced back to the stove and started another one, pretending I wasn’t paying attention to him while every cell in my body waited to hear what he thought of it.

  First I heard the sound of fork against plate, then chewing, then “Hmphf.” What the hell did ‘hmphf’ mean? I gritted my teeth and took extra care sprinkling the brown sugar over the apples in the frying pan, then carefully poured the beaten eggs over them.

  More fork scraping. That was good, right? I put the cover on the pan to let the top of the omelet cook and fiddled with the spatula.

  Dad came down the stairs and I smiled at him. “Breakfast’s almost ready.”

  “I can get my own breakfast. I know you want to get out to your garden.”

  “I’m making apple omelets. It only takes a minute.”

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  Mac’s voice rumbled out. “You need to eat. If we follow your plan, we’ve got a morning of hard work ahead of us. You need to look after yourself.” Then he chuckled and I had to really work at it not to turn and present to him. Shit! My eyes flew to the calendar. I had a couple of days. Maybe. Being around Mac made it kind of hard to tell.