“I…” Hmmm, that was a good question. What would Jason do? “You think he’d go all omega on me then?”
“I’m absolutely certain. And given his state of mind when he arrived, I’m convinced that telling him I don’t plan to mate him will give him the message he isn’t safe here. And fuck, I’d like to keep him in the pack. If only to keep him out of Montana Border’s claws. The shit they said—” Abel shook his head. “I was hoping he’d start showing an interest in someone else, and we could stage…I don’t know, something, so that he felt he could mate elsewhere. But it’ll have to be soon.”
“Why?”
Abel grimaced, and chugged the rest of his beer. “They’re sending two chaperons to make sure he goes home as virgin as he arrived.”
Shit. “When do they arrive?”
“Day before full moon. We’ll have to give them guest quarters in the building here.”
“I’ll talk to Housing about it before I leave tomorrow.”
“No, I’ve got it covered. But I’m sure as hell not looking forward to breaking it to your omega.”
“You want me to do it?”
Abel shook his head and stood up. “No, I better. You guys have a good relationship, I don’t want to make a mess of it. He can’t resent me any more than he already does. Want another beer?” He headed for the kitchen.
“No, I’m good.” He still had half of his left. Mac raised his voice so Abel could hear him. “It’s not resentment, what he feels for you. Honestly, I don’t know what it is. But he’s trying to be what he was taught makes a good omega, and he’s keeping your position here in mind. He means to be a good mate, and to hold up his share of your bargain, which as far as I can tell means he’s going to mold himself into the mate he thinks you want. I don’t think he’s even looking at you yet as a person, but then again, you haven’t given him a chance. But he’s sure as hell not looking at anyone else.”
Abel came back, bringing another beer for Mac. “Drink it anyway. Your Alpha commands—it’s not that late.” A pause, while he got comfortable again. “I know he’s trying. He’ll make someone a fantastic mate. It just won’t be me. Not if I can help it.” He held up his bottle in a casual salute. “Maybe it’ll be you. About time you filled up the rooms in that house, keep the complaints off my desk. And I think you’d be good for him. Better than me, anyway.”
And with those words, he opened up a whole realm of possibilities for Mac. “You’re the one who ordered me to take it.” Just, how to go about courting a prickly omega who thought he was mating someone else?
“Maybe I had a vision of your future. Pappy Mac, with all his pups gamboling around his feet.”
“Gamboling? You’ve been chewing on dictionaries again, haven’t you?” Jason wasn’t likely to believe Mac if he told the omega he was free to mate where he wanted. But now he had to get Abel to let his omega know he was free to choose elsewhere. Mac emptied his half-finished beer, and picked up the second. “I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think long. This matchmaker outfit itches.”
Mac snorted and tossed the cap at his Alpha.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Well, shit. Perfect timing. Here’s me, right smack in the middle of my first heat of the season, and I’ve got a summons to meet with the Alpha.
Sorry, man, no can do. I’m trapped in the house here with a perpetual hard-on, daydreaming about your best friend shoving me face first into the mattress.
Only the teensiest bit awkward.
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t,” I told his secretary. “I’m stuck in the house.”
“Do you need maintenance? I can have them over there in an hour.”
My cheeks started to burn and I banged my head on the table a couple of times, careful not to make any noise, because I didn’t need to be explaining that too. “No, there’s nothing wrong with the house. It’s, um, it’s spring, you know?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Um, yeah. See, with me, spring and fall are kind of the same. I have the same problems at both times of the year.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand—do you have allergies? We have antihistamines available at the pharmacy. Do you need an advance on your next paycheck?”
Shit. I was going to have to spell it out. “No, that’s okay. I’m in heat. I have them twice a year. This is the spring one.”
“Oh.” The word reeked of titillated shock and suppressed giggles. Heats—especially omega heats, which were way harder to miss than regular female shifter heats—were still in the region of pre-teen whispering and sleepover rumors; they weren’t to be talked about in polite company.
But there, it was out. And now she could just deal with it.
“If he wants to come here, we can talk out the window.”
“I’ll check with him and let you know.” She hung up, and now I was free to get back to my guilt-inducing fantasies about Mac.
I think it had been coming for a while, but Saturday in the garden had put the cap on it. Before Mac, I always found big guys intimidating—well, they liked to intimidate me, and I hated it, so I always avoided them. Now though… Mac made me feel safe.
And I was mating his best friend. Who was coming over here, maybe, today, to talk about…what? Probably when the mating should happen. Or maybe he’d decided to send me back to Montana Border after all. Sure as hell, he hadn’t shown any interest in me. I hadn’t worried too much about it before—it was a marriage of convenience and we’d get to know each other a little more after the mating. All I was concerned about right now was picking up signals to tell me what I could do to be a good mate to him. But the closer the possibility came, the more depressed it made me.
Damn you, Mac. Why couldn’t you have been an asshole?
My phone rang again. “He’s cleared his morning, so he’ll come to you,” the Alpha’s secretary said.
“Great. Thank you.” Not great. I sighed, and went looking for my cigarettes.
A few minutes later, I heard a gentle tapping on the living room window. I lit up a cigarette, and pointed at the window around back. At least there, he could sit in a chair and I could flick my cigarette ash in the kitchen sink.
The window was small and kind of broken. It would only open about an inch, but that was a good thing. It would keep his scent mostly outside, and mine mostly in. Pheromones were a bitch when you weren’t trying to get laid. It might not hurt if he got a small whiff, anyway, but only a small one. That way, I’d be proved right about my dual seasons, and he might believe me about other things.
The Alpha came around the corner, picked up a rickety lawn chair and put it down by the window. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I don’t, sir. Abel. This helps with the scent.”
“Not enough,” he said, but his grin said he had it under control.
I moved farther from the window. “That better?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Come back here. I hate having conversations with the end of someone’s nose.”
It probably didn’t matter. We were supposed to be mated; if it just happened, then at least it would be over with and we could get on with our lives. Except that I was still reluctant to leave my limbo and give up on my daydreams. I shuffled my ass back over to the window. “I don’t want to tease.” I paused. “Maybe we should just do this and get it over with.”
He shot me a look I couldn’t decipher. “Are you inviting me in to sleep with you?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what you’re here to talk about?”
“No.” He looked off into the distance for a moment as if collecting his thoughts, and his gaze when it returned to me was both sharp and warm. “I have a couple of things to talk to you about. If you still want to talk about that after, we can, but hear me out first?”
Why was he asking? He was the Alpha—all he had to do was command. This place was really fucking with my head. “Of course, whatever you want.”
An odd look crossed his face. “First of all, I’ve
had word from your pack. They want to send a couple of chaperons to make sure no one takes advantage of you while you’re here.”
My heart froze, then gave a great bounding thump in my chest, so hard it hurt, and I curled around it for a moment, gasping for air.
The Alpha stood and reached for me, the screen in the window the only thing keeping him from having me for good, because as soon as we touched, if he didn’t start anything, I would. “Jason, are you okay? We won’t let them take you, you’re safe here.”
I could barely hear him over the blood rushing through my ears. I closed my eyes and started my meditation, something I hadn’t done since my second day here. The Alpha’s voice faded away under the rush of waves and the feeling of sunshine on my face, sand underneath my feet. I’d never been to a beach in my life, probably never would be, but I’d cobbled together enough other experiences to at least be able to fake it in my head. It was my favorite when things were bad, and I didn’t want to come back. But eventually, my heart slowed its frantic attempt to escape without me, and I could once more hear the Alpha calling my name.
Pounding on the window too. I opened my eyes and put a hand out to stop him before he broke something, either himself or the house. “I’m okay, I just…needed a minute.”
He let out a long breath and sat down, his head between his knees. I stared in bemusement. What did he have to be upset about? Was he more invested in mating me than I’d thought, and it really was the responsibilities of his job that was keeping us apart? “Alpha?” I asked tentatively.
The Alpha sat up and wiped a hand down his face. “I’m fine. Mac would have killed me if I’d scared you to death.” He looked down at his knees and then back up at me. “I’m sorry, I put that badly. You won’t go back to them. I have a plan, and that’s what I needed to talk to you about.”
I nodded and waited. My cigarette had fallen in the sink and I let it sit there. If he wanted to mate, best to get the cycle started.
He smiled at me and leaned forward, so his face was right next to the open window. I saw it, in his widened eyes and the way his nostrils flared, that instant when he caught a good nose full of my scent. I also saw the effort it took him to quell that urge. It was impressive; most alphas didn’t bother, and I’d had a few close calls in my old pack—including the final one with my Alpha—before we ran away. He shook it off, though, and looked at me through the window with a reasonable approximation of someone who didn’t have ninety percent of his brain working at the quickest method to get his cock inside me. “I’ve noticed you and Mac get along well.”
My face went white; I know it did, I felt the chill as the blood left my cheeks. What had he noticed?
His eyes narrowed, and he hurried on. “I don’t think we’re a good match, but I suspect you and Mac might be well suited.”
The blood rushed back with such speed my head spun.
“You okay?” I heard through the roaring in my skull.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, though I could hardly form the words through the numbness of my lips.
“You don’t look good.”
That came through a little louder, and, in the spinning confusion of my thoughts, I blurted out, “Would you just tell me and stop trying to sneak it up on me? Fuck!” Then my head cleared a little more and I realized what I’d done. I stared at him, open-mouthed and too scared to speak.
He laughed at me. Full out, knee-slapping, tears coming from his eyes laughter. When he could finally get two coherent words out together, he said, “Oh, you and Mac are perfect for each other. He’s no respecter of rank either. I’ll have my ego punctured on a daily basis with you two around.” The chuckles faded, but not his good humor. “Please tell me that what I suspect is true. Do you like Mac?”
What was I supposed to say? “He’s very kind.”
“Fuck.” He laughed at my shocked face. “Yes, Alphas swear too. Probably more often than you do, but we have to do it behind closed doors. Your pack mates arrive tomorrow. The night after is full moon. Mac’s going to work security that night, let the young ones run and sniff and have some fun. I’ll invite your pack mates to run with me, you slip out, and seduce Mac. It’s time he was mated anyway. I’m sick of running interference for him—it only sets me up as a target, and I’ve no time for a mate right now.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent, his body’s desires strictly ignored. “I want to give him to you. Will you have him?”
“I don’t understand. Omegas are given…”
“Then will you give yourself to him? I can look elsewhere, if you like, but I think you like Mac, and I know he likes you, though he’s killing himself trying not to admit it. But your pack has made it obvious that they want you back, and the only thing keeping you here is my money and the contract I made them sign. If you can’t face a mating with anyone from Mercy Hills, I can look elsewhere, but it might take some time. And we don’t have much left.”
Did I want to tie myself to Mac for the rest of my life? It was hard to think, with the heat so hard on me. I was right in the middle, with another two or three days left of all thoughts turning to Mac’s substantial looking package, or the way his hands felt when he touched me. I didn’t know Mac well enough to say he wouldn’t become like my old alphas once he had me in his power. There hadn’t been time to find other omegas to talk to in the neighborhood to see what they thought of him. And it didn’t matter anyway. I’d been ready to tie myself to the Alpha for life, knowing even less about him.
So why was this so difficult?
Because I wanted it to be more with Mac, and I didn’t know how to tell if it would.
I looked the Alpha straight in the eyes, for the first time since that night I’d come over the wall and changed my life so completely. “I need to think about it.”
He nodded, surprising me. “I’ll see if I can come up with a Plan B in the meantime. Take care of yourself, Jason. And believe me when I say you aren’t going to be forced to do something you don’t want to do.”
I nodded, and watched in stunned amazement as he gathered himself up and left, off to whatever duties awaited the Alpha.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Full moon night. I peered out the window at my keeper, or jailer. He wasn’t there as a bodyguard, that’s for sure. Not that I had many visitors, but I’d been looking forward to starting lessons again with my tutor, and they wouldn’t even let her, a mated delta, in. Which pissed me off, to be honest, but if things went to plan tonight, it would be the last time my old pack ever told me what to do.
I’d kind of freaked the other day after the Alpha talked to me about this. Right after he left, it hit me that his suggestion would break the contract, and I raced up to Dad’s bedroom to find his copy. Only when I read through it again, I realized he’d left me a way out that night. The contract held, as long as I mated someone in the Mercy Hills Pack. And, if the Alpha had his way, that’s what I’d be doing tonight.
It felt strange that, after six years of avoiding any possibility of being mated, here I was, sitting on my bed, waiting anxiously for the sun to go down so the festivities could start, and I could slide into my other form and change my destiny. Or perhaps meet it—as an omega, a mating was always my destiny.
But the shape of that mating had changed a hundred-fold.
I watched the window intently, listening for the sound of my father coming home, for the beginning of the end of my old life. There was some nervousness too, but only because I was sure that Mac had been with loads of willing shifters—who wouldn’t want to be with him?—and I’d never so much as kissed someone, with the exception of my parents. The hormones would help, but I was at the end of my heat, and I couldn’t be sure there’d be much there. Oh, and there was that small concern that Mac wasn’t actually interested, an idea I couldn’t shake even with the Alpha’s repeated reassurances.
And that brought up another misgiving. Without even having to think about it, I knew that my jailers were here to make sure I came home. Orvin wanted me, wa
nted whatever power it was that I had to bolster his own. He thought it would make him rich and powerful. I didn’t have a fucking clue what he thought I could do, but I didn’t want anything to do with him. I needed to get pregnant. We could register an official mating afterward, if that was what Mac wanted, but if I was pregnant, then I obviously belonged to someone else and even Orvin couldn’t force me back.
It was the one trick I had left. I could only hope that my own biology wouldn’t desert me.
Voices sounded below my window, then the front door opened and closed.
“Jason?” my dad called.
“Up here.”
His footsteps thumped heavily on the stairs, and then he was in my door. “Are you sure you’ll be all right here alone? I don’t mind staying. We can wrestle in the living room like we used to do when you were a pup.”
“Dad, I’d wipe the floor with you now.”
“You’re turning down a chance at payback?” He grinned, but behind it was worry. He suspected something was up, he just didn’t know what. And I wasn’t sure which way he’d jump if I told him, so I chose to go with the scent I could follow. Tomorrow, he’d know everything, but by then it would be too late.
“I’m fine.” Okay, not entirely fine. The urge to run, to find Mac—funny how it had zeroed in on Mac now, this need to mate—I was fidgety with it. But Dad understood, at least the part about the urges. I seriously hoped he no inkling of Mac.
“They’re having a barbecue before we run. Imagine, a party before full moon.” His voice held an edge of wonder and more than a hint of frustration with our old pack. “I’ll bring you back some.”
I shook my head. “There probably won’t be any left by the time you get back. I might just finish off the ice cream and go to bed.”
“There’s half the container left.” Like he’d never seen me polish off a couple pints of ice cream at one time during my heats.
Mating the Omega (MM Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 1) Page 8
