Daniel’s continued presence and obvious arousal confused him. While he’d been undergoing his exam by the healer, he’d been worried that Daniel had already left without saying good-bye. Seeing him come into the kitchen had been a relief, except now it seemed Daniel was going to hang around at least for the rest of the night. Why? The beta had made it clear that he wasn’t going to keep him.
He stood. “Do you think my new alpha will let me work on this?”
“I don’t see why not.” Daniel smiled, a look that gave Ben a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. “From what I can tell, he wants his pack members to be both happy and productive.” Reaching out, he brushed a few strands of Ben’s hair behind his ear. “Do you feel okay? Are you tired or cold?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” His cheeks heated up from the touch and the scrutiny, and he cast his gaze over the garden once more. It was easier than looking at Daniel. The sound of footsteps made his breath hitch, knowing whom they belonged to.
“Hello.” Carr came up to stand on Ben’s other side. Sandwiched loosely between the two big, dominant shifters was intimidating and oddly thrilling. “Sorry about that. Destin is ever worried about his brother.”
“As he should be,” Daniel said in a curt voice that surprised Ben. The beta had been so gentle during their private time together. “If you need to go do your duty, we’ll be fine on our own.”
“I’ve been relieved, as it happens. And, I’ve been given permission to spend a few days here in the compound. What do you think of the garden?” he asked, turning those ice-blue eyes on Ben.
His cheeks grew even hotter, if that was possible. “It’s, ah, amazing.”
“I’m sure if you’re interested, the alpha mate will assign you to work it. From what I’ve seen, they’re a bit short-handed right now. One of their omegas is so close to whelping, his mate has insisted he do easy tasks, and another is on bedrest because he’s carrying twins.”
Ben knew that. The omegas in this pack were a talkative and welcoming group. Within an hour, he’d learned all about Will and Seth. The fact that their respective mates and the pack were taking such care with them spoke well for his own future.
He wasn’t stupid about his nature, and even if he had been, the healer had been blunt with him. He’d appreciated how she treated him as an autonomous shifter, giving him information about his body instead of only reporting to the alpha. Even without her telling him, he knew that his proximity to an alpha who was not his sire meant he would soon go into his first heat. Time was not on his side given how virile this particular alpha appeared to be. His lack of nutrition and stress from Kurt’s treatment might buy him some time. Or, so the healer believed. Sooner or later, though, he would become a mindless creature, desperate to be mounted and bred.
The terrifying thought made him shudder.
“Are you cold?” Carr asked.
“Here, take my jacket,” Daniel chimed in. He started to pull it off.
“I’m afraid I can only offer you the warmth of my skin.” Carr took a step closer, the heat of his massive body was like an oven.
Ben took a half step back, from both men. “No, that’s okay. I’m not cold, really.”
Daniel frowned. “Are you sure?” When Ben nodded, the beta shrugged his jacket back on. “We should probably go inside anyway. It’s getting dark.”
“No, please. Can we see more of the compound?” He looked to Daniel for permission because nothing had changed yet about who had control over him. Not officially or anything.
Daniel looked dubious. “Well…”
“Of course,” Carr overrode him. “Would you like to see the weaving hut?”
“Yes, please.” He glanced at Daniel. “Please?”
Daniel gave him a tight smile. “Sure.”
“This way.” Carr swept a hand to his left before leading the way. His nakedness from the waist up exposed how the muscles on his broad shoulders and thick arms rippled as he walked. His incredibly long, thick braid swung across the small of his back, calling attention to his tight ass.
Without giving it any thought, Ben reached out and brushed his fingertips on the man’s forearm. It was warm and softer than he expected. “Sir?”
“Carr,” the gamma gently corrected.
“Carr. May I ask you something?”
“Certainly. Anything you want. Anything at all.” He emphasized what he said by shooting him a heavy-lidded and heated look.
Daniel made what sounded like a disgusted noise. Ignoring the beta’s reaction, Ben pressed forward. “How can you stand being out in this weather with your human skin exposed? Aren’t you cold?”
“Not at all. I was raised far up north in the Arctic. This temperature is balmy by my standards.”
“Oh. That’s why your fur is so white? Because it helps you blend in with the snow?”
Carr smiled at him. “That’s right. What a clever boy you are.”
Ben basked in the praise the way he always did. He couldn’t help it. The approval of a dominant shifter was something he’d learned to cultivate. If they were pleased with you, they wouldn’t punish you. Mostly. He still flinched when Carr reached over to tuck hair behind Ben’s ear the way Daniel had done minutes ago. He’d quickly learned that Daniel wasn’t going to hit him. Carr was an unknown quantity.
The gamma’s face turned serious. “Little one, I won’t ever hurt you. You have my word on that.” He slid his fingers from Ben’s ear to his chin and stroked it with his thumb.
Ben looked down, ashamed at his reaction. “I’m sorry.”
Daniel pushed Carr’s hand away and tugged Ben to his side. “He’s been through a rough year, as you well know. Sudden movements aren’t good for him, no matter how well-intended.”
“You’re right.” It must have been hard for the gamma to accede to Daniel’s admonishment and protectiveness. That he did it anyway, made Ben feel light-hearted.
He liked the gamma. And, he liked Daniel. In the span of a couple of days, he’d gone from fearing just about every male to liking two dominant ones. It made no sense to him. Then again, it didn’t have to. One of the benefits of being an omega was that he didn’t have to make decisions. Not even those that affected his life. It was the thing he hated the most about being an omega, too—the sense of helplessness. Right now, however, he was glad of it because his feelings confused him.
“It’s fine, really. May we please see the weaving shed?” He gave both men a tentative smile to ease the tension between them.
“Absolutely,” Carr said, making that quick bow of his head he’d given Joey in the kitchen.
“Whatever you want,” Daniel added.
That was going to be a problem, then. Ben didn’t know what he wanted.
****
“Please, no more.” Ben begged with his eyes half closed and his stomach uncomfortably full.
“Are you sure?” Daniel pressed. “You’ve only had a sliver of the pumpkin pie.” He held another piece from his plate in front of Ben’s face.
Carr leaned in on the other side. “Maybe another piece of chicken? You need the protein more than sweets.”
Hunkering down in his chair, Ben tried to distance himself from both men. They’d stuck to his side the entire afternoon and had sat him between them at the long dinner table. Everyone other than those on guard duty ate together in the great room of the longhouse. The boisterous, noisy crowd reminded him of when he’d been at home, wedged between his siblings. Except this was a happier group of people, and that told him more about his new pack than anything else. That positive note notwithstanding, he was beginning to feel overwhelmed with his new surroundings and the attentive pair of dominant shifters. He didn’t know where he should place his attention at any given time, not wanting to offend either of them.
“Hey, Ben.” The alpha mate, Kyle, touched his shoulder from behind. “Lorcan wants to speak with you. Alone,” he added in a surprisingly stern tone when both Daniel and Carr started to rise from their seats.
>
Carr was the first to recover from the blunt order. “As you say, Alpha Mate.”
“As Lorcan says,” the boy corrected. He smiled at Ben, though. “It’s okay, I’ll be with you. Come on.”
Daniel helped him push back his chair, and Carr offered his hand, as if Ben couldn’t stand on his own. This coveting was getting silly, except he did like it on some level. He felt cosseted and wanted, each of which was a new emotion for him.
Taking his hand, Kyle led him down the hall. The alpha was already walking ahead of them. The man opened the door to a room Ben hadn’t been in before and ushered them through. Ben could tell right away that it was a war room, with a long table and chairs dotted around it. The alpha passed them to sit at the head of it, while Kyle urged Ben to take a seat to the man’s left. Then, the omega went to sit on his mate’s lap. The way the alpha looked at the boy made something inside Ben ache. It was so tender and full of love. Would a man ever look at him that way?
Kyle sprawled in obvious comfort against the large body and smiled encouragingly at Ben. “Relax. You’re not in trouble.”
“Certainly not,” the alpha agreed. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to you privately earlier and wanted to do so before we settled you into the pack.”
Finding it easier to focus on Kyle, Ben nodded. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your taking me in.”
“That’s a selfish decision on my part, Ben. A breeding shifter is always healthy for a pack trying to grow. I want to make sure that’s what you want. Daniel has told us your story, and assuming it’s true, I can imagine you wouldn’t want to go back to your old pack. I need to ask you, though, because it’s your decision.”
Ben blinked at the assertion. “It is?”
Both the alpha and his mate nodded. “Definitely,” the alpha assured him. “Most of us in this pack have known hardship and cruelty in our former packs. It’s why we turned feral and how we ended up banding together.”
“You brought everyone together, Lorcan,” the alpha mate said. He snuggled into the man’s embrace.
The alpha stroked the side of his mate’s cheek. “I’m the glue, yes. Everyone is still here more or less by choice. We’re not going to force you to stay, Ben. If you want to go back to your family, we’ll make that happen.”
Ben licked his lips, and for a second, he did consider what it would be like to go home. If nothing else, he could perhaps protect his brother from a fate similar to his own. But, who was he kidding? He had no power over his sire, and couldn’t protect even himself.
“I want to stay, please.” His voice failed him so that the request came out more in a whisper.
Seconds ticked by without anyone speaking. Ben stared down at his lap, uneasy and uncertain about what more he should say. The silence unnerved him until a rustling sound forced him to look up. The alpha had stood and placed his mate on his own feet. A brief kiss across the lips, and the man left. Kyle flopped down on the recently-vacated chair.
“Lorcan wanted to hear you say the words yourself. He also figures you’re uncomfortable around him and might speak more freely with me on our own.”
Ben let out a harsh breath and smiled. “Yeah, that’s true. Thanks. I don’t mean to be so skittish. I just don’t know any other way around dominant shifters in wolf or human form. They scare me,” he confessed.
“They used to scare me, too, because that’s how my sire raised me. One wrong look, even if you didn’t mean it, meant a back hand, at least.”
Ben felt himself relax even more. “I know, right? Like nothing you do is ever good enough.” He raised his hand to ghost across the fading bruise on his cheek. “It’s almost hard to believe I’ve gone two whole days without getting wacked with a hand or whipped with a belt.” He winced at his own words.
“Hey.” Kyle leaned forward, putting his elbow on his thighs. “No one is ever going to do that here. Lorcan won’t allow it, not even when a beta or gamma is disciplining his mate.”
“That’s good to know.” He grimaced. “If I ever have a mate, which I kind of don’t want. I saw how tough it was for my dam being under my sire’s rule. Bad enough to be popping out pups non-stop. Having no say in the rest of her life made her miserable. I could tell by looking at her every day.”
“It’s not like that here, either. Take me, for example, I was handed over by my sire, Haldon, as a peace-offering, although I was really supposed to be a spy. I wasn’t given any choice, and sure, Lorcan mated me that very night without even asking what I wanted. Then again, I was mindless from my first heat, so coherency was in short supply. Still, it turned out great. We love each other and have agreed that I’m going to nurse our daughter for two years to put off my next heat and breeding.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure.”
That bit of news cheered him considerably. If he could at least limit the number of pups he whelped, he thought he could handle being a father. Part of him had always wanted to become one, while the other part was scared to death of the idea.
He nodded at Kyle. “That’s good to know.”
“I guess no one’s talked to you much about these things.”
He shook his head. “No, not really. I mean, I already understood that being around an alpha who was not my sire would trigger my first heat. Andrea didn’t really need to tell me that. I just thought it was something that would happen at least once a year. If I were going to have that many pups, I’d need a mate for sure.”
Leaning forward, he asked, “Will Lorcan make me mate?”
Kyle’s eyes softened with sympathy. “No. He won’t force that on you, or anyone.”
Relief coursed through him, and he relaxed back into the chair. “Awesome.”
“Except you do know someone has to breed you, and that’s not going to be Lorcan. He mounts only me.” A territorial look crossed the omega’s face, which momentarily made him look scary. As nice as he was, Kyle clearly coveted his mate and would fight to keep him.
Ben held up his hands. “Okay, I get that. And, it’s good because your man scares the crap out of me.”
Kyle gave him a sly grin. “I know. He scares the crap out of everyone. My mate is fierce. Still,” he added. “You are going to have to make a decision.”
“A decision?”
“About who is going to breed you. The way I see it, you have two obvious choices. So, who is it going to be, Daniel or Carr?”
Chapter Five
Daniel looked around the communal men’s bedroom and tried not to cringe. As neat and tidy and fresh-smelling as the space was, it wasn’t his bedroom. And that stung. He’d worked so hard to achieve a measure of success in the human world and build his version of a longhouse in the form of his small apartment. Being in this one felt like a giant step back in his life.
Nothing is stopping you from leaving, the nagging voice in his head reminded him.
It was wrong, though. There was something stopping him—Ben. Or rather his concern over the omega’s welfare. Except, no, that was a rationalization because the Rogue Pack was as safe a place as any. No pack was without enemies, including encroaching other packs, intrusive humans, and even the occasional bear. The world was still one big, unsafe place for shifters. This situation wasn’t that much worse.
The thing that really held him back was his desire for the boy. While he’d kept his need and his wolf in check at the apartment, now both reared up, demanding and unmanageable. Every time he even thought about getting back in his SUV and driving off, his wolf snarled and his dick sent him a stern warning in the form of an incessant hard-on. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t know for sure that there was someone waiting for him to get out of the running to breed Ben.
That someone entered the room, holding bedding and a towel in his arms and looking no happier about the situation than he was. There were only two vacant pallets, which was fine given that Ben had been secured with Lorcan in his rooms with his mate and daughter. Daniel stood next to one, and Carr sauntered
over to the other right next to his. The gamma dropped his armload and looked around with his lips in a tight slash.
Daniel dropped his back pack. “Not up to your standards, Gamma?” He kept his voice pitched low. The sigmas who shared the space with them were already settled down for the night. They’d undoubtedly been up since before dawn, as sigmas tended to be.
Carr shook his head, his ridiculously long braid swinging past his hips. “On the contrary,” he replied in an equally low tone. “It’s been a few years since I’ve slept inside anything other than a cave like we do on the Rogue pack lands, and never in a wooden structure.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “What, did you live in ones made of snow back in the Arctic?”
Carr nodded. “That and caves.” He stripped off the pair of jeans he’d been wearing. His wince as he moved the fabric down past his cock made it obvious that he was also aroused. The rampant cock sprung free, bobbing like a club in front of him.
Daniel looked away, embarrassed to be gawking and annoyed at the clear evidence he had a rival for Ben. Not that there had been any doubt about that. He and the white shifter had spent the late afternoon sniffing around Ben like the horny males that they were, vying for the omega’s attention.
Pathetic, but he wasn’t going to be the one to back down. He’d felt different about leaving Ben when the matter of his breeding had been theoretical. Having clear evidence of who would get the privilege of mounting the boy if Daniel left, was something he couldn’t ignore. Even if his human side had more discipline, his wolf didn’t.
Pointedly ignoring Carr, he stripped off his own clothing. He wore boxer-briefs under his jeans, like a civilized man. Not that it hid anything. His dick strained against the flap of his underwear, allowing the weeping head to peek out. He quickly made up his pallet and dove under his blanket. Then he stared up at the cross-beam ceiling, eyes wide and not sleeping at all.
Heavy breathing caught his attention. Turning his head, his lungs froze for a second before air exploded out of his mouth. Carr lay on top of his sheet, his large body naked to the cool room. He’d palmed his dick and was stroking it with quick, hard jerks. His eyes were halfway closed and his lips parted. Damn, but the guy made an enticing sight—if Daniel were into jacked-up gammas who didn’t know when to back off a more dominant shifter’s claim. Which he wasn’t.
Omega in the Middle (The Rogue Pack Book 5) Page 7
