by L. C. Davis
"No," Yuri agreed, biting his lip. "I think you're making a mistake."
Benjamin arched an eyebrow but he didn't respond with the agitation Yuri was expecting. "How's that?"
"I'm not like you," Yuri said, glancing around the quaint yet lavish surroundings. "I'm not what you would call 'mate material.'"
Benjamin gave him a patient smile and Yuri wondered just how long it would take for it to turn cold like all the others did. "If that's true, then I guess we have something in common, after all."
Chapter 4
BENJAMIN
"What did he say?" Benjamin demanded as soon as his father hung up the phone after what had turned into an hour-long call with the Ice Canyon Alpha.
Heinrich sighed, rubbing his eyes. "He apologized profusely for the actions of his betas and assured me they would be dealt with accordingly upon their return."
"Bullshit," Benjamin growled. "If he was doing his job in the first place, they never would have treated an omega like that."
"I made my disapproval known to him," Heinrich muttered. "Not at quite the same volume you did, perhaps. I see you didn't take me up on my suggestion to go for a run and cool off."
"I did. That's the only reason I'm here and not on my way to Ice Canyon," said Benjamin, folding his arms. "Has every pack in the Federation outside the Council gone feral? You should have seen the way Yuri looked at me when he realized I wasn't going to force myself on him. What the hell are they doing to omegas up there?"
"I don't know what he went through before Gerald took him in," Heinrich said thoughtfully. "But I'm sure nothing like that occurred under his watch. Gerald has always been a bit soft, but he's not inept."
"Well, something happened. When I saw the way that beta was manhandling him..." Benjamin trailed off, his fists clenching at his sides.
"I know," Heinrich said with a sigh. "But he's Gerald's beta and he's not part of the Council. There's little we can do in the way of sanctioning his behavior."
"If this is how the other packs treat their omegas, I'm not sure the ceasefire was a good thing."
Heinrich gave him a look. "Don't start getting romantic notions that war is any easier on omegas. They're the ones who pay the highest price when the bloodshed starts. Just be glad that Yuri is in our care now."
"They just sent him off without even telling him why," Benjamin said, his lip twitching in a snarl.
"Give him some time. He'll come around to the idea, especially once he realizes how different things are here."
Benjamin stared at his father in disbelief. "He needs sanctuary, not an arranged marriage."
"I'm not saying to rush into anything," Heinrich said, holding up his hands in defense. "Just don't jump to any conclusions one way or another. Take it one day at a time."
"Right now, all I want to do is go home and get some sleep," Benjamin admitted.
"That's probably a good idea. I'll call you tomorrow when he's awake."
Benjamin shook his head. "I saw the look on his face when I told him he was brought here to be my mate. I'm probably the last person he wants to see. Just let him get settled in for the night. Mom and Lita can work their magic while you and I get things sorted out with his former pack, and we'll go from there."
"That's thoughtful of you, son," Heinrich said with a tired smile. "Did I ever tell you how proud I am to have raised a man like you?"
Benjamin snorted. "Only every other day. You'd better watch or I'm gonna get an ego complex."
Heinrich rolled his eyes. "Benjamin, I wouldn't say this to just anyone, but you could probably use one."
Chapter 5
YURI
Yuri opened his eyes to the sound of light tapping on his door and it took him a moment to remember that he wasn't in his old room at the Ice Canyon Pack. This room was a bit smaller than the one he had shared with two other omegas, but it was all his and what it lacked in space, it more than made up for in coziness. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept as well as he had in the plush bed, outfitted in thick handquilted covers and clean linens. Everything smelled of lavender and sunlight and wolves.
Yawning, Yuri sat up in bed and shuffled over to the door. When he opened it, a pretty middle-aged woman was standing on the other side with a warm smile on her face and a stack of folded clothes in her hands. "Good morning, Yuri. I'm Sue."
"Hi," he said warily, glancing to see that no one was behind her.
"Sorry to wake you, but my mate said you might like to run into town with me for a few things?"
"Sure. Um, thanks."
"Here you go," she said, offering him the clothes. She paused to look him over. "They're borrowed, but I think they'll fit well enough until we can get you some clothes of your own."
"You don't need to do that," he said, feeling his cheeks grow warm.
"Don't be silly. You can't very well wear the same clothes every day," she said, her smile widening. "Lita and I will be downstairs when you're ready. We'll grab breakfast in town."
"Lita?"
"Oh, listen to me." Sue laughed. "Lita is my daughter. She's an omega, like you and she's just dying to meet you," she said, giving his arm a squeeze before she stepped back from the door. "See you in a bit."
Yuri closed the door and stared down at the clothes for a moment before changing. The jeans fit well enough, but the shirt was a bit baggy. At least it was better than wearing the rumpled clothes from his trip. Maybe it was a good thing they were going shopping. If he could get past the guilt, he would need a few changes of clothes if he was going to run away.
A few minutes later, Yuri descended the stairs and looked around warily for any signs of the alphas. Sue was waiting at the door with a petite brunette who looked to be about his own age, if not a little younger. She smiled, but it wasn't quite the same warm, genuine grin her mother gave. Yuri could feel her eyes on him, appraising.
"Hi there," she said brightly, offering her hand. Apparently, it wasn't just the alphas who used that greeting in the Cold Water Pack. "I'm Lita. Glad to finally meet you."
Yuri still felt like he had just arrived, but he forced a smile and nodded. Cold Water wolves seemed to smile a lot. "Nice to meet you, too."
"Let's get going and we can still make it to brunch," Sue said, glancing at her watch as she led them out to a big SUV. Yuri looked for any signs of a driver and blinked when the older omega slipped into the driver's seat and started the car herself.
Lita lingered by the door. "You can sit up front," she offered, pausing. "Something wrong?"
"You can drive?" Yuri asked, unable to hide his disbelief. Lita and Sue looked at each other for a moment before laughing.
"That's a matter of opinion, if you ask my husband," Sue teased. "But yes, omegas are allowed to drive in all Council packs."
Yuri's cheeks flared with heat as he slipped into the car. "Oh. I've...never seen that," he admitted.
"I'm sure Ben would be happy to teach you," Lita said in a mischievous tone. Sue gave her a scolding look in the rearview.
"Oh, darn it," Sue said with a grimace. "I forgot, all the stores close early today because of the holiday. Yuri, are you too hungry to go shopping first?"
"No, not at all." The truth was, his stomach was twisted into far too many knots to even think of food.
Sue pulled into an open spot in front of a small store in a line of shops. The road they had taken dissolved into a cobblestone path that wound through the little shopping district, and Yuri realized all the signs were wooden. There was a grocer, a deli, a pharmacy, a barber shop and what seemed to be a toy store. He had never seen such an idyllic village in all his life. The Ice Canyon Pack had previously been the nicest pack he had stayed in, but Cold Water looked like someone had ripped the set out of an old movie. If it hadn't been for the sprinkling of people ambling around between the shops and the family sitting outside the deli, he might have thought it was a set.
"Not exactly the Big Apple, is it?" Lita asked dryly, getting out of the SUV.
"It's beautiful," Yuri admitted, following Sue into the little shop. There were racks of clothing everywhere and a window display that didn't look like it had been fully thought out. One mannequin was clothed in fall attire and the other in a set of white shorts and a tank top.
"Well, I see the selection hasn't changed much," Sue said with a sigh, looking around the shop. "Go ahead, Yuri. Pick out anything you like."
Yuri looked around, wandering over to a rack that was mostly filled with men's clothing. He sifted through the hangers that seemed to be loosely assorted by size in some clusters and color in others. He selected a few shirts and hoped there was somewhere to try them on since a size small didn't seem to mean the same thing across the board. The bell over the door jingled and another woman entered, chatting with Sue about some party she had thrown for a moment before darting off to the rack Lita was circling like a hawk.
Lita already had a stack of clothing draped over her arm and she was holding a soft pink dress up to herself, swishing the skirt around as she examined it in the mirror. Yuri decided to hurry and grabbed a few pairs of slacks and jeans.
"If you're still looking, I can take those and start a room."
Yuri jolted a little and turned to face the salesman who had materialized in front of him. He passed the clothing into the man's open arms and Sue piled another stack on top of them.
"These, too, Jeremy," she said with a pleasant smile. "He'll need some formal wear. We do like parties around here."
"Of course, Sue," he said, returning her smile before disappearing into one of the curtained rooms in the back of the store.
Yuri gulped and followed the salesman, half-certain he was going to his death. He didn't trust wolves who smiled just for the hell of it, and there was no way Cold Water could be as idyllic as it seemed.
At least the dressing room proved to be just a small room with a mirror. He changed quickly and discovered that about half of the pants fit and the other half were much too long. He couldn't imagine why he would need the formal suit Sue had picked out but chose not to question her. The things she had picked out all fit even better than the ones he had selected.
Hopefully she wasn't sizing him up for food. He was pretty sure he was too scrawny to make a decent meal, the other packs liked to spook naughty children with tales of cannibal packs in the region that had once consumed omegas. Hopefully cannibals didn't have an affinity for sweater sets and the contemporary jazz that was filtering through the overhead speakers, but Yuri decided you could never be too careful.
Someone knocked on the fitting room door and Yuri jolted. He quickly buttoned the dress shirt he was wearing and opened the door a crack. Sue looked him over, letting out a low whistle. "Now that's a nice suit. Don't you think, Lita?"
The other omega looked over, already in the clothes she had worn into the store with a pile of selections in her arms. She glanced over at Yuri and gave a coy smile. "I'm sure Benjamin will think so."
"Did you find anything else that fits?" Sue asked, looking at the two stacks of clothing behind Yuri in the dressing room.
Yuri nodded. "Some things."
"Great! Just put them over the door while you're getting changed and I'll go check out. Then we can eat."
Yuri did as she said, trying to ignore the crawling feeling under his skin whenever he thought about letting someone else pay for his things. Of course, as an omega, he had never had funds of his own to use, but it still chaffed at his pride. He dressed quickly and hung the clothes that fit over the door. By the time he made it out into the store, Sue and Lita were waiting by the door with two armfuls of bags.
Sue suggested they all head over to the restaurant across the street. It was a small diner, but they made a "mushroom swiss and bacon cheeseburger to die for." There were a few families already sitting down in the blue-and-red vinyl booths that lined the windows and a group of teenagers laughing at a big table in the middle of the room. Everyone stopped as soon as the trio of omegas entered, but with a brilliant smile from Sue and a personalized greeting to everyone she happened to brush by on her way to the booth in the back, things quickly returned to normal.
Yuri could feel eyes on him as he sat down and sipped his milkshake, but he knew better than to let them know he was aware of the staring. Sue and Lita seemed to be ignoring it, so he would follow their cues.
"Don't worry," Sue said, reaching across the table to pat Yuri's hand. "Everyone's just curious. They don't mean any harm by it."
Yuri gave her a thin smile, but he was having a hard time working up an appetite for the burger and fries in front of him.
"Cold Water is a small town," said Lita. "And you're about to be the mayor's mate."
Yuri looked up, blinking. "Mayor?"
Sue and Lita both laughed. "Figure of speech," said Sue. "Although I'm sure Heinrich would agree that's what the job feels like sometimes."
"It's annoying," muttered Lita, casting an irritated glance in the direction of the gawking teenagers. "I'm going to make sure I mate with an alpha from a more metropolitan pack where they have better things to do than stare."
"And here I thought you were waiting for destiny to do the matchmaking," Sue said in a dry tone.
Lita shrugged. "Destiny takes pointers sometimes." She paused, looking intently at Yuri. "What was Ice Canyon like? I've heard it's one of the biggest packs in Canada."
"It is," Yuri said carefully. That was about all he knew of the pack's political status and workings. Its omegas were kept sheltered--or out of the loop, depending on how a wolf chose to see things. "It's more like a city than a town."
Lita grew starry-eyed as she leaned forward on her elbows. "Is it really? That's what I've heard, but Council wolves do like to exaggerate."
"I wasn't there for that long," Yuri admitted. When he saw the spark of curiosity in Lita's gaze, he immediately regretted divulging that bit of information.
"Where were you before?"
Yuri took a long gulp from the dregs of his milkshake to buy himself some time to answer. "Winter Crest."
Lita's eyes turned to black orbs. "Oh my God. Really? Why'd you leave?"
Yuri wasn't at all sure how to respond to that. He hadn't left, not unless getting kicked out counted. He had tried to run away countless times, but the security had more determination than he did. His pride wouldn't let him accept that he had given up, but he had certainly given in. Until the alpha's son had grown tired of him...
"Is Devon Richards as hot as everyone says he is?"
"Lita," Sue scolded.
"What? The man is practically a celebrity," she said with a dreamy sigh.
She was right, of course. Devon was the Alpha's son, but he held every bit as much sway in his pack as his father did. He had a mate, a sweet young omega with bruises on her arms that she kept covered in long sleeves and bracelets, but that wasn't enough for an alpha like Devon. He wanted options, and he took them no matter what the cost to anyone else.
Yuri could feel the staring from both directions and when he looked up, Sue and Lita were watching him closely. Sue's gaze was full of concern, and Yuri realized one of them had posed a question he hadn't answered. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked if you'd ever met Devon," said Lita.
Before Yuri could answer, Sue gathered her purse and jacket on her lap and took out a bill to place on the table. "We should get going," she announced, smiling gently at Yuri as she stood. "Yuri has a date tonight."
Chapter 6
BENJAMIN
Yuri opened the door to a gentle series of knocks. Sure enough, Benjamin was standing on the front steps with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. There were blossoms of pink and gold and sunset orange, and they smelled like spring. It took Yuri a moment to process that the flowers were meant for him, even when the alpha placed them in his arms.
Benjamin was sharply dressed in a black blazer and matching slacks with a dark blue shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. His gaze swept over Yuri, making it clear that he was
equally impressed with the omega's attire. Lita had picked his outfit out for him, of course. Yuri had little taste for clothing and it had been so long since he had picked out his own that he was content to let someone else do it for him. Normally, an alpha's appraising gaze would have been enough to make him cower, but there was something gentle even in Benjamin's lust that separated him from the other alphas. For all their claims of civility and for all his intimidating energy, Benjamin really was a gentleman. And if he wasn't, Yuri intended to find out that night one way or another.
"You look..." Benjamin cleared his throat. "Well, you look very nice."
"So do you," Yuri said, deciding to be pleasant for the moment. At least until Benjamin gave him reason not to be. He looked down at the flowers. "What should I do with these?"
"Just set them on the table, Lita will put them in a vase," he said, offering his arm. Yuri followed his instructions and took his arm, letting Benjamin lead him out to his car. "I thought I'd take you into town. There are a couple of restaurants in the village, but we won't have a moment's peace if we stay around the pack," he said, rolling his eyes.
"You're kind of a celebrity around here, aren't you?"
The alpha's tan features took on an admittedly endearing flush as he opened the car door and helped Yuri inside before getting in and starting the engine. "It's not as glamorous as that."
"That's how it was in the other packs," Yuri admitted, watching the sun set over the mountains as they drove. "Everyone wants time with the Alpha, and the Alpha gets everything he wants."
Benjamin frowned. "That's not how it should be. The Alpha's needs and wants should come last."
Yuri tilted his head and Benjamin glanced over, chuckling at his disbelief. "It's true. I'm not sure how things were done in the other packs you've lived in, but in the Council lands, being an Alpha is a responsibility. An Alpha who can't put his pack's needs above his own doesn't deserve his title."
"And an omega?" Yuri asked softly. "What is an omega's role here?"
