by J. L. Wilder
One of his pack mates—God, he couldn’t even tell who it was right now—let out a howl that was more pain than rage. Vince’s gut clenched. He had to stop them or they were going to hurt each other.
There was only one way.
It was dangerous. It might end up getting him killed. But if someone was going to die here today, it ought to be Vince. I’m their alpha, he told himself firmly. It’s my job to control them. Things would never have gotten this bad between us if I had taken the pack in hand sooner. I didn’t know myself—what I was, what I needed to be—and because of it, our family is falling apart.
It was up to him to save them. He was the only one who could do it.
He found his human nature and pulled it forward, forcing logic and reason to return, knowing that once he had made himself vulnerable in this way, he would have only a few moments to take action. A human in the midst of two wolves—two angry, fighting wolves, no less—didn’t stand a chance. Not for long.
So as soon as he felt his fangs give way to teeth in his mouth, as soon as he felt his tongue grow short and agile again, he shouted, “Stop!”
He threw everything he had into the word. Every ounce of intent and purpose he could muster. He thought of two great hands, pushing the wolves on either side of him apart, pushing them down to the earth. Forcing them to submit.
He made it an order.
And he felt the weight of it leave him, as if a wind were blowing through him, moving with power and purpose, moving from his own center and toward each of his pack mates. Forcing them to obey. Forcing them to comply.
He was their alpha.
I’ll never use this power when I don’t have to, he thought, marveling at its strength. I’ll never use it to control any member of my family, to force anyone to do something they don’t want to do, unless it’s something I’m sure is for the greater good. Something like this. Stopping a fight.
He could think of no better way to exercise the power he wielded as alpha.
The two wolves crouched low on the ground to either side of him. One of them—Dax, Vince thought—was still snarling. That was fine. Let him snarl all he wanted, as long as he didn’t move. As long as he didn’t take steps to harm Vince or Ace.
The fight was over.
“Tommy,” Vince said, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. “Go inside and get fresh sets of clothes for all three of us. Quickly.”
This was an order too, and Tommy turned immediately and ran for the house. Vince had no doubt that he would be back in a hurry. Being alpha meant not having to doubt anyone, ever.
This is why I’m the alpha, he thought. This is why it’s me and not Ace. Ace loves giving orders. He’d do it all the time. He’d get carried away with the power. But me...I feel strange and uncomfortable, and that means I’ll keep myself under control. I’ll be the kind of alpha who doesn’t abuse what I’ve been given.
In other words, he would be like Griff.
He couldn’t imagine a better role model.
“You two,” he said to the wolves on the ground. “Resume your human forms.”
He knew they wouldn’t want to, so it was satisfying to see how quickly they did it. By the time Tommy returned from the house, they were on their feet again.
Tommy passed around the clothes and everyone dressed in silence.
“Does anyone doubt that I am what I say I am?” Vince asked quietly.
“No.” It was Ace who said it, and Ace was the one he had needed to hear it from. Vince breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re the alpha. Wouldn’t have been my first choice—hell, you wouldn’t have been my second choice. But you’re it. So I guess we’re meant to follow you now.” He crossed the clearing and held out a hand for Vince to shake.
Vince glanced over at Dax. “How about you?”
“I still think our alpha should be with an omega,” Dax said. “She’s not even a shifter, Vince. She’s not one of us. Not our kind.”
“Okay,” Vince said. “But something happened between Amy and me, Dax. Something happened when I bit her. We don’t understand it. But the two of us are bonded to each other now. Besides, she may not be a shifter, but she’s carrying my baby, and she belongs in our world.”
Dax didn’t look happy, but he inclined his head. “I suppose I’ll get used to that.”
“Without trying to kill someone every five minutes?”
“Oh, what do you take me for?” A grin cracked through Dax’s frown, and Vince knew then that things were going to be all right between them.
Chapter Nineteen
AMY
By the time Amy had reached her eighth month of pregnancy, the addition to the house had been completed. Her new bedroom was an airy, open space, with big picture windows on three of the walls that allowed her to look out into the yard and the woods beyond. Today she lay on her side, in one of the few positions that afforded her any comfort, watching Dax and Tommy play fighting in the yard.
Vince came into the bedroom and sat down at the foot of the bed. “Vitamins,” he said, handing her a little cup with a collection of pills in it. “Got to make sure those babies are healthy.”
Amy rested a hand on her bare stomach, feeling the gentle movement within her. “I can’t believe there are so many of them. Are you sure it’s eight?”
“Yes,” Vince said. “We had the ultrasound, and you saw them all, just like I did. Remember?”
“I know,” Amy admitted. “It’s just...so strange. Eight babies. You wouldn’t think I’d have been able to carry them this long, would you?”
“Earl has a theory about that.” Vince stripped out of his clothes and lay down behind her, spooning up against her and pulling the bedsheets up to cover them. “He says something must have happened the night we met. The night I first bit you. Something was transferred. Some power, some fertility.”
“Do you think so?”
“You mentioned that you were infertile before me.”
“I thought that might have been a mistake.”
“I don’t think it was,” Vince said. “I think my bite changed you.”
“You mean...I am a shifter now?”
“No,” he said. “We’d know if you were. But for better or worse, you’re part of our world, Amy. You’re human, but you’re also omega.”
“How can that be?” Her mind whirled. “There’s no such thing as a human omega.”
“There are legends,” Vince said. “Stories of human women who carried litters, as omegas do. We always thought they were myths, ways for shifters to justify impregnating human women. I’ve never met a real human omega, and I never thought I would. But now...” He trailed his fingers along the swell of her stomach, then over the rise of her hip. “I think you’re that rare creature, Amy. You’re a human omega. These babies will be the new pack, the new generation of Hell’s Wolves, and one of them will be the alpha after me.”
“Then we will have a new alpha,” she whispered, cradling her belly carefully. “It won’t matter that I’m not an omega.”
He kissed her shoulder. “You are an omega, Amy. You have been all this time.”
“You wanted me before you knew that about me, though.”
He nodded, pressing his lips against her neck now. His hand skated across her thigh and up between her legs to cup her sex. “I’ve always wanted you,” he murmured. “Since the day we met. Always.” He kissed his mark on her neck. “That’s why I claimed you. I wanted you to be mine. I wanted you to belong to me, only me, not anyone else.”
“I’m yours.” She canted her hips back slightly, allowing him to fuck his way into her. It was difficult, with her body so big and swollen, to have sex, but it felt wonderful. It was as if every inch of her skin was on fire every time he touched her.
He rocked his hips slowly but firmly, giving her steady, hard thrusts that she felt deep inside. She leaned back against him, resting on his shoulder, reveling in the feeling of belonging to him and the knowledge that her body knew what to do.
&nbs
p; He brought his free arm around beneath her head and down over her shoulder to cup one of her breasts. They had begun to ache with new weight lately, and now Vince gave a little squeeze, relieving one of some of its milk. Amy sighed happily as he gently stroked her nipple, removing a tiny white droplet and bringing it to her lips for her to suck away. He moved to the other breast and repeated the process, fucking her harder as he did.
“I could do this all day,” he groaned, “except that I don’t think I could possibly last. You do me in, baby.”
She couldn’t speak. A haze of arousal surrounded her. She rocked slowly on his hand, taking her pleasure the way he had taught her so long ago, unhurried, relaxed. He wouldn’t leave her wanting. He would always take care of her. He would stay with her just like this until she came, and she knew it.
She trusted him completely.
His fingers stroked in time with his cock, driving her wild, making her legs shake uncontrollably. She cried out, sounds she’d never known she was capable of, and she saw stars as her orgasm washed over her.
Afterward, they lay together in the stillness of their bedroom, gazing out the window at the grounds.
“No one can see in, right?” Amy asked, after a time.
“No, it’s one way glass,” he reassured her, kissing her gently. “You’re worried Dax was watching, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“You’d know if he had been, believe me. Dax is about as subtle as a freight train. He’d have been up against the window panting if he’d seen us.”
Amy laughed. “Is it weird that the idea kind of turns me on?” she asked.
“What? The idea of Dax watching us have sex?” He wrinkled his nose. “A little.”
“I don’t mean Dax specifically,” she said. “Just the thought of being watched. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”
He laughed. “Is that why you wanted to get it on in an alley behind a bar? Because of the risk of getting caught?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“And here I thought you just found me irresistible.”
“I do.” She kissed him deeply, passionately, and felt him stir to life below the waist again. “Was that not obvious?”
“I was starting to get the idea,” he said, smiling.
“It’s strange,” she said, “because I was never the kind of person to do things like that before. I never would have had sex with a stranger at a bar. I definitely never would have had any sort of kink. I was as vanilla as they came. Chris even said so once, and let me tell you, he wasn’t exactly Rocky Road himself.”
“Chris sounds like a real silent film festival of a guy,” Vince said.
Amy burst out laughing. “That’s exactly right, somehow. I couldn’t have described him any better.”
“Well,” Vince said, “maybe more of your nature changed after the bite than we initially guessed. You became an omega, but maybe your character also changed. You became more bold. More sexually aggressive. More kinky, to use your word.” He gave her a roguish wink.
She laughed. “That feels true,” she admitted. “I definitely never would have run away with some guy I’d met one time before, even if I was carrying his baby.”
“Babies. Plural.”
“Yeah. Eight babies.” She shook her head, marveling at the things her body had the capacity to do. She had been sad when she had learned she would never be able to conceive, would never carry a child. But this was beyond her wildest dreams. And it never would have happened if it hadn’t been for Vince. He had given it to her.
He had given her everything.
But it hadn’t begun with him, had it?
It had begun with her. That night in the yard, hearing the cry of the wolf. Taking her father’s flashlight and going off into the woods by herself. Finding him caught in a trap.
Freeing him.
Risking everything for him.
Where she was right now—who she was right now—wasn’t just a gift that had been unwittingly bestowed on her by an animal acting reflexively to protect itself. It had happened because of her own choices. She had brought herself here, as much as anybody else had brought her.
And she could take pride in that fact.
She rolled slowly onto her back, shifting her weight carefully, bracing her stomach with one hand. It was difficult to move too quickly, and Griff had advised her against it, warning that if the babies were jostled too much they might accidentally injure each other. Vince helped to ease her back onto the pillows that were propped against the headboard.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Only always.”
“I’ll go get something.”
He pulled a robe around his naked body and left for the kitchen. Amy gazed out the window at Dax and Tommy, who had now been joined by Ace.
The fight seemed to have ended. They were standing around now, drinking beers and laughing together. They could have been any group of men, Amy thought. If she hadn’t known what they were, she would never have guessed there was wolf blood in their veins.
It just goes to show that there’s always more to people than you think there is.
That was a lesson she wished she had learned a little bit sooner about herself. She could have saved herself a lot of heartache if she had realized that there was nothing wrong with her when Chris left. She had always been good enough. She would always have found a way to become a mother, with or without a mate. She would have adopted. She would have done something.
But this—
This was more than anyone could have hoped for.
This was a dream come true.
I’m an omega. I’m a real omega. Human, yes, but still omega. Able to carry a litter for the pack. Able to produce an alpha for the next generation. Capable of belonging, in a way she had been unsure she ever would.
Dax and Ace would accept her now. All their reservations would be pushed aside. She was everything they could have hoped for.
But more than that, she was everything she could have hoped for.
Someday I’ll call Mom and Dad and have them come out and visit, she decided. I’ll have to pretend most of the babies are someone else’s, of course. I’ll only be able to claim one as my own. And the guys will have to act human for a weekend. But they’ll do it for me. It was a heady sort of knowledge. She felt powerful. She could ask for things. She could expect things of people.
She had never done that before. Not with Chris. Not with anyone. But with Vince—Vince, who was a powerful alpha in his own right, who should have made her feel less powerful, not more—Amy had discovered her strength.
He came back into the room carrying a bowl of chicken soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on a tray. “Lunch is served.”
“Look at them out there,” Amy said as he resumed his seat beside her on the bed. “It’s like they don’t have a care in the world. Will our children be that happy?”
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, so that her head was resting on his shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll make sure they are. All the days of their lives.”
Chapter Twenty
VINCE
The babies were born on a Tuesday night, in the middle of a thunderstorm. It meant they would would be wild in nature, Earl declared, and that their impact on the world would be a fierce one.
There were eight of them, as predicted. Four boys and four girls, an even split. Once they were cleaned up and placed in the bassinets the Hell’s Wolves had prepared for them, Vince stood surrounded by his children, turning in a slow circle and looking from one to the next. Admiring what he had done. What he had created.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” Dax said. “You were right about all of it.”
“Shh,” Vince said, not taking his eyes off the waving hand of one of his sons. “Amy’s sleeping.”
“Out like a light,” Dax confirmed. “I don’t think she’d wake up if we drove a train through here. Can I help you with the babies?”
“We sho
uld try feeding them,” Vince said. “There are bottles of milk in the fridge.” Because Amy’s milk. had come in early, They had been able to prepare for this moment. He was extremely thankful for that now.
Dax disappeared and returned a moment later with eight bottles in his arms. He set them down carefully on the dresser. “So we just feed them one by one?” he asked.
“Hey, I’ve done this the same number of times as you,” Vince pointed out.
“Yeah,” Dax agreed. “But you’ve known what you were doing from the beginning, haven’t you? Mating with Amy, even though she was human. Bringing her here. Taking me on when I suggested that she should be sent away. All of it.”
Vince shook his head. “The truth is, I just got lucky,” he admitted. “I didn’t plan any of it. I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I never dreamed I’d be the alpha.”
“Neither did I,” Dax laughed. “I thought if it wasn’t Ace it was probably me.”
“So did I!”
“But I didn’t want it,” Dax said. “Oh, maybe I thought I did. I thought it would be fun to be in charge of things. Everyone thinks that a little bit, don’t they?”
“I never did.”
“But I wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility of leading us. I like leaving things up to other people. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be my fault if things went wrong.”
“I can understand that,” Vince said fervently.
“You’re the opposite, though,” Dax pointed out. “You never dreamed of rising to power, the way Ace and I did, but now that you have it, you’re doing a good job with it.”
“Am I? You think so?”
“I mean, hell,” Dax laughed. “When we couldn’t find an omega, you went and made one for us.”
Vince smiled and picked up one of the babies. “I wonder who the next alpha’s going to be,” he said, grabbing a bottle from the dresser.
Dax shook his head. “Don’t start. We just got this generation sorted out. Whoever’s next will figure it out in their own time, but we don’t have to worry about that for a while.”
