Omega Reimagined volume 2

by Tanya Chris

  “The bush was all prickly,” Owen protested. “I didn’t know why you were going in there.”

  “It’s a thornwood thicket,” Keesh explained. “It grows in a ring. Always good for a place to hunker down for the night, like a natural fort.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Fortis said, waving off Keesh’s clarification. “You’ll follow me whether you understand why or not. Am I being clear?” He hovered over Owen, letting his size speak for him.

  “Sorry.” When Owen tucked his chin into his chest, Keesh flashed Fortis a disapproving look, but this was serious business. Owen didn’t know what he was doing, and it was Fortis’s job to keep him safe. In the heat of danger—in wolf form—he wouldn’t have the time or the ability to explain his reasoning. Orders needed to be obeyed. And it wasn’t like he’d hit the omega. He’d just made a point of who was in charge.

  He stood apart while Keesh removed Owen’s pack before bothering to take off his own. Owen had red marks on his shoulders where the straps had sat. Keesh licked them while Owen giggled at the attention. They were just red marks. He’d heal. But Fortis wished he was over there being cuddly with the two of them instead of over here, in charge and alone.

  “I’ll go hunt.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Keesh offered, but Fortis shook his head. Someone had to stay with Owen.

  “I’ll catch enough for all of us.”

  “Should I build a fire?”

  “How else are you going to roast those marshmallows?”

  Keesh grinned, pleased with him again, and Fortis grinned back. Being in charge sucked when it got your best friend mad at you.

  “Just a cooking fire,” he warned before he shifted. Keesh had a human fascination with fire and would burn down half the forest if left to his own devices.

  Back outside of the thornwood ring, he let himself go—dashing first in one direction, then the other, releasing all the energy he’d had to hold back during their painfully slow tromp. They could’ve moved faster in human form, they’d gone so slowly, and his wolf was primed for speed.

  But he couldn’t play long, not with Owen and Keesh waiting for him to feed them, so he took up a stance under the shade of an oak tree. The setting sun made his shadow long, blending it into the shadow of the trunk itself. He crouched low, ruffling himself into the scattering of leaves as camouflage. White fur worked great in the snowy months, not so great when the woods were made up of shades of brown, but he froze into patient stillness, waiting until the other critters forgot they had a wolf in their midst and poked their furry noses out for him to jump on.

  Hunting for three took a while. Before he had a pile of meat big enough to feed them all, the moon had started to rise. It was full tonight, hanging low in the sky and casting a greenish light. He shifted into human form so he could load his catch into his pack, then trotted back to the thornwood bush, feeling like a good leader and an excellent provider.

  Owen

  Owen huddled into himself on the edge of the clearing. The night was pleasantly warm, but the breeze washed too cool over his human skin, which was heated from running all day. He would be warmer in fur, but he’d never spent so much time in wolf form before. Being back in human form was something of a relief.

  Keesh puttered around the clearing, gathering up sticks and using them to make a pile. Not a haphazard pile, but an intentional structure with a wide base and a tapered top, pointing up to the darkening sky like a pyramid.

  “How was that today?” he asked as he worked.

  “It was okay.”

  “How was it really? We can go through human territory if the woods are too much for you.”

  “I don’t mind the woods.” They were unsettling, that was all. The forest was full of things. Sounds and smells and furtive movements, creatures he felt threatened by but that he was supposed to be a threat to. He was an omega wolf, the smallest and least deadly of his kind, but he was still a wolf—meant to be brave and fearsome, to have instincts he didn’t have.

  Without Fortis in front of him and Keesh behind him, he wouldn’t have made it this far. He’d have turned tail at that first snake and run straight back to the comfort of his gilded cage. All those creaks and rustles could be anything, from wind blowing through the treetops to a gang of omega-stealing alpha marauders about to attack.

  Keesh came over and cradled his chin with tender fingers, turning his head first one way, then the other, evaluating him all over. “Such a tough little thing, aren’t you?”

  “No.” Owen ducked away. He was the exact opposite of tough. A wolf who didn’t know how to run, an omega who’d allowed himself to be fucked without being claimed. All his life he’d been told alphas only wanted him for sex, that they would take advantage of whatever he gave them, that his value lay in his virginity. And what had he done the very first time he’d been on his own? Let an alpha sweet talk him into giving it up. Prince Devin hadn’t even had to work at it. One touch, and Owen had basically talked himself into it.

  When a high-pitched screech pierced the air, he jumped halfway up to the sky, startled out of his self-recrimination right into Keesh’s arms.

  “That’s just Fortis catching us dinner,” Keesh said. “Not a clean kill.” He shook his head like he was judging Fortis’s hunting skills and finding them wanting. “I’d better get that fire going.”

  He set Owen back down on the ground, leaving him to his lonely huddle. It’d been nice being held close like that. Keesh was only a beta, but he was a lot bigger than Owen, and he smelled like home. Not like Owen’s home—not Pertha. Just home.

  “What pack are you from?” He still hadn’t been able to place Keesh’s coloring.

  “Central.”

  “Central. That’s not a pack anyone’s from though.” The Central Pack was just a bunch of outcasts, so his father had always told him. A ragtag collection of losers and misfits who’d been thrown out of their own packs.

  “There have always been Central Pack wolves,” Keesh said. “But it’s true that the immigrants outnumber the natives these days.”

  “You shouldn’t let them all in then.” Owen’s father probably wouldn’t.

  “How are we going to turn them away? Every wolf deserves a pack, and we’re lucky to have a lot of land. There’s enough to go around.” Keesh knelt down in front of the structure he’d built. He put a match to the kindling and watched as flames licked up from that first spark.

  “Is it nice there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then why do you live in North Leland?”

  “I went there for my Circling, which is a Central Pack tradition where we make a tour of the four outer packs when we come of age. We get to know the other cultures, and it gives us a chance to tell folks they’re welcome if they ever need a place to run to. I didn’t make it to all four packs. Landed in North Leland and never left.” Keesh blew on the flames burning in the center of his pyramid, causing them to flare higher. His expression was thoughtful, maybe sad.

  “You miss home?”

  “Sometimes. But North Leland is home now, and it’s a great place to live. Not so much when I first got there. In fact, your Prince Devin was the reason I went there in the first place.”

  “He’s not my Prince Devin.”

  Keesh laughed. “No, I guess not. I don’t know anyone who lays claim to him, not even his own family. But it wasn’t like that five years ago. The Northern Pack had a bad reputation with respect to omega rights, which was almost entirely due to one particular dickweed. Give a shitty alpha a title and he can level up from personally shitty to shitty enough to fuck up an entire territory. Other alphas get to thinking they have a license to misbehave when they see it happening at the top.”

  The fire rose up on all sides now. Owen liked watching the happy licks of orange wavering in the breeze. He crept closer, drawn by the warmth and Keesh’s steady presence.

  “Did you go to North Leland to fight Prince Devin?”

  “Great Moon, no. You’ve seen
Prince Devin, right?” Keesh held his arms away from his body in a simulation of bulk.

  Of course Owen had seen Prince Devin. Every plentiful inch of him. His physique made him so appealing, so hopelessly sexy. But he’d turned out to be a dickweed, just like Keesh said.

  “No, I never had any intention of tackling Prince Devin directly,” Keesh went on. “Fortis and I ran an omega rescue operation. We would tuck an omega in trouble into Fortis’s cart and he’d drag them all the way to the turnoff for Central Pack territory where we had people waiting to take them from there. He’s stronger than he looks.”

  “He looks strong.”

  Fortis was all alpha, with that same alluring scent Prince Devin had. That was why Owen’s cock popped up every time Fortis confronted him—a purely physical reaction to the presence of alpha. But based on what Owen was hearing now, Fortis was more than a generic hunk of alpha flesh. He was a hero.

  “You guys don’t do that anymore?”

  “No need to, thankfully. The laws have changed radically in the last few years. Nowadays, if an omega want to leave the Northern Pack, they can just do it. They don’t need permission or an escort.”

  “Then how come I have an escort?”

  Keesh reached over and ruffled his hair, which was down around his shoulders because he hadn’t re-braided it yet. It was a mess of tangles after an all-day run. “Are you saying you could do this on your own?”

  “No.” He didn’t even know which way to go, except west. He had no money, no skills, and no forest smarts. “Northern Pack omegas aren’t afraid to travel by themselves?”

  “Some are, some aren’t. They get what they need—what they want. That’s the point. No one’s saying omegas can’t be pampered and protected.”

  When Owen crept a little closer, Keesh steered him around until he was sitting in front of him facing the fire, which was now a healthy, hypnotic blaze. Keesh stayed tight behind him, making Owen’s back as toasty warm as his front.

  “Omegas deserve a little pampering,” he said against Owen’s ear as his fingers began to patiently and painlessly work the tangles from his hair. “You’re so pretty. Now, tell me how you really are.”

  “A little sore,” he admitted. The backpack had left chafe marks on his shoulders, his paws were tender, and his running muscles ached and twitched.

  “Sweet thing.” Keesh’s mouth was right at his ear, and his hands were firm but tender as they tugged lightly on the roots of his hair, shooting a sensation that wasn’t pain through his nervous system. The clearing darkened until only the moon illuminated it. Anything might be around them, shrouded by the darkness, but right here by the fire it was only the two of them.

  Owen leaned back, letting Keesh take his full weight. His cock hardened from the petting, and the angle of his body made it prominent as Keesh finished plaiting his hair and moved on, stroking over his sides and flanks, finding the aching muscles and kneading them lax. Owen squirmed in his embrace. Prince Devin had introduced him to sexual pleasure, and his body wanted it again. Those two weeks when he’d believed Prince Devin would claim him had been the best two weeks of his life. So many happy endorphins, so much physical pleasure. He’d thought he finally understood why he existed.

  But there hadn’t been any claim, and now there never would be, because he’d surrendered his prize without getting anything for it in return. And the worst part was that his body craved more of what he never should’ve had, as if being with Prince Devin had left him addicted to his own ruin. He pushed his hips forward, trying to get Keesh to make contact with his cock, then jerked back when Keesh did. He let out a choked whisper, caught up in shameful uncertainty.

  “Shh,” Keesh hummed into his ear. “It’s okay. I’m not going to do anything to you that you don’t want.”

  “You might as well, though. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters. You own your body, little one. That’s Northern Pack law, and we haven’t left Northern Pack territory yet.”

  Owen shrugged. He wanted to be touched. He shouldn’t, but he did, and what difference did it make if Keesh touched him anyway?

  “It’s too late,” he tried to explain.

  “Too late for what?”

  Too late to be anything except ruined. You can’t unspoil milk, Owen’s nanny had always said. Once it’s gone bad, it’ll always be bad. That was him now—spoiled milk. His father was going to be so mad. Mad about not having a tie to the Northern Pack throne and even madder that he wouldn’t be able to mate Owen to anyone except a beta.

  Owen would be lucky if his father mated him to a beta. His father might lock him up and never let him out again. That was how mad he was going to be. And then Owen would never have sex or cuddles or a home or a mate or any of what he’d dreamed of, all because he’d been too fucking horny to wait. So why not let Keesh touch him? Why not let everyone touch him? He thrust his hips forward again, but he’d lost his erection and Keesh had moved his hands away, so it didn’t accomplish much.

  “We shouldn’t,” Keesh said. “I forgot for a moment how protected you’ve been.”

  “It’s too late,” he repeated. Too late, too late, too late. He wriggled his ass, seeking out the hard cock that’d been pressed against him a moment ago, wanting to forget himself on it, but Keesh grabbed his hips to still him.

  “I still don’t know what it’s too late for.”

  “I’ve already been had,” he blurted out in frustration.

  “Already been…” Keesh took a long, slow breath. “Did Devin do things to you against your will?”

  Owen shook his head. He’d never said no. He’d asked for it. Begged for it even.

  “Okay, so you had sex with him willingly,” Keesh said flatly, as if Owen’s shameful secret was no big deal. “You’re allowed to do that, you know.”

  “But he knotted me,” Owen whispered, confessing the full extent of his disgrace. “I thought if he knotted me, he’d bite me while we were tied. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”

  “So I’ve heard.” Keesh sniffed at his neck.

  Owen jerked his head away. There was nothing to smell there. “He said I hadn’t done it good enough—that I needed to practice more so I could learn to do it better. We practiced a lot, but he never claimed me.”

  “So you decided to stop waiting for him? Good for you.”

  Owen shook his head. The truth was a lot worse than that. “One day I smelled another omega on him, and I knew he’d had sex with her. He’d had sex with someone else when he was supposed to be claiming me. So I yelled at him. I said no more practicing, claim me right now. And then he laughed and told me he wasn’t ever going to claim me. Because why should he when I’d already… already…”

  He couldn’t bring himself to finish. He would never forget that moment. Never.

  Keesh

  The omega in his arms was a stiff mass of fear and nerves.

  “It’s okay,” Keesh soothed him. “You have the right to do whatever you want with your body, claim or no claim. But you know what? There’s a law that says Devin has to claim you if you want him to. I don’t suppose he told you that?”

  Owen shook his head, because of course Devin wouldn’t have admitted he had a legal responsibility for Owen if he’d knotted him.

  “Well, there is. We call it Prince Devin’s Law, because you can guess which dickweed inspired it. Do you want to go back to North Leland and make him do it?”

  From somewhere outside the thornwood patch, an owl hooted, melodiously low and not at all threatening. Owen twitched anyway. Keesh comforted him back into stillness, though he felt anxious himself waiting for him to answer. He didn’t want to return this angel of an omega to Prince Dickweed. Owen deserved better. And there were plenty of better alphas—ones who wouldn’t care that Owen had been knotted before, who’d be grateful for the right to knot him themselves. Or for whatever they got.

  Keesh couldn’t knot Owen, but he would love to fuck him, or to please him however Ow
en allowed. The skin of his thighs was so soft and plump, his hair a glory of texture and scent. His cock had grown so hard while Keesh had been playing with him, and the scent of slick tinged the air. But his cock was soft now, because poor Owen associated sex with shame.

  Keesh wanted to teach him otherwise. He definitely did not want to bring Owen back to the jerk who’d formed that association for him, but it wasn’t his choice to make so he held his breath and waited for Owen to answer.

  “He doesn’t want me.”

  “That’s immaterial.” Although the thought of Owen with someone who didn’t want him was horrifying.

  “If he doesn’t want me, then I don’t want him.”

  “That’s my boy.” Keesh nuzzled into him, giving him reassurance to bolster his resolve. “You’re too good to be wasted on him.”

  “I’m nothing special.”

  “Nothing special?” He made Owen turn around so they faced each other. “I’d be happy to show you exactly how special you are.” He pointed at his cock which had grown hard from the soft press of Owen’s ass against it.

  “Might as well,” Owen said with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “If we’re going to fuck, it’ll be because you want it, not because you think you’re not important enough to have a choice. It’s always your choice, Owen. You made a choice to have sex with Devin, and that’s okay. I hope you enjoyed it, at least.”

  Owen ducked his head, turning it toward the fire crackling at his back. So Owen had liked being knotted. He might be embarrassed about how much he’d liked it, but Keesh could see he had. Why wouldn’t he? It was what omegas were made for, and though Keesh knew too much about Devin to really like the idea of him fucking Owen, if he blurred out Devin’s face, he could enjoy the rest of the picture. Owen desperate and pleading, a fat knot plugging his ass, come pumping from his smooth cock. And Keesh in there, licking it up.

  He shook his head at himself, dislodging the fantasy that’d come from nowhere, though it was nice to have his dick hard for someone other than the same old wolf who didn’t want him. At least this was a new wolf to not want him.