Omega Reimagined volume 2

by Tanya Chris

  “I’m only here for the omega,” I said, which seemed to make Ryker even angrier for some reason. His fangs and claws came out, and he swelled up like he was about to charge. I steeled myself for a fight I had no idea why I was about to have.

  “Ryker,” Macy said, like she was speaking to a misbehaving pup. “Getting worked up isn’t going to help the situation.”

  “We’re not turning Carmen over to him. Or Gage.”

  “No one is turning over anyone.” Macy stared Ryker down until he retracted his claws. I could still see a hint of fangs between his lips, but I dared to turn my back on him to face the real threat—the composed beta with the shaved head and icy blue eyes.

  “I just want to talk to her.” I spread my hands wide in demonstration of my innocence. “Her family is worried about her.”

  “Like hell they are. If they cared about her, they wouldn’t have tried to force her into a claiming she didn’t want. She had reasons for leaving, and she’s here now.” Macy turned to face her computer as if I weren’t still standing there.

  “It was a very good match,” I informed her. In the pictures I’d been supplied with, Carmen was a cutie. If I were into either women or omegas, I’d be into her. Her hair was luscious and thick, and her body and face both curved in all the right places. An omega like that could afford to be choosy, and her family had been appropriately choosy.

  “She didn’t want to mate him,” Ryker said. Macy was trying to pretend like I’d left when she’d dismissed me. “That’s why she had to run away.”

  “It’s not uncommon for an omega to be nervous about being claimed. You know that, right? A big old alpha like you.” I could smell he was mated and was willing to bet it was with an omega. He had a seriously alpha vibe to him, though it wasn’t working on me at all.

  “My omega wanted me to claim him,” Ryker said. “I didn’t have to make him.” He puffed himself up again, in pride this time. Aw, that was sweet. He was a macho alpha brute mated to a perfect little omega pet. Lucky them. I hoped they were both very happy.

  “The alpha Carmen was contracted to mate with has long since claimed someone else,” I told him. If that was the problem, we could move past it. “Her father will find someone who suits her better. He just wants her to come home, so he knows she’s safe.”

  “She’s safe,” Macy said without turning her head.

  “I’ve heard some distressing rumors.” I hesitated to detail them, because they weren’t the sort of thing that should be said out loud.

  “All true.”

  “All true?” I repeated. “Surely, she didn’t really…”

  “Mate with a female beta?” Macy swung around to face me again. “Yes. She did. So you can go back to Rio Verde and tell your client Carmen is no longer available to be sold to the next highest bidder. She’s already mated.”

  I was momentarily too taken aback to respond. I knew things had changed in the Northern Pack. There’d even been stories about just how much. But I hadn’t believed it’d really gone as far as this. Female omegas mating female betas? Were they really so low on male alphas who preferred women in North Leland that a female omega couldn’t find a mate? We didn’t allow female/female matings back home. There was just no need for them. And though omegas occasionally ended up mating with betas, it was usually because they’d been despoiled. Alphas weren’t big on leftovers.

  “I think it’ll be all right,” I said slowly as I puzzled through it. “The Southern Pack won’t recognize her mating, and if this wolf she’s been fucking around with is a female beta, then she hasn’t been knotted. Thank the moon for that, am I right?” I beamed a smile at Macy. It could’ve been a lot worse. No one liked the idea of omegas fooling around before they mated, but it happened. As long as it wasn’t with an alpha, everyone looked the other way on it. This could still be salvaged.

  “Um, I think she’s happy with the mate she has,” Ryker said, throwing a glance over at Macy for confirmation. Macy didn’t notice. She was too busy staring at me like her pupils could shoot darts.

  “Maybe I could ask her myself?” I tried.

  “You’re not getting anywhere near her,” Macy said.

  “Why? Is she locked up somewhere?”

  “She’s not locked up,” Macy bristled.

  “Omegas are free to come and go as they please,” Ryker said. “Tarek told you that.”

  “Yeah, well, prove it to me then. If Carmen is happy here, and if she’s free to make her own choices, then all she has to do is tell me she doesn’t want to come back with me. I’m not going to kidnap her.”

  I never had kidnapped anyone, at any rate. Most of the omegas I found were really glad to be found. They were scared, hungry, hadn’t had anyone to see to their heats—or worse, had been caught during their heats by a passing gang of alphas. No one had been spoiling them or telling them how adorable their sweet wittle selves were.

  It didn’t take much flattery to get an omega who’d been trying to survive on their own to come along with me. And I was the safest alpha escort in all the five packs. An omega could go into heat right in front of me, and I’d just pick them up and carry them the rest of the way. My reputation was solid for a reason. I’d never harmed a hair on any of their precious heads, and if they were untouched when I found them, which was unlikely, they were equally as untouched when I delivered them.

  “We don’t have to prove anything to you,” Macy said.

  “Sounds like someone’s oppressing omegas. And here I thought North Leland was so progressive.”

  “Alpha Donovan could talk to her, Macy. She’s not going to change her mind.”

  “I know she won’t change her mind,” Macy snapped. “Fine. Be here when we open tomorrow morning and you can talk to her. Talk,” she emphasized.

  “That’s all I want to do. If she doesn’t want to come back with me, she doesn’t have to come back with me.”

  If she didn’t volunteer to come back with me, I’d have to move on to plan C. Tarek might be the high and mighty judge of my dreams, but he wasn’t the supreme authority here. If I had to go all the way up to Head Alpha Marta to have Carmen transferred to my protection, I would.

  Chapter 3

  Apparently I was going to be spending the night in North Leland. I made my way between the rows of government buildings out to the big market square, one side of which was dominated by the palace. The palace was made of stone—the only non-wood building I’d come across thus far—but you could hardly call it pretty. Stark, blocky, imposing, and very white. A bit like Northern Pack alphas.

  It must’ve been quitting time, because the square was full of wolves. Mostly Northern Pack, but I spotted some color here and there. I kept my eyes out for anyone matching Carmen’s description, but while I saw a few of my brethren, none were female omegas. I nodded at them as I went by, wondering how they’d ended up in such a strange, cold land.

  When I’d left home, the last blast of summer had been making itself known—temperatures hot enough that you felt like you were melting. Or molting. It was no wonder Northern Pack wolves had such thick, lustrous fur. They needed it. It was only September, but I could feel winter coming as the sun started its descent, oddly small on the horizon as though they had a whole different sun up here.

  I found a B&B and checked in, not surprised they had an opening. How many travelers could North Leland get? It wasn’t like it was on the way anywhere except farther north, and thank the moon I didn’t need to go any farther north. I threw my bag in the room I’d been assigned and enjoyed a quick shower. I hadn’t planned to stay over, but after three days on the road, mostly in wolf form, I appreciated the chance to get my human skin clean.

  My hair was short enough to dry almost immediately, and I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans—my snug ones that I reserved for places where I had some hope of getting laid. I put them on for Tarek, but if anything was going to happen between the two of us, it would only be in my mind. I could’ve saved myself the ball pinching. />
  Still, I did enjoy pain under the right circumstances, and the idea that my balls were being pinched specifically for Tarek’s sake was exactly the right circumstances. I added a t-shirt to combat the cold and wandered back to market square, aware that my ass looked eminently fuckable. Their loss.

  I didn’t notice Tarek until I collided with him, because my attention had been momentarily diverted by a flicker of red hair off to my right. The square was crowded with a hundred scents, but his was already so imprinted on my memory that I instantly knew who I’d run into. The identification process went like this: alpha, Northern Pack, Tarek. Tarek.

  Despite the dropping temperature, he was still bare-chested, and now that there wasn’t a purple banner obstructing his lower half, I could see how little he wore down there too. No wonder I’d been able to smell his cock. The only thing between it and my nose was a tiny pair of shorts made of a light cotton that blocked absolutely nothing.

  We’d managed to collide chest to chest, as if Tarek hadn’t been watching where he was going either, but when I recovered my equilibrium, I saw it’d been intentional on his part. He’d caught me not paying attention and had used his advantage to check me. He wasn’t rattled at all, but I put a hand to my chest which held a heart that raced much too fast.

  “You’re still here.” Tarek crossed his arms in a suggestion of displeased authority, but a contradictory smile played about his face, and I swore his eyes dipped to where my cock and balls made an uncomfortably snug bulge in my jeans. “I was sure Macy would send you packing.”

  “She tried. I convinced her that if Carmen didn’t want to go back with me, I should hear it directly from her lips. You’re all about omega autonomy, right?”

  “Nicely played.” Tarek’s smile got wider. “You can talk to Carmen all you like. No alpha voice,” he warned.

  I shook my head as if the possibility of using biological persuasion hadn’t even occurred to me. I would have to get Carmen alone somehow. She had too many babysitters. Which made me think maybe she wasn’t really in an unsafe position here, after all. An omega alone was a dire matter, but if she wasn’t alone… if she had people like Tarek and Macy looking after her…

  I couldn’t just go back to Rio Verde and tell Carmen’s father never mind—that she was fine where she was. I had a reputation to maintain and a living to make. But I was starting to get the idea that convincing Carmen to go back with me wasn’t going to be easy. She’d been stubborn enough to run away and lucky enough to land on her feet. Luck that good could convince an omega she didn’t need an alpha.

  “What are you up to tonight?” Tarek asked.

  “What are you accusing me of being up to?” I’d planned to check out the place they called an omega hostel, which was chock full of omega scents, to see if I could isolate anything that smelled like Southern Pack. Nothing wrong with hanging around outside a building enjoying the night air, was there?

  “Someone’s got a guilty conscience,” Tarek said with a snort. “I was going to ask if you wanted to join me for dinner, that’s all. There’s a place around the corner that serves food.”

  An omega bar, no doubt. Great Mother, I hated those. Having to pretend I was scouring the joint for an omega to sit on my dick and partake in endless conversations about the relative merits of one over another. This one was just dripping for it. That one sucked like a tornado. The one in the corner had such sad eyes. Alphas in omega bars fucking loved sad eyes. They wanted someone hurting for it. Well, I could hurt for it better than any omega could, only I didn’t count because I wasn’t small and pathetic. I was a big, hard alpha. If you wanted to hurt me, you had to work for it.

  My obvious course of action was to tell Tarek no. Go back to my room and spend the evening jerking off. Get this thrum of sexual arousal out of my system. Because my cock was hard again, and it wasn’t the thought of wasting a few hours in a dark omega bar that had it that way.

  So of course I agreed to go. Because I was what the humans called a masochist. Not even a joke. Being near Tarek was a cruel torture I didn’t want to end, and the tight constriction of denim around my erection was a suitable punishment for the foolishness of my decision.

  “This way,” Tarek said when I agreed. He took my arm as if I needed guiding, and his hand was hotter than anything in Northern Pack territory. I wondered if he withstood the cold climate by carrying his own energy source around inside him. “The food at this place is great. Much more convenient than shopping and cooking for the unmated, like us.”

  So he was unmated. I hadn’t smelled another wolf on him, but mating bonds weren’t always easy to pick up on in alphas, especially alphas who made a habit of hanging out in omega bars. Ryker—now, that was an alpha who went home to his omega every night. But Tarek could’ve been the type who fucked around with everyone except the one he was supposed to be fucking. He had that air of entitlement to him, as if we all ought to revolve around him. The way he was dragging me along with him, for instance. It made me want to dig my heels in, make him pull harder, really throw his weight into it. But we were just two friendly alphas going out to dinner. Tarek wasn’t a human I was giving myself to for the night. We’d agreed to a meal, not a scene.

  Tarek’s definition of “just around the corner” was a little off. We turned several corners before we got there, wending our way farther and farther from the main square. Omega bars were usually tucked away on the outskirts of town like this—dirty little secrets everyone pretended they didn’t know. But the establishment he brought me to wasn’t making much of an effort to hide. It abutted the forest, yes, but it was well-lit with a big sign. A bank of windows graced the front of the building—windows big enough that I could pick out the tables and the wolves seated nonchalantly around them, as if they didn’t care that anyone looking in could see them.

  Inside, the air smelled more of roasting meat than of slick. Lightly charred, gamy. Delicious. I could make out hints of rabbit and squirrel and maybe… yes. Deer.

  “Got a hankering for some big game, do you?” Tarek asked when he caught my deep whiff of appreciation.

  “I’m on the road too much to ever bother taking down a deer,” I admitted. To slaughter a deer for a single, solitary meal would be a shameful waste. But damn, that smelled good. The omega bars I’d been in before had served little more than nibbles, not a whole menu. And now that I was looking around, I could see that not all the customers were alphas. I finally added it up—windows, betas, food. This wasn’t an omega bar. It was an actual restaurant.

  The noise was a bit much, but the smells were too good to pass up. The company was too good to pass up too, even if I was going to spend the entire meal hard. I didn’t seem to be able to be anything else in Tarek’s presence. I could only hope he’d assume it was my default state and not realize he was the direct cause of my constant arousal.

  An omega dressed to the nines showed us to a table and left us with menus I didn’t bother reading.

  “Deer then?” Tarek asked.

  “Not going to miss the chance.”

  “Sounds good.” He summoned our waiter and ordered two deer steaks extra rare and a bottle of youthberry wine. A steward came over and made of show of opening the wine, then left us to ourselves. The room was too crowded to be private, but my dick swore it was just the two of us in our pool of flickering candlelight, the scent of beeswax and wine and alpha mingling in my nose. Tarek had brought me to a restaurant. Like this was a date. Not two alphas out to find some omega ass, but two alphas out to…

  There was no end to that sentence I’d ever believed possible.

  “We’ll avoid your job as a topic of conversation,” Tarek said, “since we don’t agree on it.”

  “What don’t you agree with?” I demanded, but he shut me up with a wag of his finger.

  “I just said we weren’t talking about it, didn’t I?”

  It was a moment, a crucial moment. I could feel it hanging weighty between us. He’d given me an order in a tone n
o alpha would use to another alpha, not without expecting to be hit for it, and he was waiting to see how I’d take it. I could push back, get loud, get big, challenge his imposition. Or I could take it—take this chance he seemed to be holding out to me. A chance I’d been waiting for my whole life.

  My head grew dizzy as his eyes held me transfixed. I was far from home in a place no one knew me, a place full of oddities like female omegas mating with female betas. If ever I could say yes anywhere, I could say it here.

  Fear and desire coursed through me in separate unbearable streams. What if he didn’t mean what I thought he meant? What if I let him use me and then he turned around and spilled my secret? What if I was wrong about what I wanted? Or worse, what if I was right? What if giving my desires free rein, even just once, led me down a ruinous path of addiction until I was no longer able to hide my true nature in occasional indulgences with humans?

  “Breathe,” Tarek said. Another order, one I could follow. I took a deep inhale, but the air was so flavored by the alpha across from me that it only made my throat close further. I raised my hand to my neck, feeling his teeth there already. A choked rumble issued from me, more whimper than growl, and mortification heated me from the inside out.

  “I’ve got what you need,” Tarek said. He meant his cock. He knew I needed his cock. “All you have to do is say yes.”

  With what little breath remained in my body, I choked out the word yes.

  Chapter 4

  If there was anything that could distract me from the circling thoughts of what was to come, it was a fresh hunk of steaming meat, perfectly seared, lightly seasoned, hitting that sweet spot at the intersection of wolf tastes and human tastes. The steak came with vegetables, which I ignored, and Tarek kept filling my glass. If it wasn’t basically impossible for shifters to get drunk, I’d swear I was. Lights swirled, laughter tinkled, silverware clattered, people came and went from the tables around us, and I burned.