The Hidden Omega

by Wilder, J. L.

  “He isn’t bringing you along because he doesn’t want you to shift,” Clay says. “Shifting right now could refracture your bones if you’re not completely healed. So, it only makes sense to wait until we’re absolutely sure.”

  “I wouldn’t shift while I was fishing,” I protest. “It only happens when I’m angry.”

  “But we always shift to fish,” Clay says, looking at me in surprise. “That’s how we catch so many fish. What did you think, that we were using fishing poles?”

  That’s exactly what I thought. I don’t know what to say.

  “We fish as bears,” Clay says. “It’s much more effective. Bears are naturals when it comes to catching fish, and when we’re in animal form, we can access the instincts we have for that kind of hunt. We can smell the fish in the water, we can spot them better, we can fetch them up with a paw...you never noticed the claw marks?”

  “Never,” I admit.

  “Bruno will take you —or I will —when we feel like it’s safe for you to shift again,” Clay says. He runs his fingers up and down my arm, tracing circles inside my elbow. His hand moves absently, as if he’s hardly aware of what he’s doing, but the only thing in the world I can focus on suddenly is my skin where he’s touching me. “You don’t need to worry,” he adds. “Nobody wants you to be left out of things, Lane. We’re not trying to keep you confined.”

  My breath is as short as if I’ve just run a marathon. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve hungered for men plenty of times in the past, but it’s never felt like this. Before, always, it started with a vague urge to find a non-specific man, any man, sometimes several men. But today I was lying here not feeling any particular urge to pursue anything at all with Clay, simply taking physical comfort from the closeness of his body, and the urge grew within me. And I know, without fully understanding the source of the knowledge, that Clay is the only man in the world who could satisfy my need right now.

  What the hell.

  I hardly know him. And that’s never exactly bothered me before, but how can I be so desperate for a specific man I hardly know? Why is the feeling of his breath, soft behind my ear as he holds me against him, making me feel so out of control? His hand is tracing patterns over my skin now, and it feels like he’s drawing pictures he wants me to see. I do see, I want to tell him, even though I don’t, of course I don’t. I just feel so in tune with him. It feels like we’re on the same page.

  I’ve spent so many days in this shelter with Clay, waiting while Mike and Bruno went off fishing together. He’s always been quiet, always sat and tended the fire and left me to my thoughts. What’s different about today? Why did he choose today to join me in the shelter, to reach out to me both emotionally and physically?

  I’m surprised to find myself turning toward him, running my hand up his chest to rest on the side of his neck. I’m equally surprised to find that Clay’s breathing is as erratic as mine is. You are not here permanently, I tell myself. Clay is your friend. You’re going to have to look at him tomorrow, and then in a few weeks you’re going to be leaving. Do you really want to complicate all that with sex?

  The thing is, I do. I really, really do.

  Before I can make a move, though, Clay sits up as if he’s been given a shock and bounds out of the shelter. Stunned, I can only watch as he toes off his shoes and strips his shirt over his head. For a minute I’m not sure whether he’s planning on coming back to me or not, whether this is just his awkward prelude to sex, but the truth is clear when he looks at me. The expression on his face is a thunderstorm of desire, regret, pity, and self-loathing. Before I can comprehend, before I can even put the words together to ask what’s wrong, he’s bolting away from me and into the woods.

  He felt it. He felt what I felt. But something about it must have scared him off. I reach out for his giant jacket, which I’ve been sleeping in since arriving at the shelter, and pull it around me. It makes for a poor substitute for his warmth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BRUNO

  Being in bear form is wonderful. It feels like my purest self. Everything I do, everything I experience, is distilled down to its most fundamental qualities.

  The water. It’s cool around my paws, flowing through my fur. I can feel the desire to sit down and play in it, to splash my younger brother, to start a game, but I can also feel the size of that desire. It’s small. It almost doesn’t matter. We have other things we need to focus on besides the cool, crisp water, and it’s not hard to organize the priorities in my mind the way it would be if I were human. The important things make their way right to the top. My mind knows how to do this instinctively.

  I submerge a paw quickly and flip a passing fish onto the shore. The fish flops about piteously, and somewhere in my I know my human self would feel guilt at ending the creature’s life and at watching it die like this, but my bear self isn’t that complicated. My bear self knows my pack needs food. Nothing else matters.

  Mike registers our brother’s approach before I do and turns away from the river to see what’s going on. By the time I’ve finished wondering why Mike is turning his back to our food source, I’ve already picked up on the sounds and scents myself. Clay is coming, and that means something’s wrong. Danger. He’s supposed to be back at camp. My ears prick up, and so does the fur on the back of my neck.

  There’s a pause before he steps into view. He’s shifted back. He’s in human form, and he wades out to join us in the river, immediately scaring away the fish. Frustrated, I shift back myself. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I say. “I asked you to stay at camp. Are you trying to prove some kind of point about me not giving orders? Because this isn’t funny. You can’t leave Lane on her own in the middle of the woods.”

  Clay shakes his head. “It’s not like that. We have a problem.”

  Mike hasn’t shifted back. I’m glad. It shows good sense. It’s what I would have told him to do if he’d asked me, if I’d felt like telling people what to do. It’s good to have someone on guard. But it also means he can’t really participate in the conversation, and I know that frustrates him. He cocks his head at me. “What’s the problem?” I ask.

  “It’s Lane,” Clay says. “She’s an omega.”

  An omega. It’s almost unbelievable. I know omegas are real, but they’re just rare enough that everyone has wondered a little bit if they might not be made up. I’ve never met one. No one I know has ever met one. “What makes you think so?” I ask Clay, trying to stay calm, wishing for the clear mindedness that comes along with being a bear.

  “Because I just imprinted on her,” Clay says, tugging at his hair.

  This is too much for Mike to resist. I hear a splash behind me as he resumes his human form, collapses into the water, and comes up sputtering. “You imprinted? On Lane?”

  My mind is going a mile a minute with the implications of this. My chapter of the Hell’s Bears has never seen an imprinted member. It’s not as rare as an omega, not by a long shot, but plenty of people pair up and form relationships, settle down, procreate, live and die together, without worrying about the biological imperative of an imprint. I’ve always known that it was something that could happen to me, but I always thought of it as something that never actually would. Like a motorcycle crash. Sure, you could crash your bike. But you probably wouldn’t. Not you. That’s the kind of thing that happens to other people.

  Other people, apparently, like my best friend and brother, Clay.

  I thought there was something between Lane and me.

  God. I feel like an idiot. How could I have thought that? Just because I’m the alpha? So that means what, that I get first pick of the women in our pack? That’s a sick thought. I shake my head as if I could get rid of the idea that easily, as if I could knock it loose and let it fall away. Of course, she wants Clay. I’ve seen how she relaxes in his presence. And he was the one to dress her wounds after she was hurt. He was the one she trusted.

  Mike’s thoughts are going in a comple
tely different direction, apparently. “How do you know she’s an omega?” he asks. “You can imprint on betas too, you know.”

  “I know that,” Clay says. He sounds unusually short-tempered and I realize then that this has really shaken him. “I don’t know how I know, okay? I just do. It was like the knowledge just came to me, like I could see her in color for the first time.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how I ever didn’t see it. It’s obvious.”

  “So... what happened?” I ask. “Is she okay?”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “Well, did you...?”

  “God. No. What do you take me for?” He looks revolted.

  “There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with it,” Mike says. “You imprinted. You’re supposed to be with her. That’s how it works. Do you not want to or something?”

  “Think about what she’s been through,” Clay says. “We’re supposed to be taking her away from that, not...not...”

  “Clay,” I say. “For God’s sake. You wouldn’t be using her. If anything happened between you, it would be consensual. It’s okay to ask.” I feel like every word I say is made of barbed wire. I don’t want him anywhere near her. I don’t want him looking at her, touching her, kissing her...

  But she doesn’t belong to me. I have no right to be angry or possessive about this. He imprinted. I didn’t. That’s how it goes.

  The three of us sit still in the water for a long time, not speaking to each other, not really looking at each other. I plant my palms in the silt at the bed of the river and keep as still as I can, but the fish don’t come back. The fish never come when we’re in human form. I don’t know why. I don’t know why they feel safer coming when we’re bears. The bears are much better at catching them.

  Finally, Clay breaks the silence. “This is how you feel, isn’t it?” he asks.

  My breath catches. Does he know I’ve been looking at Lane, dreaming about her, wanting her? How could he? “What do you mean?”

  “This is how you feel about being alpha,” he says. “You have power and it scares you.”

  Oh. That. “It isn’t the same,” I tell him. “You can’t make her submit to you just by telling her to. She has a choice.”

  “It’s kind of the same,” Mike counters. “If it’s anything like in the stories, she’ll be drawn to him just as much as he is to her. She could tell him no, but she won’t want to.”

  “Exactly,” Clay says. “You didn’t see the way she was looking at me, back in the shelter. She’s never looked at me that way before.”

  I don’t want to hear this.

  “How can I take that at face value?” Clay asks. “How can I believe that anything is what it appears when I know that it’s all based on biology and not anything we choose?”

  “Clay,” I say, “you’re going to tear your hair out. Stop that.”

  He stops tugging his hair. Immediately. Obediently.

  Because I ordered him to stop.

  “Clay,” I say.

  He doesn’t look at me.

  “You can have power and still be kind,” I tell him. “Just because you could hurt somebody doesn’t mean you will.”

  “You don’t know that, though,” he says.

  “Of course, I don’t,” I say. “Do you know how many nights I’ve dreamed about it since I found out I was the alpha of this group? How many times I’ve dreamed of saying something carelessly to you or to Mike, the kind of thing I would have said without blinking before, and trapping you into having to do something awful? Not even knowing what was going on, having no chance to countermand the order, until it was over? What if I told you to go jump off a cliff, and I didn’t mean it literally, but you heard it that way? There’s a cliff right over there!”

  Mike’s hand is on my arm. “Whoa. Bruno.”

  “It’s awful,” I say quietly. “It’s every minute of the day, and it’s terrible.”

  Clay bites his lip. “I’ve been making fun of you.”

  “You didn’t know.” I sigh. “Most alphas grow up knowing there’s at least a chance the gene will pass to them. Most alphas are prepared. I wasn’t ready for this, any more than you were ready to imprint. But now we have to deal with it.”

  “Did you talk to her about it?” Mike asks.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” Clay confesses.

  “Hang on. So, you just left her at the shelter?” Mike says. “You just got up and ran off without telling her why?”

  “I needed to talk to you two!”

  “Well we would have been back in a few hours!” I clamber up out of the lake to the pile of dry clothes I left on the shore and start pulling them on. “The poor girl must be terrified. She deserves some kind of explanation, Clay.”

  “I know that.” He looks wretched. “But what was I supposed to tell her? Oh, sorry, I just imprinted on you? She doesn’t know what imprinting is. She didn’t even know what a shifter was. And I’m sure she doesn’t know what it means to be an omega. That’s a lot to explain to a girl you were just getting handsy with.”

  I do not want to hear this.

  “Someone has to go back and explain things to her,” I say. “And it should really be you, Clay, particularly if you’re worried about hurting her, because I know she’ll be upset that you just ran out on her.”

  “You’re right.” Clay looks pale. “I just thought that maybe her alpha —”

  “I’m not her alpha.” I pull my shirt over my head and focus on the buttons. “She’s always been clear with us that she’s planning on leaving the pack. I guess you’re going to have to decide whether you want to go with her or stay with us.”

  Mike swats at my shoulder. “What the hell?”

  I close my eyes. I shouldn’t have said that. I know I shouldn’t. Clay has enough to worry about right now without having to deal with the question of his future. He has to go back and have what will probably be the most difficult conversation of his life with a girl who is not remotely prepared to understand the things he’ll tell her. I know how he feels — as if he’s balanced on the edge of a knife, his animal self telling him to do one thing, his human self telling him to do another. All his instincts want him to mate with Lane, but Clay is a good man. He won’t do anything unless he’s sure she wants it, too.

  It’s not his fault I see her face every time I close my eyes. It’s not his fault I’m wishing with everything in me that I could have been the one to imprint instead.

  It’s not his fault his body gave him the girl and mine gave me full control over my brothers, so that the thing I’m aching to do every day is to give them orders, use them as extensions of myself so that we all function smoothly as one cohesive unit. That’s the thing my human self fights against —the craving to succumb to my power. Because what I haven’t admitted to Clay or Mike is how badly I want to do it. How much the desire has been growing in me as the days have gone by. At first it felt alien, like something I wouldn’t be able to tolerate. But now?

  Now I want it. I want to be their alpha.

  It’s like Clay said. It’s like hunger. I’m hungry for it. We could run so much more efficiently if I just took things in hand. But my human self refuses.

  And I have to keep being my human self, because it’s the human part of me that wants Lane. The bear part clearly hasn’t noticed her. And even if I can’t have her, I don’t want to become the version of myself that doesn’t light up when she’s around.

  Chapter Fourteen

  LANE

  I don’t know how long I’m lying on the floor of the shelter and staring at the holes in the roof before I hear footsteps coming. I bolt upright, terror shooting through me instantly. I’m on my toes, ready to run, despite the fact that I’m not wearing shoes. There’s no time for shoes.

  Then Clay emerges from between two trees. “Hi, Lane.”

  It takes my body several long moments to settle down, and in that time I can only gape at him. His hair is wet, and his clothes are damp. He shakes a little
, like a dog, before crawling into the shelter. Is that something bears do, too? Shake off water when they’re wet?

  He stays well away from me, off on the other side of the shelter, but he keeps his eyes locked to me. I appreciate the distance he’s keeping. It’s chilly, and I have no desire to be soaked. I pull his jacket a little tighter around me. I see him take notice of the fact that I’m still wearing his jacket. It appears to mean something to him, although I couldn’t say what.

  For a long time, he just watches me, takes me in. I wonder what he’s looking for. This whole day has been so strange. First the attraction I felt to him —and I know it was mutual, it was written all over his face, it was hardwired into the way he touched me. There was nothing platonic in that. But then, his bizarre flight into the forest. It was as if I’d hurt him. It was as if something about me had shocked him badly.

  No. Shocked isn’t the right word.

  It was as if something about me disturbed him.

  I’m used to those looks from Georgianne and Rick and Faye, and from the people I went to school with who gossiped and made up stories about what was wrong with me. I’m used to Faye fanning the flames of those stories, all the while looking over at me with a sort of evil satisfaction. But Faye isn’t here now to spread lies about me, and the only thing that’s actually weird and wrong with me is something I have in common with Clay and the rest of his pack.

  He already knew I was a bear. He isn’t afraid of that.

  And that means he’s figured out something about me that bothers him more.

  But what could that be?

  Finally, I can’t take the silence in the shelter anymore, and I break it. “You came back.”

  I’m surprised at how cold my voice sounds; how clear the anger is. I hadn’t even realized I was angry. I guess Clay hadn’t either. His eyebrows lift. “I was never gone. I went down to the river.”

  “That’s unfair and you know it.” I’m not going to let him rewrite history, make me feel crazy for objecting to his leaving when we were on the verge of something.