Page 22 of The Sad Omega

“Are you okay?” I asked him eventually.

“Kind of,” he replied, not very convincingly.

“What’s bothering you? Are you still worried about the other night?”

He flushed a cute pink colour.

“No, you guys were really understanding about that. I… no, it’s just I, I’m worried I might be getting close to my heat.” He lifted sad eyes to me. There was a silent plea in them. “I don’t know how many more of them I can take,” he admitted quietly.

I stepped up to him and wrapped him in my arms. He laid his head on my shoulder.

“I wish we could help you,” I whispered, nuzzling the hair around his ear. He smelled good. Fresh and sweet, like the kind of guy he was. How anyone could hurt this guy was beyond my understanding.

“Me too,” he said sadly, “but there’s nothing you can do.”

When eventually he stepped back from me, he turned away. Even with his back to me, I could tell he was swiping at his eyes. I bit my lip. There really was nothing we could do to help but the situation seemed so wrong. No omega should be so afraid of his heats. And no omega should be afraid of his mate.

When it was time for Isca to go home in the late afternoon, he hugged me tightly.

“Thanks for being such a good friend,” he said.

“Likewise,” I told him.

He was about to leave, when he pulled me in tight again and kissed the side of my head. He didn’t say anything, but my skin prickled. It felt like a farewell.

Uneasy, I watched him walk across to Talius, who was working near one of the compound fences. I saw Talius hug him, and Isca wrap his arms around him, holding on tightly. Talius bent down and kissed him on the top of his head and said something. I probably could have heard it if I’d tuned my wolf’s ears to it, but I decided to let them have their private moment.

It looked like Talius was comforting Isca. Something was wrong, and I hoped my mate was providing him the reassurance he needed.

Talius and I needed to talk.

Chapter 09

ISCA

It was just coming up to six months since my last heat. Will it be six or nine this time? I wondered, since my heats were always one or the other. There was no way to tell until the heat started and by then it was too late. Even early in the heat the scent would be enough to notify all alphas within range of my status. Even the betas could tell, though they wouldn’t initiate anything, wouldn’t touch me until Zarbius gave them permission. But they would know, and they would communicate the start of my heat to him.

I didn’t think I could endure it again. Each time it happened, a little more of me died. I become more and more what they already saw me as – nothing more than an object to be used in whatever manner they saw fit. As long as there were no major injuries, Zarbius wouldn’t lift a finger to stop them. And he would already have extracted his sadistic pleasure from my body, so the standards weren’t very high. During my heats and the days that followed, I often wished for death.

Before meeting Irian and Talius, I’d thought this was the normal life of an omega, but I’d seen the love and caring between the two of them, and how happy Irian was before and after his heats, so now I knew there were some alphas who treated their omegas with respect. Already mated as I was, I could never hope for another alpha to claim me, but I might find one who would allow me to live in their pack. And since I knew I couldn’t survive another heat in this pack and my next one might be imminent, I had to leave now. Tonight.

I thought of going to Talius and asking for his protection, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d just be bringing major trouble to their peaceful pack, and even if Talius were willing to fight for me, how might that end? He was strong and fierce, but Zarbius was sneaky, cruel and had no honor. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, and Talius could be injured or worse. The thought of being the cause of that, and Irian’s subsequent distress, was enough to make me whimper. I couldn’t do that. A tear made its way out of my eye and I swiped it away. My heart would miss them. Both of them.

I sighed.

As usual, I was still cleaning the kitchen long after the pack had retired for the night. A couple of betas patrolled the boundary and tonight Zarbius had locked himself in his gaming room with a couple of his best friends, alpha buddies from deep in the mountains. He was unlikely to emerge for hours. It was inevitably long past midnight when he finished his regular sessions with his gaming buddies, regardless of whether they were online or, like tonight, actually in the house with him.

All was still. If I was going to do this, now was the time. There was no other part of the day when no-one had an eye on me.Gently, I laid the last saucepan in its drawer which slid closed soundlessly on its track. I listened carefully. The faint sounds of Zarbius and his friends laughing drifted up thehallway. They seemed absorbed in their game. My fingers found the light switch, hesitated, then plunged the kitchen into darkness. If Zarbius came out looking for something, maybe he'd assume I'd gone to bed.

Slowly I turned the door knob and gently eased the backdoor open.

It was all dark shadows and eerie shapes outside. A square of grass was caught in the light cast from a window at the far end of the house and a million stars twinkled above me. The raucous laughter of Zarbius and his mates erupted from an open window further around the building, then died away. Higher up the mountain, the wind roared through the treetops and sent wisps of cloud scurrying across the sky.

Quickly I undressed, tossing my clothes behind a bush and covering them with damp leaves to deaden the scent.

I shifted, emerging in my other form, a silver-grey wolf. My fur was soft and thick with the downy winter undercoat still there, my tail was plump and lush. I shook myself. I felt so much freer in this form. My pads relished the coolness of the earth beneath them, and my snout twitched as it sampled the air. There was no-one nearby. My hearing was far more acute in this wolf form than in my human form and I could make out the betas on their patrols. They were nowhere near me and were heading away from the route I intended to take.

Silently, I padded away into the native forest, leaving behind the life I hated and the pack that despised me. Slipping through the undergrowth, ignoring the small creatures scattering in my path, I headed around the mountain, continuously working my way upward. I needed to get as deep into the forest as I could, where the scents of wild wolves and other native creatures would help to obscure evidence of my passage. I had no doubt that Zarbius would still be able to detect me - as my mate he had a heightened receptivity to my scent - but the betas and any of his alpha mates he brought with him wouldn’t. I just hoped I could get far enough before Zarbius noticed I was gone, far enough that he would decide it wasn’t worth the effort to continue after me. Goddess knows, he’d spent plenty of time telling me what a pathetic excuse for an omega I was, how I never satisfied him so that he was forced to rough me up for his sexual satisfaction, and how I should feel grateful that he bothered to keep me at all because no-one else would want me.

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