Page 2 of Knot My Omega

I was truly over-the-moon happy for her.

Still, I craved love. I didn’t want that love to include control or losing my independence. Rumor had something unique in her mates. They cared for her as she was and encouraged her sovereignty.

A rare bunch.

I was lucky they’d taken me in. Built an apartment over the garage for me to have my own space. Let me run part of their business. Encouraged me. Treated me as an equal. Those things were priceless.

As I plucked peaches from the trees, I daydreamed. I didn’t do that often, since it usually left me sad and hopeless. Me witha pack who loved me. The whisper of a family. The blanket of safety and security only one tug away from covering me always.

Wanting those things made me feel ungrateful. I’d been given a second chance at life, and here I was, wishing and wanting for more.

Shaking my head, I forced my thoughts to the present. Rumor and I had discussed several things to use the peaches and other produce for, but our new venture would be the most fun.

I did make a killer peach cobbler.

Chapter Two

Benji

“Any luck?” I asked, leaning against the greenhouse frame. My packmate, Roan, was trying so damned hard to grow things. He envisioned a life for us that included self-sufficiency like other packs, but we had a steep learning curve.

I gripped my coffee cup like the lifeline it was. I worked nights not because I liked it but because that was when life was quiet.

I got more work done in two hours then than eight hours of the day.

“There are yellow flowers. Flowers mean tomatoes. I’m reading up on picking off the suckers. It’s supposed to make the fruit produce faster.”

“Suckers on tomato plants?” Now this I had to see.

“Look here where this new stem is starting between the two others? We have to pick those so the nutrients are filtered straight to the existing flowers.”

“Got it.” I didn’t mind helping Roan. He had a wistful way of hoping for the best for our pack, and it was light through the cracks of my dark cynical nature. I called it acceptance as a balm.

In truth, there wasn’t much hope for us as a pack.

We were bastards. Born out of the promise of mating bonds and vows, never meant to exist, to thrive. Shouldn’t wish for happiness.

Roan did. I envied him for it.

We picked suckers and then I listened as he went on about what he wanted to plant for the fall.

“How is Harlan coming along with his projects?” I asked. My coffee had gone cold, but there was a fresh pot on. One of mypackmates always made one about eleven when I woke up. Dawn was my dusk. When the world awakened, I sent myself to bed.

“I don’t know, but I smell lunch. Have you eaten?”

I shook my head. “Let’s go see what he’s cooking today.”

We walked back toward the cabin, and I took a moment to soak in what we had instead of damning what we never would. We’d invested in land away from other packs and built our cabin here. It was a far cry from my father’s castle-like alpha house, but to him and to shifter society and ranks, he wasn’t my father despite my physical characteristics painting me as his clone.

Inside, I had to fight to not be like him, a mean and stern leader. His pack members feared instead of loved and respected him. He banished anyone who didn’t agree with his antics. Screamed. Raged. Scared his mate. I’d heard she was a shell of herself as my mother was. Rasputin didn’t want a mate, instead demanding submission and obedience.

When he offered me and my mother an obscene amount of money to go away quietly, I mourned the loss. My mother was overjoyed. She was finally free.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?’” I asked Harlan as we walked into the cabin.

“Stop saying that. It’s weird. And I’m making some BLTs with leftover sides from last night.”

“Sounds good. How can I help?”

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