Page 1 of His Bonded Omega Mate
Abandoned
Roan
Ifsomeonehadtoldme five years ago, hell, even a year ago, that I’d be working for the Alpha of the Sweetwater pack as assistant and bodyguard to the Alpha Mate, I’d have laughed in their face.
Then, if they’d told me that the Alpha Mate had been my betrothed, my one and only love, Ryder Hayes, I think I’d probably have punched them in the face.
Yet, here I was, nearly six years after that fateful day that changed our lives forever, working for my once mate-to-be, the only man that I’d ever been with, ever loved. Except Ryder was no more. In his place was Kade, a stronger, sharper version of the boy I’d loved.
Now I thanked the Goddess that I was by my best friend’s side. I’d always love Ryder, in that first love way, but I adored Kade as if he was the sibling that I’d never had.
I’d watched over Kade from the shadows of the light he gave off for over five years. The last year had been particularly difficult to endure for us both. There had been times that I wanted to step in to protect Kade from himself. To let him know he had me, even if he still hated me.
I vowed I would never leave his side. I kept that promise, until the beta sickness hit the pack, and we were forced apart.
“But Blake, I need Roan. Why can’t he come with us?” Kade almost pleaded with his mate and our alpha leader.
“Kade—“
“Blake, Roan hasn’t got anyone here aside from us.”
“He has Axel and Chase. Dalton too. We need him here to run the office and relay calls. Roan is important to you. I know that and I’m sorry we can’t take him with us, but your safety comes first and Deke is the better fighter in both forms. The house is too small to have three alphas in it. I really am sorry, Kade.”
I listened to the conversation from my desk across the vestibule area from Dakota’s desk outside Blake’s office. Kade had already gone through the same conversation with his papa and Dakota. I knew his loyalty to me was the reason for him trying to get his own way. He’d agreed with Jasper already about leaving.
Rationally, I knew both Blake and Jasper were right. Having so many alphas in Kade’s old, small, two-bedroom house was a recipe for disaster. Deke was the better fighter, just as I was better at stealth and observing.
Being offended was a waste of time and energy. I still had a lot to prove here. I’d only been with the pack a couple of months, and many doubted my place was by the side of the Alpha Mate, which was a coveted role. Especially with my background.
It shouldn’t have taken me by surprise that my history with Kade had gotten around the compound quicker than… fuck, something hella quick. Really, gossip was currency in the Sweetwater pack. There were no secrets between shifters, especially in Sweetwater, which was possibly the closest pack I’d ever seen. There was no back story they wouldn’t all uncover. They could sniff out all the things you wanted to keep to yourself in Sweetwater.
Like your secret shame.
They’d figured out my history with the Hayes pack before I’d had time to settle into my room in the mansion I now called home.
It wasn’t in my nature to complain, honestly I deserved half of what people said about me. For years I’d gone along with what my alpha, Rincoln Hayes, Ryder’s father, had told me to do.
Rincoln and my father, Xavier, had been friends. Emphasis on the had, since Rincoln was dead and I had no idea what my father was doing. I hadn’t spoken to the man in years.
When Kade, or Ryder as he was then, started having heats, they decided I would be the best alpha to help him through them. Together, Rincoln and Xavier had forged a pact that Kade and I would be betrothed and mate formally at twenty-one when it was legal in the eyes of the shifter council.
Neither of us got a choice in the matter, but it helped that we had been close friends for a long time. I doted on my omega friend and was honored that the alpha had chosen me for such an important role.
With having no Alpha Heir, Rincoln had effectively made me his heir apparent and had begun training me in the skills that I would need to run the pack properly. The man had been in his late fifties, still young in the eyes of shifters, and showed no sign of retiring from the pack that he had rebuilt to suit his style of leadership, so I’d known that I would be just another enforcer with slightly elevated status. It would be decades before Rincoln gave up leadership of the pack, since I’d been unlikely to challenge him for it.
As such, people assumed that I’d been aware of the abuse that Jasper, Kade’s papa, had endured at the hands of his mate. I hadn’t and would swear on The Luna and my alter that it was only towards the end, when Rincoln became increasingly desperate to control Kade and Jasper, that I had any suspicion.
It didn’t make any of my actions better. Didn’t absolve my conscience or ease my guilt. I should have acted sooner. Reported Rincoln to the council, though at that time, the council was rife with sympathizers to Rincoln. He’d had half in his pockets, so perhaps that would have made it worse.
Whenever I thought about that time, my mind went around in circles about what I should’ve or could’ve done. Before I remembered I had been a man of just twenty-one that was completely in love with the man that was my best friend, and I’d been blind to the faults of my alpha. I had so little power. Rincoln could have taken Kade from me, ejected me from the pack, caused harm to my family, if he’d perceived any slight from me.
Every interaction with him towards the end was a case of dancing on this invisible line I knew I couldn’t cross, but seemed to keep moving with every sentence that came out of Rincoln’s mouth.
The final straw had been seeing bruises on Jasper. Hearing that Kade had been kept isolated in his room. I had tried to see him. We hadn’t been allowed to live together until we completed our mating and the guards on the door had turned me away. It hadn’t mattered to them I was the heir apparent. Rincoln had banned me from Kade.
Later that day, the one etched into my memory, Jasper came to me, still covered in bruises, and said Rincoln planned to give me a fertility boosting potion. He’d tried to smuggle Kade a contraceptive potion, but had struggled to find a witch willing to make one. The reason that Kade was isolated was Rincoln had caught Kade with heat blockers and beaten him. The first, and last, time that he would lay his hands on Kade.
I’d wanted to dispute that my alpha would do such a thing, yet when I downed the potion just hours after the warning, it tasted different to the usual contraceptive I took to prevent Kade from falling pregnant. My heart had sank. The realization of how low my alpha, a man that I’d looked up to, had dropped, landing like a stone in my gut. I still couldn’t believe that he’d been willing to trick his son and his mate to be into an illegal mating because of a pregnancy that neither of us was ready for. With Kade being months away from being twenty-one, the pack likely would have escaped sanctions, but that said nothing about the mental and emotional harm that the potion would have caused.
