Page 35 of Unsubmissive Omega
She paused for breath, and I said nothing, partly because my mouth was hanging open in shock, and partly because I had a feeling she was not done with her onslaught.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” she said, gesturing angrily out the window.
A deep sense of foreboding threatened to leech the strength from my legs, but I walked over and stood beside her, looking to see what she was talking about. Outside, Darius was facing off against three younger men. I recognized them as young alphas from the pack, none of whom were mated, but they had reached the age where that was an option, or where they might leave the pack, or… might want to challenge for the leadership if they were sufficiently bold.
Apparently, they were that bold. As I watched, one of them stepped forward challenging Darius.
“They are useless, immature idiots,” Marta said, bitterly. “They’d never think of challenging him under normal circumstances. But you make him look weak. They think he can’t control his mate, so he’s not strong enough to look after the pack.”
“B-b-but that’s not true!” I protested. I hadn’t wanted to be mated to him, and I’d resented it every minute I’d been in this damn pack, but even I couldn’t deny he was a fabulous Alpha and a strong and compassionate leader. “He’s strong and the other Pack Alphas listen to what he has to say.”
She shrugged. “That’s outside the pack. At home you make him look like a failure… that he can’t even keep his mate happy. When you undermine the leader, there are always other alphas quick to take advantage. He’s going to lose everything. He’ll lose the pack too.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I whined, legs feeling even weaker. I looked around for a chair, but there was none.
I didn’t want him to lose his pack. Not because of me. He… under other circumstances I would’ve been thrilled to be mated to him. I’d been a shitty mate to him, but he didn’t want me. It wasn’t my fault. Was it?
She was looking out the window again. Darius had quickly and easily defeated the first alpha to challenge him. That guy was limping back to his mates, but a crowd had gathered, and now the second young pretender stepped up, while the third waited behind him.
Marta put her hand over her heart. “He can take three,” she muttered, “he can take three.”
She turned back to me. “This is wearing him down,” she said flatly. “He’s an excellent fighter and he’s strong. But the challenges are becoming more frequent. The constant fighting will eventually wear him down, and then it’ll be some useless idiot that manages to take him down and takes over leadership of the pack.”
“I didn’t want to be here, but I wasn’t given a choice,” I whined again.
Marta gave me a filthy look, looking truly unimpressed.
“Neitherof you had a choice in this, but Alpha opened his heart to you and gave it a real go.”
“But he doesn’t want me… it was obvious.”
Marta looked at me as if I were a raving lunatic or an alien dropped from outer space.
“You can’t possibly believe that,” her dark locks flew as she shook her head in disbelief, “after everything he’s done for you!”
“What exactly has he done for me?” I snarked, thinking about my situation.
“You know he sat outside your room for your entire heat, don’t you? Keeping the alphas away? If he hadn’t stood watch over you… I don’t like to think what would have happened! I don’t think he slept for three days! He kept you safe, even when you were rejecting him. You’ve been difficult with him since you got there, but he’s done everything he can to be a good mate to you.”
Her next words shook me to my core.
“Can you honestly say you did the same?”
Shame flooded me in its hot tide. I couldn’t honestly say I’d made a genuine effort to make this work. I’d been too caught up in feeling sorry for myself, too angry at the fate that had taken my choices away from me.
But I realized now, I could have made other choices since then. I hadn’t had to stay bitter and angry. Darius had indulged me at every turn. I really could have done anything I wanted.
“But…”
“An Alpha whose mate won’t even lie with him…,” Marta shook her head sadly, “No wonder they don’t respect him. He’s a good man, but they’ll judge him for that.”
“How can they know?” I protested, wondering how even she knew. I doubted he advertised it. It was humiliating. Just as it was humiliating for me to have to submit to him, though apart from that first night of our mating, I had never done so again. He’d never made me.
I tried not to think about how, ever since that first time, he’d done everything possible to avoid hurting me.
“Do you think they’re idiots? They can see it!” The way she said it made me sound like a foolish child.
Stepping closer, she pulled the loose collar of my t-shirt further down my shoulder, displaying my mating mark - what remained of it at least, as it was obviously fading.
