Page 5 of Omega Chattel
“Fuck you,” he replied, and turned away, shifting his backpack, tossing his head.
The way he held his chin up and shoved one hand through the mass on his head. The way he put his shoulders back, even as he huffed so hard I could hear his breath though his back was to me. And that scent of him, like something warm from the oven, sweet and fresh—it tugged.
I wasn’t immune to cute. I wasn’t immune to Omegas down on their luck or I wouldn’t have them as guests in my home and sponsor them. I had no discriminations, not against the ones in the Trenches or the runaways most thought were garbage and would amount to no more than addicts and criminals.
If only I were better at resisting their suffering.
I sighed hard. Then heard myself blurt, “Alli! Are you hungry?”
He stopped hard in his tracks, his back still to me. Silence.
“Come on,” I said. “I can at least get you something to eat.”
He turned slowly. “What for?”
I shrugged. “Because I’m here and you need food and I can give you that. Should there be any other reason?”
“Nothing is free.”
“No. Nothing is free. You are going to have to look at me while you eat your burger. You’re going to listen to me, too, when I tell you some things.”
“What things?”
“Whatever I want.”
“And then what?” Those cute eyes squinted in suspicion.
“And maybe by then I’ll decide what to do with you.”
A renewed eagerness lit his eyes. “I really am trained. Farm trained. And I really am a virgin,” he said walking toward me.
I cuffed his jacket sleeve. “Shut up and let’s go.”
“Is your Burn coming up? Is that why you were looking for someone?”
“Did I say shut up? I think I did.” I grabbed his sleeve tighter and pushed him a little in front of me.
His scent alarmed me with its potency. Street boys usually didn’t affect me too much, aside from my do-gooder heart and the empathy that made me open my house to a few of them. But right now, something in the air had changed. It was this Omega, and my gut told me not to do this. I should just give him a hundred and tell him to go.
But I kept pushing him up the street toward the parking lot and my car.
Hunger gnawed at my insides, and not for food. I don’t remember an Omega affecting me this strongly and this quickly before, especially one who had slept in alley refuse and hadn’t bathed in who knew how long.
I kept telling myself he wasn’t my type. Too young. Too desperate. Too inexperienced. His needs focused on survival and not me. My bleeding heart could buy him a burger, I had no inner quarrel with that. But deeper urges I wanted to ignore wrestled and shoved their way through my body. So unlike me.
Shit.
Chapter Three
Alli
Maybe I should have been scared. Maybe going off with a stranger Alpha was the worst possible decision of my life, aside from trying to take on a revered and tenured house-dad no matter how twisted and nasty he was.
I’d been stupid and made a lot of mistakes.
I told myself I had no more choices. I’d already made the decision I would never allow myself to be institutionalized. But now I was starving and with no prospects but selling myself. Or other criminal activity if I could rob this Alpha. But he’d already told me he was on guard about that. Going off with this guy whose name I still didn’t know was certainly not the worst case scenario I could be facing.
Unless he was a serial killer. But even then, what did I have to lose? My life? It was nothing right now if I didn’t get some food and a good night’s sleep.
