Page 17 of The Omega's Alpha
Quin’s eyes crinkled and he pointed at someone behind me. “Find Holland’s dishes that he brought and make sure they get back to Abel’s for me, please?” He was polite about it, but there was a rush of something underneath the words, like fur and adrenaline, that sent a shiver over my skin and made my knees weak. And apparently sent whomever he’d been speaking to running to do his bidding, because he grunted in satisfaction and turned back to me. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely.” I wrapped myself around his arm, the muscle warm and hard underneath my fingers and he led me off.
It was a beautiful night for a walk, although I would have liked to have spent it in furskin. Still, this was nice, and Quin smelled good and I felt like a regular shifter for once, just someone walking out with his boyfriend on a romantic evening. He was quiet, but I didn’t mind. It gave me time to think. And feel. And I realized that I’d spent a lot of my time trying not to feel, because everything had been rubbed raw—first by my failure as an omega, then my family’s rejection, and then by my own self-disgust.
But it had slowly faded, this too-raw sensation, and I tentatively poked at the emotions I’d been hiding from and decided that some of them weren’t worth having. But others? I glanced up at Quin and caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye. It was so angsty-teenager-like I grinned and leaned into him, rubbing my cheek against his shoulder as if I could scent mark him as mine in this shape too. It felt strange to be the aggressive one in this relationship, if that’s what it was.
I liked it.
We were home far too soon for my happiness, and I regretted not tempting him into the woods to run four-footed for a while.Too late now.
He kissed me goodnight, though I could tell he was conflicted about it. I wasn’t. He tasted good and felt good, and I hadn’t realized how hungry I was for touch that wasn’t puppy demands or familial casualness. It wasn’t even sexual, thought there was a good bit of that in it too. But he smelled right and I wanted to curl in his arms and doze for a day, simply to enjoy the way he felt against my skin. I wondered if there was any way to sneak him inside, and then sneak him outside in the morning, but Quin stopped that little plan right in its tracks.
“Goodnight,” he said softly and stepped down onto the stairs.
“You don’t have to go,” I said, his shirtsleeve pinched between my fingers to keep him.
“We’re not mated,” he said in that quiet voice of his.
“So? I doubt either of us are virgins,” I told him, trying to keep my tone reasonable.
He shook his head and used the excuse of kissing my fingers to rescue his shirt from my grip. “Goodnight, Holland,” he said, but his expression as he left almost took the sting out of his words, and his leaving.
“Next month, will you run with me in furskin?” I called after him.
“If you ask nicely,” he said with a sly smile and a wink, standing outlined in moonlight like Vikkuri, the Trickster Wolf.
I heaved a huge sigh of frustration, loud enough that I hoped he would hear it, then dragged myself back inside. I was half-aroused, and completely frustrated. And Bax was upstairs putting pups to bed, so I couldn’t even sneak into my room and hug the feeling of Quin’s embrace to me for a little while before I would be dragged back to reality.
I should have gone upstairs to help out, but the thought of bursting this sweet little bubble kept me from doing more than putting a toe on the bottom stair before I changed my mind. Instead, I went to hide out in my other sanctuary—the kitchen.
A cup of tea would be nice. My tea bag from earlier was still sitting in the spoon beside the sink, waiting for me to soak the last of the goodness out of it. I put the kettle on to boil and got my mug out of the cupboard.
“You know we can afford a new tea bag for you, every time.” Abel’s quiet rumble made me jump and I spun in place, sending the old tea bag flying across the room.
“I- I didn’t hear you come in,” I stammered, and raced to pick up the now-ruined teabag.
“I was upstairs putting Fan and Teca to bed,” he said.
Oh. “I’m sorry, I should have gone straight up.” I dropped the teabag in the bucket at the end of the counter, where we collected things that could be composted and eventually added to the soil in Jason’s gardens. It was nearly full—I’d have to empty it tomorrow. “Do you want some tea before I go up?”
“They’re already in bed, and you can take a night off when you want. You’re not a slave.”
No? But I was an omega, and despite the fun I’d had tonight, Abel’s presence in the room brought me back to earth. I knew what the future held for me. I was certain that Bax would fight for me, and mostly certain that he could talk Abel around to pretty much everything, but anything could happen, and I had at least another sixty years ahead of me.
“No, really, it’s fine. I’ll just check on them, unless you want something?”
He sighed in frustration. “Holland, Quin needs someone to take over Bax’s job now that Bax is going to be doing the selling for the solar panels. Bax and I would be sorry to lose your help with the pups with him working so much more, but we’d like you to take over the position again. And if it’ll stop you feeling like you have to give up your entire life in favor of ours, all the better. Like catching two rabbits in one hunt. But I’m tired of worrying about taking advantage of you. If you’re anywhere near as smart as Bax is, it’s a damn waste of talent and Mercy Hills can’t afford it.”
I stared at him, non-plussed.
He waited a moment, then realized my brain was too scrambled to say anything. “We’ve been talking about it for a while. Neither of us wants to set the standard that omegas are only good for housework and babies.”
“But,” I finally managed to force out. “I was repudiated—”
“Don’t care. I think it’s time we came out of the stone age. Look at the humans—they mate and unmate with, as far as I can tell, complete abandon. Why are omegas less than the rest of us, just because they find it easier to have babies? Or because it means a man can have one?” He stepped forward and held out a hand. “I never thought about it before. And then I met Bax, and now I seethe every time I see how different your lives are. You’ve had time to mourn your mating. And if this is what you want, to stay here and look after pups for the rest of your life, you can do that. But I don’t think it’s making you happy, and neither does Bax.”
It wasn’t, not really. Oh, it wasn’t the pups, except that it made me sad that I would always be uncle, and not bearer. But I didn’t like the idea of never being useful, of never really being a part of life. Repudiated omegas weren’t much better than ghosts, in a way. “I— Would you really want that?”
