Page 23 of Mating the Omega
Pounding on the window too. I opened my eyes and put a hand out to stop him before he broke something, either himself or the house. “I’m okay, I just…needed a minute.”
He let out a long breath and sat down, his head between his knees. I stared in bemusement. What did he have to be upset about? Was he more invested in mating me than I’d thought, and it really was the responsibilities of his job that was keeping us apart? “Alpha?” I asked tentatively.
The Alpha sat up and wiped a hand down his face. “I’m fine. Mac would have killed me if I’d scared you to death.” He looked down at his knees and then back up at me. “I’m sorry, I put that badly. You won’t go back to them. I have a plan, and that’s what I needed to talk to you about.”
I nodded and waited. My cigarette had fallen in the sink and I let it sit there. If he wanted to mate, best to get the cycle started.
He smiled at me and leaned forward, so his face was right next to the open window. I saw it, in his widened eyes and the way his nostrils flared, that instant when he caught a good nose full of my scent. I also saw the effort it took him to quell that urge. It was impressive; most alphas didn’t bother, and I’d had a few close calls in my old pack—including the final one with my Alpha—before we ran away. He shook it off, though, and looked at me through the window with a reasonable approximation of someone who didn’t have ninety percent of his brain working at the quickest method to get his cock inside me. “I’ve noticed you and Mac get along well.”
My face went white; I know it did, I felt the chill as the blood left my cheeks. What had he noticed?
His eyes narrowed, and he hurried on. “I don’t think we’re a good match, but I suspect you and Mac might be well suited.”
The blood rushed back with such speed my head spun.
“You okay?” I heard through the roaring in my skull.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, though I could hardly form the words through the numbness of my lips.
“You don’t look good.”
That came through a little louder, and, in the spinning confusion of my thoughts, I blurted out, “Would you just tell me and stop trying to sneak it up on me? Fuck!” Then my head cleared a little more and I realized what I’d done. I stared at him, open-mouthed and too scared to speak.
He laughed at me. Full out, knee-slapping, tears coming from his eyes laughter. When he could finally get two coherent words out together, he said, “Oh, you and Mac are perfect for each other. He’s no respecter of rank either. I’ll have my ego punctured on a daily basis with you two around.” The chuckles faded, but not his good humor. “Please tell me that what I suspect is true. Do you like Mac?”
What was I supposed to say? “He’s very kind.”
“Fuck.” He laughed at my shocked face. “Yes, Alphas swear too. Probably more often than you do, but we have to do it behind closed doors. Your pack mates arrive tomorrow. The night after is full moon. Mac’s going to work security that night, let the young ones run and sniff and have some fun. I’ll invite your pack mates to run with me, you slip out, and seduce Mac. It’s time he was mated anyway. I’m sick of running interference for him—it only sets me up as a target, and I’ve no time for a mate right now.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent, his body’s desires strictly ignored. “I want to give him to you. Will you have him?”
“I don’t understand. Omegas are given…”
“Then will you give yourself to him? I can look elsewhere, if you like, but I think you like Mac, and I know he likes you, though he’s killing himself trying not to admit it. But your pack has made it obvious that they want you back, and the only thing keeping you here is my money and the contract I made them sign. If you can’t face a mating with anyone from Mercy Hills, I can look elsewhere, but it might take some time. And we don’t have much left.”
Did I want to tie myself to Mac for the rest of my life? It was hard to think, with the heat so hard on me. I was right in the middle, with another two or three days left of all thoughts turning to Mac’s substantial looking package, or the way his hands felt when he touched me. I didn’t know Mac well enough to say he wouldn’t become like my old alphas once he had me in his power. There hadn’t been time to find other omegas to talk to in the neighborhood to see what they thought of him. And it didn’t matter anyway. I’d been ready to tie myself to the Alpha for life, knowing even less about him.
So why was this so difficult?
Because I wanted it to be more with Mac, and I didn’t know how to tell if it would.
I looked the Alpha straight in the eyes, for the first time since that night I’d come over the wall and changed my life so completely. “I need to think about it.”
He nodded, surprising me. “I’ll see if I can come up with a Plan B in the meantime. Take care of yourself, Jason. And believe me when I say you aren’t going to be forced to do something you don’t want to do.”
I nodded, and watched in stunned amazement as he gathered himself up and left, off to whatever duties awaited the Alpha.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Full moon night. I peered out the window at my keeper, or jailer. He wasn’t there as a bodyguard, that’s for sure. Not that I had many visitors, but I’d been looking forward to starting lessons again with my tutor, and they wouldn’t even let her, a mated delta, in. Which pissed me off, to be honest, but if things went to plan tonight, it would be the last time my old pack ever told me what to do.
I’d kind of freaked the other day after the Alpha talked to me about this. Right after he left, it hit me that his suggestion would break the contract, and I raced up to Dad’s bedroom to find his copy. Only when I read through it again, I realized he’d left me a way out that night. The contract held, as long as I mated someone in the Mercy Hills Pack. And, if the Alpha had his way, that’s what I’d be doing tonight.
It felt strange that, after six years of avoiding any possibility of being mated, here I was, sitting on my bed, waiting anxiously for the sun to go down so the festivities could start, and I could slide into my other form and change my destiny. Or perhaps meet it—as an omega, a mating was always my destiny.
But the shape of that mating had changed a hundred-fold.
I watched the window intently, listening for the sound of my father coming home, for the beginning of the end of my old life. There was some nervousness too, but only because I was sure that Mac had been with loads of willing shifters—who wouldn’t want to be with him?—and I’d never so much as kissed someone, with the exception of my parents. The hormones would help, but I was at the end of my heat, and I couldn’t be sure there’d be much there. Oh, and there was that small concern that Mac wasn’t actually interested, an idea I couldn’t shake even with the Alpha’s repeated reassurances.
And that brought up another misgiving. Without even having to think about it, I knew that my jailers were here to make sure I came home. Orvin wanted me, wanted whatever power it was that I had to bolster his own. He thought it would make him rich and powerful. I didn’t have a fucking clue what he thought I could do, but I didn’t want anything to do with him. I needed to get pregnant. We could register an official mating afterward, if that was what Mac wanted, but if I was pregnant, then I obviously belonged to someone else and even Orvin couldn’t force me back.
