Page 25 of Lone Wolf
“It’s not like we’re going to kick you out of the apartment,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“No, but imagine Xino after the fourth time the baby wakes him up in the middle of the night.” We both paused to contemplate my baby brother’s sleep habits for a moment, then shrugged off the nightmare thought of what it would be like to have him in the same apartment as a real baby. “It’s only two months,” I said, as much to remind myself as to remind her. “How hard can it be?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Turned out, really hard.
About a week in, I was ready to throw in the towel and give up my dreams of being an omega of worth. I was exhausted at the end of every shift from trying to convince both myself and the client that they aroused me, while my body wanted nothing to do with them, and everything to do with David. Because as far as it was concerned, he was the only one for us now.
The only thing that saved me was that my clients were more interested in the swell of my belly than whether my passionate noises sounded faked or not. I didn’t think there was even one of them who noticed my complete lack of arousal.
Ma did what she could, digging deep into her bag of tricks to help me get through this. And the whole time, the offer to stay with them until I could go back to work—the kind I was good at—floated between us like a safety net of the worst sort, because it was so, so tempting, especially on nights like tonight.
I showed my current date to the door of the room, too tired to even protest when he grabbed my ass and squeezed, trying to undo the tie of my robe at the same time so he could get another eyeful of my cranky pup as he or she pummeled my internal organs. I took a step to the side and waved brightly at him, reminding him he only had six more weeks before I’d be finished at the Mink if he wanted a second round, and then closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief.
My next date wasn’t for an hour. I could shower, maybe grab something to eat. They didn’t stint us here, those of us working through our pregnancies. Not that we would have cost them much, I could have counted us on one hand and there were never more than two of us at a time on shift. I was busier than most, I thought, because I was male and therefore something strange and bizarre. While I wasn’t the first male omega to do this, I thought the last one had been at least five years ago. Maybe ten.
Some of the clients didn’t even want to fuck, just sit there and stare at me with a puzzled look on their faces while I jerked them off so we had something to charge them for. After too many of those, I spoke to management and now they paid for my time, regardless of what we did. And I made sure they paid a premium, because I was starting to get touchy about being touched and the next person, human or shifter, who grabbed for my belly without asking was going to get bit.
I let the robe fall and hit the switch that turned on the little light in the floor staff’s room to let them know to come refresh the room. Shower first, then maybe something to eat, though my appetite wasn’t keeping pace with the growth of the baby. Too tired, I guessed. But I had a day off tomorrow; maybe I’d skip the sewing session and just nap all day.
The showers here weren’t as nice as in Silver, but Silver was the newest house, less than ten years old. I didn’t mind the Mink, though. It was nice, in some ways nicer than Silver. The upstairs rooms, the really expensive ones, had real marble I’d heard. And full sized bathtubs with jets in them, to slowly seduce someone who was paying ridiculous money for the privilege.
Even in the lower rooms, like the one I was working in tonight, the floors were burnished hardwood and the beds heavy and solid. But there wasn’t a middle ground with Mink, you were either a dove gray or a blue bracelet here. I didn’t want to take the pay cut the dove gray bracelet meant, and I didn’t want to do the things the blue bracelets did here for their credits.
But the water was hot and I was able to scrub away at the vaguely dirty feeling that coated my skin. I’d never felt it at Silver, but there I was totally in charge. Here, I felt like little more than an object to the clients, and I didn’t like it at all.
My alarm binged and I sighed and turned off the water. Time to go get ready to add a bit more to the house fund.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
His team had gotten in late after the expedition down south. Technically, it had been a success, but he knew there’d be problems with the DEA agent.
He didn’t care. Sometime while he’d been out there in the brush, he’d decided that he was tired of being used for what he was, instead of valued for who he was. It had been okay when he was younger, when the pride of providing for his family even if it meant never seeing them again had still been shiny and new. Now he was just sick of it all, sick of the isolation, sick of having no real connection to the world unless he was hunting something with the intent to kill it. Sick of the constant threat that any misbehavior on his part would be taken out on his family.
This was no life for a shifter.
The question was what to do about it.
He could go feral—others had done that, though not from the Agency, he thought. He had the skills to slip across borders, to establish a new identity.
Finding a new pack who would take him in would be the hardest part of it all—no one liked a feral and no one wanted a fugitive on their books. It just invited all sorts of trouble. And he really had no skills other than the ones he’d learned in the Army.
But all packs had a security force—maybe that would be his way in.
Or, he could stay here and wait for his brain to go completely to the Barrens, and then Oscar would take care of all his problems for him. Probably with a .45, just to be sure.
North across the border it is.
With the decision made, even if he hadn’t set a deadline for it yet, the tension that had been tying knots in his shoulders for the past months eased.
Damian tossed his bag into the closet with the rest of his dirty laundry and poured himself a shot, then made himself comfortable on the couch and opened the new laptop he’d picked up on the drive home. He finished his drink and poured another while the machine went through the long, tedious process of updating itself and rebuilding all his accounts.
The anticipation made his head spin, or maybe that was the rum and the lack of sleep. It had been several weeks since he’d looked, trying to wean himself off the useless emotional flogging.My ritual.He was a fool—that omega was long mated and probably big with…
Fuck me to the Barrens.
A discreet banner down the side of the page announced the annual specialty offerings, a heavily pregnant shifter gracing the top of it. And the image beneath it was none other than Salem, presenting his pregnant belly to the world as if offering it for sale.
