Page 41 of Taming The Omega

It ended up being easier than he’d expected. He caught the ferals’ earthy and strange scents very quickly. He stopped and sniffed the air, trying to decide on a direction. Once he did, he kept his pace slow. He didn’t want to give any mistaken impression that he was being aggressive. In the end, they found him. As he entered a small clearing deep in the forest about a kilometer from the outer ring of Magnus’ territory, a trio of stark white wolves emerged to impede his progress.

Caleb stopped instantly and stared back at the beta flanked by two gammas. They were big, even by his standards, the beta easily reaching alpha proportions. The male almost had the aura of an alpha, as well. He would have been the obvious choice among this small group to be in command. As he stood looking at him, Caleb felt the pull of obedience.

Because joining them to gain their confidence was the plan, he lowered his head in submission. The three sets of bright blue eyes stared back at him with slightly bared teeth. They were in full-on protective mode. A flash of movement to Caleb’s left caused him to shift his gaze. There, peeking out from behind a thick tree, was a much smaller shifter. Its omega nature was clear even with so little to see. And, that one bit of knowledge explained the others’ stands. They had a young, vulnerable shifter with them.

A low growl brought his attention back to the beta. The male had taken a step forward and his teeth shown wickedly in the shaft of light pouring down between the tree branches. Caleb lowered his head even more, exposing his neck in obvious submission. He even let out a whine for good measure. Lorcan was counting on his at least talking to these three in order to issue the invitation to join the Rogues. He’d never get the opportunity unless and until he gained their trust. That would take time.

He crouched with his neck exposed, waiting to see if he’d get an offer to run with them or have his throat ripped out. He wasn’t afraid, gammas rarely were. But there was more at stake than his life. A vision of Seth in the future flashed through his mind. The omega’s belly was rounded with their pup. An overwhelming need to return to his family rose up. Instead of turning tail and running, he lay down and rolled onto his back.

Time suddenly seemed short.

****

Seth woke early, the rising heat of the day already making the longhouse hotter than he liked. In his year of living feral, he’d gotten used to the more consistent coolness of the woods and regulating his temperature though panting was far more efficient than what a human could manage.

Because the others were in the last of their sleep cycle, he carefully and quietly got up, dressed in only loose-fitting jeans and padded out to the kitchen. He was still getting used to wearing clothes again, and going light on the constriction helped with his closed-in feeling. He knew, too, that Joey and the kitchen sigmas didn’t put a lot of restrictions on others helping themselves. So long as he didn’t take the last of anything without permission, he was good to go. After near-starvation for so many months, his hunger had yet to fully abate. His eating for two increased the ravenous feeling.

He peered into the fridge, eyed the yogurt with disdain before grabbing it. It counted as one of the two servings of dairy he needed each day and when filled with fruit, it wasn’t as bad as drinking milk. He opened it, tossed in a few berries and stood leaning against the counter as he ate.

His days had become pretty routine in the few weeks since he’d been bred and abandoned. No, that wasn’t fair. Caleb had left on urgent pack business. He hadn’t left Seth because he didn’t want to be with him. That didn’t mean the gamma wasn’t glad to have a reason to put some distance between himself and his breeding mate. Thinking those thoughts, though, only served to make Seth sad. There was no point in wallowing in his misery that way.

Seth needed to keep busy. He had chores, having taken up weaving. He’d missed it, actually. There was a kind of solace in the rhythm of passing the shuttle back and forth. He was even mentally planning on the colors and pattern of a blanket for the pup. Sticking his spoon inside the yogurt cup, he flitted his free fingers over his abdomen. It felt fuller, but that might be from eating so much. He’d been concave when Caleb had found him. The pup really wasn’t developed sufficiently for him to show yet.

He picked up the spoon and continued to mindless shovel the food in. If he finished before the sigmas arrived, he’d avoid the nauseating smell of coffee brewing. Back in his old pack, he’d enjoyed the drink. Now, not so much, probably because he’d been without it for so long.

Halfway through, he felt the odd sensation of slick leaking from his hole. He paused and frowned, then took another spoonful before feeling it again. Putting yogurt and spoon down on the counter, he went to the bathroom off the kitchen. His lungs froze and his heart skipped a beat when he realized what he’d sensed wasn’t slick at all. Of course, it wasn’t.

He stumbled out of the bathroom and headed down the hallway for Andrea’s room. He slowed down to a shuffle, afraid to go faster for fear of aggravating what he knew was happening. Even though his mind told him it didn’t work that way, he was reduced instantly to working on a primitive level of mindless fear. He reached the healer’s door and pounded on it, the sound registering at a muted level past the greater pounding of blood in his head.

“Seth?”

The healer’s worried face showed through a curtain of tears he hadn’t realized he was shedding. Then she was pulling him inside, lying him down, and checking him with an agonizing level of compassion and gentleness. He wanted to howl in his misery. Having accepted his fate as a mated and bred omega, he couldn’t bear the idea of losing the pup. His wolf did cry out in that plaintive way of someone not in control of their fate.

His focus came and went. He heard Andrea murmur how it wasn’t so bad, only a small amount of spotting. He latched onto that assessment as a lifeline. She asked him questions about pain, tiredness and queasiness, and did certain smells and foods bother him. He answered each one truthfully, and she seemed pleased.

Others came in, Kyle and Lorcan, and helped him to the pallet the healer had to keep her patients close by if need be. He could hear their quiet conversation, the healer giving her diagnosis and prognosis to the alpha. With Seth’s mate absent, the alpha was the logical one to make decisions for his care.

Seth couldn’t be bothered to look or even listen closely. What did it matter? He was losing his pup, and his mate was far away. It wasn’t only comfort he needed from Caleb at that moment. Despite being almost crippled with terror, he had enough presence of mind to know that his miscarriage would lead to another heat. If Caleb didn’t return in time, who would service him, and could he stand the idea of being mounted by another?

“I should never have sent Caleb away at this early stage. Damn!” That was Lorcan, the alpha obviously thinking along the same lines.

“You couldn’t have known.” Always the loyal mate, Kyle immediately sought to ease Lorcan’s guilt.

“There is no need to be alarmed yet, Alpha. There isn’t much blood, and Seth isn’t in any pain. Are you, dear boy?” Andrea’s warm hand touched his shoulder.

Still not able to stand opening his eyes and looking at anyone, he shook his head. There was no pain, and apparently that was a good sign. He focused on that fact with desperation.

Andrea patted him. “He’ll stay here with me, and we’ll wait and see. Omega pregnancies are always tricky, but no need to assume the worse. Seth otherwise seems to be experiencing the normal symptoms of breeding.”

“Good,” Lorcan said. “Because I have no way of contacting Caleb. We have to hope that he’ll be back soon.”

****

Their little group of ferals lounged in a clearing near a small pond. Having feasted on a deer, they were quietly digesting their meal, although each of them remained alert for trouble. In the few weeks he’d spent with them, Caleb was slowly becoming a welcome member, but they still didn’t trust him and that was a good sign. Being cautious was a sensible attribute in a leader, and the beta showed that and other qualities Lorcan would be happy to have in a new pack member.

One of those was that the adolescent omega always ate first. He was a male, as it turned out, and given his scent, a brother to the beta. There were no females and no other pups. Once the omega had his fill, the gammas took turns. Only after they were also done did the beta step up. Clearly he took his role of leader seriously and such behavior spoke well of him. Since their first meeting, the group hadn’t stopped Caleb from eating when everyone else was done.

This latest kill was Caleb’s, actually. He’d dragged the deer carcass over to the beta as an offering before standing aside for the omega to feed. When the boy had finished, the beta had allowed Caleb the next turn, the first real sign that he’d been accepted into their group. Not completely. The others still kept themselves between him and the omega, never letting Caleb get too close and never leaving the young one alone. No wonder they hadn’t fought Magnus’ boys when they’d stumbled upon them. These foreign shifters didn’t take any chances with the omega’s life.

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