Page 10 of The Feisty Omega

Maybe.

Or maybe I should let go now. I didn’t know why I wanted to hold on to him so much, but I did. It was weird, a strange compulsion almost. I wasn’t even the clingy type. Perhaps this was proof that the Goddess or Santa Wolf (okay, we knew the truth there, definitely had to be the Goddess) had sent him my way.

He hadn’t actually said he was mine. And just because he was an omega didn’t mean I could demand he be mine. And I couldn’t claim him anyway, we were still both too young. Shifter convention meant he had to be nineteen before any alpha could make a claim for him. And formal unions (the shifter equivalent to a human marriage) weren’t permitted until the age of 22. I knew I was jumping ahead in my mind – way past where we were right now – but the Goddess does things for a reason. I trusted she knew what she was doing. I barely knew him, but this felt right.

I pulled away and swiped the hair back from my face.

“I know it’s not much, but I wanted you to have something to remember this Christmas.”

“I’ll treasure it!” Irian looked up at me, a soft rose color flushing his cheeks. “I’ll think of you when I see it.”

A sudden noise in the doorway interrupted us, and I looked across to see my friend Luke standing there, hanging from the lintel by one hand, flexing his muscles as per usual.

“C’mon, man,” he said, addressing me, while his narrowed eyes swept up and down Irian critically. Apparently dismissing him as irrelevant, he turned his eyes back to me. “The guys are waiting for you.”

In the excitement, I’d forgotten that my friends and I usually hung out before Christmas lunch was served. This was fine, though, it was my chance to introduce Irian to them, and gave me an excuse to keep him by my side for a little longer.

“We’ll be right there.” I indicated the doorway with my head. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to my friends.”

I headed for the door, the soft scrape of footsteps on the floorboards following behind me.

“Luke, this is Irian. He’s visiting for the holidays.”

With a thud, Luke let his full weight hit the floor. He looked at Irian with disinterested eyes. “Hey,” he said grudgingly, and the dismissal was clear. My brows furrowed.

“Hey,” Irian responded in a friendly voice, though he couldn’t have missed Luke’s unfriendly tone. I glared at Luke as we passed, but I kept going. If the others were going to be like this too, I was not going to be happy.

“Over here.” I touched Irian on the shoulder and led him towards where the guys were waiting in the shade of the huge tree which was the focal point of our compound. Everyone in our group was eighteen or nineteen, the oldest adolescents in the pack at the moment – except for Alpha’s son, buthewas another story - and we hung out here, doing very little I had to admit – surveilling the rest of the compound as if we were in charge. Occasionally we might intervene if the younger kids got in a fight or something, but mostly we just lounged around, feeling bored, rebellious and way too mature for our surroundings. My friends were all deliberately scruffy, with untamed hair, several days growth on their faces, unkempt clothes and sullen scowls. We werethatage, you know? I didn’t go in for it as much as the others, but I could raise a good scowl myself. Right then, though, I was upbeat. I didn’t have time or cause for scowling.

I looked down at the blonde head of the omega beside me. His head barely rose above my shoulder, and the blonde strands had a silky sheen in the sunlight. At some point he must have used his fingers to rake his short hair into a semblance of neatness, and when he turned to look at me, he had the clean, fresh face of youth. Not a whisker in sight.

He looked… good… in those well-fitting jeans and he wore the oversized t-shirt with gentle grace. Though he was obviously several years younger than the rest of us and an omega, he walked confidently beside me. Maybe he knew I’d protect him if any of these alphas turned mean – and I absolutely would – or maybe he just trusted himself to manage any social situation. It was intimidating for an omega to be confronted by a pack of alphas, even if we hadn’t reached full majority yet.

“Hey.” I greeted the guys. “Happy Christmas!”

There were grunts and grudging murmurs of ‘Happy Christmas’.

“This is my friend who’s come to stay for Christmas at least, maybe even the whole holidays?” I raised my brows as I looked to Irian for confirmation.

He nodded. “The holidays. Hey, guys.”

“This is Derek, Yuri, Dar… And Kal, Lin, Brand… I bet you’re not gonna remember all these… Sami, Max, and you already met Luke.”

The guys all grunted a ‘hello’ or a ‘hey’ or a ‘hi’. Irian smiled shyly and gave a little wave. The boys weren’t exactly welcoming, but they also weren’t hostile. I could imagine what they were thinking, half of them anyway. They’d be annoyed, or at the least surprised, that I’d thought it was a good idea to bring such a young guy to come hang with us. I could appreciate that. If the situation were reversed, I’d have probably been thinking the same thing. And I could probably have told them that he was Alpha’s guest, but no…fuck that, he was my friend, he had a right to be here.

For a moment there was awkward silence, then the boys resumed whatever convos they were having before we turned up. There wasn’t enough time to do anything much before lunch, so we strolled around the compound, various conversations taking place at once.

Luke came up on the other side of me. He nudged me.

“Ditch the kid.” He barely dropped his voice as he flicked a glance towards Irian.

“What the fuck?No!” I snapped, outraged he was acting like this. He didn’t know it, of course, but this wasmyChristmas present he was talking about, and I had no intention of giving him up. Still, he didn’t need to be a dick about it.

Luke’s eyebrows silently asked the question,why?

“He’s my friend,” I protested.

“C’mon, he’s a baby,” he murmured. “And anyway, how can he be your friend? You only just met him.”

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