Page 9 of Unruly Omega

That was, until my mate showed up with signs of abuse.

Now, I wanted to go after them all.

But fighting wasn’t how I was winning my side of the war. Instead, we’d chosen this way. Rehabilitation. Healing. Growth. Repair.

Sometimes, I questioned that decision.

My bear wanted the fight.

“I’m here.” I gripped my phone, my only connection to my omega, as I walked into the meeting of alphas who hadn’t been bribed by the powers that be to stay quiet and complacent.

When did we shifters ever get complacent?

“I’m getting all the alphas on the video call. One minute.” Thank goodness for Zeph. He handled all the tech stuff. I wasn’t a complete dumbass in that department, but it was second nature to him. Third nature, actually. First was human. Second was wolf. Third was tech.

In seconds, the other alphas were on a huge TV screen on the wall—all of them with fancy desks and button-down shirts. And here I was, more interested in seeing to my mate, and they were lucky I had a sweatshirt on. The others and I usually went around shirtless as shifters often did.

“Who called this meeting?” I asked when no one spoke.

“It was me.” Reggie, the alpha who warned me about the escape, spoke up.

Reggie updated us. Said his lands were flooded with humans searching for something or someone, but they didn’t ask or demand entry to our buildings. “They had some kind of scanner, so if anyone…not naming places on here…but if anyone picks up or finds an escapee, you might want to check them for a chip.”

Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that yet. Once the omega was shifted, I would ask him, of course, that among other things, but I couldn’t get close enough to him right now to even check.

That would be priority number one once I got him to shift.

The rest of the alphas chimed in on ideas and updates, all of them using careful verbiage and phrases in case our communication was hacked.

The whole time everyone was talking, I was only half listening. I’d set my phone on the table and watched my omega.He moved this way and that, pacing the room we’d put him in but, in general, he slept.

There was a chance he would never shift. We had no idea what he’d endured. There were some cases where the pain to the human side of us was so bad that the animal took over and wouldn’t let go.

Maybe not ever.

The meeting ended, and everyone filed out—everyone except Dean. He was the oldest member of our community, and those bastard scientists had taken him in at almost fifty years old. He’d thought he would retire and stay with his mate for the rest of his life. They killed his mate as he fought against the soldiers, and some days Dean wished he had fought too—that way, he would have joined his mate in death.

“Something on your mind?” I asked him. He wasn’t one to stick around for a yapping session.

“I have an idea. How to get your mate to shift back to human.”

“My mate?” I asked.

“Yes. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. It’s written all over your face while you’re watching him on that screen.”

I snorted. “Didn’t know I was so obvious.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“What’s the idea, Dean?”

“If you go in there and shift, and your bears make the tiniest bit of a bond, then there’s a chance you can communicate telepathically through the bond. If nothing else, your bear can command he shift back. It’s worth a shot, I thought.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“I think you’re right. Thanks for letting me know.”

He got up with a nod but paused before leaving the room. He didn’t turn around but I knew he was talking to me. “Don’t waste a second with your mate. Fate can be cruel sometimes.”

---