Page 8 of The Long Lost Omega

Kaden

I couldn’t possibly be hearing right. Tony must have been so stressed that he was imagining things. I’ll admit, we’d often wondered what happened after that magical day in the summer, when we’d spent what felt like a lifetime with the girl we’d found in the woods. We were too young at the time to know what it meant, but we’d all felt a connection to her. I don’t think Tony or I had even had a real crush before then. But when we found that girl in the forest, so far from town, it was like we met our missing best friend. Afterward, when we woke up and she’d disappeared, we searched high and low for her. We’d scoured the forest every day that summer, hoping we’d see her again. All of us asked around, trying to find out which school she went to. No one had ever heard of her. Worst of all, we didn’t even have a last name for her.

We searched online, finding nothing, then checking every now and then to see if something popped up. Despite us having only spent a day with her, we felt we knew her so well that we all must have known each other in a past life. I remember us begging our fathers to help us find her. They humored us, but eventually chalked it up to our pack having an encounter with someone on vacation, or a girl who was playing games and gave us a fake name. I knew she wasn’t like that. She was vulnerable, more so than I realized at the time. Looking back, she must have been running away from something. I tried looking up lists of missing people, and even searching the next town over, hoping a clue would turn up.

As time went on, we accepted that we might never see her again. She was a mystery to us, one that nagged at the back of our minds as we grew up. To no one’s surprise, Tony, Jax and I all presented as alphas by the end of high school. We already knew from a young age we would be a pack, and that didn’t change. Our fathers were business partners, and once we graduated they wasted no time preparing us to take on roles at their company, hoping to mentor us until we were ready to take over. We spent our time learning from them and working on making something of ourselves. We had a lot of pride in our careers. We wanted to prove that we were worthy of our positions, and not simply given them because of our fathers.

Over several years, we’d successfully completed enough projects and expanded our client list so much that our fathers decided to take on less work. They planned to hand over the reins to the three of us in the next few years, but on several conditions. Part of their stipulation was that we find an omega and bond as a pack. Adding our pack to the registry, attending omegaballs, and frequent courting rituals were normal and expected of us, though we were always less enthusiastic than other packs we knew. No matter how many sweet omegas we met, none of themfeltright. I talked with my pack sometimes late at night, when we were exhausted from yet another failed courtship. We were certain that Safira had been special, and no matter her designation, we were sure she’d have fit right in with our pack.

Now Tony was on the phone, not only insisting that he had seen her, but that she had presented as an omega. Tony was always the joker among the three of us, but this didn’t sound like a joke. It was unbelievable. How could she have shown up after all this time? “Head home immediately. We’ll discuss this as a pack,” Jax instructed Tony over the phone as he gave me a serious look. Tony assured us he would be home soon, and we ended the call. As the gravity of the situation settled in, Jax turned to me.

“Do you really think it’s her?” I asked, my mind swirling with the possibilities. Jax’s face was unreadable, save for his clenched jaw.

“It’s highly unlikely. After all the digging we did, how is it that she just shows up out of thin air? No one’s ever found a trace of her before.” He said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. Jax, always the more reserved one, had an imposing presence even without his alpha status. With his chiseled features and being the oldest and tallest among us, he naturally assumed a leadership role. He became the de facto leader of our pack early on, even before any of us presented.

My skin tingled at the thought of finally being vindicated, of being proven right about her existence. “Jax, if it really is her,we need to see her. We have to find out what happened,” I urged, realizing it was only a matter of time. “And perhaps…” I hesitated as his dark eyes grew intense.

“Don’t say another word. We’re not even eligible to see an omega except for Illiana.” I groaned as I remembered our predicament. Illiana was the daughter of Pack Verdant - the pack that ran the largest import-export company in the Eastern Province. They were rivals to our family’s business but could also become one of our most valuable strategic allies. Our parents had proposed a courtship with the hope that it might lead to a bond, solidifying both our companies’ positions in Haven for years to come.

I felt a pang of guilt. Illiana was a good person. We had talked with her briefly as suggested, but never felt a stronger connection than with any other omega. Despite this, we accepted the possibility that true love might not be in the cards for us. We chatted with her a few times over video and decided that since we didn’t seem to have strong feelings for any omega, we might as well bond with one that made sense long term. So we would make things work with Illiana, and build together. She was scheduled to move into our home soon, and after we bonded we would all start our lives as a pack. That meant we shouldn’t go sniffing around other unbonded omegas. Not only was it crass to do so, it would be difficult, if not impossible to be alone with Safira. We were not on the registry to meet omegas anymore, having been removed after we stated our intention to move toward bonding with Illiana.

“Jax, I don’t think Tony would mistake anyone else for Safira.” I said cautiously. He looked frustrated, but shook his head.

“He’s getting cold feet about the upcoming bonding. Maybe he’s just grasping at straws. I find it hard to believe that she’d show up right at the most inconvenient time for us. It only gives us false hope. We have to follow through with our part of the deal.” He paced through the living room. I knew he was just as conflicted as I was. Just then, the door opened and Tony came bursting through. His eyes were wild, even greener than usual.

“Guys! She’s back! It’s really her!” He was almost shouting, and strode over to us. “It was her! She’s grown now, and damn, she’s a stunner! But she’s confused. She didn’t know where she was.” He was talking fast, pulling his tie off and rolling his sleeves up. “We’ve got to make sure she’s okay.” He went on as Jax walked up to him, and from the look on his face I thought he was going to try to talk Tony down from his excitement.

“Look, I know you think it was her, but-” Jax stopped talking and his body went rigid. Then, he reached for Tony, grabbing a fistful of his dress shirt and pulling him closer. He smelled the fabric with a long inhale and an even longer exhale, closing his eyes as his body suddenly melted free from all stress. I watched them with confusion until I caught a whiff of the scent. It was weak, but present. Suddenly I was on the other side of Tony, reaching for the shirt and inhaling it like it was the only way I could breathe. I smelled that before - not as strong, and certainly not laced with the emerging omega pheromones, but I recognized it. The sweet scent of fig leaf and lotus flower, a mix I hadn’t smelled since that summer so many years ago.

“It's true. It’s her. It’s really her.” Jax breathed out as we stood together, deciding without words that we had to see her again.

“You get it now? When I saw her, it was one thing. But smelling her scent, I just knew.” Tony said, his face looking both dreamy and elated.

“Where is she?” I asked, my heart beating out of my chest at the idea that I’d finally know what happened to her.

“They took her to the hospital. From what I could gather from the people who were there, she wandered out of the woods and was perfuming.” Tony’s words were tinged with longing. I couldn't blame him. I wanted to keep his shirt and smell it forever. Her scent felt like a warm blanket of comfort I’d been missing.

“We’ll make sure she’s safe, and see if we can talk to her. Beyond that, it’s up to her if she wants to stay in contact with us. But we need to consider Illiana.” Jax said, and again I felt the guilt of being obsessed over a woman I’d met once instead of the omega our fathers intended for us. She deserved better than this.

“Our dads will kill us if they find out.” Tony said with a grimace. They’d been hell bent on getting us bonded with Illiana, and had been working with her family for a long time to get this deal set up. They’d be livid if they knew we were planning to meet another omega, even if she was our long-lost childhood friend.

“Then we won’t tell them yet.” Jax said as he straightened his back. “Anyway, Illiana isn’t moving to our province until next month. We still need to set up her room.” He was all business, thinking ahead. None of us dared speak what we were allthinking. The arrangement could no longer go through. We’d always known deep down that there was only one person for us.

Chapter 7

Safira

Nothing was making any sense. After stumbling upon the mysterious diner that I’d been convinced existed only in my dreams, I had just seen the man I’d been fixated on for years. I had half-hoped that he would be there, sitting among the other guys, somehow reappearing after vanishing without a trace. And then, there he was.

I knew it was him, even though he was an adult now. The mischievous, dark-haired boy had become a man - a ridiculously tall man, with an MMA fighter build. His dark hair was styled and not the wild dark mess of hair he had as a child. But his eyes were still as striking as ever, emerald green and sharp, and his face had grown so gorgeous that he looked like a model. Even more strange, he’d recognized me instantly. He’d almost barreled through several people to get to me, so easily that they could have been made of paper. But everyone was speaking inthese terms that made no sense to me - words like omega, heat, and alpha.

They’d taken me to a hospital I didn’t recognize. That made even less sense. Weatherby was small enough that I should have known where I was immediately. The nurses tried to check me out for memory loss, but when they asked where I was from, a few of them seemed to understand what I was going through. It became even more bizarre when a police officer stepped into the room and started asking me questions.

“Let me guess, you’re from Weatherby, aren't you?” he asked with a resigned look. I nodded, happy that something was finally making sense. The officer sighed, then spoke into his radio. “I need all hands on deck. We have another Weatherby situation.” I frowned at the term; I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked as the nurses came in and out of the room. One woman stepped up beside the officer and looked at me with a welcoming smile.

“Safira, I’m Dr. Calloway. I think I may know what you are going through. We had another case like yours a few years back.” She sounded sympathetic, but I just wanted to find out what happened to Tony.

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