Page 1 of Unsubmissive Omega
Prologue
DARIUS, 2 years prior
“He’s gone.”
The hardest words I’d ever had to say.
I looked around at the gathered pack members. Silent tears were falling, there were some sniffles, noses blown. Erebius had been a much-loved pack leader and he’d done a lot for his pack. They were big shoes to fill.
“There will be 3 days of mourning,” I announced. “He loved you all and he wouldn’t want you to suffer, or remember him in grief. After the mourning period is over, do not think of him with sorrow, nor regret for things you may have said or done, or not said or done. Remember the good times, the love he had for you, and you for him. Remember the laughter and fun times your pack shared because of him, celebrate all those special moments you shared with him either as individuals or as a pack. May he continue to bring you happiness, and shine a light in your lives, in this way. This is how you honor him.”
I shifted, lifted my muzzle and began the death howl. One by one, other voices joined me until the entire pack was singing for its Alpha, sending his spirit on its way to join the Goddess and the wolves who had passed before. The night was filled with our mournful cry, rolling and reverberating around the hills and soaring up high. The night was still, listening to our cry, no other animals interrupted our song, no birds flew overhead.
Finally, the tone of the howl altered, became more uplifting as it passed from sorrow to a celebration of a life well lived. And then, the song died away as each voice gradually withdrew from the chorus, until the last notes of the song echoed around the hills one last time and then faded into silence.
Chapter 01
DARIUS
The parchment hit the desk with a decisive snap.
“It’s not optional,” Zendius, my best friend and second-in-command, told me, eyeing the missive received from the High Council that morning. A scowl twisted his heavy-set masculine features.
“It’s ridiculous,” I snapped. No way the Council could insist on a ruling like that, could they? All Pack Alphas had to have an Alpha Mate, or the Council would send in administrators to take control of the pack? I mean, seriously, what kind of fantasy was this? Had they been dabbling in unusual mushrooms while thinking up their latest edict?
I’d asked Zendius to read the letter, in the faint hope that in my shock and incredulity, I’d misunderstood. But no, the light was definitely on upstairs - I wasn’t mistaken. The rules were clear.
‘Packs without an Alpha Mate on November 15 will be taken over by a Council-appointed temporary administrator. The administrator will determine whether to dissolve the pack and its assets or install a permanent administrator as pack leader.’
It was clearly another power and asset grab by the Council which had been growing more and more greedy in recent years. The ruling was hard to justify – an alpha mate wasn’t necessary for a pack to flourish or maintain discipline – but since the majority of the Council was made up of previous generation Alphas, long past their prime but certainly not above substituting physical prowess with political scheming, contesting the ruling would be to no avail. And any Alpha that tried to challenge them, would no doubt be ruthlessly shown their place.
Unless we banded together to confront them.
But that was a challenge for another time. Achieving unity between all the various pack leaders wasn’t something that could be done overnight with a few phone calls. But it was something that needed to be done further down the line. The Council’s demands were becoming wilder and wilder, to the point where some of the packs inevitably couldn’t meet the new requirements and had to hand over large amounts of money, land, or, in some cases, omegas, to their avaricious Council overlords.
I sighed. However ridiculous this latest demand was, I had to satisfy it or lose the pack. We’d been fortunate in the past, that due to excellent financial management by previous Pack Alphas, we’d held sufficient funds to cover the crazy requests coming from the Council, but once they shifted to non-monetary demands, we were on shaky ground.
I was soon to turn thirty and had been Pack Alpha for the last two years. I had taken over the leadership when the previous Alpha had died. At the time, I had been second-in-command, and the pack had voted me in as leader without anyone challenging. It had been the easiest transfer of leadership of any pack I knew of, and a lot of that was due to the packculture our previous leader had engendered. I’d had experience simply by functioning in my role of second, but the reality of being the actual Pack Alpha… well, let’s just say it had kept me busy. There were so many extra administrative and diplomatic responsibilities that I’d been run off my feet. And there had been some problems initially, not stemming from within the pack, but from the Council’s relentless demands. They’d probably viewed the time of leadership transition as a period when the pack would be weak and had done their utmost to destabilize us. Ultimately, their strategy hadn’t worked, thank the Goddess, and the pack had come through the experience unscathed.
It wasn’t my birth pack. No, not at all. I’d left that pack as soon as I completed my majority at 22, and I’d been fortunate to find a place in this one, rapidly rising from walk-in straggler to trusted right-hand man in a short period of time. I had wondered how the existing second-in-command, Zendius, had felt about moving aside to make room for me, but he’d remained friendly and seemed fine with the new arrangement. It was possible he hadn’t wanted the responsibility of ultimately becoming pack leader.
I’d naturally chosen him as my second, however. Inexperienced as I was, I needed someone who understood in detail the running of the pack. He’d helped me out enormously and I was grateful for his support and the way he took on some of the tasks I found more onerous.
I’d come to grips with the role now, although it definitely kept me on my toes, but the unrelenting demands of leadership had left us in a difficult position. I hadn’t had a mate at the time of assuming the leadership, and since then I hadn’t had the time or opportunity to seek one out. Any omegas I’d come across in thecourse of my duties hadn’t stirred even an iota of interest in me. Not upstairs, not downstairs.
There was an added complication. I was gay, so I needed a male omega as a partner, and male omegas were not all that common. None of this had been a problem, until the fucking Council came up with its latest stupid edict. Now I had to find a mate, and I had to find them fast.
“Shit!” I swore, wishing my hair were longer. There was very little comfort to be found from running one’s fingers through short, very tightly wound curls; I did little more than scrape my scalp. “What am I supposed to do here? Run ads for a mate? What the fuck does it matter if we have an Alpha Mate or not? Our pack runs fine just as it is!”
“Of course,” Zendius agreed, head bobbing solemnly, his beard catching the light with the movement, “but there’s no getting around this, unless you want to lose the pack. You’re going to have to take a mate, any mate really. The pack is depending on you.”
My footsteps rang angrily back and forth across the hard wooden floor.
“How am I supposed to find the time to do that?” I demanded, stopping abruptly and glaring at him. “I’m visiting the Lilydale pack this coming week to agree on combined boundary patrols, and then I have a trade agreement to negotiate with the Churls Clan pack. How the hell am I supposed to spend time finding a mate before the 15th?”
“And given your specific tastes…” Zendius’ voice trailed off. He was well aware I was only interested in male partners. As we’d been friends for quite a few years now, it was almost impossiblefor him not to know, because although I’d only dated a couple of times, I’d never hidden my attraction to men.
“You could try the clubs?” he suggested.
