Page 18 of Unsubmissive Omega
I made no attempt to follow him. I smelt of sex and my mate, and I didn’t particularly want to wash any of that away yet. Besides, I had the strong impression Xander wouldn’t welcome my presence in the bathroom.
“Can we talk?” I asked Xander when he finally re-entered the room, a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked beautiful with his damp locks towel dried and sticking up all over the place, a few missed drops of water glistening on his smooth chest, his cheeks flushed. The mating scar was already forming at the base of his neck.
Xander wouldn’t look at me. He went to the walk-in wardrobe and I could hear him moving things around as he selected his clothes.
“Alright, what do you want to talk about?” he emerged from the walk-in already dressed in jeans. I felt disappointed that after all we’d recently done, he was trying to hide from me. His torso was still distractingly bare though, and despite my niggling unease and confusion, I instinctively licked my lips. He glared at me as he pulled a T-shirt over his head, hiding his perfect body.
“You don’t seem very happy,” I told him. “And if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t do anything to make it better.”
“I don’t need you to make it better. I can look after myself.”
“I’m sure you can, but you don’t have to. We’re mates, and I’m your alpha. It’s my job to take care of you.”
“I’m not a job to be taken care of,” he snapped.
I blinked. I was puzzled, completely confused at his attitude. Perhaps he was worried he wouldn’t have any autonomy in our pack. Certainly, plenty of packs still treated their omegas as possessions.
“Um. That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry – it was a bad choice of words. I’m here to support you. We’re really big on omegas’ rights in this pack, you’re free to do what you want here – well, provided it’s not harmful to the pack – and as Alpha Mate, you’ll have a lot of say in the running of the pack. You can create your own programs…”
“You told me that before. Pretty words, but they don’t mean much.”
I didn’t understand his attitude. The lines on my forehead and the sharply angled brows must have hinted at my confusion.
“Because I don’t see how forced matings do much for omegas’ rights,” he added, when I stood there staring at him.
What the ever-loving fuck? My blood ran cold. And then hot. I was furious!
“Wait! You told me you were doing this of your own free will,” I argued.
“Let’s just say it was the least bad of my options.” I thought I heard a sob as he whirled and left the room, his soft feet padding down the hallway as I collapsed on the bed in stunned silence.
Fuck! What had I done? I’d been blinded by my own enthusiasm, my own attraction. I should have asked more questions before diving into this. If he hadn’t had any real choice, if his other choices had been worse… then… then… fuck! I groaned and covered my face with my hands. That meant I’d been the worst alpha ever. It hadn’t been rape – thank the Goddess, there’d been no doubt about his enthusiasm for the sex… but not for me, and not for our union, apparently. Our mating night would forever be symbolic of a choice he wasn’t allowed to make.
Fuck! What could I do?
All I could think of was to try and do better going forward. I couldn’t make things right, couldn’t make it up to him, I knew, but I could do everything in my power to ensure the rest of his life was everything he wanted.
I’d tied myself to a man who didn’t care for me. Given he’d been forced into this mating, would he ever?
Perhaps with time, and if I tried really hard, he would come to accept me as his mate.
And if he didn’t…
Well, if he didn’t, he didn’t have to consummate the mating, and by the night of the next full moon, my mark would have disappeared and he would be free again. A deep sadness overwhelmed me at the thought. I would do everything in my power to make him want to stay, but if he chose to leave, I’d make sure he had the resources, financial and otherwise, that he needed. I owed him that much.
My heart desperately hoped it didn’t come to that.
???
When I entered the kitchen, Xander wasn’t there. I’d assumed that was where he was heading when he left the room, but instead I was greeted by Marta, the kindly beta who did the cooking for the main pack house. She was an older woman, and she’d been like a mother to me when I’d first arrived at the pack, green as any young 22-year-old alpha could be. She’d helped me settle into the pack, and she held a mother’s place in my heart.
“ ’Morning, Darius,” she smiled at me. “Everything going well this morning?”
I tossed up whether to tell her but decided not to. Whatever problems Xander and I had, they should be treated as private.
“Good morning, Marta,” I replied, but avoided answering the question by asking, “Have you seen Xander? He was just ahead of me. I thought he was heading in here for breakfast.”
Marta’s curly dark locks bounced around as she shook her head. “He didn’t come in here,” she told me, “But I heard the screen door close – those hinges need oiling! - maybe he’s exploring his new home.”
