Page 31 of Unsubmissive Omega
The first of the challenges came three days after Xander’s heat ended. To be honest, I was surprised it took that long. Once word had spread that the Alpha couldn’t take care of his mate, it was inevitable.
Arnius, one of the young alphas, just two years into his majority, surprised me in the compound one morning when I was doing my rounds.
“Alpha!” he growled, appearing from between two buildings. His lips were curled back, baring his incisors which had dropped. Hair had sprouted on the backs of his hands, and my eyes caught on the long claws protruding from the fingertips. In his excitement at challenging me, he was losing control. I saw the fine tremor in his legs… he was close to shifting.
“I challenge you!” the words were half-speech, half-growl, but the moment he uttered them, he lunged forward, hands grasping, lips pulled back in a snarl, a string of drool connecting his upper teeth with the lower ones.
Arnius was one of the smaller alphas. He wasn’t a bad kid, but hewasoften obnoxious. I’d always put it down to the fact he wastrying to prove himself to his peers. In a way it made sense that he was the one to challenge me… what kudos he would gain in the eyes of his friends if he could take me down!
Unfortunately for him, he was inexperienced and out-of-control. He had so much momentum he couldn’t stop when I side-stepped at the last minute. Rookie mistake. His hands closed around thin air, but mine closed around his neck from where I’d already moved in behind him.
I didn’t want to hurt him. He was young, over-eager, a bit insecure. He’d grow into a decent alpha if he made it that far. Which, if he continued to challenge the wrong people, he wouldn’t.
Arnius’ momentum pushed him into my grip, momentarily applying pressure to his windpipe, and he jerked to a halt. His entire body quivered like jelly, the vibrations juddering my hands around his neck, but now it might have been caused by fear. In some packs, such disrespect to the Alpha would have prompted a killing bite, but I had no stomach for that sort of thing. I loved my pack. If I couldn’t command the respect of its members, forcing the issue wouldn’t make me a better leader. I’d end up as bad as all the other shitty Alphas we’d heard plenty about over the years. But I had to teach him a lesson, make sure he knew who was in control.
I leant in close to Arnius’ ear. The sour scent of fear and burnt adrenaline stinging my nostrils. The silly boy was shaking like a leaf; a trickle of sweat rolled down the flushed neck and trickled over the back of my hand.
“I could crush you with my hands,” the trembling grew stronger, so much so that I could hear his teeth clacking. “Or I could throw you out of the pack.” If possible, the trembling grew worse. Weall knew what happened to young alphas who’d lost their place in a pack.
I waited a few minutes to let the gravity of his position sink in. Then carefully, alert to the possibility that he might still continue to fight, I slowly relaxed my grip on his neck.
“Submit,” I hissed, spittle flying the short distance to land on the trembling shell of his ear.
For a moment, he didn’t move. I wondered if he was going to make this difficult. Would he force my hand? A one-time fight was one thing, but continued disrespect to the Alpha was unacceptable.
When his head flopped to the side, exposing the soft vulnerable flesh at the base of his neck, the air slipped silently from my nostrils. That was where the killing bite would go, but there would be no killing today.
“I s-submit, Alpha,” the words gurgled out of his throat, still partly compressed from the hold I’d had on him. He’d get over it. I released him completely and gave him a small shove back in the direction he had come from.
“Go back to your work,” I snarled, “and don’t try that again.”
He whimpered and hurried away, head down, shoulders rounded. I didn’t think I’d have any more trouble with him.
I’d won this fight easily, but I knew it was just the first of many. And they would get harder. That was how these things went, the weakest and most desperate going first, the real challengers usually waiting until the disrespect had spread throughout the pack and the Alpha weakened by continuous challenges.
Yes, it was going to get harder.
******
It was during the fourth fight, that I finally sustained a wound. It wasn’t a serious one, but it bled and stung enough to make me harshly end the challenge with a less than gentle headlock and choke. The challenger didn’t want to cede though, and I had to add a backward twist of his arm which came dangerously close to breaking it, before he finally offered his neck.
When the watchers had dispersed, I came inside, blood still oozing through the gash in my white tee. Sigh. Another one for the garbage can. The others had sacrificed themselves to the sharp claws of my opponents, whilst still protecting my skin from damage. At this rate I was going to run out of shirts, not thatthatwas my biggest problem right now.
As the screen door banged shut behind me, I paused, looking towards my bedroom at the end of the corridor. There was no point going there. Xander had been keeping away from me ever since his heat and I knew full well the bedroom door would be locked. For the last week I’d been sleeping in our old Alpha’s office. No wonder the pack was getting restless. This was a situation that I needed to resolve but fuck me if I knew how.
I’d have gone to the office now to clean myself up if I could, just to avoid an awkward conversation, but the wound wasn’t one I’d be able to bandage myself. It wasn’t a serious wound, and if I’d shifted and stayed in wolf form for a couple of hours, it would have healed completely. But I had work to be done this afternoon, and besides, it didn’t look good if the Alpha disappeared for a few hours after a challenge. It made them more of a target, with people thinking they’d sustained a serious injury.
No, better to stay in human form and put up with the discomfort every time I moved, and the small amount of humiliation involved in asking for help. The wound did need cleaning up, so there was no escaping it. I turned to the one person I knew I could trust and headed for the kitchen.
“Alpha.” Always respectful and attuned to those around her, Marta turned towards me as I came through the door. The tray of pastries she’d been about to put in the oven clattered to the floor, my eyes fixating on one pastry rolling away across the meticulously clean floorboards.
“What happened?” Marta’s shocked tone drew my eyes away from the pastry that was now disappearing under a cupboard. Her blue eyes were wide and a small crease marred her forehead, visible behind her dark curls.
Marta’s already thin lips disappeared as she pursed them. Her eyes had fixed on the slowly expanding smear of red on my shirt. She was probably wondering why I hadn’t shifted to heal if I’d hurt myself.
“There was… a challenge,” I admitted, the corner of my mouth twisting in a self-deprecating grimace. “It seems some of the younger ones think they would do a better job as Alpha.”
I was trying to keep things light, not wanting to show how much it affected me, but Marta had been around long enough to know a challenge to the leader was a serious matter. It was a wound that would fester until either the Alpha was deposed (killed or replaced, it didn’t matter) or until whatever had triggered the initial unrest had been dealt with.
