Page 23 of His Reluctant Omega Mate

Is he arguing with you, brother?Chase interrupted me via our link. I thought I’d locked them both out over the last few days. I hadn’t been sleeping properly and my guard must have slipped.

“Yes, he is,” Axel spoke out loud, hearing as I did that Chase was approaching.

Chase gave Axel a significant look as he entered the room, closing the door firmly behind him, and the silencing ward settled into place. With the ward in place, everything that was said inside the office would stay in the room. We could hear outside of it, but they couldn’t hear us. We only closed the door to share sensitive information.

“What’s wrong?” I glanced between them as they both took seats in front of me.

They seemed to argue between them about which one was going to speak up, and I wanted to throw my hands up in frustration as I waited for it to play out. I had so much work to do and didn’t need this... whatever it was.

Chase huffed and finally spoke up. “Look, we’ve known you all your life. There’s nothing, I mean nothing, that gets by us. We know all your secrets.” He raised an eyebrow at me, his cheeks slightly red from embarrassment. “There’s no shame but now —“ he glared at Axel. “Fuck! This is so hard to talk about with your kid brother.”

“We know you’re a virgin.” Axel blurted.

I thumped my head against my desk. Of course, they knew.

“Hey.” Chase rounded the desk and placed a hand on my back, shifting to lean against the surface as I lifted my head. The light from the window picked up the strands of gold and bronze in his light brown hair. We had the same eyes, and they were filled with understanding. “There’s no shame in it, little wolf. I don’t know why you waited. Those are your reasons, but we’ve never seen you notice anyone like this, and... well, he’s not been in touch.”

My heart clenched at his words because they were true. Surely, if Kade felt the same draw that I did, he would have been in touch. Since I didn’t have a number for Kade, I’d had to resort to calling Mercury Delivers. I’d left my number with Dakota when he’d called to say that Kade had left the hospital and had apologized for all the hassle at the pack-house. He’d been quick to smooth over any offense caused by Kade entering the territory under a magical disguise. I’d brushed his concerns off, more worried about Kade than anything else. Getting information about Kade out of Dakota had been like pulling blood from a stone, and I’d tried several times over the last week. Eventually, Dakota had bitten out that Kade would be on leave for a couple of weeks and would not be returning to the Sweetwater route for his safety. Then he’d hung up on me.

I’d checked out Dakota Flemming’s family in the pack list, but they were part of a small bear pack that had been allowed to form out of Sweetwater. Ours wasn’t the only pack in Sweetwater, just the largest and responsible for all the smaller packs in the area. I could use my authority over him, but that would turn me into something like my father. The Northarbor packs, the birds and the cats, shared responsibility for all the shifters in the city. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with pack politics like territory battles. I had enough to deal with my own shifters.

“So we’ve decided the best way to get over someone is to get on someone else,” Axel said.

“But a heat club? Heatwave too, so close to the pack?” I could admit to feeling curious about what it would feel like to be with an omega, to be with anyone, but I wasn’t sure that a heat club was the place to go.

“Look,” Chase piped up, still leaning against my desk and observing me, “the omegas there only want to get their heats out of the way so that makes them perfect.” He shrugged. “They aren’t social climbers wanting to mate an alpha for prestige. You take a contraceptive before you can get in, so you can’t end up a daddy unless you make a real connection with whoever you pair up with and see each other outside the club.”

“We’ll be there too,” Axel chimed in.

“What? No!” I spluttered. “There’s no way I’m doing that with you two there.”

They laughed for a long time. Chase doubled over with it and tears in his eyes. The twins would look at each other and then crack up again until, finally, Axel sobered. “No, not in the room, just until you get chosen.”

“Chosen?”

“The omega has all the power, dear brother, so the omega picks their alpha unless there isn’t one they want. Then maybe a beta or two will step in with some handy toys.” Chase looked delighted at the prospect.

“What if there aren’t any omegas?”

Axel scoffed, “there are always omegas. Did you know Northarbor doesn’t have a heat club?”

“Seriously?” I heard the surprise in my tone.

“Yeah, this is the closest one unless you go to Greenbriar, I think. It’s a pretty extensive area to only have one club, so they are always busy,” said Chase.

“Heatwave has a stellar reputation for safety, too. So we think it would be the best way for you to get this omega out of your head. They have approved you already. Seems you have a perfect omega-friendly reputation.” Axel sounded fond and proud of me.

“I do?” I felt stunned at how quickly they’d sorted this and embarrassed about the whole situation. How many alpha wolf pack leaders had to get their brothers to help them lose their virginity?

“You really do, a couple of the unmated omegas of the pack use the club and spoke up on your behalf. They seem to think you walk on water or something,” Axel was grinning now.

Often he was seen as the stoic twin, but he was only withdrawn with people he didn’t know well. As we rebuilt the pack into something that we could be proud of, he came out of that shell. I often thought that he had taken a lot of our dad’s shame on himself. He and Chase had been of age to take on the pack when Dad had been killed, yet the council denied their application, citing their designations as the reason. No alpha wants to follow a beta pack leader, they’d reminded us.

“So we’re going then?” Chase asked.

I gave it another thought. For years I’d carried around the anxiety about people finding out about it, and my brothers had treated me well over it. I couldn’t hang around the pack-house and hope that someone would come to me. The one person who had caught my eye hadn’t been back. Hadn’t called and likely hadn’t given me a second thought.

The thought of going to Heatwave and taking an omega through their heat had me on edge the whole afternoon. So much so that I had to get out of the house for a bit. I thought about shifting, but my wolf wanted to rest after our long runs the last couple of days. We had raced through the woods in our territory with our pack under the moon howling our thanks to The Luna for our alter forms. I’d played with the young pups and let them climb me and become covered in the pack’s scent.

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