“An alpha?” Owen was skeptical. “I can’t believe you’re saying that about an alpha. They’re so violent. And you hate violence! You don’t even like rough!”
“I know. But he wasn’t like that at all,” I said softly, lost in remembering. “He was kind and gentle. Goddess! Even when he was pounding into me, he was still kinda gentle. And he looked after me so well… he brought me water and food.” I stopped short of saying how tenderly he held me while we were knotted – that was a special memory I wanted to keep for myself. “Yeah, he was unreal.”
Owen blinked. It was a lot to take in. I’d just described an alpha that was the exact opposite of our pack Alpha and probably all the alphas he’d met so far.
“Are you sure you’re not just traumatized and making this all up?” he asked, tilting his head quizzically.
“No! I’m not. Honest. I was scared at first, because, well, alpha, but he wasn’t what I expected at all. He was… wonderful. If I had to describe my ideal alpha, it would be him.”
“And…” I stepped even closer and dropped my voice. The heat rushed into my cheeks as I admitted, “I liked it. My heat, I mean. It was… good. Better than good.”
“Really?” squeaked Owen, maybe starting to see the truth in my eyes. “Wow! You’re so lucky you had him for your first. But I don’t understand, why did you come back? If you found an alpha like that, why wouldn’t you stay with him?”
My shoulders sagged, my happiness disappearing like helium from a balloon. “He’s not going to be interested in a nobody like me. Honestly, he’s well out of my league. He’s so hot, he could have anyone. He was just passing and saw I was in trouble,” I sighed. I turned away, blinking, so Owen couldn’t see the moisture gathering in my eyes.
I felt his large hand on my shoulder, solid and encouraging.
“Hey, don’t talk about yourself like that,” he said, gently. “You’re an amazing guy. You just try to hide it because you don’twantto be noticed here. Not that I blame you. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”
He turned me around and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in for a comforting hug. I rested my head on his chest. A few tears fell. It was nice to be in the arms of someone who cared about me, but it didn’t fill the hole in my heart that the mysterious alpha had left behind.
“Hey guys! Look!” Lucey, one of the other omegas was staring out the window of our hut. There was a pounding of feet over the floorboards as the other omegas rushed over to see whatwas happening, piling up around each other and stretching to get a better view. Owen and I disentangled ourselves. Keeping my head down, the long strands of my fringe hid my eyes as I surreptitiously wiped at them, and we went to join the omegas at the window, where one or two of the shorter ones were jumping up and down at the back, trying to see over the heads of the others.
The truck had just pulled up in the yard and two of the meanest betas in our pack were standing around a long object, about the size of a small person, which they’d dragged out of the vehicle and dumped on the ground. It was wrapped in old sacks and rope, and seemed to be sort of softish from the way it moved when one of the betas kicked it. The betas stood around laughing for a bit, and then one of them picked up the object, slung it over his shoulder and carried it to the shed furthest from our building. It was the most isolated of the sheds, and it was the shed where they locked us up if they wanted to punish us. Sometimes the punishment was being in solitary with no food or water; sometimes it was a lot worse than that.
“What do you think?” asked someone.
“Another omega?”
“Could be.”
“Why didn’t they bring them here then?”
No-one answered, because we knew.
The two betas locked up the shed and went away, without us learning anything more. I felt sad for the poor omega, if that’s what it was. This was a terrible pack to belong to, and the fact they’d left them in the isolation shed suggested they were goingto get ‘special’ treatment. Around here, you didn’t want to be special, you wanted to be inconspicuous, just like me.
The betas left us alone that night, which was unusual. There were usually a few that wanted an omega for the night, and in fact, there had been a couple who had come to the door of the omega-house earlier but then they’d been distracted and didn’t come back except to give orders to take food and supplies to an alpha who was staying the night in our camp, waiting for Zarbius’ return the next day.
We assumed the alpha was one of Zarbius’ friends and as they were almost as unsavory as he was, the omegas drew straws to see who would have the misfortune of delivering things to the alpha’s cabin.
I breathed a sigh of when I drew a long straw, even though I knew Owen would step in and take my turn if it had fallen to me. Owen was the best friend ever. He knew how scared I was of our betas and how terrified I was of our cruel pack Alpha and his cronies, and he did his best to protect me. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t scared, but he generally just shrugged everything off. And because he wasn’t scared, they didn’t treat him quite so badly as they did some of the other omegas. I knew they taunted him a lot over his size which was unusual for an omega, but he didn’t let that get to him - too much – but they weren’t usually too rough with him.
On this occasion, one of the female omegas drew one of the short straws. She was to take clothes and towels to the cabin. Owen drew the other. He was to take dinner. His was the riskier assignment because it would be getting dark by the time he delivered dinner and there was always the risk that the alpha would make him stay. He sucked in a deep breath, chest expanding and standing taller. I knew he was simply bracinghimself for the ordeal, pretending like it didn’t matter. I wasn’t brave enough to offer to take his turn, and I felt a little guilty about that.
Rata delivered the clothes and came back running to the omega-house, scared but unharmed. Everyone gathered around her, hugging her and asking her questions.
“What was he like?”
“He was big,” she said, “And scary. Though he had a nice voice.”
“Was it one of Zarbius’ friends?” It didn’t sound like it could be. His friends never spoke nicely to us, they treated us with the same disdain as our Alpha did.
“What did he say to you?”
“Um. I don’t know. I didn’t recognize him. And he asked me if I was treated badly here.”
There were hisses of surprise and no-one spoke for a few minutes, digesting this news.
