Packs in America dissolved when we realized there were no Omegas. What’s the point? Betas don’t live like we do. There are no packs out there, so the structure wouldn’t make sense. A lot of Alphas decided to just break the bond and try to live a normal life. Try to find happiness even if not with a fated mate.
“She’s… how…” Jesse shakes his head, deep in thought.
“We need to call our parents,” Major declares. “We need to tell them about Veda.”
My eyes narrow at my brother. His reaction is not surprising, but it brings every protective instinct to the front. I know where this is going, and I won’t allow it.
“Why?”
“She can scent-match with someone—”
“There’s no one to scent-match!” Jesse gets there before me. “Every pack in the township is gone.”
“Still…” Major sighs as he throws his hat over the table. “We found an Omega, so we have to tell people.Ourpeople.”
“What if they want Veda to go over and meet the packs? What if packs all over the country try to get to her?” Jesse continues shaking his head, and I have to admit, I don’t like the idea either.
The packs, just like us, dreamed of having an Omega of their own. If we tell them about her, they will come back hungry. I’m not saying that I’d ever keep an Omega from her pack, it’s not that. I wouldn’tdare. But we need time to assess this situation.Weneed time to wrap our heads around this.
“Something is going on,” I add. “There’s something else in her scent that I can’t really place.”
“A claim?” Major asks, and even the suggestion sours my stomach.
I grit my teeth and sort through the feelings today. “Just something more I can’t understand.”
Silence falls between us until I break it. “We don’t know much, but it’s clear that we have to think about her safety.”
“Yes.” Jesse nods. “She also doesn’t know who she is. I could tell she had no idea what was happening.”
Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way. Her grandaddy is clearly keeping many secrets, but Veda didn’t just feel confused when we held ourselves back from touching her. No. It was fear in her eyes, and someone put it there.
Someone I vow to kill if I ever find them.
“Let’s keep everything between us for the time being,” Major says at last. “And just be careful. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”
“We’re not animals.” Jesse scoffs.
“Just be careful,” Major says.
Jesse doesn’t understand the root of that warning. Major is not talking about grabbing her without consent. He knows we’d chop our own hands off before hurting a woman. What haunts Major is hope. He’s scared that we start hoping beyond reason that this woman is ours. He wants us to be careful with our hearts.
Damn my ridiculous brother, he might be the most romantic of us all. I take on his warning and move on, burying my head into the usual chores around the ranch, things we pushed aside to bring her down to Willow Ridge.
My mind works faster than my hands, and no amount of manual labor will stop me from thinking about Veda and what it means for her as an Omega.
A long time ago, the population of Omegas and Alpha packs matched beautifully. While the Betas don’t know about our existence, we never had to fear. We lived happily away in our communities, packs became of age, and hoped to form a bond and live the proverbial happily ever after.
By the time I was fifteen, I already knew pack life wasn’t waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. Major was already of age and growing more closed off as time went by. He watched all his friends move away and decide not to become a pack, afraid it wouldn't work since they had to find a Beta to marry.
That’s when rodeo became an obsession, a dream that felt more attainable than having a pack. Growing up with broken dreams was brutal. It changed us all in a way it’s impossible to revert. I don’t have any idea how to feel now that she’s here. Someone so perfect that she can carry a million dreams in her soft, small hands.
Was it like this before? An Omega perfuming so strongly you had to ball your hands into fists not to reach for her? My chest aches thinking about it.
She’s a miracle, sitting in a room in our ranch. And if I feel like this already, how will it be once she moves on from us? I may have bought time by asking Major not to tell anyone, but it will come regardless.We can’t keep her.
All I know about scent-matching comes from others. It happens fast, stronger than anything and often kick-starts her heat. While I feel a pull toward her, I know this can’t be a scent-match. Something primal needs to happen—a call, a mark—and there’s nothing there. Only hope beyond belief.
When I can’t occupy my hands with anything else, I drag my feet to the house. The moment I turn into the hallway, her scent hits me like a ton of bricks. I shamelessly breathe in deeply, and my cock is as hard as a rock, jumping against the zipper. My eyes linger on her door, willing it to open, but what the hell would I even do if she did?
