Page 1 of The Omega’s Nest

Prologue

Leo

Isit beyond the break, straddling my surfboard, the waves undulating softly beneath me. Addie paddles over, his smile lit up with the first cracks of sunshine heralding the dawn.

“Did you see the size of that?” he asks.

“Hard to miss it,” I reply. The answering grin is out of my control. He just caught a monster of a wave, though that’s hardly surprising—my Addie surfs like he’s part of the water. Always has. His lithe body is perfectly made for it.

He pushes his hands onto his board and sits up, flicking his hair back and showering me in seawater.

“The one after was just as big, but you sat it out.” He gives me a sly smile. “Weak, man.”

My stomach flutters. That’s nothing new around Addie—he’s made my insides feel funny since we started high school.

What is new is the urge to claim him. It roared through me when he presented as an omega a few weeks ago and hasn’t abated. I’ve never been tongue-tied around Addie, but lately I find myself trying to say the right thing all the time.

His scent dims. Perhaps he thinks I took the insult seriously, when in fact it’s my alpha brain scrambling to simply talk to him as the omega it wants to court.

“More for you,” I say inadequately.

He tilts his head and scrunches his face up. Probably because it was a fucking stupid thing to say. How was he supposed to catch a wave when he was paddling back from another one?

“Come on, Leonard,” he says, delivering my proper name with a wink. “You don’t want to let an omega beat you at surfing.”

He stumbles over it, the wink clumsy, his voice fading as he finishes. I get the feeling he’s not sure where we stand now that he’s an omega and I’m an alpha.

I presented a few weeks before he did, though it’s not like our designations were a huge surprise. I’d been ordering teddy bears around in the playpen, according to my omega mother, whereas Addie was the type who gave his lunch to another kid who was getting picked on in preschool when we were four—which was actually how we became friends. I saw this tiny kid watching another kid get shoved around, his lunch stolen, and when those bigger kids ran off, the smaller one gave the other one his sandwich and sliced apple. That was Addie.

That night, I told my omega I was hungry enough for two lunches. And the next day, after Addie gave his food away again, I found him on the swing and handed him the extra sandwich, crisps, and a juice box. His little eyes lit up, and his mouth formed a surprised “o” shape.

Then I sorted those other kids out, and we’ve been friends ever since. Addie didn’t need my lunch every day, but I brought extra for him anyway since his was a bit sporadic—sometimes he just had a box of crackers.

What Addie doesn’t get now, and I can’t get the connection between my brain and mouth working well enough to reassure him, is that I don’t give a fuck about him presenting as an omega in the ways he seems to think. In fact, I’m fucking thrilled! I’ve been fantasising about this since I knew it was a possibility between us. I’m just awkward as fuck because his scent makes me feel drugged, and his body, which I’ve been appreciating since I presented, is now all I can think about—getting my hands on his skin, my nose in his neck, my teeth in his mating gland.

No, I have no judgement for Addie being an omega. I just have a raging boner for my best friend, and I’m having trouble navigating it.

“I think I’d let this omega beat me at anything,” I say and try to smile like an alpha who knows what he’s doing.

Thankfully, Addie just drops his head and chuckles, a beautiful blush staining his cheeks.

The water dips and rises, moving us up and down with it, and the waves break in front of us, lightly showering us with spray. A few other surfers are in the lineup, but not many. It’s winter, wetsuit weather, and our little town of Hollow Point, which sits on the edge of Celo City, is more tourist town than the fishing village it once was, population barely one thousand in low season.

“Leo,” Addie says, and I meet his eyes, praying my face looks normal and is not broadcasting, “Can I please court you and take you on a date and maybe kiss you after?”

I raise an eyebrow instead of trying to speak again.

“Stop being a brooding alpha and catch a fucking wave.”

I crack up. My Addie might still be the kind of guy to give his lunch away, but he’s got attitude. He looks shy delivering that line, as if he’s not sure whether it’s allowed now he’s an omega. And I don’t know how to tell him that if we mated, I’d demand that sass all the time. I’d demand he never change.

“All right, all right, keep your panties on.” I lie down on my board and start paddling.

Addie’s laughter is like soft rain on my back as I move to the crest of the wave and drop in.

We’ve still got an hour before school when we walk up the beach. I tell Addie to get the buttered bread out of my bag while I go buy us some hot chips from the food truck in the carpark. I buy Addie a hot chocolate as well, and get myself a coffee. I’m fourteen now, totally old enough to start drinking coffee. Addie says it tastes like shit, so if he ever lets me kiss him, I’ll give it up so he doesn’t have to taste it.

Jesus, settle down. I need to court him before I kiss him. My father, my alpha, says I’m not allowed to court anyone until I’m eighteen, but four years without Addie is just not realistic—there are alphas who get bonded at my age!