Page 30 of The Omega’s Nest

Tristan hauls me up to a platform beside the bar. “Can you stand?” he murmurs.

I nod my head quickly. I can. I fucking will.

A crackle bursts through the room. The microphone. I blink and make out Benji below me. The fanfare around the auctions is minimal—the alpha we’re contracted to runs it and the highest bidder takes the omega to their room, the end. Or, in the case of Troy Whitman’s omegas, one of the alphas who works here runs it. The Whitmans might own us, and in the case of Phillip and William, use us liberally, but they’re invisible to the public, using the rear exits and pre-prepared rooms to see prearranged omegas, conducting business during the day when the place is empty of clients.

“You’re going to be okay,” Tristan whispers to me, giving my shoulders a final squeeze before stepping away.

I sway, but manage to catch myself before I fall on my face. Clenching my fists at my sides, I tighten every muscle in my body as best I can. My mating gland throbs under the thick leather collar around my throat. It feels wrong, but my rational mind—what’s left of it—is so grateful for it. Being fucked through my heat by a random alpha was an indignity I would manage to get through, but to be claimed by one? I’d rather fucking die.

“Welcome, welcome,” Benji says heartily, the projection of his voice startling me back to the room. He’s jovial with it, always is—proud, as if he had some hand in creating me. I shudder.

Benji begins the usual spiel—my name, height, weight, how long I’ve been here, how many heats I’ve had, and how long they lasted—and then he gets the bidding started at five hundred dollars. It’s insultingly low, but I know that’ll increase to one thousand pretty quickly.

One thousand is the lowest an omega in heat will go for. Most of the older omegas are sold at that price, while Erasmus had gone for fifteen thousand before, with the rest of us falling somewhere in between. My first had gone for ten thousand, the other two eight thousand and seven thousand respectively.

I prepare myself to stand as still as I can for the humiliation of this round, which will probably go to five thousand, maximum.

I’m under a spotlight, which makes it impossible to make out any faces in the dark crowd around me. Usually, at this point, I wish for someone who’s at least not rough, not a talker—I can tolerate anything else, but pain and insults add to my suffering in ways I wish I was better at handling.

Breathing through my mouth helps me not vomit. The room is filled with the stench of alphas, and my omega is screaming at me that this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I drop my gaze to my bare feet and blink back tears.

The bidding has reached five thousand. Tension snaps back into my body as I wait for the gavel to fall.

“Six,” rings out a voice from the back. It’s deep, confident … It’s fucking angry.

My head whips up and I try to see into the fog of darkness.

“Seven,” the voice that’d called out “five” says, their tone bored.

“Eight,” Leo counters immediately. It’s him, unmistakably him.

“Nine,” that voice retorts, a slight irritation in it now.

But Leo doesn’t miss a beat. “Ten.”

I swallow. Ten thousand dollars. Leo shouldn’t spend that kind of money—

“Eleven,” a new voice pipes up, the sound of it suddenly interested, as if the bidding war suggests something more is going on with the plain, trembling omega on the stage.

“Twelve,” Leo says.

“Thirteen,” the second voice shouts.

“Fourteen,” the new voice rejoins, laughter in it.

“Fifteen,” Leo calls out, steel entering his tone.

I gasp. I am not a fifteen thousand dollar omega.

“Some baby alpha thinks he’s getting something special, eh?” the second voice calls out, and everyone laughs.

“Fifteen, going, going—”

“Sixteen,” the second voice says.

Leo can’t possibly keep going now, he hasn’t got that kind of money, and he shouldn’t spend it on me—