Omega's Harem (Feral Wolves of the Arctic Book 3)

by J. L. Wilder

  “I can’t control where you go,” Victor said. “But I’m not having you in this house. If you try to come in here again, I’ll take it as a challenge. And I won’t hesitate to fight you.”

  “You don’t even want her,” Pax said.

  Victor wished he didn’t feel so confused. What Pax was saying was true. He had denied wanting Lily. He hadn’t planned on taking her as his mate. It would have been an appalling thing to do.

  So why did it bother him so much to have her mated to Pax?

  In a way, that should have been welcome news. It solved so many of his problems. If he allowed Pax to take Lily away, she would be separated from the Arctic Wolves, and she would also be far away from Victor. He wouldn’t have to deal with his strange attraction to her anymore.

  Why couldn’t he let that happen?

  It’s because of the risk of her having children, he told himself. She’ll continue her strange, dangerous line if she does. She’ll pass her power along to her daughters.

  That made sense.

  But it didn’t feel like the truth.

  I’m jealous, he thought bitterly. He couldn’t lie to himself. That’s what it is. I want her, but I can’t let myself take her. And I hate that Pax can.

  Understanding the truth didn’t make him feel any better about it, though.

  “Get out of my house,” he said, pointing toward the door. “And good luck with Donovan. I think he’s got a bone to pick with you too.”

  Chapter Nine

  LILY

  Lily sat in her room, in the center of her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, trembling.

  I didn’t do anything wrong, she reminded herself. And she knew it was true. Pax had imprinted on her, not the other way around. And while it was true that she had welcomed it, wanted it, it didn’t make sense to blame her for it.

  But then again, since they had met, Victor had blamed her for all kinds of things that couldn’t realistically be considered her fault. Things like the rivalry that existed between their packs. That had nothing to do with her.

  But as her heart rate and her breathing began to settle, she realized that she wasn’t worried about what Victor was going to do to her. He hadn’t even seemed to be particularly angry with her. And when she thought back to the way he had spoken to her during their journey south together, there was one factor that remained consistent.

  He doesn’t hold me accountable for my actions.

  He blamed her for things, yes, but not in the way you would blame someone who knew what they were doing. He thought of her as an object, as someone who didn’t have any agency. He thought she was dangerous and damaging, but in the same way you might think of a bomb as dangerous. You couldn’t get angry with the bomb.

  Victor was angry with Pax, not with Lily.

  She swallowed hard, anxiety rising in her again.

  What would he do to Pax?

  Would there be a fight?

  There couldn’t be. The two of them are friends. Pax had made that much clear.

  But Pax had also said that he wasn’t necessarily on Victor’s side. Surely Victor would know that.

  Lily rose from her bed and began to pace. What was happening out there?

  She wouldn’t be able to stand it, she realized suddenly, if either of the men she had come to know were to be seriously hurt.

  Pax was the only one who had shown her any care or mercy. She didn’t want anything to happen to him. For all she knew, he was the only one there who gave a damn about her. And though it was strange to have such feelings for someone who had participated in locking her away, she was beginning to feel as though she might be falling in love with him.

  And then there was Victor himself.

  Her feelings for him were much more complicated. She hated him for forcing her away from her family. She resented him for imprinting on her and then turning against her so quickly.

  But she couldn’t quite deny that she had feelings for him all the same.

  She was being held against her will. That was true. But would she really have left if she’d been given the choice?

  She had to admit that she was no longer sure.

  Not after what had happened between her and Pax. She didn’t think she could leave him behind.

  And Victor...well, she still had hope that their relationship could turn into something good. She still had hope that she might be able to make him see that she wasn’t what he believed her to be.

  Of course, none of that would happen if one of her alphas killed the other now.

  She couldn’t help thinking of her mother, who had been imprinted upon by multiple alphas. How many times had her parents told the story of the time they had found one another? How they had expected to feel jealous and angry at the fact that their omega submitted to other men, but they had, in fact, felt nothing but pleasure at seeing her happy?

  Victor and Pax don’t understand, she thought. They don’t know what’s possible. And they won’t know unless I tell them.

  She had to get out of the room. She had to find her alphas and let them know what the future could hold for them, if only they could allow themselves to embrace it.

  She hurried to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Well, she had known that would happen. She’d heard the latch being locked from the outside.

  She pounded on the door. “Hello? Is anybody out there?”

  There was no answer.

  Of course there wasn’t. They were probably under orders from their alpha not to let her out.

  But there was a chance she could trick them, maybe. It was a long shot, but it might work.

  She knocked on the door again. “If anyone’s out there...please, I just need to use the restroom. It’s urgent.”

  She waited, holding her breath, listening.

  Then she heard footsteps moving toward the door.

  “Hello?” she called desperately. “Can you let me out, just for a few minutes? Please?”

  A pause.

  “I don’t think Victor wants us to let you out.” It was a woman’s voice.

  Lily closed her eyes and forced herself to exhale. A woman. That was a good thing. She stood more of a chance against another woman than she did against a man. A man would be able to catch her and hold her, but if a woman opened the door...maybe. Maybe she would be able to make it to the yard.

  “I don’t want to run away or anything,” Lily said. She hoped the woman she was talking to could hear the sincerity in her voice. It was the truth, after all. “What’s your name?”

  “Hazel.”

  “I don’t want to get you into trouble, Hazel,” Lily assured her. “If you just let me out, I’ll go to the bathroom and then come right back. Victor won’t even have to know about it.”

  “You’re not going to run?” Hazel asked.

  Lily’s heart pounded. It’s working.

  “No,” she assured Hazel. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t even want to run away. And if I did, I know that Victor would track me and catch me. I wouldn’t stand a chance."

  “That’s right,” Hazel said, sounding somewhat reassured. “Well...okay.”

  The latch slid open, and the door was pulled back to reveal the anxious face of a teenager.

  For a moment, Lily felt bad. She hadn’t realized she was speaking to someone even younger than herself. She really didn’t want to make trouble for this girl.

  But if she didn’t do something, Victor and Pax were almost certainly going to fight. And she couldn’t let that happen.

  “I’m sorry, Hazel,” she said, stepping through the door. “Truly. I won’t tell anyone it was you.”

  And then she was off, running down the hall the way she had come when Pax had led her in.

  She heard a voice cry out behind her—a male voice—and knew that she had been spotted. But she was committed now. She had to find either Pax, Victor, or both of them. She had to stop them.

  She burst through the front door and out ont
o the porch.

  “Hey!” An arm caught her around the waist.

  She whipped around, teeth bared, hands coming up, prepared to lash out at whoever had stopped her—

  But it was Pax. Just the sight of his face caused all the fight to bleed out of her. He didn’t even have to give a command—his mere presence was enough to bring her to heel.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her. He let her go, but she clung to his arms.

  “What did Victor say to you?” she asked.

  “He threw me out of the house,” Pax said. Then he frowned. “Don’t tell me he threw you out of the house too?”

  “No, he didn’t,” she said. “I don’t know if he knows I’m out here at all.”

  Pax’s gaze drifted slightly so that he was looking over her shoulder. “He knows,” he said quietly.

  She turned, feeling a sense of dread hardening within her.

  Victor was standing in the doorway.

  He wasn’t looking at Lily. He was looking past her, at Pax. And the expression on his face was one of rage.

  “You went back in?” he asked quietly. “After I ordered you out of the house?”

  “I haven’t been inside,” Pax said.

  “You let her out of the omega room.”

  “I didn’t,” Pax said. “I don’t know who did.”

  “He didn’t let me out,” Lily said quickly.

  “Then who did?” Victor still wasn’t looking at her.

  Lily didn’t want to answer the question. She had promised Hazel that she wouldn’t get into trouble. But she didn’t want to see Pax take the fall either. “I don’t know,” she lied. “The door was unlocked.”

  “Like hell,” Victor snapped. “I know I locked that door. Pax?”

  “I didn’t let her out,” Pax said. “But I would have. I stand by everything I said before. She’s my mate now. If you wanted her, you should have taken her when you first imprinted.”

  For several moments, neither man moved nor spoke.

  Then Victor lunged forward, grabbed Pax by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him down the steps of the porch and into the yard.

  Lily let out a cry and hurried after them. “Wait!” she cried. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to fight each other!”

  “Lily, stay where you are!” Victor snapped.

  It was an order. Not only did Lily find herself unable to move, there was also a surge of satisfaction connected to the knowledge that she had pleased her alpha. But there was her other alpha being dragged away, being thrown to the ground—

  Pax scrambled to his feet and sank into a crouch. Across from him, Victor was standing upright, his chest heaving, and Lily could see that he was on the verge of shifting.

  If this turns into a fight between wolves, someone’s definitely going to get hurt. But what could she do? She couldn’t move.

  A man came running up from the tree line. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  “Stay out of this, Donovan,” Victor snarled. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “You’re going to fight him?” Donovan said. He sounded absolutely outraged. “You’re going to fight him after you told me I couldn’t?”

  “Do whatever you want to him,” Victor said. “I don’t care.”

  “Now you don’t care,” Donovan said. “Now that you have a fight with him, it’s okay for people to fight each other. Is that it? But when I had beef to settle, it was oh, no, we’re all here as friends.”

  “I don’t have time for this right now, Donovan,” Victor said. “Go in the house and we can discuss it later.”

  Donovan shook his head. “I’m done deferring to you,” he said. “I’ve done my best to be polite while I’ve been here because I know you’re mourning your father. But you ran away and stirred up trouble with the northern wolves without even talking to any of us about what you were doing, and then you tried to tell me I was out of line for settling my own personal business just because I happened to be on your land. I’m not going in the damn house, Victor. If you want me gone, you’ll have to make me leave.”

  “Guys,” Pax spoke up. “We don’t have to do this, do we?”

  “Don’t you start,” Donovan snapped. “How is it that you manage to make an enemy of every alpha whose path you cross, Pax? I know you’re not capable of submitting, but are you even capable of cooperating?”

  “Stop it!” Lily yelled.

  They ignored her. Even Pax didn’t glance her way.

  Lily fought to move, but it was pointless. All she could do was sink to her knees and watch as the three men peeled off their clothes and shifted. Before she knew it, she was looking at three angry wolves, their faces distorted by snarls, pacing a slow circle around one another.

  “Help!” she cried, looking back toward the house. Wasn’t anyone going to come and stop this? “Somebody, help!”

  But nobody came. Perhaps they had all been ordered away, or maybe they were just too afraid to allow themselves to go near a battle like this. If Lily hadn’t been looking at her two alphas, she would have wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and the carnage that was about to ensue.

  Victor darted forward toward Pax, snapping and clawing, and Donovan met him midway, throwing him off his course. The two of them went down in a heap. Donovan scrambled to his feet and launched himself at Pax, sinking his claws into Pax’s shoulder.

  Pax’s body contorted as he fell to the ground.

  Lily screamed.

  Pax came up snapping, but his jaws found Victor’s neck instead of Donovan’s. Victor reared back, trying to shake him off, but Pax held on tightly. Lily saw blood on his muzzle.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “You’re going to kill him!”

  She didn’t know who she was talking to. She didn’t know who she was talking about. She only knew that if this fight was allowed to continue, one of her alphas was sure to be severely hurt, if not killed.

  I can’t lose them. I just met them!

  She had thought she’d felt nothing but hate for Victor. After all, he had forced her away from her family. He had ordered her to follow him home.

  But now, watching him fight, she realized that he could never have given such an order if she hadn’t wanted to take it.

  How many times had Caleb tried to order her around? And every time, he had failed. She had never belonged to him in the way he had wanted her to. She had never submitted to his authority.

  But the moment she’d met Victor, she had been his. She had chosen to submit to him. And the fact that nothing had gone the way she’d planned hadn’t changed that fact.

  The same thing had happened with Pax. It had been biological, yes—an urging in her body, pulling her toward these men. But Victor had been wrong when he had said that Lily was more animal than human. She wasn’t. The two aspects of her nature were in balance. She listened equally to her instincts and her mind.

  Both parts of her wanted to be with Victor, and with Pax. She couldn’t lose them.

  She tried to move forward again, reaching out, trying to claw her way to her feet.

  Her hand closed around fur. A tail.

  The owner of the tail whipped around, coming face to face with her. His pupils were dilated with rage and bloodlust. A snarl tore its way out of his body.

  She froze, terrified, staring at the face of the angry wolf mere inches from her own.

  But he stood frozen too. Staring at her.

  “Lily!” One of the others had shifted. She heard footsteps running toward her. But she was blind with fear. She couldn’t even process what was happening enough to know who was coming to her aid.

  She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable attack.

  Chapter Ten

  DONOVAN

  Donovan stood frozen, staring at the girl on the ground in front of him.

  He felt, suddenly, at a loss to explain what he was doing.

  He had turned on her expecting that he would sink his teeth into the arm of whoev
er had touched him mid-fight. He hadn’t had a thought of hesitating. But as soon as he had seen her, something had changed.

  His blood was still running high from the fight. But all the anger, the rage that had fueled him, was gone. He had all but forgotten about Pax and Victor.

  How had he failed to notice her when they had brought her in?

  How could he have thought she wasn’t worth a second look?

  He could have stared into her eyes, memorizing the tiny details that lurked there, for hours.

  His reverie was cut short by the weight of a body plowing into his, sending him tumbling to one side. Ordinarily, such an attack would have had him immediately back on the offensive—but his mind was foggy with the shock of what he had seen. With her.

  A scream tore through the air. “Victor, stop it! Get back!”

  That was her voice. He had only heard her speak a few times, and yet he felt as though he would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was musical. And it couldn’t possibly be resisted.

  Apparently, Victor felt the same way because he moved quickly away from Donovan. Maybe he’s just afraid I’m going to attack him, Donovan thought, but a part of him knew that that wasn’t right. It wasn’t him Victor was afraid of. It was her.

  He’s afraid of doing something to upset her.

  He knew because that same feeling was rising within him now.

  Pax came running forward, putting himself between Victor and Donovan. “Everyone just stop,” he panted, holding his hands out to both of them. “Just back off for a minute. Are we okay? Is anybody hurt? Lily?”

  “Let me move,” she said. “I can’t move.”

  Pax nodded. “Come over here,” he said.

  She was on her feet immediately, running to stand beside him. He caught her in his arms and looked her over. “You’re not hurt?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Nothing happened. He wasn’t going to hurt me.”

  “Lily—”

  “He wasn’t,” she insisted. She looked at Donovan. “Were you?”

  “No,” he breathed. Her gaze was mesmerizing. He hadn’t even been aware until he’d spoken that he had resumed his human form.