Midlife Omega (Midlife Shifters Book 3)

by J. L. Wilder

  “This land is owned by another pack?” she asked.

  “Almost all the land on this continent has some kind of shifter presence," he said. “I wouldn’t worry about it here, though. They’re domesticated here.”

  “What does that mean? You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s not a very impressive thing. They’re shifters, but they live in single-family homes, not together as a pack the way we do. They don't really spend time in the wild. They work jobs and have bank accounts. It’s a different lifestyle.”

  “And you don't approve,” Natalie said.

  “Well, it doesn't matter whether I approve or not,” he said. “They should live their lives however they want. It doesn’t seem natural to me, though, trying to deny a part of what you are like that.”

  She nodded.

  “The point is that they won’t be coming after you,” Gage said. “The Great Lakes Pack doesn’t involve itself in shifter disputes. Personally, I think it’s because they’re afraid to face up to those of us who embrace our wolf side in a fight. But whatever the reason—we’re safe while we’re here. Now, if we go a little further east, we’ll be in the Appalachian Pack’s territory, and then we’ll have trouble on our hands.”

  “That's where the Feral Fangs picked me up,” Natalie said.

  Gage nodded. “I’d be willing to bet that at least one of those guys used to belong to the Appalachian Pack but defected and went feral. Maybe all of them. They seemed like the type.”

  “What are we going to do?” Natalie asked.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Gage said. “Unless you want to just camp out here and wait for Ozzy to come to us?”

  Natalie shook her head. "We have to keep going,” she said. “If we just sit and wait, it will take that much longer for him to find us. It might never happen.”

  “I don’t know,” Gage said. “It’s easier to hit a stationary target than a moving one.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that if he’s searching for you, which I’m sure he is, you might make it easier for him by staying still instead of moving around.”

  Natalie hesitated, and for a hair’s breadth of a second, Gage thought he might have convinced her.

  Then the wind shifted, carrying a scent to him that was so familiar, it stopped him in his tracks.

  It can’t be. The coincidence would be too much to be believed.

  But he knew what he had smelled—or rather, who he had smelled. He hadn’t realized until this moment how recognizable the scent would be when he crossed it.

  Natalie was staring at him. “What is it?” she asked.

  “You don’t smell that?” He was surprised. She was the one who was mated to him. Surely, she should have picked up on the scent.

  “I don’t smell anything unusual,” she said.

  “It’s Ozzy,” he said. “He’s nearby. He came this way.” He could feel his muscles vibrating, yearning to shift, to run. "We have to go after him. Quickly.”

  Natalie’s face registered shock and barely repressed excitement. “Where?” she asked. “Which way did he go?”

  “This way.” Gage began pushing his way through the brush, not bothering to keep quiet. He wanted to be heard now. “God, I wish we could shift and chase him.”

  “I'm sorry,” Natalie said. She sounded pained. “Maybe you should run ahead.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone.” That wasn’t even an option he was going to entertain. “Ozzy!” he yelled.

  “Ozzy!” Natalie chimed in.

  He felt the earth trembling slightly beneath him—it was subtle, but enough to suggest the pounding of feet, the imminent arrival of a friend.

  And then he was there.

  His paws were caked in mud. His muzzle was wet, and he looked bedraggled. He had his clothes bundled and held in his mouth, the way they always did when they traveled, but he dropped the bundle as soon as he saw them and leaped toward Natalie.

  Gage couldn't help what happened next. He knew that Ozzy was a friend. He knew he would never hurt Natalie. But that didn’t change the fact that he was looking at a wild-looking wolf, and the wolf was diving at his mate—

  He threw himself between them, intercepting Ozzy just as Ozzy shifted back into his human form. They collided in midair and fell to the ground together.

  Natalie let out a cry of shock and dismay.

  Ozzy scrambled to his feet, staring. “Gage? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” Gage said. “You made it pretty far west pretty fast. Natalie said you were separated in Pennsylvania.”

  “I’ve been running nonstop.” Then he looked past Gage. “Oh, God, Natalie.”

  They were in each other’s arms almost before Gage could blink. Ozzy crushed Natalie against him and buried his face in her hair. “I was so scared," he said quietly. “I thought I had lost you for good.”

  “You would have,” Gage interrupted. “The Feral Fangs picked her up. Were you even watching her?”

  He was surprised by how unhappy he felt now that they were reunited with Ozzy. He had expected it to be much more difficult, and to take much longer. Maybe that was why he was so frustrated. He had counted on more time alone with Natalie. He had hardly gotten the chance to get to know her at all, and already they were back with her first mate.

  It doesn't make any difference that Ozzy was first. It changes nothing. She said herself that I mean just as much to her.

  Still, it was hard to watch them. He had never had to deal with sharing Natalie with someone else. He had never watched her take comfort in someone else’s arms like this.

  It made him feel...

  Useless.

  Unneeded.

  “Thank God you found her.” Ozzy was clearly not going to take offense at Gage’s pointed remark. Gage wondered whether he was deliberately keeping the peace, or if he was just so overcome at having been reunited with Natalie that he simply hadn’t noticed that Gage was being rude. “I was afraid that was what had happened. I’ve been trying to track them since Pennsylvania, but I knew she’d been put in a car, and that made her really hard to follow.”

  He looked at Natalie carefully, assessing, moving his hands from her shoulders to her sides to her hips, down the length of her arms, and finally to her head, tipping her face from side to side so that he could examine her fully. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly. “Were you hurt?”

  “No,” she said. "Not badly. A little bruised when they pushed me into their van, but nothing serious. It would have been much worse if Gage hadn’t been there, Ozzy.”

  The sight of Ozzy’s hands all over her—the way she carefully, mindfully brought his name back into the story so that Ozzy couldn’t possibly forget about him, as though she was doing him a favor—it was all suddenly more than Gage could stand. “I’m going to take a walk,” he said.

  Ozzy stared. “What?”

  "We should stop for the night,” he said. “We’re in fairly safe territory here. We’re all back together. Get a fire going.”

  Natalie disentangled herself from Ozzy and went over to Gage. She took his hand between both of hers.

  “You’ll come back, won’t you?” she asked. “And quickly? You know I can’t be apart from you.”

  I wonder if Ozzy heard her say that.

  Gage nodded. “I’m just going to look for the nearest water source," he said because he could hardly tell her that the real reason he was walking away was that her happiness was causing him pain.

  I can’t be this way, he thought as he hurried off. It can’t be like this. I’m her mate, and it’s my responsibility to see to it that she’s happy. That won't happen if she feels like she can’t express her love for Ozzy in front of me. She can’t feel like she has to hide that part of herself.

  He had to find a way to be glad that she had been reunited with Ozzy, and to let go of any other feelings he might have had about that fact.

  And he was gla
d. He did like to see her happy, and it was obvious that finding Ozzy had given her more pure joy than almost anything else that had happened since the two of them had met. Even when they had been together, even when they had been in the throes of passion, there had been an anxiety that she hadn’t quite been able to shake off. She had been worried about where he was, what he might be thinking, whether they would ever find one another again.

  That worry was gone now.

  And that was absolutely a good thing, no matter how complicated it might make everything else between them.

  The trickling of a small stream reminded Gage that his excuse for leaving them had been to search for water. Now he had found it. He wouldn’t have minded a little more time on his own to clear his head, but he also didn't want to leave Natalie for very long. He wanted to trust Ozzy to keep her safe, but he couldn't forget that the last time she had been in Ozzy’s charge, she had been kidnapped. Perhaps Ozzy couldn’t be fully trusted.

  When he found them again, they had gotten a fire started and were sitting beside it, Natalie tucked under Ozzy’s arm, her head resting on his shoulder. She had her eyes closed and appeared utterly contented.

  Last night, that would have been me, Gage couldn't help thinking.

  Then Natalie opened her eyes and held out her hand to him. “Come here,” she said.

  Gage looked at Ozzy.

  “She told me,” Ozzy said quietly.

  “She told you?” He hadn’t expected the truth to come out so quickly.

  “You imprinted,” Ozzy said. “She’s a more powerful omega than I ever expected.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Natalie said, looking from Ozzy to Gage. “I mean...I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I’m not saying I regret—” She broke off, looking confused and unhappy.

  Gage crossed to her and sat down beside her. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he told her.

  “No,” Ozzy agreed. “You didn’t. It’s just unusual. We weren’t prepared.”

  “But we love you.” Gage met Ozzy’s eyes over the top of Natalie's head.

  “That’s right,” Ozzy agreed. “Whatever this is, whatever it means for the future, we’re going to make it work out.”

  Gage was surprised to see that Ozzy had been able to accept the news of his omega having another mate so quickly.

  But maybe I shouldn’t be. He was the one who had made a study of shifter lore and culture all his life. Maybe he was prepared for something like this to happen.

  I guess I’d better get on board too.

  Chapter Sixteen

  NATALIE

  “I'm sorry," Natalie said. “I know I’m slowing us down.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Gage said good-naturedly. “It's not a problem.”

  Ozzy shot him a look. “She’s not slowing us down,” he said.

  “Of course she is," Gage said. “I'm not complaining, Oz, but she is. If it was just you and me, we’d shift and be halfway home by now.”

  “Not halfway.”

  “You’re splitting hairs.”

  “If it wasn't for Natalie,” Ozzy said, “we wouldn’t be going home at all. We would still be out looking for her.”

  “She knows that," Gage said.

  “I know that,” Natalie agreed. She was simultaneously touched that Ozzy was so protective of her feelings and charmed that Gage didn’t seem to feel the need to be that way. She would never have guessed that she had the capacity to want two such opposite things from the men she was with.

  But maybe that’s part of this whole omega thing. Maybe I have two mates because I need to be treated in two different ways in order to really feel satisfied.

  It was certainly true that Ozzy and Gage were very different in their treatment of her. This argument was just one example of it. Last night when they’d stopped for dinner, Gage had given Natalie her own fish to clean without any instructions on what to do with it. She had learned how to clean the fish by watching what he was doing, and she had been proud of herself when she’d succeeded. But it was also good to know that at any time, she could turn to Ozzy, ask him to intervene, and he would. He wouldn’t tease her for not being able to do it herself the way Gage would. He would just help her.

  “Where are we?” she asked, hoping to get them onto an easier topic.

  “Nebraska,” Ozzy said. "We're actually making pretty good time. We’ll dip through Colorado and then start making our way north on our final push toward home.”

  “Isn't that a little circuitous?” Natalie asked. “There must be a northern route that would take us there more directly.”

  “We’re not in a hurry,” Ozzy said mildly.

  “But why are we going out of the way?”

  “Don’t beat around the bush,” Gage said. “Tell her the truth. She’s smart enough to figure it out.” To Natalie, he said, “We’re dipping south because the Rocky Mountain Wolves are more likely to be farther north. We don’t want to meet them. Passing through their territory is going to be dangerous enough.”

  A chill went through her. She had known they would be passing through Rocky Mountain Territory, of course, but she tried not to think about it. This was a situation in which Ozzy’s calm, quiet competence was easier to cope with. She didn't want to face this directly.

  On the other hand, at least they had a plan for dealing with the problem. That was good to know. And she trusted her alphas. “I’m sure it will be fine,” she said, hating the doubt she heard in her own voice.

  “It will be,” Ozzy said calmly. "You have the two of us to protect you now. We’re not going to let our omega out of our sight.”

  “That’s one thing we definitely agree on,” Gage said. “The pack’s gone long enough without an omega.”

  Ozzy glanced at him. “You’ve never seemed like you cared about the structure of the pack before,” he said, a note of amusement in his voice.

  “I guess I never did care about it before,” Gage said. "So what?”

  “So nothing. It’s just interesting.”

  “Well, I have a reason to care now, don’t I?” Gage said. “I’m not going to be running off and living in the woods every other month now that I have Natalie.”

  Ozzy nodded. “It’s going to change things for sure,” he said. “For everybody.”

  “I wish I had known my parents,” Natalie said. “I wish they could have explained some of this stuff to me. I’ll never even know whether they meant to.”

  “I mean, I’m sure at some point they would have had to come up with a story for why you were the only girl in the second grade with a tattoo,” Gage said.

  “What did you tell people about that?” Ozzy asked. “Obviously, it's not normal for a kid that age to be inked.”

  “Well, I didn’t stay in one place for very long, remember," Natalie said. “The foster care system knew, but after a while, they started taking pains to cover it up. I don't remember whether anyone ever explicitly told me to hide it, but all the shirts I was given started to have long sleeves, even in the summer, and I got the idea. I didn’t show the mark to foster parents, and definitely not to anyone at the schools I attended.”

  “That's really sad,” Ozzy said.

  “It sounds like she was being smart,” Gage said.

  “No, I’m sure that’s true,” Ozzy agreed. “Omegas have great survival instincts, and it sounds like those came into play for you. I just mean that it’s sad you had to hide. The omega tattoo is a badge of honor. Everyone in the Pacific Northwest Pack has our mark, but only the omega carries it in a specific place. Even the alpha doesn’t, because the role of alpha can change. Omegas are born into their roles.”

  Gage nodded. “You were the only one inked at birth,” he said. "Every other member of the pack waits until they’re a teenager and then chooses where they want the mark.”

  "If you’d grown up in the pack,” Ozzy said, “you would have been taught to understand that the mark was something you should be proud of. There's only one omega.”

 
“But if she had grown up with the pack, Randy probably would have claimed her as his own right from the start,” Gage said.

  There seemed to be nothing to say in response to that, and they all fell silent as their walk went on.

  “TRY CONNECTING WITH your most primal emotion,” Gage said. “What do you feel most deeply?”

  It was late in the evening. Ozzy had fallen asleep by the fire, but Gage and Natalie were still awake, and she had convinced him to help her try to learn to shift. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going all that well.

  "The only thing I feel right now is frustrated," she admitted. "I don’t know how you two do this so easily.”

  "We've been doing it for a long time,” Gage said. “It’s instinct for us. Something the body just knows how to do, like...like eating.”

  "I never had to learn how to eat,” Natalie countered.

  “But you kind of did,” Gage said. “When babies are little, they’re fed from the breast or the bottle. And then they switch to solid food, and it’s different. It’s a different skill. You don't remember learning it, but you did learn it.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “But if you had to learn how to eat food now—if I tried to explain the process to you, and you tried to copy it for the first time—it would feel unnatural,” Gage said. “It would probably freak you out."

  “Well, yeah, probably,” she conceded. “But there’s nothing like that in adult life. That’s why we learn all that stuff as babies. Adults can’t do it.”

  “What about your first kiss?” he asked. “How old were you when that happened?”

  She thought back. “Eighteen."

  “Late bloomer?”

  “I never knew any guys for more than a couple of months at a time. It made things like having a boyfriend sort of...impractical.”

  He nodded, stepped close to her, and captured her lips with his.

  She knew that he was trying to make a point, but his touch was enough to melt through the frustration she had been struggling with. She leaned into him, fitted her body to his, and returned his kiss deeply.