Midlife Omega (Midlife Shifters Book 3)

by J. L. Wilder

  “So what?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You came in there thinking you would get to claim me,” she said.

  It was true. He couldn’t argue with her.

  She shook her head. “Would you even have bothered if you’d known I was already mated?”

  “We should keep moving.” He started walking again, a little more slowly than before. Whatever else he might think of her, she was right that he had been pushing the pace too hard for someone with bare feet to be expected to keep up.

  But she didn’t move.

  After he had gone several yards, he turned and looked back at her. “Are you coming?” he demanded.

  “Maybe I don’t want to go with you after all,” she said. “Maybe I want to go back and find Ozzy and Gage.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Go look for your mates in the middle of the Rocky Mountain Pack’s territory. I’m sure that will go well for you. They definitely won’t pick you up again.”

  “You’re a real jerk,” she said. “Ozzy and Gage didn’t tell me what a fucking jerk you were. They made it sound like you were nicer than Randy.”

  “You haven’t met Randy,” Chuck pointed out.

  “Well, if he’s worse than you, I don’t want to!”

  Anger boiled up within Chuck and he whirled to face her. “Look, what do you expect me to say?” he demanded. “You’re right. I didn’t know you’d be mated already. I’ve thought about finding you for years. I’ve thought about what it would mean for me, for my whole pack, if I was able to claim you and become alpha. And now that’s not happening.”

  “Well, that’s not my fault,” Natalie shot back. “There’s no need to be horrible to me about it.”

  “No one’s saying it’s your fault,” Chuck said. “But you can’t expect me to just forget everything I’ve spent my entire life planning on.”

  Natalie shook her head. “I’ll never understand you shifters,” she said. “I know I’m new to this world, but I mean, my God.”

  “What?” Chuck demanded.

  “Think about what you’re saying,” she said. “You’ve spent your entire life just...planning on claiming me as your own? Without ever having met me? Without having talked to me about it? Don’t you hear how depraved that sounds? It’s as if you thought I already belonged to you. As if you feel like something’s been taken from you. But I was never yours.”

  “I know you weren’t,” Chuck said.

  “Then how can you act like you’ve lost anything?” Natalie demanded.

  “Because I did lose something,” Chuck snapped. “I lost the future I was planning for.”

  “But it was never yours.”

  “You’re still thinking about this like a human,” Chuck said. “I know you grew up in the human world. I get that. But you’ve been imprinted upon twice since you came into our world—at least, according to you.”

  “You think I’m lying?” she asked.

  “How could I know?” he countered. “I don’t know you. I just met you. For all I know, you lie all the time.”

  “I don’t.” She sounded deeply irritated.

  “Okay,” he said. “So you’re telling the truth. If that’s the case, you should understand a little bit about how imprinting works.”

  “What makes you think I don’t?”

  “Because you’re still acting like it’s voluntary. You’re acting like I’m out of line for thinking that you and I would fall together without a conversation ever taking place.”

  “I had conversations with Gage and Ozzy before they imprinted,” she said. But he heard the doubt in her voice now.

  “Those conversations weren’t necessarily the reason they imprinted,” he said. “Were they?”

  “I guess not,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “I’m not trying to objectify you,” he said. “I’m not saying I was planning to take you against your will. I’m just saying I thought it would fall into place for me. I thought I was meant to be the next alpha. And if that had been the case, of course you would have become my mate.”

  “Or I would have become Randy’s,” she pointed out. “If that’s how it works, wasn’t there an even chance of that happening?”

  “I don’t think so,” Chuck said.

  “No?”

  “He’s not...you’ll see for yourself when you meet him,” Chuck said. “He’s not a strong leader. There’s just no way our pack’s omega was meant to be with someone like that.”

  But I didn’t think she could possibly be meant for Ozzy or Gage either, he thought. So maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.

  She seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “My parents must have thought there was a risk,” she said. “Why else would they have taken me away?”

  “I didn’t know your parents,” Chuck said. “I was just a child myself when they left with you. I have no idea what they were thinking. And Randy wasn’t in power then, anyway. Maybe they were afraid of who might become alpha.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He glanced at her. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I’m asking you to defend the way you’ve lived your entire life. You didn’t invent the idea of imprinting. You shouldn’t have to justify it,” she said. “It’s just not what I’m used to.”

  “That makes sense,” he said grudgingly. “I guess life in the human world is pretty different.”

  “It’s night and day,” she said. “My ex-husband was a jerk, but being with him was a conscious choice on my part, even if it was a stupid one.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d been married,” he said.

  She nodded. “It ended, though.”

  “What happened?”

  She looked unsure. “I haven’t talked about this with anyone,” she said.

  “Well, who am I going to tell?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Gage and Ozzy, maybe?”

  “They don’t know you were married?”

  “They know I was married,” she said. “They don’t know that he left because...because I couldn’t have children.”

  The revelation floored him. “But you’re an omega,” he said.

  She sniffled, and when he looked at her again, he saw that she had tears in her eyes. “I know,” she said. “It’s the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do for the pack. And maybe I can’t do it.”

  “So this is what happened with your ex-husband?” Chuck asked. “He wanted children?”

  She nodded. “And I couldn’t get pregnant.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. This is probably more than you wanted to know from a complete stranger. I don’t know why I’m telling you. I’ve just been sitting on this secret for so long. Everyone seems so desperate to claim me, but if they knew the truth, none of them would want me.”

  Was that true? Chuck explored his feelings. He had been disappointed to find that she wouldn’t be his, but this certainly changed things. Would being mated to her have given him the strength to overtake Randy if she couldn’t have children? Could she even be considered a true omega if she didn’t have that ability?

  Of course, he had considered that her age might be a factor. It was impossible not to take that into account. But she wasn’t that old. She was only in her early forties. Even human women could sometimes bear children at that age, and as for omegas, they were usually able to become pregnant much later in life.

  But maybe that didn’t mean that omegas were immune to the same fertility problems that sometimes troubled other women. Maybe she was just unable to have children and it had nothing to do with her age.

  She was only a baby when we marked her. Maybe she’s not an omega at all.

  But if she wasn’t an omega, how could two different men have imprinted on her? Chuck had heard of such a thing happening before, but it was a rare occurrence, and one that was supposed to only take place when an omega’s power was extremely potent.

  None of this makes any sense. An omega who can’t bear child
ren? An omega who was imprinted upon by two of the least likely members of our pack?

  Natalie was watching him, still with tears in her eyes, and he realized she was looking for some sort of comfort, but he didn’t know what to tell her.

  “Don’t worry,” he said at last. “I’m not going to mention it to any of the others. You can tell them in your own time.”

  “Will they still want me?” she asked.

  He knew what she wanted to hear. But he didn’t know if that would be the true answer.

  “Maybe they will,” he said. It was the best he could offer.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  NATALIE

  More than anything, Natalie wanted to run away from Chuck. He had saved her, and she knew she should be grateful, but she wanted to be far away from him.

  There was nothing like the instant rapport she’d felt with Ozzy and Gage. Instead, she was reasonably sure he was regretting ever helping her at all. He feels as stuck with me as I do with him, she thought miserably as they trudged along.

  At least he hadn’t asked her to shift yet. At least she hadn’t disappointed him in that way. But she was sure the time couldn’t be far off. He couldn’t possibly be planning on remaining human all the way back to Washington. Eventually, he would tell her he wanted to shift, and she would have to reveal that she couldn’t do that either.

  I can’t do anything.

  Maybe she didn’t belong in this world.

  It was heartbreaking. She had begun to feel so at home. Ozzy and Gage felt more like family to her than anyone she had ever known. She had thought, when she’d gotten married, that she was finally beginning to build the family she’d never had. But of course it hadn’t turned out that way. Her marriage had been temporary, just like every family she’d ever been a part of growing up.

  I really believed Ozzy and Gage would be the ones who would last.

  But she had been kidding herself. Chuck had made her see that. She had been foolish to think that her inability to have children wouldn’t be such a big deal. As soon as they found out about it, they’d stop wanting her.

  I probably don’t count as an omega at all, she thought. There was only one thing omegas were needed for. It was the reason everyone was so desperate to claim her. And it was the one thing she would never be able to do.

  Chuck held up a hand, and she halted in her tracks, distracted from her melancholy thoughts. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I think we should stop here for the night,” he said.

  “I didn’t know we were stopping,” she said.

  “Do you want to keep walking all night?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I thought you might want us to.”

  “I’m not insane,” he told her. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I rescued you,” he pointed out. “Would I have done that if I was a bad guy?”

  “I don’t actually know that you rescued me,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe you’d rather be back in that cage?”

  “Maybe I would,” she said evenly.

  Chuck sighed and stomped off into the woods.

  Natalie set about gathering up the things she would need to start a fire. She was halfway through collecting twigs and tinder when she realized that she had no lighter. She was used to relying on Ozzy and Gage for the spark.

  Chuck probably has a lighter.

  But she was so tired of this. So tired of depending on the men who happened to be around her. All her life, she had been independent. She had been lonely, yes, but she had never relied on anyone before.

  In this world, the shifter world, it sometimes felt as though she couldn’t do anything for herself. If there wasn’t someone around to take care of her needs and provide for her, she thought she probably would have died out there a long time ago.

  Chuck came back, his arms full of logs. “Need a light?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted.

  He fished in his pocket and tossed her a lighter. She lit up the little stack of firewood she’d created, then held the lighter out so that he could take it back.

  He shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got another.”

  She was floored. It was such a simple thing, a lighter—but it was also the ability to make fire. The ability to survive on her own. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  He came over and sat beside the fire she’d made. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said. “I don’t want us to be enemies.”

  “I don’t either,” Natalie said.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “Everything you’ve told me about yourself has surprised me, that’s all.”

  “I can’t blame you for that,” Natalie said. “Finding out about this world has been surprising to me. I’m just starting to doubt whether I really belong here.”

  “You can hardly doubt how much everyone wants you,” Chuck pointed out.

  “No,” Natalie agreed. “But they’re basing that desire on incomplete information. They all think I’m going to be able to have children. And I can’t.”

  Chuck shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that since you told me,” he said. “And, Natalie...I think you might be wrong about that.”

  Her heart leaped for a split second. She had longed for years to be told that she was wrong, that her ex-husband was wrong. That she could have children after all.

  But she forced herself to let the idea go. He didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “You don’t know how long I tried,” she told him. “You don’t know how many times I hoped for it. How many times I was disappointed. I spent years trying, years that should have been the most fertile of my life. And it never worked.”

  “But you were with a human man,” Chuck said.

  A twig snapped in the fire. Natalie could think of nothing to say in response.

  “He was human, wasn’t he?” Chuck pressed.

  “He was,” Natalie said. “Of course he was. I didn’t even know about the shifter world then.”

  “Your body was made to carry the babies of people like us,” Chuck said. “Shifters. Alphas. It doesn’t surprise me that you couldn’t get pregnant with a human man. The fault was with him, not with you.”

  She felt a desperate flutter of hope in her stomach. “How can you be sure of that?” she asked.

  “I...” He shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”

  “What’s a bad idea?”

  “You belong to Ozzy and Gage,” he said, his voice gruff. “I shouldn’t be...”

  “Shouldn’t be what?”

  He looked at her. His face was twisted with anguish. “I shouldn’t be thinking the things I’m thinking,” he said.

  His pale blue eyes were locked on hers. She couldn’t break his gaze. The hope she had felt in the pit of her stomach at the idea that she might be able to get pregnant after all suddenly exploded into something much bigger and more potent. She felt like she was seeing Chuck for the first time. And this time, she allowed herself to take in the entirety of his body, to look at the muscles rippling across his torso and down his limbs. To imagine those massive hands and long fingers on her body.

  It can’t be. Not again.

  But she had been through this twice before, and she didn’t think she could possibly be mistaking the way it felt. There was nothing else in the world quite like it.

  “Are you imprinting?” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes, but the feeling that he was staring into her soul didn’t diminish. “I shouldn’t be,” he breathed. “It’s going to cause nothing but trouble.”

  “Because you know I can’t have children.” This is how men react to imprinting on me when they know I’ll never bear their children. This is how Ozzy and Gage will react when I tell them the truth. She was flooded with sadness.

  But he shook his head. “You’re thinking like a human again,” he said, his voice low. “My body wouldn
’t give me these feelings if there was no chance we could have children together. The point of imprinting is to create the best biological match for the alpha and the omega, so they can pass along their genes. Your body is so—powerful—” He shuddered slightly. “I can understand now how this happened to Ozzy and Gage. I can’t imagine how anyone could not imprint on you. It’s like staring into the sun.”

  She felt the same way. His allure was powerful, drawing her in, and suddenly she understood why everyone had been so sure that he would make a good alpha. How could you not want to please this man? How could you not want to do as he said?

  Their hands were on each other, and then their lips were locked in a kiss, and she was fumbling for the hem of his shirt, and he was lifting her dress up and over her head. She had to get him naked, to be skin to skin with him. She had no thought of sex at that moment. It was more visceral. Her body longed to pull him closer, to be pulled closer to him.

  Alpha, something primal whispered in the back of her mind.

  He rolled onto his back and lifted her to sit astride him, sliding his cock into her wet folds. Her head fell back as pleasure washed over her. She was already coming, her body clenching desperately, hungrily.

  I can’t believe this is happening.

  He sat up, pulling her closer so she wouldn’t be dislodged. His big rough hands found her hips and began to guide her through a steady rhythm, and she realized she had been fucking him erratically, desperate for more of him but too out of her mind with desire and pleasure to move at any kind of even pace. She let him take the lead, just as she had with Ozzy and Gage, knowing that he was strong enough to get them to where they needed to be.

  He pressed her against his firm chest. His hands wandered up and down her back, traced circles in sensitive places on her neck, twined in her hair.

  “God,” he groaned, returning to her hips, pulling her tight against him, so tight that for a few seconds, she couldn’t move at all. She trembled against him, feeling him throbbing within her, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

  “I could do this all night,” he said. “I could stay here and fuck you all night.”