An Omega's Wish

by Trisha Linde

  I looked down at my paws, now human hands. My human legs, sturdy enough but not made for running and hunting.

  I waited to feel sadness at my current situation. Anger, or frustration perhaps.

  But it never came. Instead, my eyes drifted to the man wrapped in the bedding. As uncomfortable as I was within this cave, I felt as though a piece of my home were right here, with him.

  When I was younger, I had been a member of a pack. I had a family, a home; I was Delta, given a position of importance within the pack, with duties and responsibilities. And even still, I hadn’t been happy. Something was missing, and my packmates sensed it as well. I didn’t belong among my own kind. I was… different.

  Looking at this human man, I could feel a sense of belonging that was missing from my wolf pack. How was it possible to feel something outside my own species?

  But then I looked down at my unfamiliar body, nothing more than a shell, regardless of species. Maybe that was the problem with me all along; this whole time I wasn’t really a wolf, but rather a human in a wolf’s body. But am I really a human now, or am I a failed wolf disguised as a human? Not one or the other.

  But maybe both.

  For now, I needed to find a way to satiate the instincts demanding action. My inner wolf felt a danger looming somewhere in the shadows. I’d never been one to hide from danger, but now I had a new concern. This man, delicious and kind, was defenseless in sleep. I couldn’t leave to hunt down the threat without leaving him unprotected. No, I had to rework my priorities this time.

  As I moved closer to the man, I had to concentrate on controlling my new body. My limbs were not lithe and smooth as they once were, but jerking and plodding. I felt loud and clumsy. I had to admit, though, as I approached the man’s side… there was a certain grace to the angles and planes of a human body.

  As I tried to perch on the edge of the raised platform, I nearly collapsed back onto the floor. I jumped back, startled. I had expected a hard surface, but it gave way beneath me, bouncing and cushioned.

  I reached out tentatively to poke at the offending bedding. A strange sound escaped from my lips, half breath, half purr. This was one thing the human body excelled at. Touch. My skin, devoid now of all fur, was able to feel everything. Every bump, every texture. This was exquisite.

  The man moaned in his sleep and rolled away from me, so I could no longer see his face. I wanted very much to pull him back, to use my new hands to feel the softness of his skin, trail my fingers through his hair. His body represented a whole world of new experiences.

  But it was late, and he was sleeping. I would wait. There would be time for exploring his body tomorrow. For now, I would guard.

  With more caution this time, I lowered myself onto the edge of the bedding, now braced for the movement. I sat, and I waited.

  Then I wiggled.

  And fidgeted.

  I decided this body wasn’t very good at sitting still. With such long limbs and a spine curved at the wrong angle, I wasn’t able to just curl up and place my head down on my paws. Humans didn’t know what they were missing.

  Not to mention that the longer I sat here, completely bald, the colder I got. I felt my face pull into an expression I’d never made before with my wolf muzzle. I was unbelievably uncomfortable. I was fairly certain the human wouldn’t mind sharing his bedding, though this felt like a very personal assumption. Wolves, by nature, are very territorial, and I felt as though I were stepping foot into another wolf’s den.

  I huffed a breath and inadvertently took a lungful of his tantalizing aroma.

  Maybe just for a few minutes…

  And I stretched my new lanky body down next to the human, snuggling in close to his warmth, and burrowing my nose against the crook of his neck.

  7

  Noel

  The day dawned bright and way too fucking early. In winter, even with the shorter days, the pure white sheets of snow covering the lawns reflected the barest hint of sunlight. I swore it reflected it straight in my window.

  Ugh. This morning was especially difficult to get out of bed. The pillows were softer than usual, the blankets warmer. I burrowed deeper into the blankets, covering my eyes from the offending light.

  And then I heard a sigh.

  The fuck?! I bolted out of the bed and straight to my feet before I’d even made the decision to move. My mind was still foggy with sleep and nothing was making sense.

  Because I was fairly certain I hadn’t gone to sleep with a man in my bed.

  A naked man, at that! Yeah, I would’ve remembered that, I thought to myself, my eyes trailing the bare flesh.

  The blanket pulled back as he rolled over in bed, reaching with his hand to where I had just been sleeping. After patting the empty spot and finding me gone, the man opened his eyes and looked around blearily.

  My heart was still pounding in my chest, leaving me short of breath. “Who the hell are you?” I demanded. “And what are you doing in my bed? Naked!” Why was I so fixated on that? Like I was one to talk. I was also standing here buck-ass naked.

  The man tensed and made a move to get out of my bed and approach me, and I pressed my back up against the wall. The man’s nostrils flared and he froze. His head swiveled back and forth, his pupils dilating and nostrils flaring.

  My eyes darted to the open bedroom door. Should I make a break for it? The stranger anticipated my move and was out of the bed before I could blink. How did he move so fast? He took two long strides and just like that was between me and the door. His movements, though fast, were also strange. His limbs moved almost jerkily, as if he were injured.

  That wasn’t all I noticed. I couldn’t keep my eyes from trailing the length of his body. He was all sinewy muscle, lean and taut, and his skin was marked with scars. This man had led a rough life. While that thought should have filled me with dread, it instead left me feeling pity for him.

  I wasn’t an idiot, though. I wasn’t going to let a hot naked man distract me from the fact that he was blocking my only exit.

  “I said, who are you?” I shouted again. My sleep-addled brain was starting to clear with the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

  I took a step to the left, trying to move around the edge of the room, but the man took a step to intercept. I moved right, he moved right.

  “Do you want money?” I asked. “Because I don’t have any.” I gestured to the wreck of a house I lived in. If he wanted money, wouldn’t he have broken into a nicer house?

  And then the stranger lowered his head, hunching his shoulders and relaxing his stance. He looked up from under his brows and let his eyes brazenly devour me. I felt a blush race through me. Was that what he wanted? I slept naked, and here I was standing completely bare in front of him. I felt a sudden urge to cover myself up. I leaned out and snatched a pillow from the bed and held it over my crotch.

  The man’s lip curled, showing his teeth, and a small growl escaped him. He legit just growled!

  “Dude, I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing in my house, but you need to leave. Or I’ll call the cops.” My threat was completely empty. My phone was likely exactly where I left it last night, in the car. My hands had been full with the wolf, and I’d been so worn out that I never bothered to go back to the car for my stuff.

  I gasped. The wolf! Was he okay? I didn’t hear him, but he must have woken up from the drugs by now. Maybe the wolf would protect me from this dude. Who still hadn’t said a single word. I was filled with anxiety and confusion. What the hell was I supposed to do? He didn’t seem to want to hurt me, but he wasn’t letting me leave either.

  He was now staring down at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. Maybe he was high? As he flexed his long fingers, my attention was brought to the bandage on his forearm. It was simple gauze, thickly wound but poorly wrapped.

  Something about the gauze triggered a memory. A memory from just last night, Dr. Burch wrapping a wound with that same gauze, that same limb on a certain wolf
…

  “Wolf?” I whispered, choking on the word.

  His eyes darted up, his body suddenly tense.

  That isn’t possible, it’s ridiculous. He was a wolf, just last night, I’m sure of it.

  And this man in front of me was certainly human… right? But no matter how much I tried to convince myself of the facts, I couldn’t let go of the idea. There was something about his eyes, or the tilt of his head. Those scars on his body, were they teeth marks?

  “I just…” I began, gesturing to the hallway. “I need the bathroom.”

  His expression was somewhere between confused and thoughtful. After a moment, he stepped aside, his head bowed. Now that I’d had the thought, I couldn’t help but analyze his movements, his posture, from a wolf’s perspective. Was he being submissive?

  He wasn’t being aggressive, he was being possessive.

  I snatched a pair of underwear on the way by, and headed for the bathroom. And, sure enough, as I walked into the hallway, I stood in front of the gaping hole where the door should be.

  Well, shit.

  I didn’t know what any of it meant. If he was a wolf yesterday when I hit him with my car, did that make him a shifter? But now that he was human, he wasn’t acting like the other shifters I’d met. Did I do something to him when I hurt him? Oh goddess, did I break him?

  I turned back towards the bedroom and nearly bumped into the man—er, wolf?—he was standing so close. “Eep!” We were practically pressed against each other, and I was suddenly very aware of all the skin contact going on between us.

  Just when I didn’t think it was possible, he defied the laws of physics and shifted even closer to me, somehow finding a gap between us to close. He was taller than me, and even though he was narrow-waisted and slim, his shoulders were wider than mine too. I tilted my chin up to look him in the eyes, and he seemed to take that as an invitation. He leaned down quickly and pressed his nose into my exposed neck, taking a long inhale.

  My instant reaction was not to pull away. It was to close my eyes, to wrap my fingers through his hair and pull him closer to me. It took far too much restraint not to do just that. I took a shuddering breath and stepped back.

  But doing that just gave me a better view of his body, still very much naked. What the hell was wrong with me? Here I was, one moment wondering if this man was even human, and the next having to convince myself not to throw myself at him.

  And it realllly didn’t help that he was clearly willing to take me on. I felt my eyes get wider the longer I stared at his expanding erection.

  “Ahem, excuse me,” I said awkwardly, clearing my throat and squeezing past him back into the bedroom. I slipped on the underwear quickly, before I had any second thoughts. “We’re going to have to find you some clothes too. We really can’t have you walking around like that.”

  And not just because of what the neighbors would think. I didn’t think I could withstand being around him like this for much longer; my resolve was already thin.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said to him, but I was really talking more to myself. His eyes followed my lips while I spoke, but he didn’t make any attempt at communicating with me in return.

  “My name is Noel Dunkeld,” I introduced myself, even though I knew there was a good chance he couldn’t understand me, but I felt like what I was about to do was far too personal for strangers. I held my hand out to shake, just as I would for anyone. He didn’t hesitate to take my hand, but the caress he gave it was far from a handshake. I cleared my throat and quickly extricated my hand from his. “Right then.”

  I picked out some clothes that could pass as a fit. The pants were a bit short and I had to cinch the waist in with a belt. Wolf, as I’d been calling him for now, allowed me to dress him awkwardly. His limbs alternated between being too stiff, making it impossible to put his arms through the sleeves, or floppy, like trying to dress a wet noodle. As challenging as dressing him was, there was also a certain intimacy to it. He was placing his trust in me, and was observing every step closely. He was receptive to direction, seemingly understanding my words, but he never spoke even a word. I didn’t have a clue how smart wolves were, but he seemed to have an intelligence to him.

  I had him dressed and sitting at the kitchen table within the hour. “Are you hungry?” I asked him. He frowned at me, looking almost frustrated that he couldn’t understand the words. “Food?” I tried again.

  I pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge, and he understood that well enough. He rushed over, the chair falling back and knocking on the floor. He plucked an egg straight out of the carton, and went to shove it into his mouth. “Wait!” I scolded.

  Wolf clutched the egg to his chest and gave a low growl. “Easy, there. I just wanted to cook it for you first.” I gestured to the frying pan resting on the stove, but it seemed a pointless gesture. I sighed. Would there be any harm in letting him eat his eggs raw? I wasn’t sure if he was biologically a wolf on the inside, accustomed to eating raw food, or if he had the gut of a human now. I didn’t particularly want to take the chance.

  And since I had no interest in getting bitten while trying to get the egg back, I figured it was best to just show him.

  Wolf watched as I cracked an egg onto the hot pan, and startled at the sizzling. He watched it all with rapt attention, eyes wide, but he didn’t relinquish his hold on his egg.

  Finally, I handed him a plateful of eggs and a fork. He sniffed the food, as well as the plate and utensil. He finally gave me a look that I took to mean that he would trust me once again. Wolf placed the raw egg gently back into the carton. As I watched him shove his face directly into the pile of eggs, I decided teaching him manners and etiquette could wait for another day.

  I got him seated at the table and now he was working his way through the whole dozen eggs. I made a mental note to head to the store to restock the fridge. If he was going to eat like this, I wasn’t sure I would be able to afford for him to stay for long.

  A knock sounded at the front door. Wolf was too distracted with his eggs to notice, so I tiptoed out of the kitchen and peeked through the window. At the door was a man in a blue uniform.

  I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I’d been expecting this since last night, though the outcome was a little different from how I’d imagined it.

  I swung the door open with a fake smile plastered to my face. “Can I help you?”

  The man looked grim. He was brandishing a long stick with a plastic loop, and I could see a large animal carrier on the sidewalk behind him. “Are you Mr. Dunkeld?”

  “Yes, what seems to be the problem?”

  “Mr. Dunkeld, I’m from animal control. I’m here for the wolf,” he said gravely.

  I schooled my expression and tried to look sufficiently confused. “Wolf? What wolf?”

  Oh goddess, I was such a horrible actor.

  And unfortunately, he wasn’t buying what I was selling. “Wolves are dangerous animals. Wild animals don’t make good pets, sir. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you relinquish the animal into my custody.”

  I allowed a small frown to sneak onto my face. “Did Dr. Burch tell you I took the wolf home? Because I assure you, there are no wolves on the premises. He must have been mistaken.”

  The man in the uniform leaned over to take a peek into the house behind me. Did he think I would be hiding it in my living room? Under the couch cushions, maybe? I shook my head at him.

  And then I decided to take a risk. “Would you like to come in to see for yourself?”

  This seemed to shock the gentleman, and I wondered what he had been planning on doing if I hadn’t offered. Was he going to push me down and barge into my house? He didn’t even bring any backup. Overall, he was poorly equipped to handle an animal like Wolf. Well, an animal like he had been last night, anyway.

  He crept into the house on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce with his stick. I held my breath as he stepped into the kitchen. Wolf caught sight
of him and went rigid. I tried to signal to him to stay calm. Our eyes met and I put every calm thought I could conjure into the look I gave him.

  Wolf held my gaze, and it slowly turned from hostile to smoldering.

  The guy from animal control looked back and forth between us. “I’ll... uh, I’ll just check the rest of the house if that’s all right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said without breaking our gaze.

  The man headed back out and I heard him moving down the hall to the bedroom. Wolf stood from the table and moved after him, but I placed a hand on his chest and he stilled beneath my touch. “Let it be,” I whispered.

  We stayed there for countless minutes, the moment just mere seconds but stretched into an eternity. Our bodies were a breath apart, and a part of me ached to close the distance.

  Ridiculous, I chided myself. He may or may not be human, and he hasn’t even spoken a word. You don’t even know him!

  I tried to tell myself that he was just an attractive man, but something echoed from deep inside me. I knew there was something else going on between us than mere attraction.

  Boots clomped down the hall and back to where I was in my sexy standoff with Wolf. “Did you find your wolf?” I asked without breaking my gaze away from Wolf’s dark eyes.

  Animal control scoffed. “No wolf, but I guess you knew that already.”

  “I did try to tell you,” I said.

  “Uh huh. I guess I’ll be on my way and let you two get back to… whatever it was you were doing. But if you do happen to find that wolf again, be sure to give us a call. Wild animals—”

  “Yes, yes,” I interrupted. “Very dangerous. You’ll be the first person I call.”

  When the door finally closed behind him, I allowed myself a shuddering breath of relief. Wolf seemed to sense my change in body language, and his posture relaxed as well.