by Emma Knox
Loving The Alpha’s Omega
The Alpha Omega Lodge - Book 5
Emma Knox
Edited by
Elizabeth A Lance
Illustrated by
Cosmic Letterz
Copyright © 2018 by Emma Knox
All rights reserved.
Edited by Elizabeth A. Lance
Cover design by Cosmic Letterz
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the authors’ imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Contents
Mailing List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Thank You
Also by Emma Knox
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Chapter 1
Ian
I felt like the saddest moon at the time, and I didn’t want the replay button to occur when the last teardrops fell from both sides of my face as I wiped them away with the back of my hands. One after the other like wiper blades when I awoke from a tumultuous sleep.
I groggily walked to the window, stomping my feet here and there for a few strides over my scarlet rug confusedly whilst I bumped into the rectangular mirror at the end of it. I then managed to knock the center of my body against the side of my wardrobe on the right-side corner of the mirror, my nose hitting first, then the rest followed, and after, the wall greeted my forehead. This finally woke me back into reality when I reached out my hand and found that my adventures to finding the window pane and sill had come to an end. I tapped on it…
Here it is!
I eventually found the brass window handle, my body still in one piece, and lifted it all the way up and let in some air; to breathe-in the outdoors from a viewpoint that offered me comfort as I looked to forget the past that I was trying to escape. The wind offered me a kiss that my deserted mate could never give. I kiss it back with a sigh. “Maybe you’ll love me longer than Drew did?” And the reply I got was a gust that twirled many of the rusting leaves on the ground and then disappeared.
I was fighting my unfulfilled emotions right there in my bedroom. The loneliness was creeping like a ready to unload skunk as my family’s words of, “Don’t worry about a mate just yet. We love you, Ian. We do,” had me feeling more pathetic in the lovelorn department.
It was a sad thing to have your family say this. I needed a mate! And although their words were comforting when drinking a hot cup of green tea, it still made the bedroom whisper, “You need to get laid by an Alpha.” So, bless my folks, but singledom was burning me into a recluse who sat in his room all day and moped about others who had love and not me.
I became so comfortable in my self-loathing that when I squinted to see two outlines in the distance, they were coming into sight from underneath a red Oakland tree with reddish-auburn leaves, I thought all visitors to my home must’ve forgotten who I was.
I waited for them to come closer which took another five minutes, then I was able to see the familiar faces of family that I knew, but hadn’t interacted with chattering away to each other as if trying to mend a serious problem.
My God, I thought, it has been too long since I saw those two. But I was in no fit state to welcome my returning father and step-dad, when all I wanted to do was jump from the window and see if I could land similar to a cat on all fours, but I only have two legs.
All that contemplating… I wasn’t suicidal, but, the temptation to just… I started lifting one leg over the window sill; just to test if I could do it. I did this sideways, gripping the window casing and wobbling my buttocks on the stool to avoid my manhood receiving all the pain down the center… I stayed there for a-bit thinking, Should I go all the way over? Not that I would, but, well, I suppose…
My sequence of thought traveled back to a voice calling out, “Ian! Ian! Are things that bad? Get back in there, boy!”
“NO!” I put Ethan, my step-dad, at ease. “I’m not going to jump. I’m not!” I’m waving my hands like two fans giving me a breeze as I quickly stop Trevor, my father, from joining in the alert.
They freeze on the spot with their chins upwards as I climb back into the room and then give them a hearty sailor’s wave and a half-assed smirk of encouragement that I won’t try that again. I grab one of my unwashed tshirts, as I do not want to greet them topless. It’s a bad choice, with the image of a skull wearing a gasmask around its jaw and the words ‘death to all’ coming from a speech bubble. My hair was disheveled and sinewy with the blond streaks fading away from the stress. And my breath smelt of yesterday’s periodontal disease; although I have minimum plaque.
This isn’t the best way to go down.
I hear them knocking: knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock with a finishing thud that would’ve been repeated if I didn’t rush down those stairs and open the door for them.
“Jesus! Ian, you’re a hard one to track down for sure.” Ethan had a look of concern on his face.
I didn’t need to see their pity. But it was there nonetheless cracking bottles and crooning from their observations on my current status.
“Have you both come home to yell me about my new-found ways?” I gave myself a sniff. I could’ve done with a shower as their noses shivered at the same thought.
“Yes. We’re worried about you.” Trevor’s gaze dropped to my feet which were dirt stained with a few scratches from my harsh walks through the woods and treading on uneasy paths where prickly bushes, rocks and broken bits of wood with sharp points and stinging nettles came out unexpectedly.
My legs were no better.
“Would you mind if we speak out here?” I came out and closed the front door. “You aren’t the only ones who are nervous about me.”
“Hmm. I hear you’re not eating and sleeping properly? Is that true?” Trevor related his words behind a thoughtful point of caring.
“That might be the case. Things have been pretty dark for me since my breakup with Drew.” I hoped they wouldn’t harper on about it.
“How have you been coping?”
Why is Ethan hampering on? I’d rather not.
“How does anybody deal with a breakup?” They forced me to go back there.
“You move on.”
Trevor made it sound so easy. I refer to him by his first name, but he doesn’t mind.
“I’m trying.”
They instantly scanned me all the way down to my bare feet.
“It might not seem that way. But I truly am. I just have to get my self-confidence back from losing someone I thought would be my mate to the competition. Drew took a huge chunk out of me that he didn’t know he had. It doesn’t help that I was thrown over by Drake too, before Drew.”
Ethan nodded, he knew about Drake, having worked for him for a good while. Then he made that leap of faith by presenting me with leaflet from his inside pocket. “This is an invitation, this is what you need.”
It had more writing th
an imagery on there, the background was a cut-out earthy brown model of a half-wolf and half-human — and the white text read, Come one, come all, an Alpha, an Omega, you may find exactly what you need. It’s an invitation to…to…
“You’re inviting me to a party?”
“What better way to deal with moving on than with a new beau?”
I took another look at the words, Come one, come all, an Alpha, an Omega, you may find exactly what you need. And all that I took from it was— “It’s way too soon, Ethan. I need more time, man.”
“To fall into your pit of despair?”
“To get over Drew!”
“I think the time is now, Ian. Move on. Allow yourself to breathe with a new mate.”
Ethan wasn’t backing down from that invitation. He had adamant baked right down to the core and served it to me raw. “You’re not going to back down from this are you?”
Ethan said, “No. I won’t.”
“Then I have no choice.”
I’ll go to this party, but I’m not ready. I gave Ethan back the invitation. I truly wasn’t ready for that change of perspective, but it couldn’t hurt to try, could it?
Chapter 2
Garret
“Cough-cough-cough.”
I remembered that day, finding no blood on the tissue …
“Cough-cough-cough.”
Still meant that I was far from well within myself.
“Cough-cough-cough.”
My journey to see my brother was more an excuse to gain some exercise than to actually meet my nephews.
Some friends joked and called it phallus-withdrawal-symptoms.
I told them that their joke was better off with the court jester that showed up dressed as a prospective Omega preaching at my death bed as I proposed, “Would you be my mate?”
And then died of my collapsed lungs because he tardily replied with a pathetic, “Um, ok.”
The mating season was high and dry for me then. I was in need and ready to rapturously lay down my bed of mating matrimony for the right partner, who could contend with me as a man on the about-to-burst-o-meter! I needed to reload my attentiveness each couple of miles that I took in the direction to my brother’s house.
An easy forward journey, only two hills to climb, and then the last leg was a shortcut through a sheep owner’s forb fields where black and white sheep grazed and paid me little mind as I unlatched the four-lined wooden fence and avoided stepping on any sheep shit as I peered around to see muzzles greedily munching and minding their own business as I passed with no, “Baa-baa-baa-baa, Garret.” Well, a ewe gave me a, “Baaaaaaaaa”, and then walked to join its mate in a brazen and he’s mine style.
Lucky guy. I need to find my own.
When I reached the end of the forb field, I climbed over the wall. I wasn’t too sick for that and saw my brother’s new four bedroom home one hundred twenty yards ahead if I picked up the slow-mo-walking, which I did and found that I was out of breath…but the door opened as soon as I was about to heave over with a cough.
“Garret!”
It was Steven in his non-shifter form holding one of the little ones who had a pacifier in the shape of a rabbit’s hoof. An older toddler came out and hugged his leg.
“Did you run all the way here? You look like you need to sit down.”
“I do. Just…just…let me take five.”
“Sure.” Steven took the toddler’s hand and walked inside and left the front door open for me to walk through.
The little one waved at me with his little cheeks closing in on his smiling eyes as Steven took them into the living room where I could see the illuminated shadow of Drake with a snake rattler in his hands, shaking it at the child in his other arm who kept trying to snatch it off him.
I went indoors and saw that their living space was full of toy tractors, farm animals like sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, and then a mini barn and toy model home. There were empty bowls specifically made for youngsters as their smashed sweet potatoes and vegetables were cleared clean. The babies’ bottles were shaped like rocket ships as I noticed Drake trying to give one to the one in his arms for them to drink. It was diluted strawberry juice from the carton that lay on their table.
“That’s Iman …” Steven pointed out Iman to me, his hair had a coarseness like sheep’s wool. Or even brussels sprouts. It was twisted, with a very dainty touch of a midnight black. He looked more like Drake with the nose, and his mouth was full of the fruit juice that Drake was letting him drink on his own as the little one held the small handles it had. He dribbled plenty of it.
“The one playing with the tractor is Ace,” he continued, nodding to the oldest of the three boys. He too looked like Drake with his dark hair and eyes. “And this is Mani.” Steven lifted him in his arms.
Mani was Steven’s stunt double with his perky grin and eyes that were too charming for his age. He’d be a looker no doubt, with the adorable swept back quaff that wasn’t too accurate as he kept messing it up with the rattler.
Ace was dressed in jeans and a blue sweatshirt, while the babies were dressed identical in small burnt umber brown shorts and ruby red sweaters to protect them from the interchanging weather. I was hoping that…nope, too late.
“Do you want to hold him?” Steven struggled with a shy Mani, who differed from his father in that department. “Don’t be shy, Mani. This is your Uncle Garret!”
I gave a quirky grin to the child, I must look like a right goofball to my brother Steven who was lapping this up playfully.
Iman, unlike his twin, seemed to love me, as his arms were outstretched for me to take him.
“I think Iman at least likes you, brother.”
“I’ll take him then!” I did so in a rush, taking the child from Drake, who offered me some of his fruit juice. I awkwardly accepted this gift to quench my thirst and pretended to drink it.
Iman smiled beamingly at me as I pushed the tip against my lips and made factious slurping noises.
Iman tried to say, “Gaaaaa. Gaaaa.”
I nod. “Yes. Yes. Very…sweet.” I didn’t want to give the baby lurgies.
Mani still fought Steven who shrugged at me.
“It must be your perspiration,” Drake said.
“Very funny, Drake.”
“Well, you look awful! Did you run all the way here?”
“I asked him that same question. Brother, let me bring these three upstairs and then we’ll have a little catch up.”
I passed little Iman to him whose arms were locked around my neck good and tight. “Iman, time for your nap.”
Iman refused with a frown and his small head tilted against my chin.
“Come on, baby, I know you’re tired.”
“What are you implying?” I took offence to his flippant way of saying that. “Your kid likes me.”
“He feels sorry for you, more like.” Drake walked past me and up the stairs with Ace and Mani, having taken him from Steven’s arms.
“Is Drake always so happy to see me, Steven?”
“It’s his time of the month.”
“He doesn’t get that.”
“Drake can be a sour puss. You know him and his attitude.”
Iman yawned, and I took the opportunity to give him to Steven who grabbed the boy. He screamed a stormy little, “Noooo!” and then disappeared out of the room. Steven dashed up the stairs like he had more than two pair of feet, with the baby who was now wailing, “Nooo, gaaaa!”
“Your kids are beautiful. Congratulations! You should both be proud.”
“Well, we are gorgeous.” Drake, of course, admitting the obvious to me.
“Naturally you are. I suppose they take it all from you, Drake?”
“The brains…yes. The looks… Yes.”
“What about me?” Steven joined us out on their front porch as we sat on their swing chair with the bright red canopy protecting us from the sun that was in a blazing mood. He offered me and Drake some fresh meat which was bloody and just how
I liked it.
Drake and I devoured the six pieces of cow’s lungs, and Steven went inside to get some more.
Drake answered his question after he’d left, “I’ll see how much like Steven they will be when they reach their early adult years. If they become addicted to promiscuity, then they’ll have his traits.”
“Steven’s always been faithful to you.”
“Duh. I put it down in the bedroom for him. Of course, he comes back for more.”
Steven came out with another plate and laid it upon his lap. “I heard my name.”
“Good.” Drake crossed his right leg over his left thigh and got comfy. “Garret here was telling me that he’s found a mate.”
I was about to take a piece of the cow’s tongue, raw, but my appetite turned into me having to reach for my tissue in my creased jeans pocket and cough. “Cough.” Only the once that time. “No. No.”
“Everything alright, Garret?”
“Cough.” I was glad no blood appeared. “Can you pass the water by your feet, Drake?”
“Sure.” He passed it to me.
I drank it all. There wasn’t much in there anyways. I gave him back the glass and he placed it back where it was.
“Garret, I don’t like the sound of that cough.”
“Me neither. You should get that checked.” Steven was giving me his own medical check.
“It’s some mild case of hemoptysis or bronchitis, the doctor said. It should clear up once I sort out the re-alignment of my mating calendar. I’m overdue, and my body’s become increasingly drawn.”
“Withdrawn from no action?” Drake tried to keep a straight face.
“I don’t find my brother being sick a joke, Drake.”
Drake held back the eye rolling by flicking his right shoe: simple homely sandals — up and down like he was checking that his joints hadn’t caught arthritis.
“You don’t need to worry, Steven.”
“You’re my brother. And it’s about time you get out of this illness and find yourself at this party tonight.”