by Apollo Surge
“The Runaway Omega”
M/M Wolf Shifter Mpreg Paranormal Romance
Apollo Surge
© 2019
Apollo Surge
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18. Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.
Edition v1.00 (2019.06.24)
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Special thanks to the volunteer readers who helped with proofreading. Thank you so much for your support.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Chapter One
Wes stopped short of the red house that he’d seen on his walks back into town. He didn’t remember anything—at least geographically—from when he shifted, but he did remember having to go back, and this small cabin had always been an anchor for him when everything else had fallen into disarray.
He didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t think that he had much of a choice. The pack never went onto private property. It was too dangerous and they had lost too many people like that.
But Wes had to do this.
He needed the pack to stay away from him, and while he didn’t think they’d lost his scent—because as Griffin had said to him, which still sent a shiver down his spine, everyone could smell him now —he knew that being in the house would be enough to stop them from coming for him.
At least for a month or two.
It was still spring, and things didn’t really start for the pack until summer, but for his standing, his scent was powerful, and since he was one of the only omegas left in the pack… He shuddered as he hugged himself. He didn’t want to think about it. He could feel himself starting to give in to his nature, especially when he was done shifting.
He always felt so empty after that. But the last thing that he wanted was to bring another Omega into his pack. He couldn’t think of having his own child deal with what Wes was dealing with.
No wonder his father had left. He probably couldn’t even deal with what would happen to Wes once he came of age. Or maybe he was just a terrible person, like the rest of the members of the pack said.
Wes didn’t want to know. He couldn’t have known, because even if he asked, Griffin never answered. He didn’t think that Wes needed to know anything about his parenting lineage. If Wes had been more docile, which the pack had tried to instill into him, it might have worked.
But Wes was a new generation of Omega. He had grown up connected to the internet, and he had known that there were other choices for him out there.
At least that was what he wanted to believe.
He didn’t know if it was true, but he was going to make it happen for himself, even if it meant that he had to claw his way out. Quite literally.
Now he was trying to get away from it all. Things weren’t predestined, not necessarily, and the little red cabin at the edge of the woods might have been the perfect way to get away from them, at least until he came up with a more coherent plan.
A long-term one, in any case. He looked up at the red cabin and sighed. It was cold, and he could see his breath in front of his face.
This would be okay for the time being. Wes knew that he couldn't stay there for long, because the pack wouldn’t take long to find him, and he didn’t know how long they would respect the rule of not going onto private property. Probably only until they were all in heat.
He took a few steps forward and stopped short of the fence. It was a white fence, and it had been recently installed, but it was already dusty and covered in pollen. Wes only knew that it was new because he hadn't seen it in the last two years. It had only been there the last couple of months.
He thought that the house might have been sold, but he wasn't sure. Whoever used to live there didn’t use to take nearly as much care of it as the new tenant.
This was a summer house, though, and he didn’t think that whoever owned the property would be back for another month or so. Not until it got warmer. It was too cold up here for any city dwellers, though the place was beautiful when summer finally rolled around.
Vibrant and green with gorgeous lakes, it was perfect to get away from the world. The pack was subdued during summer, too, because the days were long and the full moon thing was a total myth. They needed their nights to be long and cold. That was when they went out to hunt and to frolic.
But the nights were getting shorter and the cusp of summer was when things went wild with the pack. It was when the lineage was supposed to continue.
It was when Wes was supposed to be claimed. A few weeks later, the next Omega would be born. Fast forward eighteen years—rinse and repeat, forever.
He had just come of age, and now he was supposed to fulfill his duty.
Fuck his duty, he thought as he held on to the white fence. It went against his instincts to jump a fence and to break into a house, because he thought that he might be found out and shot, but everything about this went against his instincts. Being away from his pack, trying to get away from his duty, it all seemed superhuman to him. It seemed right to him too.
He needed to do this.
He landed on the grass on the other side of the fence and exhaled heavily.
He closed his eyes, trying to get his heartbeat under control. The cabin was isolated enough that he didn't look around to see if anyone was watching him, but he didn’t have to. His chief concern was doing this stealthily enough. He wasn’t that worried about other people—other wolves—noticing him.
He would have been able to hear them, to smell them, in any case. And he would have known to run. But his pack was the only one for miles, and he could have easily recognized their smell and discern their footsteps.
All that he could hear was the sound of the forest, birds and squirrels and leaves brus
hing up against each other turning into mush in his head.
It was the middle of the day and his pack was still recovering from turning the night before. He was still recovering from turning, and from what Wes remembered from what people had told him in his pack, it was a bit like having a really bad hangover. His head was banging, his mouth was dry, and his eyes were watery, but he wasn't sure if that was from the cold or from the after-effects of turning.
He walked up to the white door and took a second to look at it. It had been recently painted, he noted, and whoever had painted it hadn’t done such a great job of staying in the lines, though the job wasn’t bad, exactly. It was more amateurish than bad, clearly done by someone who didn’t spend a lot of time working with their hands.
He wondered what kind of person lived here. Hopefully, he would never have to find out. He would be long gone by the time the owner got to the cabin.
Maybe he would even get to go to the city. Somewhere warmer. He smiled, a little sadly, quite aware that it was never going to happen for him. Because of who he was, he was never going to be able to leave this remote corner of nowhere, was never going to get to live a normal life. Even being suburban—having children, a partner, a normal job—all seemed like completely remote possibilities to him.
No, not possibilities. Dreams. Impossible dreams.
He tried the handle. He knew better. He knew that it wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t help himself. That would have made his life a hell of a lot easier. But no, of course he couldn’t just walk into the cabin. He moved the handle a little bit, but the door didn’t budge.
Wes sighed and rested his head on the door. This was going to be harder than he thought. He stood back from the door and looked at the windows.
This wasn’t going to be easy. The windows were double-glazed and they looked like they were sealed, so he wouldn’t be able to pry them open with his fingers.
That didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try.
He walked to the one closest to him, hearing little twigs break under him. He tried to place his hand under the ledge, but his fingers weren’t small enough to get them in there.
He grunted.
Shit, the last thing that he wanted to do was blunt force this, but he was almost sure he didn’t have much of a choice. Fuck. He swore under his breath as he looked at the red cabin.
He needed to decide which window would be easiest to break, which one wouldn’t set off the alarm, if the owner had an alarm. Wes hoped that he didn’t, but there was only one way that he was going to find out.
Upstairs was his best bet. He looked around, trying to find where it would be easiest to climb. There was a column holding up the porch, and though he didn’t think it was going to be easy, it was the best option that he could ask for.
At least this way he could get away from the pack if he got into the cabin. He could finally escape.
He needed to make sure that he could get away with using the cabin as a getaway spot before he did anything else, though. He walked around the outside of the house and tried looking for a rock or a brick. While there were no bricks to be found, he finally found a big enough rock.
He picked it up, turned it around, and brushed the dirt and debris off it.
He took a deep breath, setting his gaze on the window right above him. He thought that he could make it. If he didn’t make it, he was shit out of luck. He would have to rethink his entire strategy, maybe even where he was going to stay for the rest of the month.
The rest of the month was absolutely vital when it came to the rest of his life. He took a deep breath and threw the rock.
For a second, it looked like it was about to miss and stumble down onto the lip of the ceiling, and Wes wouldn’t have been able to retrieve it. That would have been the worst, he thought. He could almost see it happening, too. But instead, it hit the target and when it came in contact with the window, it shattered it. It was the only thing that Wes could hear as the glass broke, little shards falling everywhere.
He took a step back, his eyes wide, and waited.
He was going to have to hide in the forest if he heard any sirens. He was ready for it, though he wasn’t the most patient person in the world. He knew that it would take law enforcement a long time to get to the middle of nowhere, but they might be notified immediately. That was a risk he had to take.
He could get lost in the forest. He was an expert at getting lost.
He just wished that this hadn’t taken so long, because the rest of the pack would be up soon, and they would be hunting for him.
He glanced at his watch and started to count down for ten minutes. By then, he should have heard sirens, even if only from afar. He didn't.
After a while, he opened his eyes again, and he started to climb up the column. His heart was beating fast. This was what he had to do, he was sure of it, but that didn’t make it any easier.
He had never squatted in someone’s house before, and he didn’t intend for it to be a permanent solution. He had always had his own place, or at least his place with the pack. He would have to get used to it. If the choice was no child or a child born to the pack, then Wes’s choice was no child. Definitely no child.
He climbed up the column and jumped onto the roof. He almost lost his balance, which would have been bad, but he managed to catch himself before he did. Slowly, he moved so that he was standing right outside the window.
He would have to replace the window, but he could do that later, after he had settled in. For the time being, he could cover it with a black garbage bag. He looked around the hallway but it was dark. He couldn’t see anything, save for a few doors.
It didn’t matter, though. He could take a closer look at the house once he had officially broken in. He took another deep breath and went into the hallway.
There was no sound from inside the house. He’d been lucky, he thought.
He fumbled around in the dark, looking for a light switch. After some searching, he found it. The hallway was small, but it was fine. It was what he needed. A house. A place to stay away from the pack.
He couldn’t ask for much more.
As long as he had a place to stay, he didn't mind too much. He just couldn't stay out, because that meant he was unprotected from the elements and from his pack. The elements weren’t too bad. It was his pack that worried him.
He decided that he would only stay there for a week. After that, he would have to find another place, probably one which was permanent. He couldn’t squat in another person’s house forever. That sounded like a horrible existence. He had a little bit of money saved but not much. It was money he had managed to grab from people’s wallets when they weren’t looking, because he didn’t get any money. He didn’t even get scraps.
He was just smart about it. He never took so much that anyone worried about the money that had gone missing. He’d been planning this for years, but it was still not enough to get a place that would fit his needs.
He didn't know where he could go where he would be able to shift, especially now that he was so close to being in heat. He was worried about that, but at least the first hurdle had been conquered.
He took a few seconds to collect himself, then he put his backpack down next to one of the doors. He needed to go downstairs and collect the garbage bag that was going to act as his window, along with some tape.
As he started walking downstairs, he finally managed to take a deep breath.
That was when he smelled it.
Shit.
The overwhelming musk that sent shivers down his spine, that made his mouth water, that made him pant. It was faint, but it was also all that he could concentrate on, because even though he could hardly sense it, he could feel it creeping into his lungs, into his blood.
This wasn’t just a random cabin.
This cabin was owned by an alpha.
Chapter Two
When Joseph had decided to put his house in the city on the market, he hadn’t expected it to sell for at
least a few months. That would have given him enough time to shop around for another house with acreage, one that was far enough away from civilization that he could do everything that he needed to do without arousing suspicion, but close enough to the city that he could drive in and go into the office when he had to.
But the interested family had been insistent. More than insistent, they had been rich, and Joseph Turner was not the kind of man that walked away from a good deal.
Plus he had the cabin to go to. He’d only bought it a year ago and it still needed some work, but he was happy with it, and it would come in handy when the last of spring hit. He’d managed to smell the tail end of some wolves’ scents the last time he’d been in town, but he didn’t think that they ventured as far as his cabin.
He had also managed to convince his boss that he could work from home, that it wasn’t necessary that he stay in the office, and that he could be just as productive when he was located somewhere remote. It had taken him about a year to get her to open up to the idea and he’d had to accelerate his finely tuned plans.
He’d been worried that it wasn’t going to work and surprised when it had. The family wanted him to vacate the house as soon as he could, so he had collected his stuff, packed it all into his wagon, and decided to drive back to his cabin two weeks early.
Devin was curled up on the passenger seat next to him. Joseph looked at him and smiled. He had grown as much as he was going to and he was a good enough size that Joseph could get away with not living in smaller places because he had to look after his potbellied micropig.
Of course, when he’d first thought about it, the idea seemed ridiculous. He didn’t want to take care of a pig and he didn’t even like thinking about what would happen to the pig when he shifted.
But that was exactly what he needed to do, train himself so that he wouldn’t attack anyone, and there was no easier way to do that than to acquire a pet that he cared deeply about and might eat in one of his alpha rages. Devin had grown to fifty pounds and he was a quirky enough pet that everyone thought Joseph was just a quirky person himself.