The Runaway Omega: M/M Wolf Shifter Mpreg Paranormal Romance

by Apollo Surge

  He sat down on the wet ground, which was uncomfortable on his denim clad ass, and started to undo the laces of his boots.

  He looked up at Wes, who was looking down at him, doing nothing.

  They were finally sharing something like a companionable silence after they had talked each other’s ears off all day.

  There was something that made the first shift of the year contemplative for everyone so Joseph didn’t mind that they had both fallen quiet.

  This was nice, though. There was certainly some anxiety, at least on Joseph’s part, because the omega’s scent was strong and he could feel it getting stronger as they approached shifting time.

  He thought that he would be able to resist it.

  He told himself that he had to, because Wes was counting on him, because Wes was living with him and the last thing that Joseph wanted to do was make him feel like he had to run away again.

  “Excited?” Wes asked.

  Joseph chuckled. “A little,” he said. “More nervous than usual.”

  “Yeah,” Wes replied. “Same here.”

  Joseph nodded, his heart leaping in his chest, and went back to undoing the laces of his shoes. He wasn't sure exactly what Wes did to prepare, but every single wolf had a different ritual before they were about to turn. It might have been something as simple as a prayer.

  Some wolves liked to exercise and some liked to eat human food, like chocolate, or a snack. Some people liked to have a bath or a hot shower, though they frequently ended up bathing in a river too.

  A lot of it was so that they could feel a little human after they have turned, because it was easy to let the animalistic part of themselves take over. There were two parts of them and they needed to remember that one part was just as important as the other.

  Joseph’s life was tightly calculated and he didn’t mind letting go and being a wolf so much. He liked it, he looked forward to it, but Wes was a wildcard and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about him.

  There was also the fact that they would have to be in front of each other while they stripped down to nothing. Most wolves got rid of their clothes before they shifted, because the shifting process could create snags and accidents, especially in clothes with a lot of zippers and buttons—so anything that they would have worn for the current weather.

  “Cold spring, huh?” Wes said.

  Joseph nodded. “Coldest I can remember.”

  “You get used to it when you live up here.”

  Joseph nodded. “Might take me a bit.”

  “Don’t worry,” Wes said. “It does get easier.”

  Joseph nodded again. “I hope so.”

  Wes edged a little closer to him, just enough that Joseph could feel his warmth. They were pretty close to each other, though, and Joseph didn’t know how that would work once they were shifting, especially because they would have to take all of their clothes off, and that seemed like a lot.

  Joseph was short of breath when he finally managed to start undoing the buttons on his coat. He normally took a little while to get undressed, but there was something frenzied about the way that he was doing this. He wasn’t shy at all, because nudity was something that he had grown up around, but this nudity felt supercharged because Wes was there watching him, staring at him, his mouth half-open and his eyes wide.

  He was sure that Wes was lusting after him too, though that could have just been the allure of the omega. The allure of the omega was strong, his scent was strong, and everything about him felt like it might be too much to resist, like maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  He couldn’t back out of it anymore.

  He had driven them there and he needed to see it through. He couldn’t let Wes go at this himself. There was absolutely no way that he could let him shift alone.

  He kept peeling off layers, revealing himself to Wes, who was watching him intently, and Joseph noticed, not taking off any of his clothes. He was so gorgeous like this, when he was leaning against the car looking almost casually at him, that Joseph could feel his cock growing in his jeans.

  He wasn’t sure that he wanted to have an erection when he first got naked in front of Wes, but he thought that Wes would understand. This wouldn’t be his fault, it would just be nature, and Wes would get that it was his scent that was drawing Joseph to him, that was making him rock hard when he thought about him.

  He started to undo his clothes even more quickly and now his nails were getting caught on things and he was panting, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure what was going on—though he had the vague idea that it had to do with shifting as much as it did with Wes—but he needed to disrobe, needed to get rid of everything constraining him so that he would be able to reveal himself to Wes more quickly.

  That suddenly seemed like the most important thing to do.

  Wes turned to watch him, still saying nothing, though Joseph could hear that his breath had quickened, could smell his scent. Joseph removed his shirt and then he was down to his underwear. If anyone else had seen him in that second, he would have probably looked like an idiot, but from the way that Wes was staring at him, he didn’t feel like one at all. He felt… hot. Not just desired, and not just warm, but like every part of him was filling up with heat. The cold that surrounded them had stopped mattering. All that mattered was how warm he felt, the way that his heart was leaping in his chest, the way that the warmth was spreading to the ends of his fingertips.

  He groaned, throwing his head back slightly. It was clearly sexual, but this was just a sexually charged situation and it didn’t mean that anything had to happen between them. If this was all that happened between them, Joseph thought that might have been okay.

  Maybe he would have been able to deal with this and just this. This didn’t mean anything, it wouldn’t necessarily lead to anything. This was just a ritual. They were getting ready for shifting.

  Everything was still okay. They hadn’t touched, hadn’t kissed; they hadn’t even exchanged any words, but Joseph knew that the tension wasn’t in his head. When an omega got aroused, his scent became stronger and stronger, and now it was all that Joseph’s nose could detect.

  There was no mistaking that the musky, masculine scent that Wes was radiating was arousal, and Joseph felt it calling to him, like a magnet.

  Wes was still watching him, and then he crossed the space between them and extended his hand. He didn’t touch him—his fingertips hovered just above his skin, so he could feel their warmth, but he couldn’t quite feel his touch.

  Joseph swallowed. “Touch me,” he said, his voice sounding strangled. “Please.”

  Wes didn’t need to be asked twice. He groaned too and he closed the space that had been left between his fingertips and Joseph’s chest.

  Joseph chewed on his lower lip, trying to stop himself from screaming. It was just his fingers and he already felt like warm cosmic energy was spreading from where Wes had touched him to the rest of his body, and it was making his cock harder than it had been before, which Joseph hadn’t even thought was possible.

  Wes groaned and threw his head back, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Joseph could see how turned on he was. He wanted to grab him by the waist and kiss him roughly on the mouth, but Joseph could feel his body starting to shift.

  He could feel himself getting smaller, feel his muscles contracting, his bones burning. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself as he felt everything crunching.

  The shifting process always hurt, but Joseph was used to it. He didn’t think that shifting this time was going to be that different, but when Wes was staring at him, he felt far more self-conscious than he normally did.

  Then he looked at Wes and Wes had taken off his clothes, practically ripped them off, and he looked fucking gorgeous when he was naked, with washboard abs and muscled legs.

  Then he moved away and leaned forward so that his legs were touching the ground, and Joseph closed his eyes, losing track of what he was doing. Shifting was always a
personal ordeal and it took him a little while to find his bearings again when he was a wolf.

  He whimpered, his paws against the wet ground, and he looked around, following Wes’ scent until he found him behind the station wagon.

  He ran toward Wes and Wes turned back, meeting his gaze, and running around him. Wes was a beautiful wolf with white and gray coloring and glimmering amber eyes.

  He could smell him, and he was approaching him. Joseph jumped back and Wes jumped with him, encircling him, howling a little, then nuzzling into his neck. That was enough to provoke Joseph and the two ended up playing, their ears back, their jaw dropped. They sniffed each other’s muzzle and tail and then rubbed themselves up against each other until they were both whimpering.

  Wes and Joseph were both spent after a while and Wes nuzzled up to him, licking him on the muzzle, and then moving away from him slightly. Then he bowed his head down and offered his neck.

  Everything in Joseph was screaming to take it. He wanted to, his instinct was to do it, but he didn’t want to make Wes his omega. He wanted him to be independent, because clearly that was what Wes wanted for himself, and Joseph didn’t feel like it would be a good thing to intervene.

  He felt his human side winning out, which made him yelp—he wanted to take Wes, and the omega smelled so good that he needed to run away from him.

  Wes was staring at him with those piercing amber eyes, his ears perked up. Clearly, he had picked up on the fact that something was wrong. Joseph understood that he needed to give him more, but he couldn’t.

  After Wes had wanted to submit to him, Joseph knew that he couldn’t resist him anymore.

  Yelping once more, this time toward the moon, he turned around and ran away from Wes. He could hear his howls, but it didn’t matter.

  He couldn’t spend the night around him, no matter what.

  Chapter Seven

  Wes was disoriented when he got back to the house. He could track it, which wasn’t a problem, and it wasn’t that far. He hadn’t detected the rest of his original pack—no, his only pack, because Joseph had rejected him and so his original pack was the only pack that he had ever known—which should have been lucky.

  Except that he could only feel a pit growing in his stomach.

  From Joseph’s actions, it was clear that all Wes was to him was a charity case. He could have chosen to make him family, but that hadn’t been what had happened at all. Instead, he had turned him down, every single wish that he had had to become Joseph’s omega was shut down in an instant.

  It hadn’t taken Wes long to realize that Joseph would have been someone that he wouldn’t have minded raising a family with. But a family wasn’t the same as a pack, though for their species, the differences were intellectual only.

  He had thought that everything was going well when they were playing with each other in that field. He could smell Joseph and neither one of them seemed to think that anything else mattered. He could tell from Joseph’s scent that he was excited, that he was ready, that he wanted this. But even with all his allure, Wes hadn’t been good enough for him.

  He had shifted in front of the house, because he wasn’t going to take Joseph’s vehicle, and he hadn’t had the foresight to bring his jeans in his mouth, so he was stuck outside of the cabin wearing nothing, feeling the wind chill seep into his bones.

  He hugged himself. He was so cold. The window still hadn’t been boarded up so he supposed that he could walk up in theory and break into the house again. Joseph had said that he was supposed to feed Devin Bacon and he thought that it was quite possible that he was going to catch his death of cold if he stayed out there for too long.

  He hugged himself and started to walk toward the cabin. His human feet didn’t like the ground at all, so he needed to get this done quickly, but the moment that he approached the cabin he was hit by the smell of an alpha.

  His alpha.

  Not Joseph’s musky sandalwood smell, spicy and earthy. Griffin smelled like jalapeños and his scent made Wes’ eyes water. He needed some clothes. He couldn’t escape from this if he was butt naked but he couldn’t exactly go in there and get clothes.

  They were there. He could smell the rest of the betas, the rest of his pack, but mostly he could smell Griffin, and Griffin was angry. He looked around, wondering where Joseph was, wondering why he couldn’t smell him.

  He didn’t have an alpha to defend him. It made sense that he was going to be dragged back to his pack—it made perfect sense that everything that he had tried to do would be pointless.

  He had been deluded about being able to get away from his destiny.

  And he needed to go in there and protect Joseph’s pig. He was sure that his pack would already be tearing him apart if they had gotten to him. He would just offer himself to Griffin and make sure that any complication was gone from his life.

  He took another deep shuddering breath. His eyes were practically full of tears when he approached the door and opened the handle.

  He needed to be brave, but he could feel how hard it would be. He cleared his throat and screamed. “Hey, Griffin! I’m here now! Why don’t you come get me?”

  He could feel the scent getting stronger in the house. They were all already there, probably all in their human form.

  He could hear footsteps approaching him. He had closed the door behind him, because he didn’t want the cold to get in, but also because he didn’t want Joseph to step in and have to fight the alpha in his house.

  An alpha who shouldn’t be there. Griffin should have known better than to be there, but he clearly wanted Wes as his prize, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got him.

  He could smell his scent getting closer.

  Wes closed his eyes, waiting to be punched, but instead, he heard laughter. He opened one eye after another to see Griffin standing there, smirking at him.

  Griffin was much taller than him, broader, but it was clear that they were related from the features that they both sported, especially their eyes. Sometimes, Wes thought that looking at Griffin’s face was like looking into a mirror.

  Griffin made a show of trailing his gaze over his body, stopping to look at his crotch. Then he took a step closer to him. He put his hand over Wes’ shoulder and yanked him closer to him. “You,” he said, baring his teeth.

  Griffin’s teeth didn’t make him look sexy, they just made him look scary. Wes didn’t want to spend any longer than he had to looking at them. He turned his face away.

  “We’ve been worried sick about you,” Griffin said, his voice a growl. Wes doubted that he was telling the truth, but he tried his best to stay where he was, not even taking a step back though his body was screaming to.

  He was afraid of Griffin, but mostly, he was afraid for Joseph.

  For reasons that he couldn't quite articulate, he realized that he was way more worried about Joseph than he was himself. For the first time in his life, he cared more about what would happen to someone other than himself if he remained there.

  After all, he knew that being an Omega to Griffin would be bad, but he could already imagine something much worse. The worst part for him would be to watch Griffin destroy Joseph’s life.

  Wes closed his eyes, able to see exactly what kind of disaster Griffin would wreak on Joseph’s house, on his life. No wonder Joseph hadn’t taken Wes for one of his pack when he had offered.

  It was too dangerous. An alpha didn’t mess with another alpha’s omega like that.

  There was a reason why it wasn’t done and that reason had become clear as day to him when Griffin was standing right in front of him, looking terrifying.

  Joseph didn’t deserve any of this.

  Joseph was sweet and kind and good. Wes had to take responsibility for all of this, since it was, after all, his fault. He didn’t have to go over there, he didn’t have to break into Joseph’s house, and he didn’t have to bring Griffin into Joseph’s life.

  Joseph had tried so hard to be normal, to be good. And he had been,
at least as far as Wes could tell, and Wes definitely admired him for that.

  Wes liked Joseph and he wanted Joseph to keep everything that he had built for himself.

  Maybe he more than liked Joseph. He closed his eyes. How he felt about Joseph wasn’t at all relevant. It didn’t matter, because soon, he would stop being in Joseph’s life.

  Joseph had changed him, he realized, as Griffin glowered at him. Until he had met Joseph, Wes hadn’t come to realize that it was possible to be an alpha who was also a good person.

  Now that he was standing face-to-face with Griffin, he knew that he had to get him out of there, that he had to get him away from Joseph’s house and from Joseph’s pet.

  That he had to get him out of Joseph’s life. That he had to make sure that Joseph was never confronted by this.

  Though it hurt him to lie, he knew that he had to. It was the only way that he was going to be able to do what needed to be done. “I'm sorry,” he said, every word sounding salty in his mouth. “I should not have run.”

  Griffin scoffed, getting close enough to him that Wes could smell his breath, that he could see the lines under his eyes. He could have been anything from forty to sixty years older than Wes and he wouldn’t have known. Their pack never celebrated birthdays. Wes didn’t even know how old he was himself, though he had some understanding of it.

  He had reached maturity, which was important, because that meant he could bear his alpha’s children.

  And like all of the other wolves that were now surrounding them knew, that was the important part of being an omega. Absolutely nothing else. “You shouldn’t have,” Griffin said. “You’ve misbehaved.”

  “I know,” Wes said, swallowing when he said that. Fuck, he didn’t want to think about what his punishment would be, though he guessed that it would be hard.

  Griffin traced his jawline and then moved back, yanking his hair, and moving Wes’ face very close to his own. Wes tried to swallow down the rock in his throat, his heart beating fast in his chest. He didn’t know if he was going to get beat up on top of fulfilling his destiny—which normally would have made him shudder. There was no shuddering then, because he was so close to Griffin and he already knew exactly what would happen if he showed just how afraid he was.