by Harris, Noah
It was a hard lesson to learn, but he learned it.
As an omega, he would never be able to escape. He would never be the wolf his father wanted him to be, and he would never fit in with a pack. He would never be able to be with his mate.
As an omega, he was doomed.
As a human, though, he had a chance to live.
So he decided to flee, to start over anew, but on his way out, he stopped by the infirmary. He broke into the building while the others were drunk and celebrating, not bothering to hide his passage. He would be gone soon anyway. He rummaged through the stock of drugs the training camp had on hand, fingers shaking as they wrapped around a large bottle.
Aconite.
Wolfsbane.
They kept it, not as punishment, but for more advanced training exercises. Wolfsbane would subdue a person's inner wolf, making it unreachable and weakening them significantly. He knew everyone would have to take it eventually, to learn what it felt like so if it happened in the field, they'd know how to deal with it.
It would kill his wolf, but only temporarily. If he kept taking it, though, he might be able to be rid of that side of him for good.
Timothy the omega would be dead, and he would just be…Timothy. No expectations of servitude. No submissive instincts.
He shoved the bottle deep into his bag and fled the camp, running as far as he could on aching feet and hitchhiking once he found a road. He went as far as he could before daybreak, desperate and fearful that the pack might somehow be able to follow.
He stopped to rest in a motel, and he took the first aconite pill as the sun dawned on a new day.
The pain was immediate and agonizing. It felt like his insides were being torn apart, and his wolf howled from within. The horrifying cry of a dying animal, fearful and panicked.
He fell to the floor in his motel bathroom, body shaking and crippled in pain.
But he had never felt so alive.
Christopher
Present Day - Four Months and Three Weeks Pregnant…
Christopher sits in the back of the helicopter, surrounded by six of his most capable soldiers.
His pack is small. A team of twenty highly specialized and trained wolves. They're one of many small units of special wolf forces that run missions all over the world, but Christopher likes to think his pack is one of the best of the best. And that's not entirely due to his own bias. He has the medals to prove it.
Which is why this particular mission is somewhat of a blow to his ego.
The mission they received this morning is nothing more than a standard hostage situation. The hostage is some big-name CEO being held in a courthouse, no doubt where they were going through whatever lawsuit sparked the whole thing. The building's been cleared, and the assailants have been unresponsive to the standard negotiators. They believe it's the farmers that have been suing the CEO's company, and they've proven themselves to be well armed and prone to violence.
Despite the quickly escalating situation, Christopher is still of a mind that this isn't any of their business. No matter how dire it becomes, it's still just a hostage situation at a courthouse. His pack has seen war. They've rescued prisoners of war and infiltrated dens of terrorists. They're trained and experienced in handling threats far more dire than a couple of wayward, angry farmers.
Hell, they don't even need the whole pack for this mission. He thinks seven of them is stretching it, but he’d been given clear orders to make sure this went off without a hitch and to impress the CEO they're rescuing.
He supposes, on some level, he can grudgingly understand. The CEO has influence and is wealthy, running a business that has a wide reach and a heavy bank account. And funding for their special forces is running thin. The best way for them, as a whole, to get more funding is to impress those with money.
Still, he can't help but feel like this is far beneath his pay grade. He’d almost felt bad choosing his most trusted six to accompany him, but at least they all felt overwhelmingly confident over such a simple mission. And none of them would dare say no to their alpha.
With the noise from the helicopter and the wind roaring in his ears, he looks out over the city below. As they approach the courthouse, he can see the lights flashing from the police cars and the gathering crowd. It offers the perfect distraction for them to infiltrate from above.
The pilot has strict orders to not get too close to the building, lest they be heard. So as they near the courthouse, Christopher unbuckles himself, standing hunched as he moves to the edge of the open doors. His men immediately follow, unbuckling and preparing themselves, sitting on the edges of their seats.
"Ready?" he calls out over the roaring wind. His eyes are on the building below as they swoop down toward it, but he hears the vague shout of confirmation behind him. Clinging to a handle just inside the helicopter, he holds out a hand, silently telling them to wait. "Go!" he calls as the helicopter hovers just over the top of a roof, not quite landing but not needing to.
His men rush out, one by one, leaping and landing on the roof below, rolling to their feet with ease.
Christopher is the last to leave. As soon as he rolls back to his feet, he's sprinting, and the others fall easily into step behind him. Dressed in the tight but maneuverable clothing of their uniform, strapped with equipment, they sprint across the rooftop. Christopher doesn't slow as he nears the edge, instead pushing off it to leap to the next building. He lands and rolls, back on his feet and running in a second. He hears the sound of his pack doing the same behind him. He doesn't have to turn around to know they're keeping pace.
The courthouse is several buildings away, and they sprint across the rooftops to reach it, confident that their wolves' strength and speed will carry them across the gaps between buildings.
When they reach the roof of the courthouse, they crouch down low. Christopher's eyes scan the area quickly, easily picking out the access points to the building. There's no door to the roof, but there is a large ventilation shaft. It'll have to do.
He whistles short and sharp between his teeth, catching Perkins' eye and nodding toward the metal contraption. The man moves quickly, already pulling out tools from his belt to open up the shaft. The others crowd around him. There's a hum of adrenaline flickering between them. A buzzing spark of being on a mission together. No matter how small the mission, they always feel it. The energy and adrenaline. The excitement. Moving in sync like a well-oiled machine. Like the pack they are.
Once the shaft is open, Christopher slides inside first, taking point as his pack follows behind him.
The ventilation shaft is narrow enough that they need to crawl, but spacious enough that they have a fairly good range of movement. Once they're out of the light of day and away from potential human eyes, Christopher wastes no time shifting into his wolf form. The burn sweeps through him, bones cracking and pain sharp as his body reforms. But he's done this often enough, trained himself to do it fluidly and without flinching. The shift is quick, and the pain is short lived, replaced by the flood of newfound energy and relief once it’s complete.
He crawls forward on all fours, giving his men room to shift behind him before they crawl after him through the shaft.
Now in his wolf form, he has access to the full extent of his senses, no longer muffled and muddled by his human body. He lifts his nose as he crawls, ears twitching at every sound. Being in a ventilation shaft, they get a draft of air from the whole building. He pauses every time they reach an intersection, sniffing out the right direction.
There are a variety of scents. He smells hundreds of different smells, as the courthouse has plenty of people who pass through. Stale coffee and dust. Old books and the heat of running computers. Polished, worn wood of old seats and desks. Far too much cologne and perfume.
The scents are easy to sort through. He mentally shuffles through them easily. Anything muffled and muted gets shoved aside, indicating that it's older than a couple hours. He focuses on the fresher scents. The current o
nes. Several of them. Several bodies. He turns down a few passages, moving toward the scents as he sorts through them.
Six, no eight? That's not right. Nine. There are nine scents. Nine people. He pauses, lifting one passive paw to lightly tap a claw on the metal of the shaft nine times. He hears the muffled and soft yip of agreement from behind him, and he knows they're all on the same page.
Ahead, he can see a light to indicate the end of the ventilation shaft. From there, they'll have to find the right room below. Not that it'll be difficult. The scents are distinct now he's picked them out.
One, though…there's one that stands out from the others. At first he thought nothing of it, focused more on counting the scents than the fact that one is stronger than the rest. But now, as they grow closer, that scent starts to settle inside him.
It gathers on the back of his tongue, sticky and sweet. It stays inside his lungs, seeping into his body even after he exhales. It hums through his veins, wrapping tightly in his chest, making him tense, pulling at him like an invisible string as it plucks at something deep within his memory. A nagging sense of familiarity that he can't quite place.
It hits him all at once.
He's smelled this scent before. So sweet, musky and rich. Rolling through him with intoxicating ferocity and making him weak at the knees.
Just once before. Four years ago. But that scent still haunts his dreams and the memory of it dances at the edges of his mind, teasing and lost to time.
But not lost anymore, because he smells it now.
His body recognizes it long before his mind catches up, before he can really process it.
His mate. His omega. Timothy.
He doesn't realize he's stopped moving until there's a soft, questioning whine from behind him. He immediately shuffles forward, body on autopilot as he moves down the dark shaft towards the light. As he does, the scent gets stronger, curling hot and heavy in his chest, burning and prickling in his veins.
He finds himself thrust back four years, to memories he's desperately tried to bury. Yet the memories always seem to drift to the surface, haunting his dreams and his nightmares. It's a place in his mind he can never go without feeling the break of his heart once more, fresh and painful.
"So you screwed the omega, huh?" Christopher found himself faced by Hansen, a cadet and alpha who had a particular distaste for Christopher from day one. It was clear he’d been trying to distinguish himself as their Prime Alpha, but Christopher had always been one step ahead of him. If he had any competition, though, it would've been Hansen. "What's the matter, Christopher? Big bad alpha can't even resist an omega in heat?" he sneered, lip curling and eyes practically gleaming. "I heard you went crazy. Gave into it like a little pup."
Christopher's jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as his hands curled into fists. Hansen's grin only widened.
It was only the morning after officially taking Timothy as his mate, and he’d left the barracks for his morning run, endorphins and euphoria still bright and bubbling in his veins, only to have it sour to dread as reality came crashing back down around him.
Timothy wasn't the kind of mate who would strengthen Christopher's position as Prime Alpha. He had known that, yet at the time, it hadn't mattered. Not when his wolf was howling mate and Timothy was so beautiful and pliant in his arms. He had known he'd need to figure out a way to deal with it, but he hadn't expected Hansen to take advantage of it so quickly. It was a harsh slap back to reality.
They were gathering a crowd. He could hear the jeers from the other cadets, both those who sided with Hansen and ones who Christopher thought he'd already won over. And there Christopher stood, frozen and speechless, unable to figure out a way to talk his way out of this mess. Excuses and explanations flew around in his head, but none of them sounded right and none of them stuck.
"Look at him!" Hansen sneered, laughing as he turned to the gathering crowd, pointing at Christopher over his shoulder with his thumb. "He can't even defend himself! He doesn't even deny it! He's over here, trying to impose himself as our alpha, yet in one night he's tamed by the most pathetic little omega I've ever seen."
The laughter grated on Christopher's nerves, the whispers setting his adrenaline pumping.
"My leadership and my private life are separate," he bit out, but the crowd wasn't having it. They didn't take his side. If anything, he felt them drifting more toward Hansen. Christopher had always been a man of action, not of words, but right now, both were failing him.
"Show the power of your wolf by beating the omega to a bloody pulp!" Hansen yelled over the crowd, triumph gleaming in his eyes and cruelty curling his lips. "Or leave the camp."
"No," Christopher snapped. He would not, could not, hurt Timothy like that.
"I say we should all be allowed a taste of the little omega now that he's opened himself up," someone in the crowd suggested, and it was followed by laughter and agreement. Christopher looked around at them, horrified and furious at the lustful looks and how they licked their lips.
Desperately, he looked to his most loyal supporters, but even they wavered.
He knew he was trapped. The way of the wolf was drilled into them. To be a pack's Prime Alpha, he had to first show his superior power, which he’d done the first day and every day since. Secondly, he had to prove his sense of leadership, which had become increasingly more apparent. Thirdly, to seal it, he had to demonstrate absolute dominance by choosing and subjugating the lowest member of the pack.
Which they all knew was Timothy.
He was storming off before he realized it, needing to get away from everything and needing to think. There had to be a way out of this.
That was how he came across four cadets hauling Timothy through the woods.
Shock was the first thing he felt, followed closely by panic and rage. It had him tearing off through the trees, ready to rip them apart for daring to touch his mate. But then he heard their voices. "If your heat is that bad, we'll cool you down."
He hesitated. Cool him down? As in…the river. A crowd was forming at the commotion. Those who’d been mocking him just moments before. They were delighted by the scene, by Timothy struggling at the river's edge.
The river wasn't so bad, right? It would humiliate him, yes, but it was better than being beaten bloody or being molested by the rest of the pack. Maybe…maybe like this he wouldn't have to make a choice. Just a short swim in the river, then he would be honored as Prime Alpha, and after that he would never let his mate be harmed again. The pack would have their spectacle, they'd see it as a show of dominance, and Timothy wouldn't suffer from much more than a bruised ego. Which Christopher would make sure to fix over the following days.
He would follow his dream of leading a pack and have his mate, too.
It tore him apart inside, but he hid his heart behind a steel wall. He forced his expression into a mask of indifference. His wolf howled and paced beneath his skin, but he locked it away, whispering words of apologies and promises to himself. Just this once. Just once, and then Timothy would never have to suffer again.
He hated it. His wolf hated it. He never denied his wolf anything. He ran on pure instinct and intuition, trusting his beast side far more than his human half. But in this…he knew he had to do this. Just this once, he locked his wolf away, ignoring the way its teeth gnashed and claws tore at his heart.
His walls started to crumble as Timothy looked at him, warm brown eyes wide with shock and then hope. It was brittle and fragile, but blooming.
"Throw him in!"
The look of betrayal nearly tore him asunder. He took a step forward before he could stop himself, but Timothy was already being thrown in the river, washed away downstream.
Christopher had shifted quickly, running after him along the river's edge, heart pounding in time with his paws. Regret prickled in his veins as the words echoed in his mind.
"Throw him in!"
They rang with the same note of guilt and shame to this very day, as he crawled
through the dark ventilation shaft, making his gut twist and his chest tight.
In one moment, he’d thought he had everything figured out. And in that same moment, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. His dream was achieved, but his mate was lost.
Until now.
When he reaches the end of the tunnel, he finds it blocked by a grate. It's loose when he nudges it. Pulling back, he rams into the grate, tumbling out of the ventilation shaft as the grate is torn from the vent. With practiced precision, Christopher shifts out of his wolf form as he tumbles, landing in a crouch and just managing to catch the grate before it clatters to the floor.
He sets it aside before hurrying away, half crouched. They're in an empty hallway, not far from the room where the hostages are being held. Their scent is strong enough now he can smell it even in his human form. He moves to the corner, peering around it as the rest of his team leaps down from the shaft, each of them shifting in mid-air and tumbling as they land, making room for the next and joining him at the corner.
When they've all gathered, he pulls out his gun, checking automatically to make sure it's loaded and the safety is off. The others do the same. Then he nods toward the next hallway, saying under his breath, "Follow me. We're going to hit quickly and silently. No killing unless absolutely necessary. Take 'em down fast. Disarm them."
He makes eye contact with each member of his team. Their eyes are hard and focused, hanging on his every word and practically vibrating with the excitement of the mission, of the hunt. They nod, and he turns, darting around the corner.
Even in their human form, they move silently through the halls, following the scent of their prey. As they near, Christopher's heart picks up pace. Timothy's scent is getting stronger, and the longer he's exposed to it, the more certain he is. It's really him. His long-lost mate.