The Omega Objection

by G. L. Carriger

  Isaac tilted his head and considered.

  Tank said, “It’s not a separate thing that you’re hunting, Isaac. The human you is as much a part of you as the wolf. Simply slide from one to the other. Don’t try, just be.”

  Isaac considered this. Instead of thinking of human Isaac as some captured separate thing, he visualized himself on two legs. He thought about wrapping his arms around Tank. He thought of skin against skin, no fur between them.

  The pain arched through his body, shivering his bones, rending his flesh, and then he was standing, and stumbling a little, wobbly but back on two legs.

  “Very nice!” said Alec. “Impressively fast.”

  Isaac couldn’t stop himself from glowing at the praise from his Alpha.

  “Inside, then?” Alec managed to make it sound not at all like an order. He turned to the rest of his pack still in fur. “You lot are going for a run, I take it?”

  Judd barked.

  “Good. Keep an eye for strangers. Trappers are still around. I saw them at the local cafe only yesterday.”

  A bark from Kevin this time. The enforcers took off ‘round the back of the porch to the point where it was closest to the hillside and launched themselves off the edge, landing in the darkened yard below. Bryan and Lovejoy followed at a more sedate pace.

  Back inside the house, and properly clothed, Colin joined Marvin to clatter in the kitchen.

  “Time for second dinner,” insisted Marvin. “They’ll be starving when they get back.”

  “I’m starving now,” whined Alec, throwing on a nice furry robe someone had set out for him.

  The merman gave his mate a look of amused tolerance. “Finally, you want to eat. Good, most of your dinner is still waiting for you.” He lifted a pot lid and passed over the mostly full plate that Alec had picked at earlier that evening. A lifetime ago.

  Alec looked sadly at the congealed mess, but began chomping away quickly enough.

  Max was already sitting in the den area, sipping his wine. “Would anyone like a glass?”

  Isaac and Tank declined, but Alec and Colin each took one. It was so surreal and civilized as if the whole biting, forced change, slobbering, blood everywhere, deck incident hadn’t happened at all.

  “I’ll find us robes.” Tank trundled off.

  Max eyed the man’s fine ass appreciatively.

  Isaac couldn’t quite suppress a growl.

  Max toasted him with his glass. “I’m mated, not blind. It’s purely artistic voyeurism.”

  Isaac snorted. “We clearly have similar taste. Although mine’s bigger.”

  Max arched an elegant bow. “Yours, is he?”

  Tank returned, “Whose?”

  Max sipped his wine. “Exactly.”

  “Enigmatic fucker,” said Tank, without bitterness, tossing Isaac and Colin robes, and shrugging into his own.

  “I’m practicing,” said Max. “Magistar gravitas.”

  “You trying to be some kind of proper legendary wizard?” wondered Isaac and then hesitated – the robe was very clean and he was not.

  Marvin hooted from the kitchen. “Can you imagine Max as some kind of fairy godfather?”

  Isaac’s clothing had shredded off him during his shifts, and he was smeared with blood and dirt, as if a rather small murder had occurred somewhere on his person. I am the crime scene. He touched his neck gingerly – the bite was there, tender.

  Tank understood. “It’s okay to put it on, doesn’t matter if it gets dirty.”

  Isaac nodded. “Those were Kevin’s clothes.”

  Tank frowned. “We still need to collect your stuff from your apartment.”

  Alec slapped his forehead. “I suck, should have sent the enforcers to do it days ago.”

  “My roommates have probably chucked it all, or covered everything in glitter,” said Isaac, morosely. “No offense, Marvin.”

  “What’s that, honey?” The merman reappeared from rummaging in the pantry.

  “Isaac was intimating you may have an unhealthy love of glitter.” Alec continued inhaling his cold dinner.

  “Sequins, darlings. Not glitter. Glitter is for infants. Real men wear sequins.”

  “I am suitably chastised and reassured,” said Isaac. Oddly, he was feeling reassured. Banter was comforting, so was the robe. Everything seemed exactly as it had been before the bite. They were the same pack, the same people. He may have changed, but they had not. Well, Alec was more relaxed and peckish, but otherwise…

  Isaac gingerly sat down next to Tank on one of the couches, close to the Alpha at last. He was careful not to touch anything with his skin, unwilling to leave blood smudges and risk the wrath of the merman.

  I’m already bowing to his will, just like the rest of the pack. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But he also didn’t want to disappoint the beautiful, sparkling young man.

  Max watched him with interest. “Like that, is it?”

  The Alpha cleaned his plate and set it on the coffee table. He didn’t lick it but he looked like he wanted to. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Well, that was fun.”

  “Was it?” wondered Isaac.

  “No, not really. Still, it came out okay? You feel more…” Alec paused. “This will sound awfully woo-ie, but you feel more at one with yourself now, right?”

  Isaac looked inside himself, expecting his wolf to be there, skulking. To be unhappy or eager or curious or hurt. To be ready to interrupt Isaac’s thoughts with his lupine opinion. To be anything. Argumentative. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t there at all.

  He was gone.

  Isaac felt a terrible wash of loss and joy. This thing he’d struggled with his whole life was gone. His only friend, his greatest enemy, his protector, and his monthly torturer – just like that the beast had vanished.

  Isaac found himself curled forward in a defensive crouch on the floor, face to his knees. Tank stroked him. Isaac could sense the man’s surprise.

  Tank, his wolf’s favorite, his lover, his submissive. Isaac worried that he was meant to be the strong one in their nascent relationship. Lately, he’d been so weak.

  “The wolf – my wolf – he’s gone.” Isaac’s voice was small in his own ears.

  Alec’s big hazel eyes went soft and glassy with empathy. “No, precious. He’s there. He’s just you. He was always you. You splintered for a while, that’s all.” Tears spilled down Alec’s cheeks. An Alpha showing pain.

  It surprised Isaac enough into listening to him.

  “You were walking around with an open wound. You only needed mending. I just stitched you back together again.” Alec gave a small, self-deprecating shrug.

  Isaac blinked, feeling awed and searching. He straightened and sat back on the couch.

  Alec sniffed, rubbed his eyes like a little boy. “You aren’t separate. It’s okay, he won’t take over except on full moon. Right now you can just choose to be whichever form. Look, here…”

  Isaac felt a gentle tug, not physical, not mental, and not even emotional. More like hunger or some other instinct. “What’s that?”

  Tank’s voice rumbled close. “That’s the tether, your connection to pack.”

  “You feel it too?”

  “Of course. He can’t distinguish between us. When he tugs like that, it pulls on us all.” He looked to Alec. “Right?”

  Alec nodded.

  Isaac was awed despite himself. “And that connects to my wolf?”

  Alec shook his head. “It connects to you. You are your wolf.”

  “It will take me a while to adjust.” Particularly my vocabulary.

  “Take all the time you need.” Alec gave him a shy smile. “We’re here for you. I’m here for you. And if you need to be let go, released from pack, I can do that too. But there is no harm in staying for a bit, if you want to.”

  Tank tensed beside him. Isaac turned. The big man’s eyes were full of hope. Always so much hope.
>
  Isaac looked back at the Alpha. He thought his own eyes might be full of hope too for a change.

  Alec opened his arms.

  Through no apparent will of his own, Isaac launched himself at the smaller man. It was odd, Alec had this nerd geek thing going on, it shouldn’t feel strong and confident. Yet Isaac was being held, and healed, and reassured all at once.

  It was everything he’d never known to want. Coming home, being nurtured, being treasured.

  Marvin said, “Are we back to hugging?”

  Max slurped his wine. “Touchy feely lot, you wolves.”

  “Just because you’re a cold fish.” The merman’s voice was a little rough.

  “Who you calling a fish, Splashy McSplasherton?”

  Isaac took a deep breath and extracted himself from his Alpha’s arms, returning to the large mountain of worry and muscles.

  “Okay?” wondered Tank.

  “Strangely, yes,” Isaac replied. Charmed and awed to find it was true.

  “How do I smell?” he wondered.

  “Like us,” answered Tank, his voice full of joy.

  * * *

  Having felt the tether tug from their Alpha, the other pack members returned. They padded in, naked and smelling of salt air and wet grass.

  Tank kept a close eye on Isaac to see how he handled the pack in full force of post-run euphoria. He hadn’t had that with them yet. The Omega’s brown eyes were wide, but Tank thought more for appreciation of the nudity than discomfort with the recent shift. Tank didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help hoping that Isaac would tolerate it, even like it enough to stay. To choose to belong to their pack. To choose to remain with Tank.

  “So I smell like a mix of the pack now?” Isaac pressed.

  “Yeah, not really yourself, no individual scent of your own. You know how we each have a signature scent. You don’t.”

  “Like you’re all brandy and lemon and nutmeg and fresh-killed meat.”

  “I am?” Tank was thrilled.

  “Yes, delicious.”

  “You kidder.” Tank pressed his lips together, to hide a grin.

  Isaac bumped his shoulder. “I’ll have to teach you to take a compliment.”

  Tank said, “All the shifters you meet will now know you’re a werewolf.”

  Isaac looked sad. “Will they fear me, do you think?”

  “No, you’re still an Omega. That has to count for something.”

  “Does it? I thought it counted against a man.”

  Tank hadn’t an answer for that. He knew so little of Omegas. And who was he to offer reassurance? He’d no rank at all.

  He raised his head and looked about, at Alec’s peaceful expression and Marvin’s fussing. At Judd and Kevin and Lovejoy horsing around, and Colin reprimanding them. At Max and Bryan leaving for their apartment, together again all night long. He watched Isaac, who thought Tank smelled good. And he wondered if maybe it really mattered. Sure, he wasn’t special, but perhaps he was necessary in his own right. Alec had called him an anchor, and Isaac had said that he was beautiful and sexy and stable. So perhaps, just perhaps, that made him important, too.

  * * *

  Isaac awoke the next morning feeling more himself than he had since childhood. More comfortable in his skin and with his own wants, and plastered up against the very lovely muscled backside of a man he was wildly attracted to. Who let him do things. Who yearned for him to do things.

  Isaac allowed himself the luxury of time spent arousing slowly, caressing Tank’s skin with appreciation and care. He inhaled the intoxicating scent of slumbering man – his man – aroused even as he slept.

  Isaac let the rhythm of Tank’s breathing soothe him, felt their heartbeats fall into sync. New sensations. Wolf sensations.

  Tank woke with a tiny snuffle noise and Isaac was utterly charmed by it.

  He pressed against him, urgent now. Tank arched back in eager response. Isaac could smell the spike in his desire.

  “May I?”

  “Always,” Tank answered, voice torn with want and sleep.

  “Pass me some lube.”

  Tank opened his bedside table and groped blindly in it, passing a bottle back over his shoulder.

  Isaac coated himself and shifted to find leverage. He pressed inside Tank without pause or preparation, knowing that Tank wanted it as much as he did, possibly more – the relentlessness. They were both enthralled by the uncompromising nature of want.

  The massive body shuddered against him. Tank let out an agonized cry of desperate need. He tried to push himself faster and harder onto Isaac’s cock. Isaac slowed down rather than speeding up, drawing out both of their suffering. He could smell Tank was close to coming just from the denial.

  Isaac bit down hard to give Tank pain and distract him from shooting off too soon. “Not without permission.” Then he licked where he’d bitten to soothe it.

  Every muscle in that big gorgeous body tensed as Tank tried desperately to obey.

  Isaac took his time withdrawing slow and long, and then pushing back deep and measured, giving Tank no quarter. Tank yielded without question, shuddering for him, holding back for him, all of it for him. That knowledge turned Isaac on so much, his own control was tested.

  “Stroke yourself,” he ordered.

  With tremendous effort, Tank unclenched one big fist from where he was mutilating pillows, and reached down to jack himself off.

  “Tighter,” Isaac ordered. He couldn’t see over Tank’s massive shoulder but he knew the man would be trying not to climax, his grip overly gentle.

  Tank gave a low whine and clenched around Isaac’s thrusting, clearly fighting against release.

  Isaac was merciless. He changed his angle to glide again and again over Tank’s prostate.

  Tank’s breath hitched. Isaac could smell the salt of tears. Tank did not want to disappoint Isaac, but the big man was reaching that edge where body trumped the will of even the best submissive.

  “Now.” Isaac gave him grace.

  Tank writhed, emitted a relieved whimper, and began to come, his massive frame jerking so hard Isaac had to wrap his arm around him to hold him tight and still. The air was spiced with bitter salt and sweat and semen.

  Eventually Tank relaxed, panting. Isaac did not pause his thrusting.

  Isaac reached down to feel what he had wrought, to coat his hand in Tank’s scent. Then brought his fingers to his mouth for a taste. There, yes, was that a hint of brandy mixed with the spicy bite that all werewolves had? Delicious.

  Isaac came then, too, unexpectedly, without increasing his tempo, fierce and momentarily blinded by the suddenness of it.

  The peace that settled over him after was a net woven of smell and flavor and warm skin. All parts of them connected and content, wolf and man, Omega and pack. It was a revelation. The comfort both welcome and terrifying.

  “Oh.” Isaac’s voice was small and far away in his own ringing ears. “We really are mates?” He realized that before he could not fathom being one with another, because he had not been one with himself.

  Tank’s rumble was quiet and cautious, afraid of breaking something newly formed and fragile. “I think we must be.”

  “You don’t know?” Isaac was surprised. Tank was, after all, much better at being a werewolf than he. Didn’t they learn these things in werewolf school? Train for them, or something?

  Tank gave a little shrug, still curled and looking away, then went still. “When we did this before, I always had this sensation of reaching out to you, trying to hold fast. But there was no touch-point.”

  Isaac tried hard not to cry at the pain in his lover’s voice. “Locking my wolf away wounded you too?”

  Tank would do anything not to hurt him, Isaac knew that. So he was not surprised when the big man said quickly, “I felt it just now, though.”

  “A tether?” Isaac wasn’t certain how he would cope with such committed intimacy.

&nb
sp; “I belong to you.”

  Well, Isaac certainly liked that idea. “And that means mate?”

  “I guess so.” Tank was being so very careful.

  “No certainty?” Isaac pushed.

  Tank’s voice was hurt. “This is the first time I’ve felt this too, you know.”

  Oh, I’m being an asshole. And not the good kind. “I’m sorry, baby.” Isaac examined the complexity of his feelings. The newness of his own pack-riddled scent. The sounds of morning – or possibly early afternoon? – in the big house. The mate in his arms. Mate. Mine.

  “I like it,” he said at last. Realizing it was true. “I like you belonging to me.” The responsibility of it was a burden and a threat, but also a privilege and a relief. It was so utterly right, Isaac realized, to be bound to this man, any fear that he risked his heart was petty and unworthy of either of them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Sound and the Furry

  It turned out they had slept and fucked away most of the morning. Tank reassured Isaac that this was not considered rude in a pack of werewolves. Most supernaturals kept odd hours.

  Isaac gifted him with a soft smile and said, “So do most gay men in San Francisco.”

  They came downstairs to find the pack either still in bed or gone off about various jobs or social obligations.

  Only Lovejoy was present, puttering about the kitchen, having just gotten back from his shift at the local bakery. He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, although not literally. He welcomed them with an affable grin and shoved coffee at them.

  Isaac snickered at his mug, which was emblazoned with the slogan: Werewolves do it more than once a month!

  Lovejoy shrugged. “Not that caffeine is particularly effective on us but we like the sentiment.”

  Isaac nodded. “I hope there’s not too much sentiment in the coffee or I’ll take over making it.”

  Tank tried not to be thrilled by the casual comment. It gave the impression Isaac was planning to stick around.

  Lovejoy pointed at a bag of misshapen baked goods. “Rejects from my job, first come, first pick.”

  Tank opened it and held it out for Isaac to peer inside.

  “Oooh, is that a savory éclair?” Isaac delved in.