Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
ABOUT ANN-KATRIN
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Mating the Omega
Mercy Hills Pack Book One
By
Ann-Katrin Byrde
Cover Art by Ana J. Phoenix
© 2016 Ann-Katrin Byrde
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. All resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Please don’t read if you are under eighteen.
To all those thwarted in love. Be sneaky. :)
CHAPTER ONE
My Dad woke me up in the middle of the night, his voice tight with fear. “Jason, wake up. Quick, grab your bag and get downstairs!”
“They found us?” I asked as I struggled out of the tangled sheets.
He nodded. “They’re not far. No!” I’d started emptying my dresser drawer, but his hand on my arm stopped me. “There’s no time.”
I dropped the stack of shirts in my hand. “Okay.” While he thundered down the stairs to get the car packed with our emergency supplies, I threw on yesterday’s clothes, still crumpled at the foot of my bed, and fished some clean socks out of the dresser, because there was no way I was going to put on dirty ones, no matter what the risk. And as a True Omega wolf, the risk was massive. Then I grabbed the already-packed backpack in the corner of the room and ran downstairs.
The front door stood open, the air swirling in through it sharp and cold with the first frost of the year. It was October, and we’d only been here since the last time they’d found us in mid-summer; our stops were getting shorter all the time. I grabbed my laptop off the kitchen table, picked up my phone and both our chargers, and shoved them into my regular backpack.
Dad came in the door. “Come on.”
“Ready.” I jammed my feet into my sneakers and took one last look at the place I’d hoped might be a home at last. I’d been happy to have a yard, and the neighbors had seemed nice, though they were human, which made real friendships problematic. But there’d been introductions and greetings, and the occasional invitation to a barbecue and stuff. All over now, though.
At least I wasn’t leaving behind a garden this time. That had hurt at the last place; I love my gardens.
We tossed our stuff into the car. Dad locked the front door of the house behind us, and then we were off.
“How did they find us?” I asked as we rocketed out of the driveway and squealed around the turn onto the road.
“I don’t know, but I got a head’s up from your uncle Andy back home that they were headed here. He figured they be on us by dawn.”
“Damn.”
“Language, please. Just because we’re being hounded all across the country doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.” Dad said it in a prim, school-marmy kind of tone, or what I’d always imagined one would sound like. He did it to make me laugh, and it worked, despite my frustration and anger and the tears that hovered at the back of my throat and made my eyes sting. It was so unfair—I didn’t ask to be born omega. I sure as hell didn’t ask to be born a True Omega, with their supposed powers—whatever the fuck those were—and every Alpha on the planet suddenly slavering for my ass. I’d gladly hand them over to someone else. The only thing these omega powers had ever done for me was make it easy for me to grow vegetables. I had a sudden image of myself dressed in the iconic farmer’s overalls, with a pitchfork and a straw hat, scratching Old Bessie’s head while she chewed her cud, and I had to suppress a laugh. There was no way I’d ever get to live that life.
Not if the Alphas had anything to do with it.
Dad turned onto the highway and the car started to speed up. “Why don’t you crawl into the back seat and go to sleep again. We’ll be on the road for a while.”
“What about you? You haven’t had any more sleep than I have.”
He shook his head, and a passing street lamp glinted silver off the gray at his temples. “I’ll wake you around dawn, and you can take over. We want to put as much space between us and them as possible.”
“All right.” I undid my seatbelt, did a quick check for cops, then squirmed into the back seat.
“I threw in your napping blanket,” Dad said, and he was smiling when I met his gaze in the rear view mirror.
“Thank, Dad.” He never forgot it, no matter how quick an exit we had to make. It was the last thing I had from Mom—they’d killed her when I was fifteen.
No, she’d sacrificed herself, to give us time to get away.
I think, if I’d realized what she’d been planning, I would have let them have me, underage as I was, knowing what would happen. But I didn’t, and she died, and the only thing I had left was this heavy gray blanket, its edges beginning to fray with use and washing. That and my hair, which was like hers, thick, with ends that curled into loose ringlets if I let it grow too long, and still unable to make up its mind about whether it wanted to be blond or brown.
I dug the blanket out from under Dad’s bag, wrapped it around me, then pillowed my head on my backpack and began the meditation exercises I’d started using four years ago, right after Mom had been killed and my body had suddenly forgotten how to sleep. It was harder to get into them tonight for some reason, and it took me a few minutes to figure out what the problem was.
Damn. I was coming into Season.
Well, fuck my life.
CHAPTER TWO
I finished hanging our cheap Christmas decorations, stuff I’d picked up during a clandestine excursion to the used-everything store, and stood back to admire my handiwork. Okay, maybe admire wasn’t the word I was going for. This stuff was ugly, butt ugly. But I refused to go through Christmas without some sort of d
ecoration—they weren’t going to take that from me too. Our Christmas tree—a scraggly thing that we’d ‘liberated’ from a local park one night—stood propped up in the corner, already shedding needles onto the threadbare carpet. There were only two gifts underneath it—one for Dad, and one for me. We moved around too much for the lavish celebrations we’d had when I was a pup. And, realistically, we’d only end up leaving it all behind the next time they caught up to us. We’d learned to live light.
And the last reason for our tiny Christmas? We didn’t actually have all that much money. Dad was working here and there, but nothing steady. Electricians could always get jobs, but it took a while to get established. Dad was afraid to let me work out side the house anymore, not since I’d been tracked down at my job two years ago by a Texan Alpha who just couldn’t believe the rumors were true. We lived off what he brought in, and whatever both of us could scrounge out of dumpsters. So double the reason for a small Christmas.
We were going to have a turkey, though, with all the trimmings. I’d scraped, and pinched pennies, and managed to get a small one on sale. I’d had to borrow a roaster from the neighbors, but since they thought I was disabled, they were all too eager to take pity on me. I’d told them I had epilepsy, to cover for any weird noises they might hear. Sometimes living in a one bedroom apartment in the middle of a city got to be too much for two shifter boys out on their own. And it helped explain why I never went out anywhere.
The real reason was that it was too dangerous. Sure, shifters were segregated from human society, bound by law to be registered and to live within their prescribed communities unless they had special permission to live outside them—which we did not—but they still did business with the humans, and it would be just my luck to run into one while I was at work, or even end up working with one. I could only hide the difference in my scent so well, and it was inevitable that someone would pick up on it. And then we’d have to run again. Not just from the shifters, but from the humans too, for breaking their laws.
Dad had promised me that, once the Alphas had given up on me, we’d look for a place in the country, somewhere where my instinctive need to nurture and grow things could be put to use. I had some potted herbs growing on the windowsill, and they did well for living in such poor light, but I wanted more. Needed more. The Omega Drive, my mom had called it.
Not all the omegas had it. Actually, none that were alive right now had it. The True Omega had died out. Except for me.
Go me. Way to be different and fucked up. At least this fall’s season had been short; I was blissfully able to enjoy our little holiday without the constant hard-ons and the restless urge to go out, somewhere, anywhere, and pick up a guy to fuck me silly.
Yeah, omega sucks, no matter how hard your parents try to tell you there’s a good side to it too. I’ve never noticed it.
The rattle of the doorknob broke the silence of the tiny apartment and then Dad was home. “Look, they had pie, half off.” He held up a box, with the conspicuous pink sticker on it.
“Great. What kind?”
“Apple. Aaaaand,” he lifted a plastic grocery bag into view, swinging heavily with the weight of its contents. “Ice cream!”
“Fantastic!” I waved at the wall and took a bow that was only slightly sarcastic. “And I decorated.”
“It looks great. You have a knack.” He put the pie on the kitchen counter and started putting away the rest of the groceries. “Tomorrow we’ll sleep in, eat pie for breakfast, and watch Christmas shows on the computer.”
“You might be. I’ll be up early to put the turkey on.”
“We don’t have to eat it at lunch.”
“Then we have to cook two meals. Nope, turkey lunch, then turkey supper, then turkey breakfast after that.”
He stuffed the empty grocery bag in a drawer. “If I grow feathers, I’ll singe your tail for you.”
I pretended I was offended. “Hey, this turkey is going to be so good, you’ll want to eat it for days.”
“Okay, okay.” He laughed and went to hang up his coat. “So, what’s for Christmas Eve supper?”
“Tuna casserole.” It wasn’t really. Just a can of tuna dumped into a box of macaroni and cheese, with some no-name frozen veggies mixed in so we could pretend we were eating healthy. I’d cooked it in our one pot, too, because we didn’t have anything that we could put in the oven. Though after tomorrow, I’d have a pie plate, and I could start thinking about things I could make in that. It was expensive replacing everything we owned at least once a year. Sometimes we had enough warning to get out with most of our stuff, but not always—this last move being a prime example of what it was like.
Supper was quiet. What was there to say? There was no work for electricians at Christmas, though he had some stUff lined up for after. I was debating bringing up the subject of my getting a part-time job again, even knowing he would veto it. Maybe I could talk him into a little dumpster diving after supper. We might find more decorations, or some food that we could scavenge. Stale bread wasn’t bad if you used it right, and it would save the loaf on the counter from being used up for stuffing the turkey.
CHAPTER THREE
The streets were dead when we out together after supper—after all, it was Christmas Eve. All the better, because then there’d be no one to notice me hanging upside down in a dumpster behind the grocery store three blocks away from us. It must have been a sight, me bent double over the edge, Dad hanging onto my legs so I didn’t fall in. It stank, but I let some of my wolf sneak out so I could follow my nose to the stuff that wouldn’t give us food poisoning. So far, I’d found a few roasts, and a bag with a pretty random assortment of breads and donuts and muffins in it that didn’t smell too old. There wasn’t a lot in the bin, though. I guess they sold pretty much everything, what with it being the holidays and stuff. But still, I could get six or seven meals out of the meat, and there was enough bread to stuff the turkey, and sweets to snack on while we lounged around. It was almost like a real Christmas.
“I think that’s it. Everything else smells disgusting. I wouldn’t chance it.”
“No fruit or anything?” Dad tightened his grip on my legs and lifted, helping me out of the bin.
I shook my head once I was back on my feet. “Nothing that didn’t turn to mush as soon as I touched it. Do you want to hit another place?”
“Maybe. There’s that green store, the one we found the bag of clothes at.”
It was a couple of blocks out of the way, but yeah, that had been a lucky find. They were a high end store—it was likely they’d throw out anything that wouldn’t still be perfect when the store opened again in two days. “Okay.”
Luck was with us, and we headed home with a bag of oranges, some cookies in a smashed box, a bag of organic potatoes, and two containers of strawberries that we’d have to pick the bad ones out of, but that I couldn’t resist. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad Christmas after all.
We left the car in a parking lot a block away from our apartment and walked through the darkness with our loot. Maybe it was the season, maybe it was that we were tired of being poor and on the run, maybe our luck had just run out—I don’t know. But we rounded the corner, and there they were, my worst nightmare. My old Alpha’s enforcers, sent to track me down and bring me home, so he could fuck me and breed me, and steal my power to make himself invincible. Not for the first time, I wished I knew what the fuck was so special about me, and how I could use it to make everyone just leave me alone.
“Run,” Dad whispered. He took the bag of oranges and hefted it. I couldn’t move, frozen with shock and the sudden urge to just roll over and get it over with. I was tired. He was tired. I was halfway to convincing myself that it couldn’t be as bad to belong to Orvin as I’d made it out to be when the men spotted us, and the horrifying reality of what I’d be letting myself in for came crashing down. I turned and bolted back the way we came. “Dad! Come on!” I yelled, but there was no sound of footsteps behind me. Instead, I he
ard a scuffle, then the meaty thunk of fist hitting flesh, growling and cries of pain. I skidded to a stop and spun around.
They had Dad on the ground, two of them pummeling him. The third advanced on me down the sidewalk, a satisfied grin on his face. “There you are, pretty little omega. It’s time to come home.” His grin got wider. “You’ve grown up from the scrawny spoiled brat you were when I first saw you.”
I started backing away, my gaze flicking back and forth between him and the motionless form of my father. A particularly brutal kick wrenched a moan out of him, and I forced back a sob. He looked up at me, head cradled in his arms for protection and mouthed, “Go!”
So I went. Fast as I could, my breath sobbing in and out of my lungs. I dodged behind buildings, hid in shadows, and doubled back through the smelliest places I could find to hide my scent from him. An eerie howl lifted into the night sky as I turned another corner, down a long dark alley filled with dumpsters. I tripped over something, so hard I didn’t even have time to protect myself. My chin split open against the cracked pavement, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. Seconds later, I heard the snuffling and padding of paws outside the alley, and I forced myself to my feet while my breath wheezed in and out of my lungs.
The thing I’d tripped over was tangled in my shoelaces—a length of pipe with screws sticking out at each end. I unhooked it and then, for lack of any better idea, I took a firm grip on one end and waited for my hunter to find me. I wasn’t going down easy, and now that my memories of what I’d be facing had been sharpened again, I knew I’d rather be dead than Orvin’s.
It would probably be better for Dad, too, if I died. They’d stop chasing him. He could find a pack again and settle down. Maybe he’d get married, have another pup, but not an omega. It occurred to me how selfish I’d been, letting my family uproot themselves for my comfort. At the same time, the thought of Orvin touching me, putting his cock inside me, no matter how much I’d want it when I was in season—it made me sick.
Mating the Omega (MM Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 1) Page 1