Omega's Run

by A. J. Downey

  It’d taken me two months to track the fucker down. Four months after my banishment, I woke up one morning in an alley in Los Angeles with a hangover the likes of which I had rarely experienced. That was when I decided that I needed to do something and not just wander around aimlessly. I may not have a pack anymore, but I at least still had a will to live.

  I pushed open the glass door and entered a dim, smoke filled, interior. I wrinkled my nose in disgust before I could even think to hide my reaction. A wolf-kind’s sense of smell was considerably stronger than a human’s and even a human non-smoker would have been sent packing from this place by the rank odor.

  Chicago had joined the rest of the country in instituting a smoking ban inside public buildings and businesses. Of course some places, like this dump, either chose to ignore such things or managed to get themselves grandfathered in as a private establishment or club as an end run around the new law. I found myself wishing that the man I was searching for had more of a tendency for frequenting a less, fragrant, bar.

  There was little that I could do about the situation though. Beggars can’t be choosers. So, I pushed down the urge to vomit and took shallow breaths through my mouth, tugging at the hem of the plain t-shirt I had thrown on beneath my jacket. I hated wearing shirts. Some might call it vain, an excuse to show off the muscles I had put a great deal of work into building. In truth, I simply didn’t like being constricted and the garment was nothing more than a hindrance if I needed to change in a hurry. It made me uncomfortable. But even dives still required their patrons to be fully dressed. No shirt, no shoes, no service… so I was forced to stick to the inane conventions created by a human society that I didn’t belong to in any way shape or form. A society I had never even been a part of having been born this way, rather than Moon Forged.

  I’d stopped just inside the door and though it was glass, it was almost completely obscured, inside and out, with stickers and posters of various kinds and for various things. Skate logos, bands, book stores, bumper stickers with sarcastic sentences scrawled across them in spidery script and garish colors. You name it, it was plastered to it; so much so that when the door had closed, very little light filtered in from the outside, despite being just before sunset. Not that it mattered much, my eyes adjusted quickly to the dimly lit interior.

  The man I was looking for was already here at a billiard table near the back of the hazy room. He had his back to me, but I couldn’t mistake that slight frame for anyone other than Cruz. Jeremiah Cruz was the Alpha of the Chicago pack. They held the whole city and had done so for a good thirty or forty years. They didn’t have the kind of territory that my former pack held, but they had plenty for a pack of six to be dealing with and Cruz was the man to thank for their success.

  “Remus Reese,” he said as I walked up behind him. “I’d recognize that smell anywhere. What brings you into my territory?”

  “It’s Remy,” I rumbled, startled to hear the name I had been given at my birth. I hadn’t heard it in half a year. “Remy Dulcet. I’m not here to hunt, or out for your territory, Cruz,” I assured him. “I just want to talk.”

  “Yeah? About what?” He leaned over the table, lining up a shot. With a smooth motion of his arm he sent the cue ball rolling across the table to sink the seven ball into the far corner pocket.

  “I find myself in a difficult situation… I need a pack.”

  Cruz shot up from the table and turned to face me, his eyebrows already reaching for his hairline as he gave me a wide eyed expression of pure shock.

  “Remus Reese, the golden boy of the Pacific Northwest was driven from his pack?” he asked incredulously. “What in the hell happened up there?”

  “It’s a long story that I played too much of a role in for my liking.”

  His eyes narrowed and I could tell I was losing him.

  “You come to me, looking to join with my pack because you heard we took an Omega in a while back, didn’t you? Well, just because we did it once, doesn’t mean we’ll do it again, especially if you won’t tell me what got you the boot in your ass in the first place.”

  He was right, as much as I hated to admit it. He had no reason to believe anything of me and if I didn’t come clean there was no chance at all he would even consider letting me join with his pack.

  So I laid it out for him. The pack dying, falling apart under my father’s flawed leadership. He had once been a great Alpha, but time had whittled away at his sense and he began making stupid decisions. Decisions that would have destroyed the pack if he had been allowed to continue as its Alpha.

  Over an hour later we were sitting at the bar, beers in hands as I finished my tale. I’d spared no detail in the telling either, figuring if I wanted a shot at this, I’d better go for broke.

  “So William branded me Omega after he killed Rom and his mate destroyed Lucinda. The fucking cunt deserved, it she was the biggest cunt in the pack.” I’d actually been pretty fucking proud of little Chloe for pulling that one off. You’d probably never hear me say it out loud though.

  Cruz nodded and chugged down some more of his beer, signaling the bartender with his free hand for another as he drained the last of it. He slammed down the glass and turned to me.

  “I’ll agree with you there. We’ve been hearing rumors about the Pacific Northwest pack out here for a while. A few locals even kicked around the idea of trying to horn in on your guys’ territory.”

  I cocked my head to the side slightly at that, giving him a questioning look. “And what stopped them?”

  “You and your whack job of a brother. May he rest in peace,” he added the last almost as an afterthought while a guilty look stole across his face. I waved it away. Romulus really had been off his nut so I couldn’t blame Cruz for what amounted to a reasonable reaction.

  “Also, your numbers up there.” Cruz continued, “There aren’t very many packs that stand the remotest possible chance of going up against your people. If they tried to get into your territory you guys would just roll right over ‘em, like the Nevada pack you all disappeared a few years back.”

  That certainly got my attention. I’d had no knowledge that a pack from Nevada had attempted to break into our territory. If that were true, and the pack wasn’t responsible for defending our borders against them, then what’d really happened? Yet another secret father had kept.

  I shunted that machination aside, returning my focus to Cruz as he picked up his fresh beer and continued talking.

  “Based on what you’re saying, I’ll agree. Your old man needed to go. But to bring the Hunters into it? To bring the Hangman himself into it? You realize he’s one of the highest ranked members in the states right? Got some contacts in New York that’ve speculated he might even run the entire damned western hemisphere of their organization… and you picked him to get involved?”

  He shook his head in disbelief, “Man, that’s a degree of poor decision making so bad that I’m not even certain they’ve invented a scale to measure it yet. If it was just getting rid of your Alpha, that’s one thing. I can see that, I can understand that, could possibly even forgive the patricide aspect to it. But getting the Hunters involved with it is going beyond the pale, Son. I can’t let you join our pack with that kind of a stigma hangin’ over you. The rest of ‘em will always be wondering when you’ll bring the hunters to our door next. It would never work. I’d be fighting off challenges for my title every full and probably every new moon too.”

  My fingers tightened around the handle on my beer mug. I was grateful that I hadn’t been holding the glass by the body or it might have shattered in my grip. As it was, the cracking sound of the thick handle fracturing under my fingers warned me early enough, that I made myself let go before anything shattered or broke completely.

  It had been a long shot, honestly. But I’d had to give it a try, and I couldn’t blame him. Jeremiah was a good Alpha. He protected his people and he protected their territory. We talked for a few minutes longer but after he finished his be
er he clapped me on the shoulder, a gesture that did nothing to ease the pain in my chest and left me there. Still, as alone as I’d ever felt before, it was worse now that the last chance I could think of had walked away and left me in the dirt once again.

  I had little to do after that, so I spent it drinking and playing pool. It was nearing midnight before she showed up and it marked the beginning and the end of all things for me. A chaotic mess that made the issues with my former pack seem like child’s play.

  I leaned over the table, jacket draped across a nearby stool with the cue held in my large hands. A hard tap and the cue ball was sent rolling with just the right English on it. I could feel it. The second the ball moved, I knew exactly where that shot was going to go and I straightened up to stare at her across the table. The ball’s momentum carried it halfway across the nine foot table before the spin I had put on it took over and it curved around a cluster of balls to strike the one ball, sinking it gently into the corner pocket right in front of her.

  Long, wavy, dark hair hung past her shoulders and a pair of gleaming, pale, jade colored eyes studied me from within a heart shaped face. She had a great body, encased in a short dress of a dark material. A Joe Rocket biker jacket hung perfectly on her frame.

  “Nice shot,” she said, her voice coming to me from across the distance of smoke filled bar and alcohol consumption. I blinked, somewhat blearily at her for a moment before I shrugged and leaned on my cue.

  “It’s not that difficult, once you get the trick of it.” I didn’t want company. I didn’t want to be bothered. But... she was attractive, and she smelled wonderful, like jasmine, bright and floral with a hint of something sharp beneath it. I breathed in through my nose as subtly as I could, taking in the scent of her as it wafted across the table toward me. Over the stink of cigarettes and alcohol she was a pleasant enough change.

  I came around the table and I noticed a pair of long, well-toned legs, half covered in knee high black boots. I stopped right in front of her, my chest almost bumping into her and she looked up at me through dark lashes. “You want to back up so I can shoot, Sugar Tits?” I asked and she laughed, a deep, throaty kind of laugh that made you think of dark rooms, sweat, skin, and the slick, slapping sounds of frenzied sex.

  She backed up obligingly though and I leaned over the table to line up my next shot. “Was there a reason you decided to come interrupt my game?” I asked.

  “Well, I see a tall, good looking man, all alone and playing with himself and I just can’t help but wonder… what’s made you into such a sad sack?” she drawled casually and I snorted, unable to help the small laugh. She was funny, and hot, I’ll give her those two, but that didn’t mean I was going to give much else.

  “None of your fucking business.”

  She shrugged, an action that did some very interesting things to some portions of her anatomy that I did my best to ignore. I wasn’t in the mood, as much as my body disagreed, based on its reaction to the sight.

  “True, but my boyfriend stood me up and I figured why waste this dress that I picked out special, just for tonight? That, and you’re definitely better on the eyes than him so...” She trailed off suggestively and I glanced up at her after dropping another shot. She was leaning over the table, jacket hanging loose around her and giving me an excellent view down the front of her dress, enough to tell by the way her tits hung that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “So, what? You think you’ll hit on the only guy in the bar that’s alone and make your boyfriend jealous?”

  “That was sort of the idea. But I wasn’t thinking of hitting on you.”

  “What do you call this then?”

  “I call it asking you directly, take me to a hotel and fuck me until I can’t stand up straight,” she said and winked at me.

  It was an enticing offer, I’ll be honest, but for some reason alarms were going off in the back of my head. Something I couldn’t quite reconcile with the beautiful woman that stood in front of me.

  I’ve learned to trust my instincts over the decades though, and right then, my instincts were telling me that she was bad news. It wasn’t the boyfriend. I could take down any boyfriend, no problem. Even without the prodigious strength I was gifted with as a Blood Born wolf-kind, I still had more than enough muscle mass to make me an intimidating and formidable opponent. Plus, I had more combat experience than most people.

  I just couldn’t put my mental finger on what was bothering me about this bitch. She was still staring at me, her jade green eyes almost looking into me, and another alarm bell started ringing in my head.

  “Sorry, Sweetheart,” I said and dropped my pool cue on the table. I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.” She blinked, startled and for a second I thought I saw a flash of anger burn through her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came and I couldn’t honestly be sure it had ever really been there in the first place.

  “Well,” she said with another distracting shrug. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.” She winked again and turned to saunter away, a distinctive sway in her hips.

  “You’re a fucking moron, Remy Dulcet,” I grumbled to myself and turned back to my solo game of nine ball.

  I finished the game and downed the last of my beer in record time before I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. With nothing else to do I decided to head back to my motel to crash for the night when I felt a finger tap my shoulder.

  I was tired. I was buzzed. I was a little depressed too, to be honest. So I was more than a little surprised when I turned and found the hottie from the bar standing behind me. I was even more surprised when she pressed the barrel of a gun under my chin.

  “I tried to be nice,” she said with mock sorrow. The glinting humor in her eyes gave away how much she was enjoying this. “I really did try to get you out here without threats.” She paused and her head cocked to the side slightly. “Well, honestly I guess it would have ended in a threat at this stage either way so...” she shrugged again.

  “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like you,” I muttered, anger starting to build in my chest. “I couldn’t really smell the gun oil over all that cigarette smoke. But I must have caught enough of it that I didn’t feel right about you.”

  “Well you’re an animal. What do I care how you feel?” she snapped. The beautiful jade of her eyes suddenly became as hard and cold as the stone they so closely resembled. Shit. I was starting to realize just how dangerous this chick was. Bad news didn’t even begin to cover it.

  Somehow, I didn’t feel too upset about getting killed. I didn’t welcome it, but somehow I wasn’t as angry as I thought I would be.

  “So are you going to put this dog down or not?” I snapped after we stood there for almost a full minute with the gun digging into my flesh. “If not, I’ve got other things to do.”

  “You’re not going to die here, Remy Dulcet. Mathias Young extends an invitation. He wants to talk to you.”

  I wasn’t afraid of dying. I wasn’t afraid of fighting. But that put a tingle of fear into my spine. I wanted nothing to do with the Hangman; he had proven himself to be nearly as insane as Romulus was, and that information was the galvanizing force for what I did next.

  My hand came up and slapped her hand to the side. Her finger jerked spastically and the gun went off, a bullet whizzing past my face so close that it burned a line of fire from my jaw all the way to my temple. I staggered to the side, my left ear ringing loudly from the explosive sound of the gunshot going off practically right next to my head.

  I grabbed her by the jacket, spun hard and tossed her as hard as I could. Admittedly, off balance and with my head ringing like a church bell, ‘as hard as I could’ meant that she flew a yard or two and rolled expertly across the ground coming up on her feet like an experienced acrobat, gun whipping around to point at me again.

  I was already running down the street. My balance was fucking shot and I swallowed back a wave of nausea that was, thankfully, already starting to recede. With ev
ery step the pain in my ear faded as it healed. The pain in the side of my face, however, failed to get any better. In fact it seemed like it was getting worse.

  Fucking bitch was actually using silver coated bullets! The pain was only going to get worse as my allergy kicked in. I wasn’t one of those wolf-kind that could shrug off the touch of silver. I reacted badly to it, and I could already feel the side of my face swelling up and my vision in my left eye starting to get blurry as it began to swell shut.

  Yeah, this wasn’t going to be good.

  “You’re not getting away, fucker!” she yelled from a half a block behind me. “Out of the way people! Move!”

  Vision gone in one eye and the entire side of my face feeling as if someone had just poured a vial of acid across it, I bounced off of something hard, my right shoulder catching it and spinning me around like a top before I fell hard to the concrete, rolling awkwardly back to my feet and continuing to run.

  How the fuck did I let a damn human get the drop on me? I was a Blood Born. One of the two most powerful wolf-kind of the Pacific Northwest Pack. Only I wasn’t a member of the pack anymore. I had let depression get the better of me. I had let it dull my edge, and now I was paying for it.

  I shoved people aside, bowling others over entirely as I ran down the street and blearily, out of my good eye, I caught sight of a fire escape running from the ground floor all the way up to the roof of a nondescript five story building. I dodged down the alley towards it. The beginnings of a plan started to form and I leaped for it, covering a dozen feet in a single bound and ignoring the startled screams of the idiots below me. I wasn’t sure how far back she was, but I grabbed the ladder and started climbing. Another gunshot rang out behind me and a spark flew into my face as the bullet ricocheted off the metal hand rail.

  Below me I could hear her boots pounding on the rungs of the ladder and I ran as hard as I could up each floor until I tumbled over the corner of the building onto the gravel covered roof.