Heat of an Omega

by Kaia Pierce

  By the change in his expression, I could tell that Rowan hadn’t broken the news to him yet.

  “Is it yours?” he said softly.

  I raised my chin. “Yes. Grayback almost killed the wolf who carries my child. There will be a reckoning, and I’m going to be the one to bring it. You’re the one who should be answering that question, brother. Are you in?”

  Kaden’s jaw was clenched. “I’m behind you one hundred percent, and so is my pack. We’ll get him back for this. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  We shared a private smile.

  Kaden excused himself to go call his betas, leaving me alone with Liam once more. My heart was pounding from our encounter. I couldn’t believe how well it had gone.

  He has no idea, I thought, absently reaching for Liam’s paw again.

  My plan had gone horribly wrong, but I still got the outcome I wanted. The truce was broken, Grayback and Kaden were out for blood, and the trap was set.

  It was time for Kaden to learn his lesson, too.

  Chapter 13: Liam

  Mommy and I were birds, and we were sitting in a gigantic bird’s nest, in a tree so high that I only saw clouds when I peered over the edge. We were birds, but with our human faces, and Mommy was smiling at me in a tired way.

  “One day I’ll be gone, so let’s make the best of the time we have now,” she said.

  “Why can’t we just stay here forever?” I said.

  “Because forever doesn’t exist.”

  The clouds under us began to swirl and churn, turning gray with storminess.

  “It’s almost time,” Mommy said.

  “But I can’t fly!”

  “You have to learn somehow.”

  Suddenly, Mommy pushed me.

  I fell out of the nest. For a fleeting moment, my stomach plunged as I felt the pull of oblivion around me. Then, I began to plummet through the air.

  “Just spread your wings and fly!” Mommy said as she flew in circles over my head.

  The wind dried my tears before they could even fall from my eyes. “I don’t know how!”

  “If only I had more time to teach you…”

  Mommy’s voice sounded farther and farther away by the second. Before long, she was completely gone. I was all alone, with nothing but the swirling, misty clouds around me. I kept bracing to meet the earth, expecting to see it rushing up to greet me. But it never came.

  I continued to fall into clouds, into nothingness. I feared that I would be falling forever…

  *

  My eyes flew open. Instead of clouds, I saw faces. They were the faces of people I loved. Diana. Rowan. Kaden.

  Caleb.

  His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.

  I wondered if I was still dreaming.

  Caleb reached for my hand. That was when I realized that I was in bed, naked.

  That was when I remembered that I’d been shot.

  “Liam? Do you know where you are?” Diana said softly.

  I licked my dry, cracked lips and swept my gaze around the room. It looked like I was in a guest bedroom, decorated in an understated way. Lace curtains dressed the open window, which faced the backyard. I had a good view of the bare oak tree and the snow-topped picnic table.

  “Kaden and Josh’s house,” I said. “What time is it?” It looked like it was almost sunset outside.

  “It’s six-thirty. You’ve been unconscious for a few hours,” Rowan said.

  “But you finally shifted back. How are you feeling?” Caleb said.

  I could feel that there was something wrapped around my hips. When I peeked under my blanket, I saw that it was a bandage, soaked in some sort of sharp-scented poultice. The skin under that bandage was completely unmarred.

  “I just feel thirsty,” I said.

  “I’ll get you some water,” Diana said. She made a swift turn and left out the door. For some reason, Kaden and Rowan went with her, leaving me alone with Caleb.

  Caleb’s fingers were resting on top of my hand. Once it was just the two of us, he turned my hand over and laced his fingers through mine.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispered.

  He kept running his thumb up the center of my palm, making tiny, micro-shivers shoot up my arm.

  “I’m fine. No harm done. See?”

  I slipped my hand out of his and lifted the edge of the blanket. For Caleb’s benefit, I pushed the bandage aside to show him that I was okay.

  Caleb’s brow furrowed as he brushed his fingers over the smooth skin of my hip. Once again, I had to stifle a shiver.

  I flipped the blanket back to cover myself and tried to push myself upright. Caleb rearranged the pillows so I could lean back against the headboard.

  Of all the things, it was Caleb’s tenderness that confused me most.

  “What’s going on, Caleb?” I asked.

  Caleb sighed and pulled his chair a little closer to the bed. “You were shot, so I called Kaden for help, and I—”

  “No, I know all of that. I mean with you. What’s going on with you?”

  Stopping mid-sentence, Caleb met my eyes. His dark eyebrows were arched, giving him a surprised, taken aback look.

  “You’re acting different, almost as if…” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure if I could bring myself to say it, in case I was wrong. Almost as if you actually care about me…

  Caleb continued to hold my gaze. His eyebrows were relaxed, but it didn’t make him any easier to read.

  “Are you hungry?” he blurted out. Before I could say that in fact, I was, Caleb continued on, “Let’s go get some dinner.”

  “I—I guess.”

  Caleb smiled, and suddenly I got butterflies in my stomach. I was certain that it was the first genuine smile he’d ever shown me.

  “Great. How about an hour from now? It’ll give both of us time to get ready. Just text me where to meet you. Anywhere you want.”

  “Okay,” I said, still trying to catch up. I didn’t even feel the tingle of Caleb’s lips on my forehead until he was walking away.

  A few seconds after Caleb walked out the door, Diana walked in. She handed me a glass of water and sat down in the chair that Caleb had just vacated.

  Her left eyebrow was cocked. “Did you guys talk about anything interesting?” she asked.

  I touched the spot on my forehead where Caleb had kissed me. “I think Caleb just asked me out on a date,” I said.

  I was still too shocked to feel happy about it.

  *

  The Lighthouse was the nicest restaurant in Riverrun and a popular spot for date nights.

  We didn’t go there.

  I sent a text to Caleb, asking him to meet me at Lucy’s Bar and Grill. It was on the rough side of town in the neighborhood of Southside, and it was a shifter hangout. Lucy herself was a Black Paw packmember, along with several of her staff.

  It was a divey place, so I just wore a tee shirt, jeans, and sneakers under a zipped-up jacket from the army surplus store. When I parked my car in the parking lot, I began to fret about whether I should text him to say I’d arrived, whether I should wait, or whether I should just walk in and order a beer.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to fret for long. The moment I shut off the engine, I heard the unmistakable whir of a motorcycle rumbling into the lot behind me.

  That has to be him, I thought.

  It felt like my stomach was doing jumping jacks when I got out of my car.

  Caleb parked his bike near the building. He was in the process of taking off his helmet when I approached.

  “Hey,” I said, to let him know I was here.

  Caleb lifted the helmet off of his head and shook out his hair. Seeing him gave me a feeling like I’d just been punched in the stomach, and I had to stop in my tracks. The sight of him, in his leather jacket and slim, black jeans, took my breath away.

  “Hey,” he replied as he put his helmet away. “Shall we?” He smiled casually, giving me a short glimpse
of his tongue.

  My heart raced, and I shoved my sweaty palms into the pockets of my jacket. “Sure.”

  Together, we ducked out of the cold into the warmth of Lucy’s. It wasn’t too busy tonight, with only two servers on the floor. One of them, Ivy, was a packmate. Lucy herself was behind the bar, her signature blue bandana tied around her hair, chatting up some regulars as they sipped beer out of heavy, frosty mugs.

  Caleb led the way to a dark, corner booth. We sat down across from each other. Ivy came by to drop off some menus and took our drink orders. We remained silent until she came back with our beers, and she left again after we placed our orders. Turkey club with a side of potato salad for me, and the fried chicken dinner for him.

  Once Ivy was gone, there was nothing—no menus, no buffers—separating me from Caleb. Abruptly, I realized that it was the first time we were in public together, and it was also the first time we were together without the expectation of taking our clothes off.

  Caleb seemed just as uncomfortable as I was. He kept eyeing the beer at my elbow, which made me realize that I hadn’t even tasted it yet. Just as I raised it to my lips, he whipped out his hand and grabbed my wrist.

  A tiny bit of beer sloshed out of my glass and onto the table.

  “You shouldn’t drink that,” he said quickly.

  I froze. “I shouldn’t? Why?”

  Slowly, I lowered my beer.

  Caleb played with a paper napkin as he searched my eyes. It was unnerving, sitting there waiting for an answer while he simply stared.

  “Did Rowan tell you anything?” he finally said.

  “No,” I said, my eyebrows rising. “Why?”

  Caleb closed his eyes and sighed, sinking slightly lower into his seat. “So it’s up to me to break the news,” he said in a low tone. When he opened his eyes again, there was a look inside them that I’d never seen before.

  It was a look of sorrow.

  He set his hands on the table and stretched them towards me. Confused, I stared at his palms for a few seconds before realizing he was asking for me to hold them. I placed my hands in his and felt his fingers closing loosely over mine. He was touching me, and that excited me, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong.

  “I have to admit something to you, Liam,” Caleb began. “I thought I was going to lose you for a second. Sitting on that couch, waiting to hear whether you were even alive or not, that was…unbearable.” His gaze turned distant as a shadow fell over his eyes.

  Something tightened inside of me, and my palms began to tingle with sweat. Is this really happening? I wondered. For almost a year I’d been casually hooking up with Caleb, and I’d never even dreamed of hearing those words.

  I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

  Caleb avoided my eyes and stared at our joined hands instead. “It made me realize just how much I need you.” He kept stopping to breathe, as if he were both impatient and reluctant to get something heavy off of his chest. “I guess I just wanted you to know how I felt. How I feel. About you.”

  Blood roared in my ears. It was like a dam had burst inside of me, bringing forth a huge tide of emotions. I could feel the pressure building up inside, and it was a very good feeling, indeed. I could barely even hold back the smile breaking across my face.

  “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” I said. “Caleb, I…I have to admit something to you, too. I think—no. I know. I’ve known for a while now that I’m absolutely in lo—”

  “There’s something else,” Caleb suddenly interrupted. “You’re pregnant.”

  Slowly, he slid his hands out from under mine, leaving me grasping at nothing but thin air.

  I stared at him, wondering if I’d heard him wrong.

  “What?” I whispered.

  Caleb nervously combed the ends of his hair behind his ear. It looked like he missed the length that used to be there. Then, he opened his mouth to speak again, but he was swiftly interrupted by Ivy, who returned with a loaded dinner plate in each hand.

  “Here’s your sandwich, and here’s your fried chicken,” she said as she set our food down in front of us. “Enjoy!”

  We remained silent, waiting until she walked out of earshot. By the time her footsteps receded back into the backdrop of lively music and chattering conversation, my brain had caught up to my ears, and I was speechless no more.

  “How do you know?” I whispered.

  “Rowan figured it out when she examined you while you were unconscious. I guess there’s been a wave of pregnancies in your pack since the last heat, so she already knew the signs. I’m the only one she’s told about it.”

  A twisting pain formed in my stomach. Suddenly, I was nauseous, and part of me wondered if it was the pregnancy causing it.

  “I mean, I understand. It happened to Josh last year. But…damn. Why—”

  “Why did it happen to you? And to us? Believe me, I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Caleb said.

  My jaw clenched, I stared at my uneaten sandwich. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel hungry again. I even forgot that I was sitting across from Caleb, up until the point when he cleared his throat. The sound of it snapped me out of the fog in my head.

  “Liam. If there’s one thing I promised myself, it was that if I ever had a child, he or she would grow up with a dad. That no matter how the kid turned out, I’d know that I tried my best. And you know why I promised myself that?”

  Speechless, I could only shake my head.

  Caleb paused to draw in a deep breath. “It’s because I never had a dad myself. I grew up a lot like you did.”

  To my utter shock, Caleb began telling me the details of his past I’d been longing to know for so long.

  Some of them I knew, simply because Kaden had told the whole pack what he knew about his long-lost twin. When Caleb brought up being adopted by a nice, middle-class couple, only to be chased out of the only home he knew once his shifting abilities manifested, it wasn’t really a surprise to me.

  “I was about ten. I was just a kid living on the streets. My body was changing in scary ways, and nobody would help me. Do you have any idea how it feels to be so hungry, you can’t even think straight? To be hungry, and sick, and sleeping on freezing sidewalks in the middle of winter?”

  I turned my head to the wall as tears welled up in my eyes.

  “Of course you do, Liam,” Caleb said softly. “You know exactly how it feels, and that’s why I promised myself that I would be a good father, no matter what.”

  “Well,” I began, suddenly overwhelmed.

  I never managed to finish the statement, because I had to take a long moment to wipe my eyes.

  “Liam,” Caleb continued as I dried my wet cheeks, “I know I haven’t exactly shown you my best side, but what happened today was a complete wake-up call for me. I learned that life is too short to waste on the little things. I thought I had no family, but I had family in you all along. And now I got you pregnant. So I just…”

  I balled up the napkin in my fist. “Yes, Caleb?” I whispered, so hopeful I could hardly breathe.

  He looked away and bit his lip. I could read the anguish in his face, and I felt a huge rush of affection towards him just then. Please, I wished with all my heart.

  “I just want you to know that I want to just go for it and be a real family. And I hope that doesn’t scare you,” Caleb said.

  I could have exploded from happiness. “Are you kidding? After hearing you say all of that”—I paused for dramatic effect—“I am so turned on.”

  A huge grin split across Caleb’s face, and his eyes turned stormy and lustful. “How about we take this dinner to-go and continue this conversation elsewhere? My place or yours?”

  “My place is closer,” I said.

  “Your place, then.”

  We paid our bill and packed up our food in paper cartons, which we ended up forgetting at the table as we hurried out of the restaurant. When we got outside, Caleb offered to walk me to m
y car. Then, he pinned me up against it before I could open the door.

  I gasped as he grabbed both of my wrists and stretched them over my head, pushing them hard against the window glass. He kissed me roughly on the mouth, briefly filling it with his tongue, before scraping his lips across my cheek to my ear.

  “I can’t wait. I have to have you right here, right now,” he whispered.

  I bit my lip as I felt his manhood digging into my leg. “Backseat,” I murmured back to him.

  Caleb released my wrists and whipped open the back door. Roughly, he grabbed me and pushed me inside, hard enough to make me fall across the seat on my hands and knees. Then, he grabbed the back of my pants and boxers in one fist and yanked everything down to my thighs.

  The metal of his belt buckle clinked as his fingers worked it open. A few seconds later, I felt his cold hands on my ass, his swollen tip in my crack, and finally—

  “Fuck,” he groaned as he penetrated me.

  I arched my back into his thrust, letting it fall as deep as it could reach. My asshole stretched around his pulsing column. I gritted my teeth. Otherwise, I thought I’d start screaming.

  Once my tightness settled down around the shape of him, Caleb began thrusting. He was still standing outside, both feet planted on the frozen ground as he gripped my hips to fuck his cock into me. I had my hands braced against the inside handle of the opposite door. I could feel my ass bouncing as the car swayed around me with each of Caleb’s deep thrusts.

  I quivered as my heavy balls rocked back, rubbing up against Caleb’s soft, warm sack. “You don’t see anyone, do you?”

  “No,” Caleb said, his voice strained and tight.

  Luckily, it was dark, so I didn’t have to worry too much about being seen. Caleb fucked me for barely half a minute longer when he finally stopped and gave me a final spank.

  “Let me finish you off at your place,” he said, his voice low and deep with lust.

  I hastily yanked my jeans back up and gave Caleb a long, desperate kiss before falling into my driver’s seat and starting the engine. With shaking hands, I drove out of the parking lot and onto the street, Caleb’s bike engine rattling loudly behind me.