And shit, Zachary would be expecting me. There was no way I could go over there now, not if Reba was hanging around the camp.
Reba chuckled, completely oblivious to my stress. “Oh, goodness, you are a nervous one. It’s okay. I’m not going to bite – it’s not like it’d do anything to you, anyway.”
She thinks I’m a beta! OMG, she thinks I’m a beta!
Well, of course she thinks I’m a beta! I’m a counselor at Camp Lake Omega, being an omega is sort of an anomaly.
Slowly I turned around. Deep breaths were doing nothing to slow my rapidly pounding heart. It wasn’t as if an increased pulse would suddenly start kicking out pheromones, but I wasn’t going to take the chance. “Alphas aren’t allowed on Camp Lake Omega property.”
She went very still. “I promise you,” she said, so quiet and calm that I was very sure she was telling the absolute truth, “I’m not here to hurt anyone. Let alone the kids asleep inside these cabins. None of them have anything to fear from me. I know you don’t have to believe me. If you want, I’ll turn right around and you can watch me go back to Camp Alpha-by-the-Lake.”
Like I said – I don’t believe the tales about alphas and their commanding voices. But Justine had told me the same thing, and there was just something honest about Reba’s offer…
I took a breath. “I believe you.” Because I did, that was the crazy thing.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and smiled. I could just make out her features in the moonlight – she was just as pretty as in Justine’s picture. “I’m Reba.”
“I know,” I admitted. I sat down on the top step of the porch, so I wasn’t standing so high above her anymore. Reba had the typical height of a female alpha; I ended up being right about eye level with her. “Justine’s told me about you.”
Reba grinned and leaned against the bottom railing of the steps. “My reputation proceeds me.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t believe all the locker room talk I hear.”
“Except in my case, it’s all true,” said Reba. I laughed quietly. “That’s what they all do,” she sighed, shaking her head with a smile. “And then they realize all the acclaim is perfectly justified.”
My laughter kind of died in my throat, and I gave her a careful look. “I thought you and Justine—”
“Oh, honey, we’re not exclusive,” Reba assured me. “I like her and all, but I’m not ready to settle down. She and I have an understanding.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, back on my guard.
“Been lovely talking to you – Jim, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Sleep well,” said Reba. She headed back into the night, further down the path toward the rest of the cabins.
I watched her go – and the moment I saw her slip into the nearby woods, where she and Justine typically met for their assignations, I headed back into my own cabin.
I wondered who Reba was meeting anyway. And if Justine knew that she was possibly seeing other people at the same time. And… holy shit, had she really just propositioned me? Was there a beta code about telling someone when their paramour tried to hit on them? It’s not like this ever came up for alphas and omegas – once you bonded, that was pretty much it, you wouldn’t be able to get it up for anyone else, so flirting was kind of a pointless (and meaningless) pastime.
I could get it up for Zachary. If I was in heat, and we were intimate. That’d break my inert status, get my pheromones running again.
Shut up, I told myself sternly. It didn’t matter – Zachary didn’t want to bond with me, I didn’t want to bond with him, whatever we had was just a stupid summer fling. Which apparently is all Justine and Reba had, too.
There was no question of being able to visit Zachary that night, not with Reba in our camp. I wondered how long he’d wait up for me, what he’d think if I didn’t show up. Cell phones weren’t an option this far out in the middle of nowhere, so sending him a text wasn’t going to work – if I’d even had his number. I wished we’d come up with some kind of messaging system to let him know I was alright, not drowned in the middle of the lake or something.
Which was ridiculous. Both the idea that I would drown in the middle of the lake, and that he’d worry about me. He’d probably just think I was busy with a camper, or had a cold, or something. It wasn’t like our regular sessions were important to him or anything.
It took a long time to fall asleep that night. When I did, I kept thinking of Zachary, alone on the other side of the lake.
I wasn’t sure what to say to Justine the next morning. Luckily, I didn’t have to start the conversation.
“Thanks for not saying anything about Reba,” she said quietly over breakfast.
I slumped, not even realizing how tense I’d been until she acknowledged Reba’s presence the night before. “Oh, thank God, I didn’t think – I mean, I knew you saw her the night before, you’ve never seen her two nights in a row, I wasn’t sure – and she said—”
Justine gave me a quizzical look. “What did she say?”
“Just… I don’t know, something stupid,” I said, embarrassed now. I’d gone a bit too close to Reba’s proposition. “Anyway, I’m glad you had a good time last night.”
“Okay,” said Justine slowly. “I didn’t meet Reba last night.”
I stared at her.
“Well, I did, but only on my way to the bathrooms. She met with Nathan and Jerome.”
I kept staring.
“Oh my God,” breathed Justine, and she leaned in close. “Oh, honey. You didn’t think I thought we were exclusive, did you?”
I shook my head, so barely I’m surprised she even noticed it. Then I nodded, because I had.
“Oh, sweetie,” said Justine, sympathetically. She reached out to pat my hand. “You must have been a wreck all night. It’s okay. I told you, it’s just fun between us. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But…”
Justine sighed. “Look, Jim. I’m a beta. Sex is… it’s not the same thing as it is for omegas and alphas. For you guys, sex is bonding and commitment and happily forever after. For betas, though? Well, I guess it can mean that, but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, it just means having fun together. Reba gets that. Hell, I think Reba’s more beta than she realizes. She doesn’t want commitment any more than we do. She’s the one who proposed this setup in the first place. I’m not forcing her into anything.”
I tried to wrap my head around it – because really, Justine was right. What Zachary and I had been sharing was highly irregular, as far as relationships between omegas and alphas went. We just didn’t do flings. Justine’s light-hearted attitude about her relationship with Reba fit most preconceptions of betas that I knew – but even knowing my own situation with Zachary, I had a hard time getting that Reba was the same.
“She liked you, you know,” Justine added. “And I know you said you didn’t know much about female alphas… it’d be totally okay with me if you wanted to maybe talk to her… or, you know—”
My stomach twisted at the thought. “No. No. I mean… no!”
“Okay,” said Justine, backing away. “Just a thought. No pressure though. Reba would never ask you to do anything you weren’t completely on board for doing.”
“Good,” I said shakily, but it was a while before I could look Justine in the eye again.
That night, I dithered in my bed for an hour, trying to decide whether or not to go see Zachary. It wasn’t our regular night – but I’d skipped the night before. Would he expect me? Or would he be surprised to see me a day early?
And would Reba be back on a regular schedule again?
In the end, I went – scared to death the whole time that I’d meet Reba, but I figured after two nights of sneaking around, she was bound to take the night off. And besides… I wanted to see Zachary very badly. The whole way across the lake, I wondered if he’d have been worried, if he’d be relieved to see me. If he’d breathe a sigh of relief and pull me into his cabin, hold me tight, kiss
me hungrily, like he’d lost me forever and had just found me again…
It was a nice dream, anyway. He’d probably open the door with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, scruffy and a bit smelly, completely confused as to why I was standing on his doorstep.
It wasn’t until I was knocking on his door that I realized I’d have to explain where I’d been the night before. He didn’t answer, and when I tried the door handle, it opened easily.
The cabin was empty.
I closed the door behind me, wincing at the noise, and took a few steps in. At least he was somewhere in the camp still, that much was obvious from the unmade bed and the dishes in the tiny sink in the corner. Alphas weren’t famed for their housekeeping, but Zachary had always presented a meticulously neat cabin every other time I’d visited. I doubted he’d leave his cabin in disarray if he was leaving for more than a few minutes.
It was hard to resist the urge to clean it, though. It’s not that omegas are naturally disposed to clean – that’s a total myth, I’m as messy as the next person – but I’ve never been able to stand a sink full of dishes in my entire life. Even when I was four, I was rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher.
Luckily I heard the voices before I got started.
“…just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Zachary was saying. I could hear his feet crunch on the gravel outside the cabin, growing louder with every step. And judging by the number of footsteps, he wasn’t alone. “I get that they miss each other, but—”
“I don’t think you do,” said a female voice – a familiar female voice.
Reba. Well, at least that answered whether or not she was coming over to Lake Omega. Except I really didn’t want her to catch me in Zachary’s cabin. The only place to hide was under his bed – and so that’s where I went. Hopefully neither of them would be sitting on the floor anytime soon.
“You wanna rephrase that, maybe?” asked Zachary, a little bit piqued. He opened the door.
“Not really, no,” said Reba, following Zachary in. The door screeched as it closed. “Jeez, get some WD40 or something.”
“Insurance against pranksters,” said Zachary. “Why don’t you think I understand?”
“Because you’ve never been in love a day in your life,” said Reba dryly. “And you don’t give any indication that you want to be.”
“And you do?”
“At least I’m willing to put myself out there,” said Reba. “You don’t even want to consider—”
“Drop the subject, Reba,” said Zachary. He sounded tense.
“Fine,” said Reba. “I have better things to do tonight.”
Zachary groaned. “Seriously?”
“Someone’s got to do it,” said Reba loftily. I heard the screech of the door as it opened, and then slammed shut behind her.
Zachary let out a long sigh. He crossed the cabin and turned on the water to start washing the rest of the dishes. I held my breath and counted to ten, just to make sure Reba wasn’t coming back, and then crept out from under his bed.
I was sitting, cross-legged, in the middle of the bed when Zach turned off the water and turned around, drying his hands on a towel.
The shriek was nearly as loud as his door.
“Wow,” I said, eyes wide. “Anyone ever tell you that you scream like an omega?”
“You,” he growled. He dropped the towel and advanced on me so quick, I barely had time to back up to his headboard before he was on his hands and knees over me, the growl deep in his throat. Which was a much better reaction, I had to admit.
“Hi,” I said, breathless, right before he kissed me. It was short, hard, and possessive. His tongue swept into my mouth, his lips bruising against mine. He pulled away, working his mouth down my neck to my collarbone, sucking gently as his hands worked the button and zip on my shorts.
“So, about last night,” I began, “ooof.”
He’d pulled me down flat on my back on the bed as he yanked down my shorts and my underwear, and then shoved my legs up to the ceiling so he could remove the clothes from me entirely. I bent my knees to rest on his shoulder as he lowered his mouth to my cock, sucking me in. I was small enough that he was able to swallow the entire length of me into his mouth, his lips resting on the wiry-soft, curly hairs at the base of my cock.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. I held onto his headboard, because I knew he hated when I reached for his head. My cock was getting harder in his mouth, and all I could do was whimper and gasp as he sucked and licked, saliva dripping down around his mouth and chin, the sloppy wet sounds of him blowing me. It wasn’t long before my cock didn’t quite fit so well in his mouth anymore. I could feel his teeth graze at my shaft, the sharp pain as one of the hairs caught on his teeth and was yanked out by the root.
And then the wet, soft brush on the tip of my cock. It could have been the back of his throat – I didn’t know, and that was enough. I didn’t even have time to warn him before I was coming so loud that I had to yank his pillow out from under my head and smother myself, lest I wake both camps.
I was still a little delirious when he flopped on the cot next to me, breathing hard and smelling… well, a bit like me, I guess. Sweet and salty. I turned my head to nuzzle at his shoulder.
“You’re still dressed,” I mumbled. “Unfair.”
His hand rested on my stomach. His camp clothes were a bit rougher than mine, and they smelled like dirt and grass and fresh air. “You caught me by surprise.”
“Heh,” I snorted, and I rested a bit more. “Lucky for me you don’t store anything under your cot.”
“Must’ve missed the porn,” said Zachary. I snorted again. “Good thinking, though. Wouldn’t want Reba to find you.”
Which was such a completely true statement that I went still, barely breathing.
“She’s my second-in-command,” Zachary added. Whether he noticed my stillness or not, I didn’t know. “Don’t exactly want to have that conversation with her, you know?”
Reba was… his second-in-command?
The assistant camp director.
Holy shit. That kind of changed everything. And muddled it up a whole lot, too. I couldn’t exactly tattle on his second-in-command, could I?
“Yeah, I get it,” I said. “Didn’t much want her catching me here, either.”
He shifted on the cot, propping himself up on his elbow. “What are you doing here, anyway? I expected you last night.”
Moment of truth.
“Kid get sick or something?” Zachary continued.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Food poisoning, I think – my whole cabin went down like dominoes. I was up half the night emptying trash cans, it was so gross – and you really don’t want to hear this, I am so sorry. I wasn’t sure how to let you know. I hope you weren’t worried.”
He flopped back down. “Not really. I figured it was something like that, especially when Bob didn’t call all frantic about a missing canoe.” He paused. “That would have worried me.”
Which, I reflected, was probably about as close to him admitting he felt anything for me that I was ever likely to get.
It was a few hours later when I finally snuck back out of the cabin. I was feeling much better by then – and really glad I’d come.
The door screeched, just as it always did, but I’d long since become immune to the noise. Zachary’s campers always slept through it, anyway.
….snap…..
The sound coming from the woods put me immediately on guard. I crouched down low, holding my breath. Zachary’s cabin was off to the side of the campground, a little way apart from the rest of the cabins, but close enough to the woods that if something was crouching there, too, waiting to pounce, I’d be toast.
There were bears in the woods, though I’d never seen them. Wolves, though, we could hear them sometimes.
I listened hard, but didn’t hear anything else, not even the sound of movement in the trees. The night was utterly still. Even the cicadas and frogs were hol
ding their breath.
Then it all began again, one chirp at a time, until the night sounded just like it always had. This time with my own hard breathing as my heart pounded in my chest.
Nothing was there. It was fine. Just my imagination.
Or a wolf, deciding I didn’t smell so tasty after all.
So why did it feel like someone was watching me?
I hurried down to where I’d left the canoe, resisting the urge to look back over my shoulder. If something was coming up from behind and about to leap onto my back, I didn’t think I wanted early warning.
My heart didn’t slow down until I was several hundred feet in the water. I was sure wolves couldn’t swim. When I finally looked back to the shore, I didn’t see anyone at all.
Chapter Seven
Zachary
I knew that Jim was lying to me.
No, it’s not an alpha sense, or even a preconception that omegas are particularly skillful liars. I didn’t think Jim had lied to me about anything before – and he’d had reason to, after all. I believed him when he’d told me about his mate, Kevin. I’d have believed him even if I hadn’t seen and smelled the proof of it right there on his neck.
I hadn’t been worried when he didn’t show up that night.
Okay, I might have worried a little. It’s a big lake, okay? And yeah, Jim’s a good paddler, and he’d been coming over for weeks without a single incident, but…
I was still relieved when I looked at the Lake Omega boat docks through my binoculars the next morning, and all the canoes were present and dry as a bone. The last thing I wanted was Jim at the bottom of the lake.
Guilt. That’s all. I just didn’t want the guilt.
And I sure as hell hadn’t thought about spying on Jim with those same binoculars. I wasn’t a creeper, jeez.
It was just curiosity that prompted me to ask him, that’s all. And he’d given a valid enough excuse.
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