by Tamsin Baker
Table of Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Saving the Omega
By Tamsin Baker
Book 2 of The New World Shifters series.
Thank- you so much for buying ‘Saving the Omega.’
Although this series is made up of standalone books, if you enjoy this novella, you’ll love the first one.
The first book in this series- ‘The Omega shift’ is currently headlining a LGBT boxset called – All you need is love, and the link can be found on my website.
https://www.tamsinbakererotic.com/boxsets-anthologies-compilations
Happy reading!
Contents Page:
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 1.
Angus.
They were at it again. Fighting.
Though, could you really call it that when one man was doing all the yelling and hitting, while the other stood there, or often knelt down, and just took it?
I shook my head and turned away from the sight that turned my stomach almost every day. How could Sam treat his mate in such a way? Clayton was such a beautiful boy, and I’d never seen him do a thing wrong by Sam.
Anger rippled in my gut as I fought the need to intervene. He wasn’t in my pack, so technically I shouldn’t. But how could I just stand by and watch this happen?
It’s not your place. Get moving.
I forced myself to look away from the sight of the young man cowering against the fence surrounding Sam’s pack’s property.
Clayton wasn’t my concern. I had enough to deal with to keep my own pack safe, but what I wouldn’t give to bring the boy over to us. To keep him safe. My wolf inside my mind howled at the injustice, making my arms vibrate with the strength it took to keep him down.
I forced myself to lift my feet, turn away and trudge towards my workstation. If Clayton had been my mate, I’d never treat him that way. I’d never treat anyone that way.
I nodded at Jeff and Dave, two Beta’s from my pack, as we walked up the hill towards the power station. The rest of my pack trailed behind me.
In this new world, a world that had gone to hell, I was nothing.
Nothing but the strongest man in the whole bloody town. What did that mean though in a place where vampires ruled by fear and force, and my pack was on the bottom of the ladder because we didn’t suck up to those blood suckers?
The vampires were a problem we needed to remedy. In the decade since our world had changed forever, I lost most of my strongest men to the pack wars.
Ten years ago, a paranormal being released a virus into the world that killed off every human on the planet. Some said he was a shifter, or a demon. The vampires, of course, believed he was one of theirs, power hungry creatures that they were.
Maybe he was a half-breed that hated us all equally? I didn’t know. What I did know was that he had been crazy to attempt what he’d achieved.
Absolutely fucking crazy.
I still couldn’t believe he’d succeeded in making Earth a paranormal planet. Whoever thought our lives would be okay after killing off most of the population of Earth had been sorely mistaken. We’d been left with a rotting world, full of dead human bodies, and a chaos of fighting paranormal beings. Each faction wanted whatever land and power there was left to claim.
In some parts of the U.S, I’d heard the fighting still continued, but here, in what had been beautiful San Francisco, we’d worked out a pecking order of sorts. Unfortunately, us wolf shifters came out somewhere in the middle.
I was once the Alpha of a powerful pack. The Highland Wolves. We had good jobs and we worked well in the human world.
So, when everyone around us died, and all the shifters and vampires that were left began fighting for whatever power was left, we fought too.
To the demise of almost everyone I loved.
What was left of my pack now lived in dilapidated homes in an apartment block we’d cleared out of the humans. At least we were all together.
There were no shops anymore. No supermarkets. Barely enough clean water for everyone, but that wasn’t something I needed to worry about. That was the feline shifters’ job.
Thanks to us highland wolves who kept the power station running, the city had a little electricity. It was a physically laborious job, but it kept my mind from wandering too much to the old days.
“Hey, Angus.” Silky stepped up next to me, her slinky smile a ghost of the woman I’d once known.
“Hey,” I returned and rubbed my arm along hers.
Silky, a female of our bloodlines, lived in the apartment above mine. None of the females shifted in our packs, not that we could do so now anyway. The vampires had made all animal shifting illegal.
She kept my bed warm most nights, but there was little between us except the urge to stay alive. Affection was essential for any wolf, but as an Alpha, I felt the lack of true affection keenly. I had dreams of being surrounded by my children and the pack, gathering their bodies and pulling them atop me to prevent them from being cold.
As an Alpha of my pack, I’d been told since birth that I would have a fated mate and I looked forward to the day that I would meet the one person meant for me.
That had been before the end of our world, and the end to all good things in our lives. Perhaps my mate had already been killed? Or she lived on the other side of the States? Either way, I’d resigned myself to the fact that I would never have a true mate now, and kept forcing myself to bond with Silky, or whichever female begged for my attention. However, it was a cold, nasty business, and I knew to my core that this wasn’t how life was meant to be.
I lifted my head and looked up at the looming building ahead of us. My pack’s job for the day, every day, was to keep the electricity station running. Which meant physical labor for all of us, but it was for a good cause.
The other shifters performed other jobs and if they didn’t work, the vamps made sure they paid for it in kind.
The vampires still needed blood to stay alive, and although humans were their favorite meal, no more of those existed. Which meant we either did our job, or they fed on us. They said our children tasted the sweetest.
I had the bite marks to prove how often I’d gotten in the way of the vamps trying to feed on one of our kids. Luckily, I was too valuable to them to drain, and I didn’t think they liked the taste of me too much. The distaste on their faces always appeared comical after a feed of my Alpha blood.
As an Alpha, it ate at my pride that I would be food for the vampires that ruled our town. But they kept us on a short leash with their threat against our children, and I had to admit that they did keep an order to things.
Before the vamps moved in, the shifters were killing each other.
At least that had all stopped.
“Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?” Silky asked as we stepped into the old power station.
Most of the machinery didn’t work anymore, so we needed to move the machines and cogs by hand. An arduous and painful task.
We provided the town with enough power to cook the food for us all, and generally kept our homes warm for part
of the night.
“Honestly, I don’t know. If I knew of a safe place we could go, then I’d be gone in a shot. And I’d be taking you all with me.”
“But what about the vampires?” she asked.
I shrugged. I hadn’t decided yet if the vampires were the best of the evils at the moment, or not. Either way, my pack should not be living under the rule of anyone.
“We have twelve hours of sunlight every day when they can’t touch us, Silky. We just need a plan.”
The vampires had their daylight watchers. Cougar shifters. Nasty beasts. But even the cougars would be hard pressed to match us in a fight, especially if the wolf shifter packs combined.
Silky nodded and lifted a basket of coal up from the ground.
“Well, let me know when you have a plan. Anywhere has to be better than this.”
She turned away to her task and my gaze flashed over the white scars on her neck. She’d taken many vampire feedings too, over the years.
Anger rolled in my gut like a storm and I clenched my hands into massive fists. Fuck it. We had to get out of here and soon.
With every passing day, I could feel my wolf rising to the surface to fight for my pack. To correct the injustice that was now our world.
But if we escaped, would it be to a world that was better, or worse, than this one?
I forced myself into the monotonous rhythm of heavy work, wishing myself back to the days of fire-fighting. I’d loved my job, and thanks to my superior strength and instincts, had been on my path to be captain.
That was never going to happen now.
“You coming over tonight?” I asked Silky, as we trudged back down the hill after sun down. It had been a few days since she’d graced my bed, and I could feel the increased levels of testosterone in my blood needing the release.
The vamps would be up and it would be feeding time. For everyone.
“Maybe not tonight. I’m on babysitting duty for Teri and Martha. Tomorrow though?”
I gave her a smile and a nod. “Sure.”
The women all shared child-raising responsibilities, even those that had none themselves. Our pack still looked after one another, which was soothing to see. Not everything was broken in this world.
“Seriously. Doesn’t he have anything better to do?” Silky’s voice was full of disgust as we arrived back at our building.
I didn’t want to look, but as the sounds of flesh being pummeled caught my hearing, I had to see how bad it was.
Sam was at it again. Beating on Clayton in the most sadistic way. Pulling his hair and dragging him around the dirt that lay at the front of their building to degrade him as much as possible.
A yelp and a scream had me turning towards them rather than walking away as I normally would have.
Sam swung a lump of wood, and was beating Clay on the back while the young man tried to protect himself by curling into a ball. The thump of the plank against his back had me cringing hard.
Nobody moved.
Heat seared along my veins, anger building in me liking a rising storm.
Another helpless cry from Clayton filled the air. Another disgusting display of brutality as blood covered the wooden bat Sam raised high in the air once again. This had to stop, and if no one else was going to save him, then the time had come for me to.
“Stop. Now,” I growled out and stormed across the road.
Stay down. Stay down.
“Angus! No.”
I heard Silky’s warning, but I was way past caring. I pulled open the old gate that marked entrance to Sam’s apartments and tightened my hands into fists.
Sam raised the lump of wood again, his face a grotesque mask of anger as I charged forward. I put both hands out in front of me, aiming for his chest. I ran straight into him and knocked him to the ground.
I stood in front of Clayton’s bloodied form and clenched both fists tight.
Stay down. Stay down, I urged my wolf.
Shifting was forbidden by the vamps. They said it was to keep the peace, but I knew it was because we were stronger than them in wolf form. They had one thing over us though. Their bite was deadly to us when we were in wolf form, so I didn’t know why they bothered with the rule.
Sam rolled and got up from the ground. His breath reeked of cheap alcohol and blood splattered over his bare chest.
Not his own, I was sure.
“Oh, lookie here. We have an Alpha fight, do we?” Sam sneered and I stood up from my crouched position.
Clayton moved from behind me, the strong pup crawling away to a safer distance.
I focused back on the man in front of me. “You’re not an Alpha. You never were.”
Alphas were born, not made. And Sam got the title out of luck of survival. Not because, like me, he was the son of an Alpha wolf.
Sam snarled at me. “Well, I’m the only one my pack has, and that means I do what I want, when I want.”
My wolf receded into my mind and I breathed a sigh of relief as I focused on the pathetic man in front of me. “Yeah, I know what that means. You sit at home, lazy as fuck, as your pack does the work you should be doing. Meanwhile, you beat the shit out of your mate every day. Yeah, great Alpha you are Sam. Our ancestors would be disgusted.”
I spat on the ground for emphasis and heard the growl roll through my opponent.
Sam’s eyes opened and his nostrils flared like a racehorse. “He’s mine,” he declared, speaking of the mate he abused so often.
Clayton’s whimper from behind me broke my heart in a way I couldn’t describe. Pain shot through my core and fire burst along my spine. My vision disappeared and I saw red for the first time in my life. “No,” I growled out through the haze that clouded my brain. I shook myself and focused hard to see the other wolf’s face.
Sam’s eyebrows rose comically high. “What did you say?”
He seemed more shocked than anything, and for the first time in my life, I did something really stupid.
“I said no. You cannot have him. Not today, not any day. I’ll take him back to my pack and the women can look after him.”
Sam’s mouth contorted into a frown and his eyes began to change. The iris disappeared as Sam’s pupils dilated. He was about to do something monumentally stupid, and probably get us both killed.
I glanced over to where Clayton lay tightly curled up in a messy ball, and I couldn’t find an ounce of regret if that was what came out of today. I looked back at Sam, and just as I had assumed he would do, he’d gone down onto all fours. He was going to shift, and he’d kill me if I stayed in human form.
The growl that rolled through his chest as brown fur sprouted from his back, made my black-coated Alpha race to the forefront of my mind.
My eye sight changed to that of my wolf and I swallowed hard the answering growl that rose.
“What is this?” a calm voice said next to me, and I pulled my wolf back inside with every ounce of strength I still had.
I stood up straight and looked the vampire elder in the eye. “A disagreement, Vincent.”
Sam was too far gone, and in complete wolf form now.
“Wonderful,” Vincent purred, his once brown eyes now glowing red. “Then I think I can end the disagreement once and for all.”
He flicked his wrist in the air, sentencing Sam, and I moved back.
At the signal to feed, ten hungry vampires surrounded the brown wolf.
Told you. Beta.
Alphas were always black. And no one, not even an arrogant try-hard, could change those genetics that told the world who we were.
Sam’s wolf snapped his jaws as he crouched lower to the ground. He looked as though he wanted to attack back, but he’d lose this battle.
The vampires descended on him in a fury of sharp teeth and clawed hands. Sam’s wolf whimpered and then I heard the human scream out, his body naturally shifting back to his human form as the pain overwhelmed him. They continued to feed far past their usual time, and a sinking feeling hit my gut. This wasn’t a
feeding, this was as execution. And there was nothing I could do.
I stepped back and pressed against the wall of the building, Clayton’s whimpers growing louder and louder beside me.
“Shhhh,” I soothed him, squatting down and reaching out for his bloodied shoulder.
He flinched and cried out as I made contact, so I took my hand straight back.
“Don’t draw attention to yourself. Stop. I won’t hurt you,” I urged him.
Although Vincent and I had come to an agreement a long time ago for a relative peace between us, these vampires were unpredictable and vicious creatures
Finally, the frenzy stopped and there was little more than a bag of bones and rotting flesh in a pile on the dirt. The vampires laughed between themselves and wiped their mouths with their sleeves. They hadn’t fed like that in a long time. I couldn’t remember the last time.
“I think we need to bring back more executions,” Vincent joked, his razor-sharp teeth glistening in the dark.
Shouldn’t have reminded them how much they like draining people.
“Angus. Come here,” Vincent said, his tone soft and deadly.
I pushed myself up and walked back over to him. Surely, he didn’t need any more blood tonight?
“Yes, Vincent.”
“Tell me what the disagreement was about.”
I hesitated, not sure how much to reveal, nor what the outcome would be. But in this world, there was never any certainty, so lying was never a good policy.
“Sam was beating his mate to death and I couldn’t stand by and watch it happen. So, I stopped him.”
Vincent’s eyes flicked behind me and then back. “And you want the boy?”
God, yes. But he’s not mine to have.
I swallowed hard against the lustful thoughts that I’d always pushed away. “My pack will look after him.”
Vincent lifted his lip in a sneer. “He does not look strong, Angus. He will be of no use to your pack.”
They’d weeded out anyone who couldn’t keep up with the work we did. I straightened to my full height and looked the vampire directly in the eye. “He’s stronger than he looks. He’s taken beatings that would have killed other men.”