by J. L. Wilder
“But I don’t want to be your beta,” Wyatt protested. “Let him have it.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Robert said. “The rank falls to the person I most trust to protect the pack. You saved my life, so that’s you. It doesn’t matter how many times Gunner lifts his weights. What you’ve done still weighs more.”
“So, you don’t really have a choice either,” Wyatt realized.
“I can’t control who I trust,” Robert said.
“Why does Gunner want the rank so badly, anyway?” Wyatt asked. Being beta wasn’t like being alpha. It didn’t come with any status or privileges. There were token things, of course—sitting by the alpha meant the beta ate before the rest of the pack when dishes were passed, and when they went out on their bikes or shifted and ran through the woods, the beta took second position behind the alpha. But these weren’t things that mattered. “Van told me that he’d worked hard to build himself up and challenged anyone who opposed him to a fight. He must have really wanted it.”
“He did,” Robert said. “And that worked for a while. I was able to put my trust in Gunner because I knew he was the strongest member of the pack and that if anything happened to us, he would be able to defend us. But I never quite trusted him to put the best interests of the pack before his own.”
“What makes you think I would?”
Robert shrugged. “Gut feeling.”
“Because I don’t even know what I’d do, if it came down to me or the pack,” Wyatt said. “I’ve never had a family I wanted to defend before.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out someday.”’
“I hope not.” Wyatt shivered a little at the thought. They were a house full of wolves. What could happen that would put all of them in danger? It was a frightening thought.
“I like that you don’t want the rank, to be honest with you,” Robert said. “Gunner’s desperation for it was always a little worrying. I think he thought he would be alpha someday if he could lock up the beta rank. But of course, the only way he would ever become alpha is if I died, and I’m not planning on going anywhere.”
“You don’t think he’d...do something to you?”
“Probably not,” Robert said. “And if he tried, I could always order him away. So, I wasn’t afraid of that. But it’s not a good feeling to have your closest packmate be someone who might be rooting for your demise. It was always in the back of my mind with him—just, is he just waiting for his chance?”
“Why did he want to be alpha so badly?” Wyatt asked. “Was he planning to take the pack in some kind of different direction than your leadership allows?” He thought of Van’s father, who had forced the women in the pack to give birth so frequently that their bodies had literally given out on them. Gunner couldn’t mean to return them to that barbarism, could he?
“As alpha, he’d decide who gets our omega,” Robert said.
Wyatt felt as stunned as if he’d walked into a brick wall. “You have an omega?”
He had heard of omegas before, of course—who hadn’t?—but they had always seemed almost mythical to him. Brock’s pack used to sit around talking about what they would do if they had an omega. No one seemed able to agree on exactly what the omega’s characteristics were. Some of his packmates had sworn that omegas lived in a constant state of heat, always desperate to mate, and that any pack that was lucky enough to have one installed her in a pleasure den where any member could visit her at any time. In those stories, the omega never got tired and never wanted a break. She was always hungry for more.
Others had insisted that omegas were more like mothers than pleasure slaves. They were able to carry an entire litter of pups at once and could deliver them with minimal effort, growing the pack exponentially with every pregnancy. Whenever Wyatt heard an omega described in these terms, he pictured a heavily pregnant woman lying on her side with babies suckling at her breasts.
He had never met a real omega in his life. He had never believed he would. They were so rare. “How have I been with you for a week and I never realized there was an omega here?” he asked. It was like learning he’d been walking past a Pegasus on his way to breakfast every morning.
“We keep her apart from the rest of the pack,” Robert said. “Do you want to see her?”
“Please.” Wyatt had to admit he was curious about this creature. A real omega. What would she be like? Would she possess some kind of mystical charm or beauty? Would she be supernaturally wise and maternal? Brock and the rest of his pack would kill to see this, he realized. They’d be losing their minds with jealousy. They might have kicked me out, but I’m the one who’s going to see a real omega.
Robert led him all the way up to the third floor. All the pack members’ bedrooms were on the second. Up here it was primarily storage, and Wyatt had only been to the top of the stairs once, on his first night in the house. Robert stopped in front of a door. “She’s in here,” he said. “I have to ask that you don’t approach her or touch her.”
“Of course not,” Wyatt agreed, wondering privately what Robert thought he would do to the omega. Attack her? Try to couple with her right there and then?
Robert opened the door and let the light from the hall spill into the room.
And Wyatt felt stunned all over again.
She was just a girl.
She wasn’t the beatific smiling mother. She wasn’t the wanton woman spread out on a scarlet bed. She was just a young girl, probably in her early twenties, cowering in the corner and blinking up at them.
“Stand up,” Robert said.
She stood. She wore a plain brown shift dress that hid her body fairly well, but Wyatt could see the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips. Her auburn hair spilled down over her shoulders, tangled and dirty looking.
“Her name is Isabel,” Robert said. “Izzy.”
“Hi Izzy,” Wyatt said softly.
She darted a look at Robert, clearly afraid. “You can speak to him,” Robert said.
“Hello,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Izzy, this is Wyatt. He’s the newest member of our pack.”
She inclined her head but didn’t speak again.
Wyatt retreated into the hallway, alarmed at what he’d seen. Moments later, Robert followed. Wyatt took hold of his arm. “What’s the matter with her?”
“What do you mean?” Robert asked.
“Come on. She was terrified. What did she think we were going to do?”
“No one’s hurt her, if that’s what you’re asking,” Robert said. “But I’m sure she knows she’s an omega, and she’s probably anticipating the inevitable.”
“What inevitable?”
“At some point, someone’s going to breed with her.”
“What, whether she likes it or not?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Robert said. “That’s what omegas are for. Being bred.”
“She’s still a person.”
“It’s different.”
“How? How is it any different?”
“It’s what she was born for,” Robert said, sounding exasperated. “We all play the roles we’re born for in this pack, Wyatt. You do it every time you follow my orders. I don’t like the idea of ordering you around, and you may not like the idea of doing what you’re told all the time—”
“Not really.”
“But we do it. We do it because it’s what our biology calls us to do. And you feel good taking my orders, don’t you? Even if mentally it feels like it might not always make sense?”
“Yes,” Wyatt admitted.
“It’s the same with Izzy. Her body wants to mate, to produce a litter for her pack. She hasn’t accepted it mentally, yet. When she’s assigned a mate, it will be that person’s job to make her comfortable with her responsibilities. But her responsibilities are what they are.”
“Why do you keep her locked away?” Wyatt asked.
“So that she doesn’t run,” Robert said. “She’ll get comfortable here
in time, but she’s only been with us a couple of weeks longer than you have. We picked her up at a soup kitchen in the city.”
“You kidnapped her.”
“She wasn’t leaving anything behind. She had no life to speak of. We brought her into our home and made her a part of our clan.”
“If she wants to leave, you should let her leave,” Wyatt insisted.
“We can’t,” Robert said. “She’s too valuable. You know that. We can’t let an omega go if we’ve got the chance to keep her. Besides, if she left us, the odds are good some other wolves would pick her up, and that might go even worse for her. At least here she’s warm and well fed. At least here she’s got a home.”
Wyatt said nothing. But he couldn’t shake the image of the pale, frightened girl in the room upstairs from his mind.
THE REST OF THE DAY was a struggle. Wyatt tried repeatedly to tear his mind away from what he’d seen, to forget about Izzy, but every time he allowed his thoughts to wander her face appeared before him again. She’s up there right now, he thought as he sat down to dinner in the place he’d grown accustomed to—at Robert’s side. He hardly noticed the evil glares Gunner was shooting at him or the conversation going around the table. We’re all down here being a family, sharing a delicious dinner, enjoying pack life, and she’s living apart from us. Even if Izzy had wanted to be with the Hell’s Wolves, it would have been wrong to isolate her that way. It set her apart from the rest of the pack, possibly irreparably.
Robert had hinted that eventually Izzy would be paired off with a member of the pack. That person would be responsible for breeding with her. Ordinarily, Wyatt figured, the alpha would be the one to mate with the omega. But Robert loved his wife too much to be with anyone else, Van had told him. So, he would no doubt assign the omega to another member of the pack.
Gunner wanted to become alpha, he remembered. Gunner wants her. That’s what Robert thinks. Would Robert give Izzy to Gunner, then? Wyatt couldn’t think of a worse idea. Gunner had to be at least ten years older than Izzy, for one thing. She should really be placed in the hands of someone her own age, someone like Van or Lionel. But could those young boys be trusted with the responsibility of making sure she felt safe and cared for as she took on the role her biology demanded of her? Or would they just use her, never troubling to ensure that she felt cared for?
He volunteered to do the dishes that night, wanting to be alone with his thoughts, but he’d only just finished filling up the sink with water when he found Heather at his elbow with a stack of plates. “Move over,” she said. “I’ll dry.”
“You don’t need to do that.” He wanted to tell her to go away and leave him to his thoughts, but he didn’t want to be rude.
“It’s fine,” Heather said, not taking the hint. “We’ll get done faster this way.”
Wyatt sighed and picked up the sponge and a glass, setting resignedly to work. The quicker they got this done, the sooner he could retire to the garage. Maybe working on his bike would relax him. It usually did. He would have to hope none of the others were out there tonight.
“So,” Heather said, “you met her.”
Maybe she wasn’t as clueless as he’d thought. “You know about her?” he asked.
“Everyone knows about her. She lives here.”
“I didn’t know about her.”
“Robert probably wanted to make sure you were with us for good before he told you. We don’t need some stranger trying to steal our omega and take off into the night, you know?”
Wyatt frowned. Robert’s relaxed attitude about Izzy’s place among them was one thing, but hearing Heather speak so callously was something else. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked.
“Doesn’t what bother me?”
“Keeping a girl locked up in the attic like that. She’s your age, Heather. How would you like it if it was you?”
“I’m not an omega,” Heather said, as if the distinction were the most obvious thing in the world. “She’s lucky to be with us, Wyatt. Don’t you know what people do to omegas out there? If she wasn’t here, she’d be dead or abused or something.”
“But what if she doesn’t want to mate?” Wyatt asked.
“Of course, she wants to mate.” Heather shook her head. “All omegas do. It’s in their nature. Besides, you don’t need to worry about it. You’re not the one who’s going to have to mate with her.”
Wyatt hadn’t realized until that moment that that was something he was worried about, but hearing the words come out of Heather’s mouth, it occurred to him that that very thing could happen. Gunner had wanted to be pack beta so that he could claim Izzy, according to Robert. But Robert was easing Wyatt into the beta position. Would it follow, then, that Izzy would become his?
He thought about that as he took to his bed that night, in the room he shared with the other men of the pack. The room was a long, open space with single person cots lining the walls on either side, each with a single pillow and a weighted blanket. Wyatt usually slept well here, lulled by the sounds of the other men breathing and snoring lightly, but today he couldn’t seem to let go of consciousness. The experience of meeting an omega—a real omega, his first omega—had been tainted by the fear of what would happen to her now and the horror of realizing he was the only person in the pack who really cared. It was even possible, he thought, that he was the only person in the pack who saw her as a human being. She’s an omega, they all kept saying, as if that were the only thing that mattered about her. As if she wasn’t a frightened girl, alone in a room above his somewhere right now. Had there even been a bed in that room? He couldn’t remember. They must have been feeding her, but with no one to talk to she’d soon lose her mind.
Finally, unable to sleep, Wyatt slipped out of the room and down the stairs. All the bedrooms were on the second floor, so he had the first floor to himself in the middle of the night, but somehow it wasn’t enough space to contain the whirlwind in his head. He left through the back door and ran into the woods, stripping off his clothes as he went, retreating from the thoughts going around in his mind until he was pure emotion, until the wolf surged forward and he shifted.
His paws dug into the earth as he ran, softening the soil and kicking up a powder in his wake. He scented night creatures—racoons and rodents and birds of prey—going about their business, a different world than the one he knew during the day. His canine brain relaxed as the stress of his ethical quandaries and anxiety over what was to come regarding Izzy melted away. Instinct and emotion surged up to fill the void, and Wyatt was struck by a new and singular purpose.
Protect.
She was so young. She was all alone in this pack. Everyone else was part of the family. Everyone else had found a home here. But Izzy was a prisoner. She had nobody and could count on nobody to protect her.
I should be the beta, Wyatt realized. My instinct, my core, is to protect my pack. And Izzy is one of us. She’s our omega. We don’t just keep her to be used. We keep her as one of our own, the same way they kept me. And I’ll make sure she’s treated with the care and dignity she deserves.
If she had to breed with someone in the pack, so be it. But Wyatt would fight with everything in him to make sure nothing against her will was ever done to her. He would make sure that whoever she ended up with deserved her and would treat her well.
And I’ll get her out of that room, he swore to himself, curling his paws into the soil and letting his claws rake tracks as he ran. The answers came so quickly to the wolf in him. Knowing what to do next was all but effortless.
Chapter Five
WYATT
Doing it was harder.
“She can’t be allowed out,” Robert said when Wyatt confronted him about it. “She can’t be trusted to stay with us yet. She’d run, and we’d have to expend a lot of energy chasing her down and bringing her back.”
“If we explained to her that she’s safer here with us, though—”
Robert shook his head. “You’ve never met an omega b
efore, have you?”
“No,” Wyatt admitted.
“They’re like children. Their desires are simple, and they can’t understand complex things. And they become even simpler when they go into heat, which she will soon enough. She definitely needs to stay secured until that’s over. Maybe after her heat we can talk about bringing her down to the women’s dorm.”
Wyatt walked away from the conversation unsatisfied and feeling like he understood less than he had when he’d entered it. Could Robert be right about the capacity of omegas to understand things? Izzy hadn’t seemed confused when he’d seen her in her room. She’d seemed frightened and upset, but not as if she didn’t understand what was happening.
“No, we definitely can’t let her out,” Lena said when Wyatt asked her about it later. The two of them were sitting in the library. Lena was sewing a patch over a new rip in Robert’s leather jacket. Wyatt watched her work, her fingers nimble and sure. For the first time, it occurred to him that he would like to have a wife.
“Why can’t we let her out?” he asked. “You don’t really think she could run away from all of us, do you?”
“Probably not,” Lena agreed. “But this isn’t a good environment for her. Omegas don’t live well with other women, that’s common knowledge. Having an omega in the pack creates bad feeling and rivalry. It’s our animal sides taking over. Our human sides might try to overcome it, but it can be powerful.”
“How do you know all this?” Wyatt asked. “Have you lived with an omega before?”
“No,” Lena said. “But it’s part of the lore about them. Weak women have been driven mad by the presence of an omega, the stories say. And some packs have had all their women desert when an omega was brought in.”
“But that might not be true,” Wyatt protested. “It might be a myth.”
“Better to keep her apart,” Lena said. She shook out the vest and examined her handiwork, then nodded and folded it up. “At least, until it’s decided who she’ll be paired with. After that it might be safer. We’ll see.”