Omega Reimagined volume 2

by Tanya Chris

  “You see how strong my workers are?” Daisy stopped one of the betas to fondle her bicep. “Never underestimate the power of a beta.”

  This raised a cheer from the smattering of betas in the crowd. Quoitrel remembered what Daisy had said about his staff being prepared to handle unruly alphas. That stunt with rotating the throne had obviously been planned to demonstrate that Daisy wasn’t as unprotected as people might think, but whether anyone else had picked up on the underlying message, Quoitrel couldn’t say. They were all too excited about the prospect of watching Daisy go down on Hal.

  Daisy made a show of stripping off his gloves, peeling them slowly, one at a time, down his forearms, as if forearms were a particularly erotic part of the body. Well, they were now. Quoitrel’s cock had softened when he’d thought he was about to do battle, pulling back into his body in instinctive protection, but when Daisy lowered himself gracefully onto his knees, the spikes of his heels sticking up behind him and those rhinestone starbursts twinkling on the proud outthrust of his chest, Quoitrel went full hard again.

  Daisy maintained his position for a moment—upright and strong, but so small and delicate. Quoitrel wished he could capture this moment forever, have a picture to hang on his wall as the perfect remembrance of a perfect omega. Then Daisy used his hands to separate Hal’s knees with a wink for the crowd. He licked his lips and raised his eyes. A sound rumbled from him that could only be described as a purr—an omega submissively seeking his alpha’s approval.

  Hal gave him a tight nod. Even from a distance, Quoitrel could see Hal was about to pop. Daisy was going to have to go slow if he wanted to make much of a show out of this, but of course Daisy knew what he was doing. He lifted higher onto his knees and opened his mouth in a wide O over Hal’s cock. His tongue flickered out, pointy and pink, to dab at the pre-come oozing from Hal’s slit. He sucked it in, then let out a throaty moan that had Hal gasping and half the alphas in the room grabbing for their dicks.

  Moving with slow, deliberate intent, Daisy lowered his mouth over the head of Hal’s cock and swallowed visibly. With his hair up and his hands behind his back, there was nothing blocking the crowd’s view of his throat working to take Hal deeper and deeper. Daisy couldn’t have lucked into a better subject. Hal groaned, thrusting his hips up, and Daisy took him the rest of the way down, bottoming out with his chin tucked against Hal’s balls. He tilted his head back farther, never breaking eye contact even as Hal’s eyes rolled back in his head.

  Hal was going to have to be carried out on a stretcher. And Daisy would never lack for business, not if he worked a hundred years. There was no one in the room who didn’t want to be the one he was servicing, not even those omegas, but the only one besides Hal who knew that Daisy’s mouth felt as good as it looked was Quoitrel. He’d had those pretty painted lips sliding up and down his shaft, and though he could hardly grope himself in front of everyone, not while wearing his uniform, he was as hard as steel from the memory of it. He couldn’t be harder if he were in Hal’s place himself.

  It didn’t bother him, he realized with a flash of lucidity. He was jealous of Hal without being possessive of Daisy. Sure, he’d like to be where Hal was, but he didn’t hate being where he was either. If he weren’t working, he’d be jacking it. And if he got off watching Daisy have sex with someone else, he’d feel like he’d just had sex with Daisy too. Because he would have. Just in a different way.

  Every wolf in the room was having sex with Daisy right now—caught up in his performance, totally hot for him. And Daisy knew it. He glowed in the spotlight of a hundred eyes. Every motion was choreography, and the dance was pure seduction. He managed to draw out the show longer than Quoitrel would’ve believed possible by pulling off every few strokes to lick Hal’s balls or suck one into his mouth. His cheek bulged in a way that might’ve been comical or cute on another omega, but Daisy made it purely filthy.

  He rocked back on his heels until just the tip of Hal’s cock remained in his mouth, then gestured Hal forward, encouraging him to thrust. Hal began to move—tentatively at first but with increasing vigor as Daisy showed he could handle anything. Hal’s ass lifted off the throne. He strained forward, crouched over Daisy, rocketing into him. The crowd strained forward too, breathlessly urging Hal on, their own hips moving in sympathy until Hal climaxed with a roar that would’ve shaken the building if it weren’t made of stone. No wonder Daisy had wanted something sturdy.

  Hal dropped back onto the throne, thoroughly drained. Daisy trailed his tongue around the open O of his lips. When he rose to his feet, Quoitrel half expected him to take a bow, but instead he crawled onto Hal’s lap. Hal tucked his head into the mass of Daisy’s hair and scented him in gulping gasps. The last of Quoitrel’s uncertainty faded away. He saw it now. Daisy’s sexuality might be a performance, but it was also a service.

  The crowd had watched the blowjob in rapt silence, but conversations broke out once the cuddling commenced—every wolf wanting to tell his neighbor what he’d just seen, as if his neighbor hadn’t seen the same thing—until a liveried beta at the other end of the room rang a bell to draw their attention.

  “We are now accepting appointments,” the beta intoned, and the crowd surged in his direction while Quoitrel marveled at Daisy’s facility for crowd management. People would disperse now. Everything had gone perfectly, and there’d been no need for Quoitrel at all. He relaxed against the wall, but his relief was short-lived, because instead of joining the throng around the beta holding an appointment book, Prince Devin strolled up the steps to loom over Daisy and Hal.

  “My turn.”

  Daisy held a finger to his lips in a gentle shush.

  “You said wait my turn, and I did. Now it’s my turn.”

  “If you make an appointment…”

  “Now.” Devin gave Daisy’s slender arm a yank, pulling him away from Hal who opened his eyes with a sleepy hey. Hal jumped to his feet, bravely facing down the bigger alpha, no doubt influenced by the hormones running through him that were trying to tell him Daisy belonged to him. Quoitrel thought Daisy belonged to him too. He ran for the stage, but before either he or Hal could intervene, a cadre of betas formed a circle around the prince.

  Daisy tore his arm away from Devin and raised his chin imperiously. “Please escort His Excellency out of the building and don’t allow him back in. He is henceforth banned.”

  “You can’t ban me.”

  “I can, and I have. Let that be a lesson to all of you,” Daisy said to the stunned crowd. “The omegas in this space will be protected. Attempt to harm one, and you’ll be banned. Permanently. I don’t give a fuck who you are.” He snarled that last line at Devin, giving Quoitrel a glimpse of that other Daisy, the one who was tough and real, not just a fantasy on legs.

  Prince Devin growled. He rotated to face each of the betas in the circle surrounding him, but none of them backed away. Quoitrel joined the circle, letting his presence show that there was an alpha ready to fight for Daisy too. Hal was there too, and Daisy continued to face Devin with an assurance that suggested he didn’t even need help to handle such a petty tyrant.

  Quoitrel knew Devin was a coward. He might bully a beta or manhandle an omega, but in the face of real opposition, he always turned tail and ran. So it wasn’t a surprise when he swirled his cape around him in a clear admission that he didn’t intend to fight.

  “You would’ve been wiser to understand who your friends were, omega. It was only thanks to my intervention that Marta allowed you to open this farce of an establishment in the first place. But I should’ve known an omega couldn’t run a business. You think I care about a lifetime ban when I’ll have you shut down by Tuesday?”

  “See him out.” Daisy turned his back, prompting a roar from Prince Devin, which Daisy didn’t react to at all.

  Two of the betas took Devin’s arms. He shook them off but walked down the steps on his own accord to stride imperiously through the parting crowd as if he hadn’t just been thrown out. Another
beta opened the heavy iron door, and Prince Devin sailed through it. The door shut behind him with a heavy clank.

  “Well.” Daisy clapped his hands, that steely backbone he’d just given everyone a glimpse of dropping from him in an instant. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” His attempt at humor got only scattered laughs, but the atmosphere lightened a little. “Remember, at Daisy’s House of Delights, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you act like a decent wolf, you’ll be treated like a prince. If you act like an asshole, you’ll be shown the door. Now, who wants to be my alpha tomorrow night?” A lot of hands went up. “Then you know what you need to do.” He swept a hand toward the beta with the datebook, redirecting attention away from himself again.

  Quoitrel gave the crowd a moment to focus elsewhere before approaching him. “Okay?”

  This close, he could feel Daisy’s body vibrating. Daisy offered him a bright smile, but there was nothing behind it. It was all glimmer and glam.

  “Not okay,” Quoitrel diagnosed. He lifted a hand to Daisy’s cheek, and Daisy nuzzled into it.

  “You’ll stick around?”

  “Forever.”

  Chapter 9

  “You should’ve seen him,” Quoitrel said. “Ice in his veins, absolutely fearless.”

  “Mm.” Angel looked tired, even more tired than the last time Quoitrel had seen him.

  “Sorry.” He’d been running through everything that had happened last night—well, not the blowjob, not in detail—but Angel’s attention had clearly wandered. Maybe Quoitrel had gotten carried away in his enthusiasm.

  Angel waved a weary hand. “No, no, I’m sorry. We had a late strategy session last night.” He poured himself another cup of coffee from the carafe on the corner of his desk, then offered the carafe to Quoitrel.

  Quoitrel shook his head, even though he’d had a late night too. It’d taken a while to clear everyone out of the brothel, and then he and Daisy had gone upstairs and broken in Daisy’s new bedroom really thoroughly. At first he’d felt uncertain about asking Daisy for anything after the night he’d already had, but then Daisy reminded him that the only one who’d gotten off up on that stage was Hal. If the show had made Quoitrel horny, it’d made Daisy even hornier, and with Prince Devin firmly dismissed from both their minds, they fucked each other into a sleep deep enough to make up for its lack of length. Quoitrel was bouncy today, in no need of caffeine to wake him up.

  “It’s good news,” Angel said. “Not about Devin being an ass, but that Daisy seems prepared to handle it.”

  “So you don’t think your brother will convince your mother to pull his license?”

  Angel snorted. “Even Devin can’t fool himself about his complete lack of influence with Marta. She’ll probably award Daisy a medal of honor for standing up to him.” Angel cracked the first smile Quoitrel had seen from him that morning. “She’ll be relieved, I promise, and more likely to let Daisy continue, not less. But either way, I’m afraid Daisy and his House of Delights is the furthest thing from her mind this morning.”

  “What’s going on?” Quoitrel sat up straighter, embarrassed he’d been talking Angel’s ear off about Daisy if there were bigger problems to worry about.

  “You remember that envoy from the Western Pack? Head Alpha Harrod arrived to join them yesterday.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Accompanied by enough warriors that it’s fair to call them an army. They’re camped outside town in the western forest. Forty alphas, maybe more.”

  “Holy Lady of the Moon,” Quoitrel whispered. “There must be some way to mollify them short of outright war. We don’t even know where Owen is.”

  “Officially, we don’t know where Owen is,” Angel said. “Between you and me, he’s in Hybernia with Keesh and Fortis. The three of them have formed a triad and are reportedly very happy.”

  Quoitrel gave a low whistle. Triads were an important part of Central Pack lore—supposedly the Central Pack had been founded by one—but he’d never heard of such a thing in modern times.

  “Fortis doesn’t mind sharing his omega?” He wasn’t on intimate terms with Fortis, but the Northern Pack alpha had always come across as pretty typically gruff.

  “I have no idea how it works,” Angel admitted. “I can’t imagine allowing anyone else to touch Leo.”

  Quoitrel dropped his eyes. Maybe if he could talk to Fortis, he could find common ground with him, something that would lessen this feeling of being different from every other alpha on earth. Why had he enjoyed last night so much? Why had the memory of Daisy going down on Hal played through his mind while he’d been fucking Daisy later? In a twisted perversion of possession, he felt like Daisy’s prowess was all for him, regardless of who the actual recipient was.

  “Can’t we just let Harrod know Owen is happy where he is?” he asked Angel, reminding himself they had a problem more pressing than his alpha identity crisis to deal with.

  “Owen has written his father letters, which we’ve passed on, but Harrod insists on speaking to him in person. I’m not willing to sacrifice the Central Pack’s safety for the sake of our own. Too many omegas have taken refuge there. Bringing that to Harrod’s attention would be the beginning of a problem, not the end of it.”

  Quoitrel understood the wisdom of Angel’s position. The Central Pack was neither big nor aggressive. They welcomed outsiders, particularly runaway omegas but also any other wolf who found themself without a pack. The indigenous alphas were on the smaller side, and their head alpha was actually an omega. There was no way they could handle an army from a pack that grew alphas as big as tree trunks.

  “And it’s not just Owen,” Angel said with a sigh. “Head Alpha Harrod is demanding all the Western Pack omegas be returned—anyone who hasn’t been properly claimed according to Western Pack law.”

  “You mean Leo.”

  “Yes, Leo. And not only Leo. You see why we can’t mollify them.”

  “Of course.” He understood the strain on Angel’s face better now. Angel didn’t want to start a pack war over his omega, but any alpha would. Let somebody try to haul Daisy back to Eastern Pack territory against his will and they’d see how fast Quoitrel would start a war. “I don’t think anyone is going to disagree that we need to protect our omegas.”

  Angel gave him a wry glance. “You don’t think so?”

  “Well.”

  “Exactly. This plays right into the hands of Devin and the other alphas who hate the changes we’ve been making. Harrod claims he has the Southern Pack behind him too. We’re at a boiling point, Quoitrel. I’m glad things went well for Daisy last night, because I’m going to need your focus on this.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “No, I’m not criticizing you. You’ve found someone who lights you up, and I’m happy about that. But for his sake, and everyone else’s sake, we need to figure out how to turn away the marauders at our door. We can’t give in to their demands, and I don’t see Harrod changing his mind.”

  “Do you think your mother can take him in a challenge?”

  “I wouldn’t say this in the marketplace, but no. We spar with each other, and she’s not what she used to be. She’s still tactically brilliant, but she doesn’t have the speed that used to be her trademark. Harrod doesn’t know that, of course, which is why he’s treading carefully, but we have to plan for her to lose.”

  And die. That was what challenges came to.

  “She’s prepared to die,” Angel said. His Adam’s apple bobbed with the emotion he wasn’t expressing. “But we can’t afford to have Harrod on the throne, not even briefly.”

  “You have to challenge her yourself,” Quoitrel said, circling back to that argument they’d had only a week ago.

  “I can’t kill my own mother, Quoitrel. Help me find another way.” Angel’s expression was so miserable Quoitrel felt himself leaking pheromones like he was soothing an omega in distress. Angel smiled as if it were totally normal for one alpha to soothe another. “That helps. More practically though…�
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  More practically, Quoitrel didn’t have a solution. Not one that came to him. He made his way to the Sheriff’s Office with slow footsteps. He wanted to go by the brothel to make sure everything was quiet there, but Angel had told him where to focus his attention, and it wasn’t on the sexy omega in the mock palace. Daisy would be busy anyway. This morning he had interviews with some omegas who were thinking about joining him, and in the afternoon he had two dates scheduled. Which weren’t really any of Quoitrel’s business, much as he wanted to peep in on them.

  He pushed into the relative dark of the Sheriff’s Office to find his newest deputy, Donovan, lounging at the desk they all shared with his boots up on it. Donovan scrambled to his feet with a mumbled apology and a gesture almost like a salute.

  “Quiet night?” A glance at the holding cell showed it was empty. Before Donovan had joined the force, they hadn’t even bothered with a night shift, but the Southern Pack alpha was a recent immigrant who’d needed a job.

  “No trouble,” Donovan confirmed, still maintaining a posture reminiscent of parade rest.

  “Stand down,” Quoitrel told him with a wave. He was too distracted this morning for protocol, and any of his other deputies would laugh at him if he tried to enforce it. Donovan had a taste for authority. “Sorry we don’t have more for you to do.”

  “I could’ve helped you at the brothel last night. You should’ve had backup.”

  “Would you have helped?” He hadn’t asked for backup out of the same fear Angel had expressed—that his deputies would be as likely to harass Daisy as protect him.

  “Of course,” Donovan answered with a scowl. “It’s my job. And anyway, it’s the right thing to do. Everyone should be allowed to have sex with whoever they want. Even for money, I guess.”

  If Donovan, who’d once made a living “rescuing” omegas who’d managed to escape from the Southern Pack, could understand Daisy’s position, then maybe there was hope for the rest of North Leland. Donovan was still finding his way into life in the Northern Pack after mating with another alpha—to the disgust of some and the surprise of many. He would understand how it felt to be judged, and now that Quoitrel thought about it, he was the perfect wolf to whip the North Leland Sheriff Department into a fighting force. Donovan had actual fighting experience, a strong work ethic, and he wasn’t really doing anything.