Omega Reimagined volume 2

by Tanya Chris

  Quoitrel filled him in on the situation with the Western Pack, including the possibility that the Southern Pack would send an army of its own.

  Donovan acknowledged that with a solemn nod. “They were fed up with us even before I came here. I was supposed to retrieve Carmen—save her from the horrors of being mated to a female beta, you know—but I had to tell her father I was bailing on the job. He’s a pretty influential guy. Not a warrior himself, but he would have Head Alpha Lisol’s ear.”

  “You’re sure you’d be on our side in a war, right?”

  “A hundred percent.”

  “Then I’m putting you in charge of making us battle-ready. Go home and catch a few hours’ sleep, then get back here and run the other deputies through some sparring drills. Make it a priority. We can leave our usual troublemakers to themselves for a day or two.”

  Unless the usual troublemakers were harassing Daisy. To make sure they weren’t, Quoitrel swung past the red-light district more often than he normally would while out on patrol. As he was strolling through market square on his way back to the Sheriff’s Office after one of those safety checks, he heard his name being called and turned to find Gillis hailing him from across the way.

  He didn’t really want to talk to Gillis, but sheriffs didn’t get to pick which citizens they talked to, so he loitered next to a stand selling meat pies while he waited for Gillis to catch up. If he bought some meat pies, he could bring them over to the brothel later, make sure Daisy was getting enough to eat between dates.

  “Sheriff.” Gillis huffed up to him. Like a lot of alphas in North Leland, he’d let himself get out of shape. It was easier to buy food than hunt it, and challenges had become almost unheard-of now that omegas weren’t considered property for alphas to fight over. But if control of the Northern Pack ended up in Harrod’s hands, they were all going to wish they had more trained fighters.

  “Listen,” Gillis said when he’d caught his breath. “About last night.”

  “If you want to hire a sex worker, that’s between you and your mate.” According to Daisy, sometimes omegas were relieved to have their alphas go rail on someone else for a while. It wasn’t supposed to be any of Quoitrel’s business.

  “I don’t want to hire a sex worker. I don’t even like males sexually. My concern is solely for the safety of our omega citizens. But I heard what happened last night, and I’m a big enough person to admit I may have misjudged. In fact, my mate tells me I definitely misjudged. She, uh, she agrees that omegas ought to be allowed to engage in sex work. She doesn’t want to be a sex worker herself, you understand.”

  “You don’t have to want to do something yourself to respect another person’s right to do it.”

  “Yes, well, I get that. For instance, you want to have sex with men, and I don’t. To each their own and et cetera. Now, sex work seems to me more a matter of public health and safety than individual preference, but Malia tells me I’m wrong, so…”

  “So?”

  “So I apologize. We all need to be on the same side here. We can’t be fighting amongst ourselves when there are greater threats.”

  Since Quoitrel couldn’t argue with that, he let go of the grudge he’d been carrying against Gillis for trying to interfere both with his ability to uphold the law and with his omega. He gave him a reconciliatory hug, glad that public opinion was starting to swing Daisy’s way. Things were really looking up for Quoitrel. Daisy still wanted to carry on with him, despite having a hundred other sex partners to choose from, and his arrival had ratcheted Quoitrel’s sex life up to a whole new level. If it weren’t for the threat Harrod posed, life would be perfect.

  Since he was still standing in front of the meat pie stand, he bought a half dozen to bring over to the brothel later. Then he headed back to the Sheriff’s Office to check on those combat drills Donovan had going on. The sooner they got the external threat neutralized, the sooner he could get busy being happy.

  Chapter 10

  When forty extra-large wolves set up camp on the outskirts of town, people noticed. On his way over to the brothel that night, Quoitrel was stopped a dozen times by concerned citizens wanting to express their opinions.

  Some alphas were ready to charge right out to the western forest and tackle Harrod’s forces single handedly. They tended to be the alphas least qualified to do so, but he was heartened by how many of them expressed solidarity with the immigrant omegas being threatened. Unfortunately, nearly as many thought “this whole omega thing” had gone too far. And it wasn’t just alphas either. Plenty of betas wondered aloud whether omega rights were really important enough to go to war over.

  More than once, Quoitrel heard Prince Devin suggested as a solution. The fact that Devin had triggered the current crisis by knotting Head Alpha Harrod’s son and then sending him away as if Owen were nothing but a fucktoy didn’t bother the wolves who imagined Devin as their savior. In their minds, the problem was the laws, not Devin. Devin would put everything back the way it used to be, and then Harrod would go away and they could all live their privileged non-omega lives without any trouble. By the time Quoitrel arrived at the brothel, he’d run out of patience for that particular set of wolves.

  The door to the brothel was fastened tight, barred from the inside so sturdily not even Harrod’s army could’ve gotten through it. For once Quoitrel didn’t feel uncomfortable about Daisy living in what was essentially a fortress. Historically, bad things happened to omegas when packs went to war. At least Daisy had a safe place to retreat to.

  One of Daisy’s green-jumpsuited staff answered the bell, guarding the half-open door as if she could stop Quoitrel from getting through it. “Sheriff. Did you have an appointment?”

  “That’s Daisy’s beau,” said another female voice. Suki appeared at the door to open it wider. “Daisy’s with a client, but he said you could go up to his room if you want to wait.”

  Quoitrel stashed the meat pies in the kitchen, then trotted up the spiral staircase that led from the back of the throne room to the top floor. A long hall ran the length of the building with rooms on either side of it. Back in the day, every room had been full, but now only the three largest ones were fitted out for use. Two of the doors stood open, making it easy to guess where Daisy and his customer were, even if the sounds leaking out from behind the closed door didn’t give their location away.

  At the far end of the hall, Daisy’s personal bedroom had everything Quoitrel needed to waste some time. A comfortable sofa, a set of dumbbells. Even a television and a healthy stack of DVDs. Both types, as JT liked to say—porn and not-porn. There was no reason to linger in the hallway, but Quoitrel pressed his forehead to the wood of the closed door. The scent of sex drifted through it. Daisy—unmistakably Daisy—and an alpha. It was all slick and pheromones so far. No one had come yet. But there were gasps and groans and the slap of flesh against flesh and then the rougher sound of a knot being forced in and out of a tight hole. Daisy was being fucked so hard the door shook. Or maybe that was Quoitrel who was shaking.

  He snuck a hand onto his cock, holding his breath as he stroked so his panting wouldn’t give him away. He shouldn’t be hanging out here like this. Eavesdropping, imagining, working himself into a state as frantic as if he were the one doing the fucking. His hips moved unconsciously, while his tongue snuck out to taste what he could smell.

  The rough rasp of wood against his tongue startled him back to awareness. He was licking a fucking door with his hand down his pants, perving on folks who hadn’t invited him to participate. He forced himself to march down the hall to Daisy’s room where he flopped onto the bed, rolling back and forth across it to coat himself in Daisy’s scent. His pants were so tight they hurt, so he shoved them off, taking his boots, his shirt, all of it off until he was naked, all splayed out as if he could reach Daisy if he only stretched far enough.

  He could still hear the sounds from down the hall. Wolf ears were too sensitive, and he was too aware. He could shut the door, put on a
movie, try to drown them out, but he lay there and listened, one hand moving slowly over his cock. The customer’s throaty growl announced an impending climax. Daisy’s moans became squeaks to match it—high-pitched, hot noises that weren’t quite right.

  He could fuck Daisy better, he told himself. Make Daisy scream himself hoarse, then moan himself to sleep. He stroked his cock to images of how perfect Daisy probably looked right now with a knot up his ass. He’d like to give Daisy his own knot, which threatened to pop despite there not even being an omega in the room with him, but Daisy would likely be too tired for more sex. The most considerate thing he could do was take care of himself, but he’d only just started to seriously address himself to that task when Daisy appeared in the doorway.

  “Thank fuck you’re here.” He was wearing a light pink satin robe, unbelted so it framed him more than covered him, and his hair was wild around his face as if he’d been fucked as hard as Quoitrel had been imagining.

  “I expected you to be knotted for a while.”

  “He’s the old fashioned type. No knotting outside of claiming. I only got a taste of it before he pulled out and came all over my ass. I’m fucking randy. And sticky.” Daisy shrugged off his robe, then jumped on Quoitrel, landing right on his lap so that his ass ground down on Quoitrel’s cock. Quoitrel got his hand out of the way, burrowing it instead into the cleft of Daisy’s ass to feel the splooge his customer had left between his cheeks.

  “Want me to clean that up for you?”

  “Goddess, would you?” Daisy rolled onto his back and jacked his knees up to his ears, bending himself into a shape that was all mouth and ass. Quoitrel obligingly put his tongue into Daisy’s ass crack where the scent and taste of another alpha mixed with Daisy’s slick. He didn’t mind the other alpha’s leaving— not terribly—and he definitely enjoyed removing it. He was determined to be thorough, but Daisy pushed his head away after a few minutes.

  “Knot, already. I’m dying for it.”

  “Haven’t you been fucked three times today?” Quoitrel teased as he slid his cock home. He was dying for it too.

  “Sadly mediocre,” Daisy said with a little laugh that turned into a moan when Quoitrel got the angle right. “Great Moon, that’s good. You do know how to fuck, Sheriff.” He hiked his hips up even higher, allowing Quoitrel to drill straight down into him. His knot was already partway up, at that perfect volume where it got a good squeeze every time it popped through without hindering his rhythm.

  This was his favorite part, and Daisy’s too, but it was so hard to hang onto. They couldn’t help moving faster, going harder. The frenzied rhythm made his knot expand until they were fucking in the jerky motions that full inflation required—jam it in, yank it out. And okay, they both liked this part too. It was so intense—each pass of his knot through that impassible barrier. Daisy started a crooning wail that was almost like screaming, and Quoitrel couldn’t hold back any longer.

  He buried himself with a roar to echo Daisy’s, and then Daisy was crying, his eyes wet with tears and a blubbering mess of noises falling from his lips—too real to be pretty, but still the most gorgeous thing Quoitrel had ever seen. He helped Daisy unhook his knees from behind his ears and rolled them over so Daisy could blanket him like a tiny comforter.

  “Shh,” he whispered against Daisy’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

  The first time Daisy had started crying after they fucked, Quoitrel had panicked. He would never, ever want to hurt this precious omega. But he’d gotten used to the tears by now. They just meant it’d been good, that Daisy had had a release satisfying enough to leave him empty. And the shudders that accompanied the tears were jolts of pleasure—the same ones Quoitrel felt as they held onto each other so tightly even Harrod’s army wouldn’t have been able to separate them.

  “If I’d been fucked like that three times, I’d be dead,” Daisy said when he’d sniffled himself into calmness again. “Anyway, one was just a blowjob, so it was two fucks.”

  Quoitrel snuck a kiss onto Daisy’s neck beneath the yards of hair. His hair took up as much real estate as his body practically. Quoitrel wound his hands through it, finger-combing it back into order. “The other client knotted you?”

  Daisy nodded against his chest. “That one was okay. They were all good, really. Respectful during and pleased after. I enjoy my job, but that doesn’t mean I always get to come. I’m glad you were here.”

  “Me too.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t know you were out there, by the way. I could smell you through the door. No wonder I was so fucking horny for a knot. Did you like listening?” He raised his head, waiting for an answer without his usual confidence.

  “I wish I could’ve watched.” There. He’d said it. “I liked watching last night. I liked listening today. I think I might have a kink.”

  Daisy laughed and put his head on Quoitrel’s shoulder, letting Quoitrel go back to the job of sorting through his hair. “Then you really are perfect for me, aren’t you?”

  Quoitrel’s hands stilled. He’d been thinking almost since they met that Daisy was the perfect omega, but he’d never imagined Daisy having similar thoughts about him. What could it mean, though? Daisy had just opened this place, and he’d fought hard to do it. He wouldn’t want to give it up so Quoitrel could claim him. Maybe if he had some other omegas to handle his customer base…

  “How’d those interviews go?” His knot had deflated enough to allow his cock to ooze slowly from Daisy’s ass, but he kept him there in his arms.

  “Pretty good. I’ve got one definite and one maybe. She has to talk her family into it, which doesn’t give me very high hopes, but at least she expressed interest. The third one was a bust. He wants the money but not the sex. If I took him on, he’d burn out in a week. Or just be miserable. Sex work sounds easy, but it’s not. Knot. Get it?” Daisy giggled at his own joke. “Kidding aside, I had to tell him he wasn’t what I was looking for.”

  When Daisy’s stomach growled, Quoitrel regretfully determined that snuggle time was over. Daisy’s work was demanding, just like he’d said.

  “I suppose you’re booked for the next two years,” Quoitrel said as they padded down the stairs to the kitchen to heat up the pies he’d brought. Daisy’s staff had left with his last customer, so they had the kitchen to themselves, the two of them working in concert to pull together a meal.

  “Only for the next week.”

  “What? That can’t be.”

  “I haven’t taken any appointments beyond that, only contact info and spots on the wait list. My heat should start in a week or so, and I like to have some time off beforehand.”

  “And then?” He hadn’t really thought about how heats would work.

  “And then it’s go-time,” Daisy said with a laugh as he bent over the oven to poke at the pies with a fork. “Ideally, I find a single buyer for the whole thing. It’s less of a strain on me.”

  “Because you’re supposed to be taken care of during your heat,” Quoitrel said with a scowl. “Not be taking care of someone else.” He didn’t think much of this idea. Daisy in control was one a thing. Daisy strung out on heat at the mercy of a stranger who might not care about anything except his own selfish satisfaction was another.

  “It’s really lucrative though,” Daisy said with a sigh. “And sometimes it works out.”

  “But sometimes it doesn’t?”

  Daisy came over to the table where Quoitrel had been adjusting silverware that didn’t need to be adjusted and walked into his arms. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be sorry.” He kissed the top of Daisy’s head, nestling into all that fragrant golden hair. “It’s not about me. It’s about me worrying about you.”

  “I know.” Daisy tipped his head up, and Quoitrel kissed him. They hadn’t kissed much outside of the bedroom. Really, he didn’t have a lot of experience with this kind of kissing, given that his partners had all been sex workers or hookups. He fell into it now, letting Daisy guide him until the gen
tle mutual exploration felt as natural and intense as knotting.

  When the smell of roasting meat couldn’t be ignored any longer, Daisy went to get the pies out of the oven, leaving Quoitrel’s arms empty and his dick hard.

  Why did it have to be Daisy? Why couldn’t he have fallen for one of the many omegas in North Leland who were looking to be monogamously claimed?

  Because it could only be Daisy, that was why. He’d let those other omegas pass by for years, expecting that someday someone would strike his fancy hard enough that he couldn’t ignore them. Well, someday had come, and Daisy was it. And he couldn’t pretend Daisy being a sex worker wasn’t part of his appeal.

  But he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a complication either.

  Chapter 11

  When Quoitrel got into work the next morning, he found a note from Angel asking him to attend a conference at the palace that afternoon. He spent the morning watching Donovan take the other deputies through some drills, then walked over to the palace dressed in full uniform. In the throne room—the real throne room, not a replica where Daisy was about to entertain a horny crowd—Angel and Devin were already seated in a pair of matching chairs that’d been positioned on either side of the empty throne. So whatever was going on, the royal family was putting on a show of force for it.

  Angel raised a hand to greet him as the council streamed in to form a line behind the throne. The council was meant to be the head alpha’s sounding board, a governing body that could be appealed to in matters of law, but most of the members had been appointed back in the days when pack policies were very different. In the years since Head Alpha Marta had begun making changes, she’d only had the opportunity to replace two council members, meaning they tended to vote five to two in favor of the status quo. With an external threat on their doorstep, Quoitrel hoped the council would stand behind her more than just literally.