Page 11 of Advocate Omega (Unforeseen Paths #1)

Lucan

I shut my mouth before any more of my truths come forward.

Any alpha would happily help him.

But I am not an alpha. Not anymore.

Sigmas rarely exist in clans because we go against the current.

We don’t blend seamlessly with a pack or pod.

We are isolated for a reason, and it’s to keep everything working smoothly without our bullshit clogging it up.

Sure, I wasn’t born a sigma, but I took on the title after everything fell apart, and I own my role.

This is who I am now.

And this omega, despite his resistance, could do severe damage if I let him.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted.

It’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone, so long since I’ve had any craving.

All it’s been for six years is this internal bleeding and gaping hole where my entire purpose used to be.

It’s one thing to date an omega. It’s another to mate with one, and that is precisely what he’s asking me to do.

Sure, some alphas and omegas can approach it from a clinical standpoint.

They can ride nature’s current like it doesn’t have world-shattering consequences.

I’m not one of those people.

My instincts are too strong, my desire to claim sky-high. I was robbed of the chance. I was robbed of everything I held dear, only to fall unsatisfactory in comparison to another alpha.

My pups died in utero. My seed wasn’t strong enough to bond with infertile eggs. I’m a worthless male, and no matter how endearing, attractive, and sweet-smelling this omega is, I can’t fall victim to the trap that is my own heart. I refuse.

Yet, I can’t let him deal with this alone.

He’s not just any omega. He’s a Sorrel omega and the last one.

Valuable doesn’t even begin to describe Zander.

I hate that his lineage and genetics are the sole measure of his worth, but that’s the reality.

If I let him cross that creek, out into our neighboring clan lands, they will take him and use him. Breed him until he fucking breaks.

Those startling blue eyes plead with me to change my mind.

I won’t touch him in that way, I’m sure of it, but I…can help him.

“I know a place,” I start, and he waits for me to finish. “It’s isolated. You’d be…undetectable.”

“So you’d take me there and leave?”

I shake my head, wanting to touch him for reassurance, but I can’t. “I can get you everything you’ll need, make sure you have food and water…um…supplies.”

“Dildos,” he says bluntly. “The kind with knots.”

“Sure,” I rush out. “Whatever kind you want. We can get that, set you up, and I’ll tell my alpha I’m leaving for a few days.”

“What if I’m that asshole who has a week-long heat?”

Ian was never one of those…

“Then we will deal with it.”

“You are really going to help me?”

I swallow hard. “I’m going to try.”

He smiles up at me, those pink lips spreading to reveal white teeth and tiny canines. “Would it be out of line if I hugged you?”

Do I want him to?

Fuck I don’t know. It’s just a hug. That doesn’t mean anything. I—

Zander rushes me and bands his arms around my middle. He nuzzles into my chest, right between my pecs, and sighs happily. “Thank you, Luc.”

No law requires me to inform anyone if I leave our territory.

My clan knows I’m not a risk, that I’d never jeopardize our safety in such a way.

The only reason I’m trekking into our little town is for a singular reason.

If Thalira wanders away from her parents again, and I’m not home, something could happen.

She’s yet to experience her first shift.

She’s innocent and unpredictable. We don’t have predators in our woods, but we do have dangers she’s too young to worry about.

No, I’ll have to let them know and risk running into Ian again.

Thorn Valley has been our home for so long that we are almost entirely self-sufficient.

Had we managed to bring a few more necessities out here, we’d have been completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Electricity is one of them. Energy costs money, so most of us have jobs outside of our homes. Ulric is a fucking mechanic for humans.

A ghost of a smile passes my lips as I remember the first time he came home after a long shift, reeking of human and motor oil, and Ian threw a tantrum.

He needed our scents to feel secure and safe.

Being unable to detect Ulric upset him deeply, and he took it upon himself to tease and taunt Ulric into releasing his pheromones all over the damn place.

Our immediate neighbors came by the following morning with casseroles and fresh meat, thinking Ian had gone into heat.

Gods, I hate coming out here.

Even in the last handful of years, more buildings have been built, more homes and sheds for our livestock.

Rigel and his pod even turned their home into a restaurant of sorts.

Pups run through the smooth dirt roads, laughing and happy.

There are significantly fewer of them this season, mostly betas.

While they will grow up and have successful pods, pups of their own, they won’t produce any alphas or omegas.

I can’t deny the truth that Ulric and Ryker are highlighting.

We are dying out.

Our blood will grow thinner and weaker. Eventually, with the lack of alphas, the betas will also lose their ability to breed.

It’s all interconnected. Our way of life, our roles to play, and knowing there isn’t a fucking thing to be done about it breaks my heart.

Their half-assed plan to use Zander to fix our clan’s problems is foolish and cruel.

They don’t know him.

He would hate it here.

That’s why I’m agreeing to do this. To suffer through a heat with an omega I can’t have or touch. Zander deserves a chance at a life that’s his own, without the pressure of our clan breathing down his neck.

Who is to say it’d even work? We don’t know that.

Our grandsires might have heard tales from centuries ago about a time when our clans had been one, but that was the past. Every clan evolves and shifts with time. That might’ve happened with the Sorrels. It certainly happened to us.

I push the thoughts from my head as I approach my old home. Ulric and Ryker are inside, along with Ian and Thalira. As soon as I step a single foot onto their front lawn, the screen door whips open and Thalira sprints down the shallow porch steps.

“Lulu!” she squeals.

Squatting down as low as I can, I hold my arms out for her as she leaps into them.

As wrong as it is, I love this little pup so much.

Oddly enough, when I discovered Ian’s pregnancy, I thought I’d be riddled with jealousy and bitterness.

Those feelings are there, buried deep, but the moment I laid eyes on her, this precious little omega, those old instincts to protect and nurture blossomed inside me.

She wasn’t mine, and I didn’t partake in her creation, but she was an extension of those I once called kin.

Even now, some part of me is convinced I hold an important role in her life.

“Did you bring fishy?”

I laugh, standing and keeping her tucked to my chest.

The rest of her pod come outside, first Urlic, then Ryker, and finally…Ian.

It hasn’t even been two hours since he scolded me for corrupting his pup. “No, sweet girl, I didn’t bring fishy. Soon, though, I promise.”

She pouts, but gives up quickly to burrow into my beard. Her little nose sniffs and rubs all over it, needing something from my scent that her sires and father can’t give her.

“Thalira,” Ian coos. “Come on now, we need to finish our cookies.”

“Oh!” she gasps. “Lulu, Lira make cookies. Want cookies?”

My heart squeezes. “Maybe next time?”

“Father’s cookies look ugly.”

I laugh. Ian is a terrible baker and even worse at frosting.

“Thalira,” Ulric commands. She perks up in my arms, instinct overriding her desire to be with me, and she wiggles to be put down.

If I wanted to, I could make her stay. Sometimes, I seriously consider it.

I gently put her on her feet, and she runs to her sire. He grabs her like I’ll steal her away and nuzzles her throat, replacing my scent with his. Ryker folds his arms and says, “Why are you here?”

That question, laced with protective hostility, makes my hackles rise.

I want to argue that if it weren’t for Ian, I would have every right to that little girl.

She’d be just as much mine as she is theirs.

But I bite my tongue. This argument isn’t why I’m here.

The pain in my chest returns, nearly knocking the wind from my lungs, but I don’t allow it to show.

Besides, they know I feel it. They know it plagues me every waking fucking minute.

Both of them were more than happy to cast me aside so they could have Ian for themselves.

“I’m leaving the valley for a few days.”

“Why?” Ulric demands.

It won’t work on me because, despite my label as sigma, I’m not swayed by his position. He can pump out as much authority in his tone as he wants; it won’t make my knees buckle or my spine straighten. “Need to take some time away from the clan.”

“Now isn’t a good time. I need you to keep an eye on the creek. We still haven’t found the Sorrel omega.”

If I have anything to say about it, he never will.

“I’m not catching your prey,” I snap.

He bristles, snarling and baring his canines at me. Ryker takes Thalira inside, and Ian strokes Ulric’s neck and arm. “She doesn’t like it when you two argue,” Ian purrs, using his calming aura to seduce his alpha out of a rage.

Watching it makes me sick.

“Listen to your omega,” I growl. “Take care of your pup and leave me to my business.”

Ian’s eyes find mine.

I suspect I’ll always find him beautiful.

With his smooth, sun-kissed skin and deep brown eyes.

Those delicate cheekbones and a headful of wavy golden hair.

But that beauty only goes so far with Ian.

At the end of the day, he didn’t want me.

Our bond severed in a single moment. In his eyes, I was never a mate.

I was a necessity that he prayed not to need.

He wanted me for moments, in fits of uncontrolled lust when one cock wasn’t good enough.

And when I couldn’t give Ian what he wanted, he decided he could.

I break our stare and focus on Ulric.

Pushing authority into my voice, I say, “I plan on being gone for a few days, might be longer. I’ll have my phone if you need to reach me; otherwise, I expect to be given the respect of former kin.”

He’s calmed down some; the touch of his omega has that effect. “You are still kin,” he murmurs. “Even if you refuse to see that.”

I’m not getting into this again.

A rejected alpha can’t live under the same roof as the omega that rejected him.

It doesn’t work.

It’s fucking torture.

Regardless of my bonds with Ulric and Ryker, I can’t do it.

It was hard enough when I had to share Ian—when I had to hope and pray that our courtship would end in a mating bond.

Competing with my friend to win the heart of the omega I had wanted for fucking years wasn’t something I ever thought I’d do, but I did it for Ian.

I can’t fathom having to live the rest of my life watching him love and fuck Ulric while I sit on the sidelines as a glorified bodyguard.

I’d rather be alone.

“Have a good day,” I say and give them my back.