Page 33 of Brave New Omega, Part 2

Chapter 33

CALLUM

I steer Katie through the dining room toward the row of glass double doors that lead to a veranda and a sprawling ornamental garden. Rich people and their little quirks. I thought about tugging my Omega into one of the Pleasure Closets, but that might be too much too fast.

Fuck, I haven’t really kissed her, not in the way I want to. Not in the unhurried way I desire.

No, right now we both need to get out of that crowded dining room and away from that caustic Beta and the scrutiny of all the society women.

Katie keeps pace beside me, her hand flat on my arm where I’ve linked it with hers. To any snoop watching us, we look like any other Alpha and Omega taking a stroll through the gardens. We take the steps at a decidedly fast trot, heading toward the center of the rose gardens– a garden with at least two bowers designed to accommodate trysts. For all that Pack Belrose are prudes about Alpha relationships, they are more than happy to accommodate other designations sneaking off together.

I want to growl, but I swallow down the feeling. I don’t need to stoke any more of the fire.

“Do you like roses?” She asks, unlooping her arm from mine and pausing before a bush still laden with fist-sized pink flowers.

“These are like roses back home, but bigger– and our stems are all green with a little bit of purple now and again. But yours are so vibrant– green, purple, blue– they nearly as colorful as the flowers!”

She stoops, sniffing an open bloom. It’s a sweet gesture, but all I can see is her tight ass hugged by that velvet dress. I growl low in the back of my throat. Not anger, but desire. She freezes, unfolding slowly and turning toward me. Night creeps in around us, Sola Majora already sinking below the horizon, and the fainter light of Sola Minor already melting into a haze of pink.

I swallow and turn away. I am going to rip that dress to shreds if I don’t regain some control.

“Do you not like me?” Katie says, her voice tight with annoyance. “Because I can’t read you, Callum. You’re hot then cold. You’re jumping on me in the hospital, then hardly speaking to me. You’re making me come on your fingers, then refusing to give me after care– isn’t that what Alphas are supposed to do?”

Her words bite, too similar to another woman’s words. Only this time, the accusations are valid.

“Don’t,” I warn. I need control. I need her to be willing to submit to me, not because she has to, but because she chooses. Because she trusts that I will take care of her, in and out of bed.

“Don’t what?” She snaps back, throwing her hands in the air. “You give me a gift, but now can't hold a simple conversation? I just don’t understand you, Callum. Do you want me or not? Am I your center or all those just pretty words you’ve rehearsed? Are you merely tolerating me for Loren and Max’s sake? Because, fuck if I know.”

She turns, crossing her arms. I can smell the salt of her tears.

Gods damn me. I made my Omega cry.

“Katie.” I try to gentle my voice. But it’s a gravelly growl. She hunches her shoulders up, then stamps her foot.

“Forget it, Callum. Just forget it.”

She walks away from me, down the path that leads to the center of the garden.

“Katie,” I say, my voice a clear warning. But she waves me away. Dismissed .

Oh no, not that is not how we are going to play. Anger, but more than that, a need for my Omega that is so overwhelming that I am on the edge of feral barrels into me.

“If you run, Omega, I will chase you. I made you that promise, and I intend to keep it. You are my Omega, and I’m not letting you go again.”

Katie’s angry march stutters, then pauses. She looks at me over her shoulder. Her eyes blaze with fierce anger, but her perfume betrays her lust.

“I am not a possession, a thing you can own.”

“You should never fear that I’ll hurt you, Omega.” I say with every bit of my authority as an Alpha, just short of a Bark. “No, I’ll never harm you, never force you against your will. But I will chase you down every street and ally in all of Halvassa. Because you are a possession. Not a thing, but a state. You are a possession and you have possessed me, body and soul.”

I stalk toward her as I speak. Her perfume envelops me in a spicy-sweet cloud. Whatever else she might say, her body wants me. But will she submit? Will she allow me to be her Alpha? My cock throbs against my fitted trousers. Gods I hope she will.

“I’m a possession?” She says, tossing her head in a sarcastic laugh. “Well, then, if you want me, come and get me.”

Then she darts into the deepening night.