Page 39 of Broken Bonds

Closing my eyes, I draw in a deep breath and hold it for a moment—it fills me, every cell of my being. It smells like our pack and all the joyful celebrations we’ve held here. Welcoming new members.

We’ve held countless family events here. Celebrating birthdays and graduations and births.

Mourned deaths, of which fortunately there have been few.

Where we come together as a pack, as a family, and grieve together, support each other.

Some of those members are buried here, some were cremated and scattered here, although many loved ones prefer to have them cremated and keep at least some of the cremains with them. Those lost members will always be part of this land, and those who’ve gone on are memorialized on a monument in the center of the property.

Before every initiation, we pay homage to those members, read off their names, pour out a shot for them, and then throw back our heads and howl for them so that wherever they are they can hear we still remember them.

I hope that one day, many long years from now, I will be one of those names and hear the mournful howls echoing through the leaves and trees and soaring up to the stars.

Quickly stripping, I leave my clothes, wallet, and cell phone in my car, lock it, and then tuck the key fob in the crook of a branch in a small tree.

Not that I’m worried about someone finding and taking it. I could leave my car unlocked and the keys in it and no one would touch it even if someone joined me this morning for a run.

Stretching, I shift and set out at a fast lope to warm up before I kick it up a notch and break into a run.

I need this, to turn my mind loose in this safe space and let my coyote fully and freely take over for a while.

Another reason I’m antsy to try for a pup is I know of two other cases where an Alpha wolf and a coyote omega male had pups, but I also know of at least eight other couples who couldn’t. And the two couples who did, their first pups arrived after years of trying, and then only one of those couples could have more than one pup.

The longer we wait, the lower my already long odds of catching.

I was the only known male omega in my birth pack. It was something unknown to my family and friends until my late teens, when everyone else was figuring out who and what they were. From my laid-back attitude, it was obvious I wasn’t an Alpha. But I didn’t realize how much my parents didn’t want an omega son, especially a gay one, until it finally came out when puberty gave way to my first mating heat and I awakened after forty-eight hours on a Monday morning to find myself in some strange guy’s apartment in Phoenix, about an hour from home, and with no memory of how I got there, much less who he was.

Or how I spent the weekend.

I was twenty, and Bob was a human, 42, and a gay leather daddy. Super nice guy.

With the hazy lust of my mating heat finally clearing, that’s when I realized not only was I gay, but I was an omega. And not only was the guy hung, he’d had several horny friends he invited over, and I wore out every last one of them.

After a shower, Bob happily drove me back to my car, kissed me, gave me his number, told me he’d love for me to call him again, and headed to work. From what I pieced together, I showed up at a bar he frequented. When the bouncer wouldn’t admit me because of my age, this man and several of his friends swept in, befriended me—not hard to do since I apparently begged for them to fuck me right there in the parking lot—and they kept me safe for the weekend as I rode every last one of them multiple times until I wore them out.

I should feel thankful for them keeping me safe though, right?

Thankfully, I never shifted during the weekend because that could have made things…awkward, to say the least. That was before the presence of shifters was public knowledge among humans.

Plus, I had my car back because I literally had no clue where it had ended up. My cell phone was also in my car, miracle of miracles, and I had several missed calls from my mom.

I made a quick stop at one of the dusty trails I loved to run, literally left my clothes on and rolled around in the dirt to help mask my scent, and then headed home.

I was in the door only a few seconds before my mother was all over me, screaming that I smelled like humans no matter how much I tried to tell her I’d been out running all weekend and my phone died and I lost track of time.

Dad showed up about an hour later, and that’s when the shit truly hit the fan.

I didn’t know then that, depending on the species, during an omega shifter’s first mating heat, it’s common to pick up the scents of whoever’s fucked you. For example, if you’re a wolf and you do it with a wolf (or wolves, plural) then you smell like that particular wolf—or an amalgamation of them if more than one. If they’re in a pack together, you take on the pack smell.

And if it’s with a human…

Yeah, I guess I really smelled like a human when I returned home. And based on how I smelled like a human male, my parents put the digits together to come up with the correct answer that I was a gay omega.

Later that night, I showed up at Bob’s place asking if I could spend the night, with everything I owned in my car.

At least Dad gave me six hours to gather all my shit, say my good-byes, and leave. He told me that if I took longer and if he so much as ever scented me again, he’d kill me.

That was 67 years ago. Bob is long dead now, unfortunately. I spent a couple of months living with him until I found a job and was able to support myself. And yes, I happily gave it up to him while I lived there, even though it wasn’t a requirement. Because, for a human, he had a decent cock and knew how to use it. Since I was a coyote I didn’t have to worry about STIs, and he was happy to let his friends have at me, too. Everyone’s a winner.