Page 41 of Generation Omega: Claimed (Originverse #3)

JAMESON

I don’t follow when Ethan carries Tillie into the cabin, with Mackenzie trailing them.

I know from her thoughts that she’s nervous about the professor and Kazimir—busy blaming herself—but Mackenzie’s there to comfort her in ways Ory can’t, and I won’t.

Ethan, as always, is close, and I’m certain Gideon will soon join our pack’s virtuously endearing faction.

I never thought I would miss the douchey professor or the vitriolic assassin, but apparently, I’m on their team. Lovers. Fighters. Asshats. Self-reflection be damned—I know where I belong.

I grip the railing when I’m hit by a barrage of Tillie’s thoughts and emotions.

Her mind is a freaking freight train, and her heart is pumping powerfully, sending out shock waves of shame and regret, along with promises to do better.

Is she really attempting to reach Thatcher and Kazimir?

It seems so, and it’s damned annoying and destabilizing.

But who am I kidding?

My newly discovered pride was born in my ability to hold it all together and serve my mission.

I provided the balance that’s allowing Tillie to be present without debilitating physical pain.

She’s here to think and feel—even to summon her alphas with her omega mojo—because I did my job.

Dang, I have been installed in a career against my wishes, and I can’t quit or get fired. That’s some bullshit right there.

But the omegaverse giveth and it taketh away, because now that I’m not jacked up on alpha bravado, my limitless personal failings invite me to dance. Before I can decide whether I’m going to allow this skirmish with all I’m lacking, Tillie’s thoughts slam me again.

Jamie .

Fuck—she’s thinking about it again, replaying my mother’s voice in her head.

I’m about to rush in there and roar at her to stop this torment, but then I realize Tillie’s using the tiny glimpse she caught of my early life to soothe her own worries.

I can’t take that from her or punish her for it without revealing a truth about myself that’s entirely unhelpful to our bond and our pack.

Tillie certainly won’t view me as her frosty, steadfast alpha if she ever learns the reality of who I am.

So, I have to stand here and endure this torture like I’m in competition for the omegaverse’s employee of the fucking month.

I really wish my delusion had lasted a bit longer, the faulty belief that Tillie missed my life story because of the drama around our bonding.

Jamie . Tillie knows it’s the nickname my mother used for me, but it’s not just the name that’s wrecking my soul.

It’s my mother’s voice saying it, swiped from memories I thought I’d escaped.

I never allowed anyone else to call me that, especially after she was gone.

Jamie didn’t exist after his mother died, because he died with her, along with everything he could have been if love hadn’t abandoned him.

I honestly thought I’d erased him, as I tried to erase her.

But my mother still lives in my memories—her voice still endures—or Tillie would never have heard it or remembered it so clearly.

I’m more than a little disgusted, though entirely unsurprised, that my underwhelming work ethic led to this failure.

With more conviction, I could have achieved success, fatally drowning every pleasant reminder of my perfect childhood that abruptly ended.

One would think rivers of liquor and bad decisions could accomplish a simple task like that, but I guess not.

Jamie . It’s as though my mother is speaking to me through Tillie’s thoughts.

As much as I pretend to be affronted by such a violation, I can’t lie to myself about what this really is.

It’s like I found a well in the middle of a never-ending desert, the only source of water left on the fucking planet.

I won’t walk away. I’ll fall on my knees and pray for one more drink of the rarest thing I’ve ever encountered.

The sound of my mother speaking to me in a distinctly loving tone—I never had a single doubt about myself or my worth until her voice, like everything else, vanished.

So, here I am, buck-ass naked, standing on the orgy cruise line, listening as miracles play on a loop in my omega’s gentle mind.

I’m trembling and grasping the railing as Tillie catches another memory.

It’s not just my mother’s voice now, but a scene from the movie of my childhood where her face filled every screen.

Her warmth and whimsical sense of humor brightened every room.

She couldn’t help it—she was a constantly swirling light at the top of a lighthouse, a guiding force no matter how rough the seas became.

Only a foolish child could believe that a lighthouse would stand forever, not be swallowed by a sudden storm, its light extinguished forever.

I flinch when I realize Gideon is silently standing beside me like a fucking Secret Service agent—which he’s played twice.

I turn on him. “What?”

That obnoxiously distinguished face of his does the compelling eyebrow thing, and I’m suddenly ten again with my mom at one of his premieres.

The stupid, muscle-bound actor was my hero.

I wallpapered my room with Gideon Blake posters, played with Gideon Blake action figures, knew every line of every Gideon Blake movie I was allowed to watch.

Of course, I secretly watched all the rest that I wasn’t supposed to watch, though I lived to regret that.

I didn’t sleep for weeks after witnessing the talented actor embody the dark soul of a serial killer, not that I would ever confess to that.

“No, really, Gideon— what ?” Now, I’m thirteen. My mother is dead, and my father arranged for Gideon Blake to come to the governor’s mansion and treat me like one of his endearingly assholish , teenage mutants.

Gideon stares at me through his perceptive eyes like he’s hearing my thoughts. I’m not an omega. What the fuck?

Gideon appears rueful. “Hey, this one is on you.”

I take a step back, colliding with the damn railing. “What’s on me? What the fuck is going on?”

“It wasn’t like this before you facilitated that little intervention with Tillie, but now…” He’s not affronted, like I am, but he’s reeling about something.

“Seriously, Gideon, what’s happening?”

He’s concentrating so intently it either hurts or maybe he has some mad indigestion.

Unfortunately, his dumb scowl is more manly than I’ve ever been, even when I went as him for Halloween a few times.

I never plan to share that I’ve gotten laid more than a dozen times because of my willingness to role play as Gideon Blake, including as that serial killer who inspired some freaky gals to spread their legs.

He better not be hearing my thoughts right now.

“It’s not your thoughts,” Gideon finally declares, creepily , “but I have this awareness that you’re not okay. Something got stirred up in you, and my first alpha senses are tingling, alerting me that a packmate is troubled.”

I’m gaping at him—buck-naked gaping—and can’t find a single word for him. I’m preoccupied with stomping out all thoughts before they attract his attention.

“On one hand,” Gideon continues, “this is good. If this skill had been operational, I could have tied Thatcher to that railing and forced some bark therapy on him. On the other hand, it’s more than a little disturbing.

” His chuckle is dark. “The thought of having Thatcher in my head—that wasn’t in the fine print. ”

“Kazimir is going to kill him, don’t you think?” Did that sound too gleeful? Whatever , I’m not saying it again or thinking anything ever.

“Probably.” Gideon’s definitely in the land of muddled feelings regarding Thatcher’s fate, but his wise glare latches onto me like an alien leech. My Thatcher diversion failed, and the first alpha is waiting.

“What’s the absolute minimum I can say to get you to leave me alone?” I’m totally a snotty, teenaged mutant, and he’s the professor of this all-mutant omegaverse academy.

“Well, how about you tell me the truth? I don’t need all the details, just an overview so I know what we’re dealing with. Remember, there’s no I in pack .”

“No, but there’s a U in fuck you —two actually.”

Gideon delivers a baleful look and strums his fingers on his crossed arms, his muscles bulging. I sense a bark, possibly a roar, in my near future. “Jameson, we’ve learned the hard way what any weakness in the alphas can do to Tillie. I can’t let that happen again—I won’t.”

I turn my back on the cabin and grab hold of my favorite railing in the world.

“I didn’t think she would remember my sappy biography when I bonded her.

I got the full show of her life, but Ory released the omega kraken, and I thought I’d dodged the nostalgia-laced bullet.

I don’t know whether Tillie’s remembering or that damn pussy-monster omega is feeding her intel, but hearing her thoughts about… ”

“Your mom—I hear it too.” Dammit, now he’s playing empathy roulette, and I’m doomed. Compassionate Gideon Blake wins all the awards for a reason.

Is there any sense in concealing anything? It will probably just inspire the manipulative omegaverse to target me with more direct hits. “I don’t think about it—I don’t think about her. I drink. I fuck. I sleep, usually medicated. I don’t think .”

Both of us know that Tillie is still musing about my mother’s nickname for me, imagining what it would be like to call me by that name.

I don’t understand why she’s fixating on it, but that’s another lie.

I pushed her off balance and gave her a piece of foundation that felt truly solid.

The fact that I don’t love her only made that foundation and the bond between us stronger.

She doesn’t trust love—no, that’s not right.

She adores Ethan and is certain about his love.

I play with the idea in my head, batting it around a few times. Why would she cling harder to the man who doesn’t love her and forced her submission? Is it the lure of the chase? Capturing the unattainable guy? As soon as I think that, I discount it. That’s not who she is.

My hand raises and covers my heart. Fuck. She’s there too. Tender beats that irreparably merged with mine when we bonded.

Gideon and I remain there, viewing Tillie’s thoughts that lead us toward the truth.

This isn’t about capturing me or connecting with her new alpha.

This is about the past, what she always imagined about my mother and me—a recurring thought that troubled her after my mother died, something tied to the nightmare that was Tillie’s early life.

Jamie . Tillie plays it over and over, and then my heart might as well fucking die.

It’s the tone, the warmth, the sassy mischief that defined my mother.

Tillie’s never heard her own name spoken with that kind of infinite love from any woman or mother figure.

Even though she’s a few years younger than me, Tillie knew about my mother and saw her funeral—everyone did.

It was plastered on screens all over the world.

She remembers being jealous, even after I lost everything, because, at least, I knew love.

Damn. Fuck. Hell. I don’t know what to do with this.

Alphas are supposed to take care of their omegas—that’s the rule.

But an unavoidable realization lands, no matter how I seek to evade it.

The lighthouse in me that went dark when my mother died—the one that’s supposed to be gone forever—is back.

Because Tillie, my damn omega, lit that beacon, sending light, love, and warmth right through the core of all that’s dead and buried inside me.

I’m almost grateful when I feel Tillie’s discomfort and have the perfect reason to escape Gideon’s attempt at nanny-hood .

“Sorry, man,” I say, clapping him on the back, “but I’ve got a bondmark to tend.”

“Prick,” Gideon snaps, but he had first dibs and decided to be a classy fuck about his bondmark placement. I’m going to let the haters hate—not my problem. It’s not like he can fault me for performing my sworn duty to eat out the best cunt in the universe.

Before I reach the living room, Gideon mutters under his breath, “Enjoy your distraction while you can, because you and I aren’t finished.”

I spin and face him. “Who’s making lunch… or dinner? Why don’t you use all your upper-management skills to get right on that? Actually, you and Ethan can take care of that, since Mackenzie and I have bondmarks to tend—sacred duty and all.”

I’m practically skipping as I move toward Tillie. I sweep her up and set her knees on Mackenzie’s hefty thighs, with her chest toward him and her reddened ass right in my face.

“Arch that back, sweetness—I have work to do, and so do you.”