Page 78 of Generation Omega: Claimed (Originverse #3)
TILLIE
Naked and in the full throes of an unrequited heat …
I don’t know what to do with that. So, I stand there gaping at Ory, unable to form a question or lodge a complaint, because what did I think the old ways meant?
I wasn’t exactly expecting a quiet evening at home with a freezer full of ice cream.
It even makes sense given the fundamental mission of the omegaverse—to return society to a time when instincts guided us to what we biologically needed.
When connection was beyond reason, beyond pros and cons and predictable outcomes.
It’s not like that concept was in any way concealed in the omegaverse’s fine print.
Just because traipsing around in my birthday suit while slick gushes from my body and animalistic desires inspire actual pain…
dang, just dang . On the best day, my thoughts are feral kittens climbing the curtains, but right now, my kittens got dosed with fairy dust and are buoyant as helium balloons, floatily bobbing toward the open windows in my mind.
I don’t know whether I should be scrambling for a butterfly net to catch them or wishing them well as I wave goodbye.
The inescapable lesson here might be that attempting to reason the unreasonable is not just foolish, but counterproductive to everything I’m attempting to embrace about my new life.
Right now, I’m staring at the proof of how everlasting relationships were back when instincts ruled, sparking the kind of devotion that’s still burning in Ory after all this time.
He didn’t logic his way into connection—he surrendered to it, guided by forces he didn’t seek to control or measure.
The only certainty in his life was danger, and the only way to limit the risk was to trust his body, his senses, his mind, his heart, and his desires.
It’s difficult to argue with the recipe given what it created, but still…
naked and in the full throes of an unrequited heat while running, fighting, and getting rutted hard .
Ory’s eyebrows raise, challenging me to accept the terms or send him away so that he can re-leash the drives I awakened in him. That’s never going to happen.
“The old ways sound like the right kind of naughty to me.” Oh, yeah, this fool isn’t fooling anyone with my squeaky, nerves-a-plenty attempt at speech, but I said what I said, and I’m not taking it back.
“Tillie, are you okay?” Jamie asks from the hallway, now wearing a shirt.
“She’s fine, Cupcake ,” Ory seethes, raising his lip again, this time threatening Jamie’s throat in a not-sexy way. I shouldn’t be surprised that Ory can scent my alphas on me, where the others can only smell my perfume.
“Oh, fuck,” Jamie mutters, “I hope that nickname doesn’t stick.” He blows out a breath in mock annoyance, but he’s deadly serious when he presses, “Tillie?”
“I’m good. Thanks.” I’m not moving, frozen with those words still living on a loop in my head. Naked and in the full throes of an unrequited heat. When Ory slashes the air with a sinister roar, I send Jamie a message. Really, I’m good. Give us space. I love you, Cupcake .
Jamie pffts dramatically and leaves the room, allowing me to filter through the rowdy emotions boiling over in me, still seeking data from a glitching computer.
It’s like typing all sorts of words into a search engine and having the responses come back entirely in emojis, and not the fun ones…
or possibly, all the fun ones stacked on top of each other.
Strangely, it’s what I don’t and can’t discover within my mind, heart, and body that provides a helpful clue.
I distinctly remember accepting my place in the omegaverse and the complete rightness of walking naked down the stairs toward the strangers approaching the yacht.
But everything after Jamie, Ory, and Mackenzie arrived got lost in the heat haze.
“Will I remember this… after , I mean?” Is that what’s bothering me? I’m not even sure.
“Yes. It’s a targeted heat—something I’ve always been able to initiate in you, something omegas need when the clarity of the primal state is desired or required.”
I’ve never seen Ory look so wickedly amused as when he shrugs and casually adds, “And, sometimes, it’s great fun to remind a haughty omega exactly where her power originates…
in the dirt, mud, grass-stained feet, and bloody scrapes from barreling naked through the forest, followed by copulation in the middle of a clearing on her hands and knees like the animal she is—her ragged cries and whines music for the clan and the wild beasts that gather around to watch the show. ”
His aura is entirely menacing. “Are you sure you want this? I’m not exaggerating—once this part of you is kindled, it will never be dormant again.
You’ll need the old ways like you need heats, and I’ll be the only one able to satisfy you.
This is a vulnerability we’re both accepting by mating and evoking the rituals born at the beginning of the omegaverse. ”
Surprising Ory, I lean against him while still perched on the couch, my arms now around his neck.
“Give me a second to think, okay?” Or really, give me a second to simmer down from the mental pictures—torture—he just launched at me, stoking arousal that’s rapidly becoming a five-alarm fire in my already slick-ready core.
Filthy, wolfie -style fucking in the open…
I didn’t know that was on my bucket list, but it just moved to the top.
And stupidly, all I can do is imagine the entire scenario in emojis.
If that weren’t enough—and the best reason ever for not sharing my thoughts—more emojis arrive for the audience and my reaction to it. What the everliving fuck is wrong with me?!
Thankfully unaware of my mental gymnastics, Ory assists with my breather.
His hearty purr jolts against me, easing my constricted lungs and unsteadily hammering heart.
Alright, back to basics. I’m not afraid— clearly .
But that doesn’t mean I’m not desperately clinging to something.
When a tiny corner of my brain fires up, I realize that the choice to accept a weakness must be met with a benefit.
That’s what I need to understand before we get all raw-doggy in more ways than one.
The omega legacy told Ory to mate me using the old ways, which means it’s on board with this.
But I know better than to just do whatever the legacy says, especially given my horrifying theory about why Sarah McGee revealed as an omega.
There it is, the reminder I needed, along with everything I learned from the origin omega. This is a test— everything is a test.
“Ory, please explain what I gain—what the omegaverse gains—if we do this. I don’t mean about mating you; that’s the stuff of dreams for me.
But will this old ways smutty adventure make me a better omega, with a better chance to survive and lead?
You said something before about the right to rule based on the omegaverse’s first laws—what does that mean for our pack? ”
Ory eases away from me, so that he can see my face.
“Mackenzie’s laughing at me right now, teasing me for thinking you were just a bonnie lass and not a canny lass as well.
” Ory’s pride in me is like a sundae as big as he is, completely covered in hot fudge.
“The vulnerability is the recurring need for this release once it’s been provoked, and the benefit is what you already know, that the full range of an omega’s instincts, appetites, stamina, and spirit will be yours. ”
His hot palm rests against my cheek. “That fierce, uncompromising passion that you felt in the origin omega will be yours. But, even more, the trials will spur a clash with limitations you don’t even know you have, that can’t be overcome any other way than by abandoning the civilized world and wrecking about in the barbaric past. Truth lives where every stitch of shielding is torn away, and that knowledge about yourself will allow you to confront those who have never been measured and overcome their own hidden frailties. ”
His glimmering eyes reveal everything I need to know, because if this was intended to harm me, Ory would never be so giddy about it.
It hits me then, my decision made in a heartbeat.
Beyond the challenges I’m meant to face for my mission, there’s something else here that reminds me of the other precious moments I’ve had with my alphas, where they welcomed me into their hearts, pasts, pains, and hopes, giving me a home with them.
That’s the other side of this. Ory is inviting me to meet the real him, the barbarian he was, through the trials and traditions that built the omegaverse.
How could I not share in the history that created everything that now defines our lives?
How could I refuse this lesson no other omega—except the first—was offered?
I won’t be the same after, but that’s the truth about every experience.
We change, we grow, and the people who either accept who we become or take those journeys with us are the pack we’re meant to have. Everyone else is irrelevant.
I want to know everything about Ory, but even more appealing is the chance to know everything about myself. Whether that involves skydiving, a trek through the Highlands, or swimming with sharks, this omega won’t hold back. So, raunchiness with a relic on the open range…
“I’m in.”
“Go eat a bit and say goodnight.” Ory points to something behind me. I turn and look, finding a mysterious door that leads somewhere. “I’ll be down there when you’re ready.”
Down there… a basement? Curiosity likely didn’t kill the cat, and I doubt it can take me out either, but we’ll have to see.
It’s ironic that, in some ways, my omega experience began in a wonderful attic, then took me to an alley and a warehouse, followed by a penthouse, a yacht, a soulless mansion, a moving truck, and now, I get to visit a basement that will forever alter my life.
“I’ll be there.” That’s a promise I make not just to Ory and myself, but to the origin omega who surrendered the last sliver of her existence so that I have everything I need to win.