Page 82 of Generation Omega: Claimed (Originverse #3)

TILLIE

When I begin to stir, every muscle in my body demands a lawyer, but it’s the singeing pain on the back of my neck that spurs a shrill whine. Then Ory’s hot tongue laps along my new bondmarks, instantly delivering me into the land of connection and delight.

“You did well, my mate.” His sonorous voice falters, emotion overpowering the most powerful man I’ll ever know. “You’re the one… it was you all along. I didn’t know. I couldn’t, but I…”

“ Shh , Ory, it’s okay. Everything is okay.”

As I ease my fingertips along his corded arms that surround me, I recognize the softness of the mattress below us.

We’re not in the basement anymore, but in a room with a bed large enough for us both.

I sigh, the aching so real and so worth it.

I’ve never been a gym rat like Ethan, but if this bliss is what a tough workout inspires, then I’m getting a lifetime membership that better come with one-on-one switch sessions with Ory.

New gym members wouldn’t just show up to meet short-lived New Year’s resolutions, if they got a little sexy caning between sets, or as sets.

As Ory and I breathe our closeness, my memories prove Ory’s honesty.

Every part of what happened during my trials is crystal clear and appropriately added to my lust locker , on the unlikely chance I ever need to self-pleasure again.

The future has never been so bright as imagining Ory forcing me to choose my own switch before our next reunion with the old ways.

Those pauses between the strikes built so much desire.

If I think about it too much, I’m going to be mounting up again when I truly don’t have the energy.

My to-do list is done, and I can rest in the peace of just being after a day that will forever change our lives.

More striking than anything else is the knowledge that I’ve punched my ticket to enter this war, paying for admission with my blood.

I’m not the omega I was before this experience—she’s gone forever.

I’m the origin omega now, a warrior queen, building my legacy that will cover this world in seeds that will sprout and flourish in newly called omegas and alphas.

Ownership … that’s what is burning in me now.

The omegaverse belongs to me by right, even when I’m nothing but a reference in a dusty scroll or an outdated laptop someone digs up to discover the source of what transformed the world.

“Are you okay?” I whisper to the silent man behind me.

Ory moves me and then himself, carefully straddling me while I rest on my sensitive back and neck.

His hands cradle my face. “My true mate—my only true mate.” Lit by the small lamp beside the bed, Ory’s eyes reveal his amazement.

“The claiming bites you now wear she never wore. I would have claimed her back then, but she stopped me every time with words I’ll never forget, words I never thought I would understand. But I do now… because of you.”

I rest my hands over his wildly pounding heart, steadying it with mine. “What words did she say?”

“I can’t hear it… the song of life… this isn’t for me.

” His gaze is defined by anguish. “She knew then. It’s why she did what she did, pleading with me to surrender to a destiny I didn’t comprehend—one she denied even to herself.

I think she thought it was our timing that wasn’t right, but that we would come together later.

But that wasn’t it at all. She wasn’t ever my true mate—you are. ”

Tears glide from my eyes on their way down my cheeks, reaching his hands that still hold me.

“I’m so lucky to be your mate, Ory. Thank you for surviving all this time so that we could find each other.

I didn’t realize just how much I need you, but I see it now.

I can do it all—everything that’s required of me—because of you and your commitment to me, our pack, and the omegaverse. ”

A small, mysterious smile forms that’s almost completely concealed by his beard. “There’s something else, my beautiful mate.”

“What, my beautiful mate?”

His joy is radiant, and I know his expressionless days are a thing of the past. “You are with child, my love. A wee bairn , as Mackenzie would say.”

“Our child?” I breathe, all my complicated feelings about motherhood crash-landing on me, along with a bewildering excitement for something that terrifies me as much as it thrills me.

In my mind, children raised by neglectful mothers become adults who either abstain from the potential heartache of parenthood or enter it with the fury of a lioness to give their children the life they never had.

Until this moment, I wasn’t aware just how much I yearned to believe I was capable of being that lioness with a heart fierce enough to love and nurture my child, especially in this uncertain world.

Before the old ways, I didn’t have the answer I needed, but after those trials, I have no doubts about the mother I will be.

Mischief shines at me, a lightness that defies all sense in a man who’s been more stoic mountain than future parent chasing a child riding a bike for the first time, shouting encouraging words so boisterously the neighbors will flee. “Do you truly want to know who the father is?”

Do I? Hell yes, I do. I nod in his hands.

“Your child’s father is…” Ory freezes, sniffing the air before rolling to shield me from someone entering the room.

I can’t see anything behind him, but then something strikes him, and he stumbles and crashes to the floor. Without his body between the opening and me, I see the slender form of the enemy whose weapon is trained on me.

I raise my hands, affecting a surrender that’s a complete lie, when a shot is fired directly at me.

There is no sound, but the agonizing outcome is real.

I glance down at my bare chest, observing the dart that punctured me over my heart.

Just like the dart that struck Ethan in that alley.

Beta Dominion is here—that’s all I can think as my body collapses onto the bed.