Page 3 of Single Omega Dad

Trigg barely looked at me, but when he spoke, his words were soft. “Hey, Math. How was it this time?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Yep.”

“Did you ever knot this time?”

“None of your business.”

Trigg was the only one who knew I didn’t knot. I led him to believe it was on purpose, that I chose not to.

When I had told him about it a couple years ago, he’d been shocked.

“But it’s the best part. All Alphas love it.”

“Sure,” I’d said. “But who wants to be stuck inside a boring Omega for that long? I can just keep fucking him and come again and again. It’s the same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Trigg had said.

“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know everything.” But his words exemplified my difference. That I wasn’t normal. I kept telling myself it wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t everything. Who cared? Not me.

Sure, my friends talked about it, but my friends also tended to be blowhards and they exaggerated an awful lot. I had many young Alpha friends who talked big and loud. They were funny and fun, but I barely believed fifty percent of what they said.

Surely there were a lot of Alphas like me who would agree they despised the closeness of knotting. Who wanted to be touched all the time? Who wanted to be so close like that that you breathed each other’s air?

“So,” Trigg said, pulling onto the highway where the fields of the farm passed by, green and fresh, smelling of alfalfa. “Are you hungry or am I taking you directly home?”

“You can drop me at work.”

“Work? No way, Math. You should relax for the rest of today.”

“I slept in the mating room this morning.”

“How many hours?”

“Two.”

Trigg snorted. “Let’s go for a steak lunch. Then I’m taking you home.”

He always knew what I was feeling, even when I was being a dick. My litter-mate Trigg knew my every mood: hungry, angry, jealous, tired, and even my most secret resentments. Things I never spoke of. Thoughts I denied. About Kris. About our upbringing. About bondmates and family.

All that thinking. It was a waste of energy. But Trigg didn’t need me to speak to know me. We’d shared an Omega womb together. We’d come from the same seed and the same environment. He knew me all too well. And so did Kris, who I didn’t want to think about. Who I didn’t want to see ever again.

“No argument,” Trigg pushed gently. “Food, then home, ok?” He was a good brother to me. Better than I deserved. And Iwasextremely hungry. Yeah, I could eat. And sleep.

“Fine,” I said, and glowered out the side window at the forest that started to appear as the car smoothly climbed up the mountain and out of the valley.

Chapter Two

Saber

“Daddy, daddy!” Tybor came running into the office.

I’d left my five-year-old twins watching TV while I decided today was the day I was going to try to sort all the bills my bondmate had left me with after his death.

Tybor rammed into my knees as I swiveled the desk chair toward him to see what had him so bothered. With an awkward scramble, he climbed heavily into my lap, the palm of his hand pressing hard on my slightly convex stomach, making me grunt.