4. Consent
CONSENT
ORRI
F uck. Me.
This female is trying to kill me, I just know it.
She’s clutching at me frantically, small omega body burning up with heat and hormones while she rubs her maddening scent over my chest, my hands, and my clothes. The soft, needful whimpers reach my ears and lodge deep in my chest, rousing something long dormant, ever since I lost Zannah. Something I thought I’d never feel again.
How am I supposed to resist an omega in heat? How am I supposed to be a good, upstanding alpha when she’s throwing herself at me like this?
“Give me the girl,” Orvox urges, crossing her arms. She’s nowhere near my size or physical strength, but she has a presence all her own. We know not to mess with the agency — angering them would mean no more omegas for us and certain death of our people without any young.
But when she’s this close to me? When she smells so mine ?
Screw the bigger picture.
“No,” I growl. I lay a protective hand on the back of her neck to hold her still. Since when was dark human hair this soft? It sifts through my fingers like the finest sand, softer than the most luxurious silk. Her skin presses against mine, flushed and darkened with need.
My cock throbs and strains against my pants. Even my heart races at her closeness, breaths coming in shorter, hotter gasps as I hold her close.
“Orri, you know the rules.” She isn’t the type of woman to back down, but neither am I the kind of alpha who .
“Screw the rules,” I spit before I can stop myself. “Can’t you see that she’s suffering? She doesn’t need your claustrophobic med pods and random nurses poking at her all hours of the night. She needs an alpha. How did this even happen, anyway? Where is her alpha?”
“Dead.” She finishes my sentence with cold, cruel finality. “Bjornick fell to the raiders.”
My mouth drops open, and now it’s my turn for a sudden, sharp pain to seize my chest. Zannah’s horrified face flashes before my eyes, frozen in death. Zannah’s last words to me before she passed out of this world forever.
“I’m sorry.”
No. My mind’s made up. I won’t leave Isabella to her fate. Not again.
“Take me to her nest.” I command, hoping I look as serious as I feel. It’s too easy to scoop her up in my arms, her head lolling against my chest. She doesn’t even resist, just hugs me closer. Yeah, I need to get us alone. Now.
“Orri—“ Orvox says in warning.
“Don’t make me say it again.” I don’t care what kind of paperwork I have to fill out, how many boring meetings I have to sit through, how many slaps on the wrist I’ll get from Soren for this. I don’t care. Isabella is in pain, and it’s in my power to help her. To turn away at a time like this…
No, I vowed to never do that again.
“Take me. To. Her nest.” I bare my teeth and draw myself up to my full height. I wouldn’t attack her — not really — but she needs to understand I’m not backing down. After few more tense moments, she relents, but I can tell she’s not happy about it.
“Fine,” she says at last. “But if I hear even the slightest rumor of trouble, Orri—“
“You won’t. Let’s get out of here. Now.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Orvox sighs, and then we’re off.
* * *
The whole way back to Isabella’s ‘nest’, my mind races with an agonizing combination of emotion and need. I remember all too well the way I failed my previous mate, Zannah. Isabella is not my heart-mate; none of us are lucky enough to get two in a lifetime. However, that’s all right. She doesn’t need to be, at least for tonight.
I’m simply doing her a favor. I can’t bear to see another woman, especially an omega, in pain. And maybe because she just lost her alpha, I can relate with her just a bit. I know nothing about this other male or the relationship he had with Isabella, and I definitely don’t want to try to replace him. But the way Isabella sobs and whimpers and claws at my bare skin like I’m her last lifeline to sanity…
Gods have mercy.
Orvox is still behind us, talking about all the medical implications and things I need to do to make sure she passes her first heat successfully. I’m only half listening, and that half is only because I know its important for Isabella’s well-being.
I had no idea omegas had such a complex mating cycle. It was never like this before. We fought and fucked as man and woman, not alpha and omega. We got horny, sure, but it was nothing like this. This…heat, Orvox called it, was closer to a sickness. A dangerous one, at that.
If she didn’t have sex with an alpha, the raging hormones could cause hallucinations, fevers, even full-body seizures in extreme cases. When she put it like that…it seemed almost cruel to subject someone, even a human stranger, to that.
However, that’s why organizations like the ISA exist. That’s why they have so many rules and structured steps to follow. Didn’t mean that I had to like it, though.
And really, what was the alternative? Continue to have failed pregnancy after failed pregnancy with our own females? The psychological, emotional, and physical tolls on us as our unborn children died tore us apart. We could not have continued to ask our own females to undergo more of the same.
All of this was all because of that alpha serum us warriors took way back when. When the war was at its breaking point, we needed an edge. Something that would give us strength and power the enemy didn’t — and couldn’t — have.
We trained night and day, but it still wasn’t enough. Fortunately, the scientists came up with something. An experimental new drug that would enhance the natural capabilities of our bodies. Make us bigger, stronger, faster.
I was one of the first cohort to take the shot. I was the youngest one in the group, too. The alpha serum turned the tides and helped us win the war, but…
The changes it caused in our bodies made us less compatible with our own women. We needed to find a solution, or our race would die out forever…
Hence, another drug was developed. The omega serum didn’t seem to work on our own people, but it took marvelously in humans, making them extra fertile.
And extra horny, like Isabella here.
If I could relieve even a little bit of that pain, maybe all the battles and struggle I’ve gone through won’t have been for nothing.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway. Because the alternative — that I might actually have feelings for the girl — is unthinkable.
My heart will always belong to Zannah. No amount of hormones can change that. But for tonight, I will do my duty. I will protect this woman in need.
And it’s not all altruism. Helping Isabella through her heat is something I’m doing out of kindness and concern, sure, but I’m still going to enjoy every second of it. I grin in anticipation.