Saving the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #1)

1. Luna

Luna

I t’s cold down here. The thin mattress underneath me barely does anything to keep away the chill of the concrete beneath it.

But there’s always a part of me that really likes the cold. It’s the exact opposite of my heat.

No burning from the inside out. No sharp pains. No warm breaths as bigger bodies move on top of me.

Just cold. A bone-deep cold that tells me I’m blissfully, all alone down here. A cold that distracts me from the tugging between my thighs whenever I move.

If I focus on the cold, I can forget.

The sharp bang of the cellar door opening echoes through the room. I blink my eyes, still bleary from sleep. The light from above shines down, revealing the collection of dusty boxes of old junk, usually hidden in the shadows made by the single bare lightbulb hanging in the center of the room.

I clutch my one thin blanket around me, trying to make myself as small as possible. My body is still weak after my heat. I usually have more time to recover before anyone comes down here to check on me.

I squint up at the figures outlined at the top of the stairs.

My dad’s wet cardboard scent hits my sensitive nose first, mixing with the must of the room.

A pit forms in my stomach and my saliva turns sour.

A wave of nausea hits me. I guess I should be glad I have nothing in my system. Something is wrong with this.

He’s never interested in coming down anytime after I’ve had my heat.

“Wake up, girl,” Dad calls, stomping down the steps.

My mom’s softer footsteps and garlic scent follow behind him. She’s usually the first and only person to come down here after my heats. Having me starve wouldn’t be good for the family.

I’m pretty sure if she had a choice, though, she would never come down here. I don’t think either of my parents would. They find my heat disgusting. Sometimes, I think they find me disgusting.

By the looks on both of their faces, this is one of those times.

The third person coming down the steps turns my blood to ice.

My mouth goes dry and my throat closes up so tight I have to fight to breathe.

Even when I manage to get a breath into my lungs, they’re assaulted by the overwhelming scent of burning plastic.

An all too familiar scent. A scent that haunts my nightmares.

“Hello, little omega,” Alpha Niall says when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. His voice slices through the air like a bullet, tearing through my body.

His dominance is obvious to everyone in the room, not just in the way he stands, but in the energy he gives off. Betas like my parents can still sense an alpha’s dominance, even though their senses aren’t as attuned to the pheromones alphas give off.

Omegas on the other hand?

I feel his dominance in my bones. It’s heavy and restrictive. It weaves itself through my lungs and into my body. It makes me curl myself up into a ball and bare my throat to him as a show of submission.

“Here she is,” my dad says to Alpha Niall, waving a hand down at me, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Lovely as always,” Alpha Niall says. He steps closer to my mattress, so close I can see the details of the stitching in his leather shoes. “Did you miss me?”

As his scent wraps around me, flashes of the worst heat of my life come back to me in waves. My fear is obvious in the sharp, sour notes of my normally sweet, peppermint perfume. My eyes burn as I try to hold back my tears.

They gave me to Alpha Niall for my first heat. In total, I’ve spent three horrible, disgusting, humiliating heats with him. He’s the only alpha I’ve ever been given to.

You’d think with my biological designation, being with an alpha would be better than the torture of never finding relief from the unending, burning need when I’ve been given to betas for all my other heats.

You’d be wrong.

I’ll carry the terror, pain, and agony of those heats with the alpha standing in front of me for as long as I live.

“I asked you a question,” he growls, his impatience obvious.

“Y—yes, alpha,” I manage to choke out.

Maybe if I’m good he won’t want to hurt me as much.

“Look at me,” he says.

I do. I look up at his dark, cold eyes. They’re an empty, muddy sort of brown. If cruelty weren’t obvious in every single line on his face, I’d probably consider him handsome, though he’s a little old. But all I can see is the way his eyes light up when he sees my tears rolling down my cheeks.

“I love the taste of your fear,” he murmurs.

I guess my hopes were too high. There’s no way he won’t have the same cruelty he had before.

“We’ve made an arrangement for you, Luna,” my father says. His beer belly stretches against his shirt as he shuffles his weight from foot to foot. “A permanent arrangement.”

“Per—permanent?” I croak out, the words barely a whisper past my lips.

My eyes flash to Alpha Niall as I scramble backward on my mattress until my back meets the cold concrete wall. A frown covers his face.

“I would’ve thought you would’ve been broken in by now,” Alpha Niall murmurs. “It’s the highest honor, that I want my bond mark on your neck.”

“Show the alpha proper respect,” my dad spits. “You’re going to belong to him from now on.”

A bond mark between an alpha and omega is supposed to be the best thing ever, at least according to the small collection of romance novels I have in my bedroom upstairs. It’s supposed to be the ultimate demonstration of loyalty and love.

The bond Alpha Niall is talking about fills me with sheer terror.

“Wh—what?” A bond to the alpha in front of me might as well be a death sentence. He may keep my body alive but every single last part of my soul will die forever.

A bond is basically permanent. I would never be able to leave him. Ever. Even if I managed to run away and escape, everyone would know who I belonged to. I’d be dragged back to him. “Please—please Dad.”

Alpha Niall liked breaking me when he had me, but he likes knowing I’m broken more.

I suspect that’s why he encouraged my parents to earn a little money by selling me to betas during my heats. He thought I’d see how horrible not having an alpha was during my heat and become his good little submissive omega.

Based on the way his face keeps on growing more and more furious, I’m not being submissive enough for him. His hand shoots out, jerking my face up towards him in a painful grip .

“What are you?” He asks, leaning down so close I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face.

“I—I’m an omega,” I whimper, clutching my blanket to my chest as tightly as I can.

“Wrong answer. You’re mine. You will crawl and beg me all the time like you do during your heats,” he growls.

Tears flow openly down my cheeks, making his hands sticky where he’s still gripping my face.

“Say it,” he barks. His dominance rolls off of him in waves so thick I nearly choke on the air I’m breathing. “Say you’re my little omega whore.”

My mouth opens without my permission. No matter how hard I want to fight it, my throat starts sounding out the words.

“I’m your little omega whore,” I say, my voice unnaturally high-pitched with strain as I fight myself.

The smile that spreads across his face is sadistic.

He pushes me back into the wall and I slump against it. If I weren’t already on my knees, I would’ve fallen, my body weak with the useless attempt to fight his bark.

I know I shouldn’t. I know that fighting back doesn’t hurt anyone but me, but it’s been nearly a year since my last heat with him. Long enough without hearing an alpha bark for my silly dignity to kick in.

“I expected her to be ready by now, Roger,” Alpha Niall spits, turning to face my father. “I expect this to be remedied if you want me to keep up my end of the bargain.”

“Yes—yes sir, this will be fixed immediately,” my dad says, wiping away the sweat beading on his brow despite the cold. He shoots me a disgusted glare.

“I’ll see myself out, then,” Alpha Niall says. I hug my knees to my chest, tucking my head down. His footsteps are as ominous up the stairs as they were coming down.

“You fucking bitch,” my dad hisses.

I know it’s coming before it happens. He grips the collar of my old nightdress and drags me off the mattress, throwing me down onto the cold concrete floor.

Even expecting it, I can’t keep quiet the pained noise that comes from my throat.

With how many men have laid their hands on me, you’d think I would’ve gotten used to the pain by now. But each blow still hurts as bad as the first.

No matter how many men have hurt me in my life, I’m still weak.

The only thing that’s gone away is the surprise. The only thing in its place, whenever I experience new sorts of pain, is resignation.

My sore and tired body can’t curl into a ball quickly enough before my dad manages to land a fierce kick to my ribs that knocks all the wind from my lungs. It’s the kind of blow that radiates and lingers throughout my body. It takes me a second to remember how to breathe.

I let out a cry, wrapping my arms around my head.

This isn’t my first beating. I’m not stupid enough to think it will be my last, either. If not at his hand, then at someone else’s.

But still, he’s so much angrier than I’ve ever seen him. So, so, angry. I can feel it whenever he makes contact.

He drags me up to my knees so I’m looking up at him. His face is twisted with rage, his cheeks mottled with red and the vein in his temple popping.

“You will not fuck this up for us,” my dad hisses. “Do you not care about us at all?”

“I—I do,” I manage to choke out after a cough.

He backhands me. My vision flashes white.

“You obviously don’t since you just fucked with the best thing that would’ve ever happened to us after all the time we’ve spent fucking raising your ungrateful ass.”

My gaze shoots to my mom in desperation, but her eyes are glazed over. The way she’s holding herself right now tells me she’s probably high on painkillers .

My parents have never lived an easy life. Dad was always angry because he worked constantly. Mom was always angry because she was in pain all the time. They’ve told me countless times that raising me made everything worse for them. Her chronic pain. Their marriage. The finances.

Then I went into pre-awakening at fifteen. That’s when we knew I’d probably present as an omega.

That was the day they told me I had an opportunity to help them. To pay them back for all the trouble I caused them raising me.

And I agreed. All I wanted to do was make them happy. Make them proud.

That’s when they took me out of school. No one noticed. Not surprising, considering how poor this part of town is. But that was the last day I ever stepped foot outside.

“We’ve fucking kept you safe and this is how you repay us?

You would’ve been taken away by the government or torn apart by rabid alphas if it weren’t for us!

” His next blow is so hard it sends me back to the floor.

“At least Alpha Niall is just one alpha and not a whole fucking pack that’ll pass you around like a useless whore! ”

I lay there, just taking it. That was a lesson I learned quickly when I got my first heat at eighteen. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to not fight back and just let things happen.

It hurts worse when I fight back. I’ve never been able to fight back effectively enough to stop anyone from hurting me if they wanted to in the past, so why start now?

He crouches beside me once he’s done.

“Alpha Niall could have any omega he wants but he wants you, be fucking grateful.” His chest heaves with effort. “You will go with him the next time he comes and you will be everything he wants you to be. None of us will ever have to worry about money ever again. Don’t be selfish.”

I don’t think I’ve been selfish in years.

I know my place here. I know how much I’ve helped my family since my first heat.

The fact we usually don’t go hungry anymore and the little bookshelf of books in my room upstairs are all testament to that.

We never could afford that before I started pulling my weight.

“Hopefully you didn’t fuck things up too badly,” he hisses.

My parents leave the cellar, shutting the door with a slam. The click of the lock seems like it echoes inside my head.

Something inside me snaps at that sound.

There’s a deep-seated dread that I can’t shake at the thought of being given to Alpha Niall permanently.

At least I usually only served betas, who didn’t have the power to make me do whatever they wanted with a single word.

Once my heats finish, I can at least try and forget everything that happened.

I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore if I were living that nightmare every day.

Even though everything is foggy with the pain radiating through my body, I know I can’t just let that happen to me. Even if it causes more pain later, I’d take anything other than being Alpha Niall’s little sex slave, brood-mare, for the rest of my life.

But there’s nothing I can do now. Sleep needs to come first. Maybe my dreams will be kinder than reality.