4. Ollie
It started innocently enough. Deke lying between his legs—head distractingly close to his dick—watching the movie on the enormous projector screen. It was one of Ollie’s favorite movies, one he’d seen so many times he really didn’t even need to pay attention. Maybe that was how his hands found their way into Deke’s pretty hair, silky strands falling through his fingers. It was a soothing, repetitive gesture, the kind that made his brain go quiet.
Sometime around minute twenty, everything changed. That was when his neurodivergent mate lost the plot, rolling onto his stomach, dragging himself up just enough to push Ollie’s shirt out of the way so he could press his bare cheek to his belly.
This wasn’t a new gesture. Deke—whether he knew it or not—had been obsessed with Ollie’s stomach as of late. That gesture was how he’d started to put the pieces together. He’d been turning the situation over and over in his mind for days, attacking the question from every angle until he was sure there could be no surprises. Usually, having a plan soothed him, made him feel safe, competent.
But no matter how he turned the situation over in his mind, there was only one possible answer, no matter how inconceivable, and that left him feeling anything but safe. It left him feeling exposed…vulnerable, two things that could send Ollie into a spiral if he let them get their hooks in him long enough.
But now, everybody knew. Maybe not that Deke was some mythological creature known as an enigma, but, collectively, they’d all accepted the two most obvious truths: Loch was now a dominant and Ollie was no longer a beta. His breath caught even as he thought it. Ollie was an omega.
An omega .
Maybe if it had been a possibility, he could have had a contingency plan for knowing how to transition into something wholly foreign to him. He could make peace with waking up essentially married to the adorable, bratty kid who’d seemingly claimed him for his own the moment they’d met. The thought of Deke gave him a warm feeling, which soothed all his jagged edges. Ollie was used to being the grown up in every room, but around Deke, he was so…weak.
The alpha of alphas…that was what Saint had called this enigma.
He stared down at the top of Deke’s head. It seemed hard to believe that the boy currently licking his stomach was somehow meant to lead other alphas. If Loch had challenged Deke for the right to lead their pack, Deke would have offered up his throat in submission immediately. The alpha in Deke was strong, but, for now, rut aside, he also appeared dormant. This guarding of his potential offspring, the compulsive scenting…that was all Deke.
If Ollie had to choose between the alpha he’d met during Deke’s rut and this Deke, he’d choose this one. But they were truly just one person. Two sides of the same coin. But one of those sides had changed Ollie on a cellular level.
He didn’t notice at first. In retrospect, it was obvious. He could smell the others. Not just their scent, but even the most minute shifts in their moods, their cycles. His senses were heightened. His emotions, too. And his own scent had changed. Not the surface smell; they all said he still had the same ink-and-paper scent, but the scent within his scent that apparently only alphas and omegas could smell. He could smell that now, too.
He could also sense the physical changes in his body. They were subtle, but they were there. The cramps, the moodiness, the way his emotions were a pendulum swinging from elated to desolate, sometimes almost hourly. He would be starving one minute and disgusted by food the next. There was only one change in his body that he couldn’t hide from his mate, the one that told him he was truly an omega. The one thing he couldn’t dispute.
The slick. Betas didn’t produce slick. But Ollie did. So much so, he doubled up on his underwear just to hide the condition. Except, he lived in a house with five alphas, one of whom was his incredibly horny, incredibly insatiable mate. Deke had already experienced it first hand, though he hadn’t put two and two together until Ollie had spelled it out for him.
But now, they were there, amongst their pack, and now that everyone knew what Ollie was, there was no way to hide what they could clearly smell. Knowing that he was wet and leaking from both sides was humiliating. Knowing the whole pack knew about it, doubly so. But more than anything, it was the glaring conclusion at the end of Ollie’s daisy chain of deductive reasoning.
If Ollie could produce slick, he was an omega, and if he was an omega, he’d spent days having unprotected sex with a super-alpha in rut, and if he spent all those days getting knotted by Deke, the chances of pregnancy were…likely.
He was…pregnant.
Jesus.
Even thinking the word sent an icy finger down his spine. A baby. A tiny little creature that was half-him and half-Deke. A tiny creature relying on them for its every need. Well, that part didn’t sound so bad. It actually made him tingle a little thinking of raising a baby within the pack. Nobody would be better protected than their child…if they could just get him—or her—into the world safely.
And that was where the panic set in. That was where his chest tightened and his mind began to spin ever increasingly horrific scenarios in his head. It wasn’t the baby, it wasn’t even giving birth—though if he was being honest, that also scared the shit out of him. It was the logistics of carrying out a healthy pregnancy without any medical care because, even if they found a doctor, Ollie wasn’t sure he could believe anyone outside the pack was trustworthy enough to have his baby’s life in their hands.
Not when the stakes were so high.
Besides, even the world’s most trustworthy doctor would be in completely new territory.
Ollie wasn’t just any omega. He was a beta-o who’d become just the o. What if his body didn’t work properly? What if he couldn’t even carry to term? What if there were complications? In his mind, all roads lead to him and his baby dying or becoming lab experiments and that sent his intrusive thoughts into a place so dark it took herculean strength to crawl back out.
Deke clearly sensed his distress. He whined softly, pushing Ollie’s pants lower to have access to more bare skin, the broad sweep of his wet tongue sending pulses of heat through him. Deke’s broad hands slid up under Ollie’s shirt, planting open-mouthed kisses along his belly and hip bones, sweeping his thumbs across his nipples in a barely-there touch that had him squirming beneath him.
That was another thing. He was so sensitive. Every time Deke touched him, it sent flames licking through him, his body’s reaction instantaneous. He was so wet, in every way. Deke’s hungry gaze traveled up to meet his, locking eyes with him as he dipped his tongue into his belly button. Ollie bit back a moan, even as his hips kicked beneath his mate, grinding his hard cock against his chest.
Beside him, he could hear San’s and Binnie’s not-so-quiet conversation. Dumb little puppy. That was what San had called Binnie. It was painfully accurate in the best way. Binnie was one of his closest friends in every sense of the word. Ollie had been inside him. He used to think his desperate need to be dominated was sad, a cry for help after years of being raised by an abusive father.
But after a week with Deke’s alpha, Ollie got it. He got how surrendering himself entirely to the pleasure of another person was so hot it made him tremble at the memory of it. Deke’s alpha using him, again and again, taking what he wanted had been…euphoric, a drug with a high he could ride to a peak that was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
Even now, with Deke’s alpha sleeping, the things they’d done together left him feeling so tightly bonded to Deke. Sometimes, he could feel the pull of the stitches that had sewed their hearts together. It was so painfully, nauseatingly sentimental that Ollie made himself ill just thinking it.
Deke felt so guilty about how he’d treated him during his rut that he barely fucked him, and when he did, he treated him like glass…which was a stark contrast to the way Deke wanted Ollie to fuck him. Last night, he’d told him to fuck him like he hated him, and while Ollie understood what he’d wanted, the words had torn at him.
Who could ever hate Deke?
A hand cupped his cheek, and he blinked open heavy lids, expecting to see Binnie. But it was San. He was on his side, hovering over him, Binnie plastered against his back, watching over his shoulder as Deke pressed his mouth to the outline of Ollie’s cock. Another jolt of arousal shot through him like electricity, slick flooding his underwear.
“Fuck, he smells so good,” San whispered. “I can almost taste how badly he wants it.” He looked at Deke. “He’s a perfect omega.”
Deke rumbled low in his chest, not with aggression but with pride. His scent was sweet, his satisfaction pulsing through their bond. He loved how much the other alphas wanted Ollie in that moment. It was turning him on. It was turning Ollie on as well. Beta Ollie would have run screaming at the thought of not one, not two, but three alphas crowding him, but now, he preened, flicking his gaze up to meet San’s even as he flushed to the tips of his ears.
Ollie and San contemplated each other, the tension between them growing. Even in the semi-darkness, he could see the elegant alpha’s eyes were all pupil, his full lips wet and parted, his pink tongue visible as he dropped his gaze, raking it over Ollie’s body. San wanted to kiss him, they both knew it. He hesitated, though, likely out of respect for Binnie and Deke.
Deke surged upwards, capturing Ollie’s mouth in a dirty, claiming kiss, his tongue licking the roof of his mouth before biting at his lips. The raw need growing within him was making him achy. He desperately wanted more. More of their touch, their attention, their…everything.
He could hear Seth’s soft cries and Loch’s low growl. They had clearly split the group in two. Seth, Fen, and their mates, and Ollie and…three alphas.
When Deke broke the kiss, a string of saliva connected their lips. He leaned back in to suck on Ollie’s bottom lip for a moment, pulling away with it still between his teeth, looking like he wanted to eat Ollie whole.
Ollie wanted to purr.
Deke cut his gaze to San, threading his fingers into his hair and dragging him in for a slightly more restrained kiss. Was this their first time kissing? Ollie bit back a moan at the thought, watching how San’s hand clenched Deke’s jaw, holding him in place while he plundered his mouth. Ollie shifted restlessly beneath Deke, a whine escaping when he went ignored.
It was over before it started, with Deke pulling back to make room for San, guiding San’s lips to Ollie’s. The other alpha kissed how he looked, cool, confident, like he knew Ollie was enjoying the kiss. And he was, but not as much as what happened next. Deke shifted his weight so only his upper half covered Ollie and San did the same. The heavy weight of both their bodies at the same time was like a weighted blanket. He felt soothed, protected.
They moved as one, Deke and San biting at his ears, mouthing along his throat, licking and sucking at whatever skin they found. Ollie could barely think past his own desperation. He needed more, needed some kind of relief, someone’s fingers, their cock, their knot. Anything. He just felt so achingly empty.
Binnie turned his face towards him, covering his lips with his, kissing him greedily. They’d kissed before, but not like this. He was so caught up in it that he didn’t notice the two alphas moving lower until they latched onto his nipples. Deke scraped his teeth over the tender flesh before sucking it soothingly, San biting in a way that made Ollie’s thoughts and movements honeyed, so caught up in his own bliss he floated somewhere in his mind where only sensation remained. No thoughts. Thoughts were bad.
When his alpha tugged down his pants and underwear, leaving him completely bared to the others, he didn’t question it. When they parted his legs, pushed them here and there, he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but Binnie’s tongue in his mouth and San’s mouth closing over his painfully hard cock.
Deke licked the slick from his thighs, his fingers teasing along his rim. “So wet.”
Deke gave a frustrated growl, temporarily pulling Ollie from his cotton candy wrapped sanctuary. Then someone was lifting him. He landed on a solid body. Binnie.
“Hi,” he said, words slurred.
Binnie licked his lower lip. “Hi.”
Large hands encircled his hips, dragging them up. He practically purred as long fingers gathered the slick from between his cheeks, then wrapped a fist around him, stroking him slowly. A wet tongue licked a broad stripe over his hole, then buried their face between the globes of his ass. Deke. He was like a man possessed, the wet sounds of his feast making Ollie blush to the roots of his hair.
Binnie’s hands gripped him, pulling him open farther so Deke could fuck his tongue inside, swallowing every one of Ollie’s wanton cries. He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, the three alphas working in tandem to make him completely lose his mind.
Time had ceased to exist. There was only sensation. Fingers joined Deke’s tongue, stroking along narrow walls until they found that spongy spot inside that had him screaming into Binnie’s mouth. “Please. Please. Please,” he begged against his lips. “It hurts.”
“I don’t know,” Deke taunted, biting his ass cheek. “I think we could keep you like this ‘til the movie ends.”
Mortification ripped through him when he started to sob at that, burying his face in Binnie’s neck. “Please, alpha. I can’t…”
He couldn’t handle it. Every single thing inside him felt stripped bare, like his body wasn’t his own, like he’d given them ownership. He could feel his release right there, like a spring wound too tightly. Just a little more and he’d be there.
“I’ll do whatever you want. You can use me. Just please…I need to come.”
“Shh,” San hushed.
A soft kiss landed on his hip, then that sticky wet fist was working him with purpose, the two fingers inside giving way to four, fucking into him hard and fast, grazing his prostate with every pass.
Every signal in his body was going haywire, his mind focused on only one thing. He worked himself back against their fingers, chasing the butterflies in his belly that were telling him just a little bit more…he was so close…it was right there. He just needed?—
Binnie’s lips closed over his mating mark, sucking on the flesh there. That was all it took to throw Ollie over, his vision going white, his whole body shaking violently as he spilled all over Binnie’s pants, then collapsed into the mess.
Fingers slipped free of his body as he struggled to catch his breath and his scattered thoughts. He could hear low murmurs around him, felt Binnie stroking his sweaty back and a cool cloth wipe him down, but he physically couldn’t move.
When he tried to lift himself off Binnie, San stopped him with a hand between his shoulder blades. “Stay still. It’s not good for the baby if you overexert yourself.”
Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby.
Was that just a thing they’d all accepted now? That he just was pregnant? How had his life come to this? He wanted to think about it more. To study it. If he could just find the right angle, everything would be fine. Right? But he couldn’t keep his brain online. Sleep was dragging him under.
The last thing he remembered was a phone ringing and Loch saying to Fen, “Who could possibly be calling you now?”
“It’s my friend. The one who I asked to look into Stirling’s kid’s medical records.”