Page 4 of Generation Omega: Claimed
IthreatenedEthan—I almost wish I was too far gone to remember that, but I’m choking on well-deserved shame. I have to do better than this.
While Tillie wails in her new alpha’s arms, I’m struck by everything I don’t know. I assumed our bond meant I would have access to her inner world during the heat—that she would guide me even after the haze of passion claimed her. But it’s not like that at all. There’s now a wall between us, erected the moment her last alphas arrived. I can’t see over it. I can’t get around it. I can’t break through it.
I don’t need our useless professor to explain what is painfully apparent. I bonded Tillie, but my inner alpha bonded her omega. We aren’t one with our designations, and it’s possible we never will be. That thought is a knife plunged directly into my heart that, once again, has no connection to Tillie’s. She’s right there—weeping—and I have no power to help her. The loss of Tillie’sthoughts and feelings, those delicious pings she’d unknowingly send to ensure our connection was solid, leaves me bereft.
I don’t know the source of Tillie’s sadness, what excruciating torture she’s enduring. But awareness flickers in my frazzled mind, presenting me with a truth that brings me no solace. If this were Tillie’s sorrow, I would understand it. I would be able to fix it or, at least, ease her through it. But this isn’t Tillie’s anguish—it’s her omega’s—and I’m as powerless to cure it as I am to comprehend a grief so epic it’s fracturing our souls.
I resent that this stranger touching her for the first time understands her better than I do. He’s mourning with her in a way I can’t. He knows what I don’t. The alpha in me wants to tear him to pieces, but the grief in her cries keeps me tethered to sanity. It stopped me from doing what would have destroyed our pack, and just in time too.
You knew… I accuse the omega legacy.
Hoped. It’s not smug. It’s relieved.
Why can’t I feel her? I demand of the omegaverse.
The past is a wasteland filled with failures. Elevating the omega, neglecting the host. Protection that smothered. The loss of will destroyed packs before enemies ever began the hunt. This time, everything is different. The omega and the woman each have power and control. You are Tillie’s first alpha, but her omega may choose differently.
I wish I had more than ten operational brain cells, but my inner barbarian isn’t big with higher-level thinking. Will we ever be unified inside ourselves?
Only time and experience can answer that. This pack is like no pack that existed before or ever will again, a collision of the alpha and the omega.The despair in Tillie’s omega is matched in the legacy’s tone.
The grief, I press, explain it to me.
They must tell their own story. The Scot can be trusted with her. He won’t cross her boundaries, not the omega’s or Tillie’s. You must control the other alphas. The omega needs all of them, but Tillie mustn’t be bonded without her consent. The omega can’t help but lure bites that will ensure her survival. The alphas will demand them. You must protect the woman who can’t protect herself. The danger in stolen bonds is desperately real. Tillie almost fled once—everything rests on her willingness. Get control.
The legacy’s not wrong. I know that. Butget control? Is that a fucking joke? Awaken the feral and then expect domesticated animals—what the hell? I’m barely sentient right now, more than capable of grabbing my woman by the hair and dragging her back to my cave. My alpha won’t be satisfied until he mates his omega, and he won’t ask nicely. He’ll demand her submission, and it will be his. I shudder and I wish it was caused by revulsion, not the most primal brand of glee imaginable.
Desire has never felt like this, never been a drug injected into my veins, turning me into a mindless predator. My cock is now a weapon of conquest, and it won’t be sated until it’s drenched in her slick. I want… no, Ineedto capture her on my knot and own her fully. I want her screams, pleasure and pain merging as she’s crammed full of me, unable to ever escape.
There’s brutality here. How can that be right?
I expect an answer from the chatty legacy but it gives none, and I can almost discern the meaning in its silence. Wait until you know more. You’ll understand then, and be able to judge everything the omegaverse has done to endure and decide for yourself whether it was right or wrong.
“Alpha,” Ethan says soothingly to the Scot, who’s shielding Tillie from the dawn, “your omega needs her nest. Will you follow me?”
I’m uneasy about them moving toward the nest while I remain here, but I must get control of this mob before we enter Tillie’s sacred space. I must get control of myself. If I harm Ethan, we’re all doomed. I force myself to remain in place as they move up the stairs on their way to the nest.
They’ve barely reached the main level before the last alpha barrels toward the steps, his wide eyes devoid of reason. He’s completely lost in the thrall of the omega he hasn’t even touched, his features familiar but unrecognizable so twisted with rage.
Kazimir swiftly moves to block him, and the newbie makes the questionable decision to attack our resident assassin. Our omegaverse expert might be a tremendous disappointment, but the killer earns all the accolades when he snatches the new alpha off his feet, slams him onto the deck, and dives onto him, pinning him with physical force before issuing a bark the man can’t combat.
Kazimir holds him in place as pink and blue hues decorate the sky, and the sun illuminates our new packmate’s face. I step closer and finally observe him with his features less contorted by alpha madness.
My response is unsubtle. “Holyfuck!”
The feral gleam falters in his familiar amber eyes, and his smile is entirely sinister. “Hey, Gideon. Aren’t you going to welcome me to this little boat party?”
“It’s a fucking yacht, dickhead,” Kazimir snaps, entirely aware of who the new arrival is.
Thatcher stumbles closer, dumbfounded by the identity of the final alpha. “How?” he stammers, as though he’s asking the legacy, while glaring at our new packmate.
Infamous?What a fucking understatement. I don’t even know what to feel, but no one does about the insolent man who began as the sorrowful boy. We all witnessed the slow-moving trainwreck that built this entitled, cocky malcontent,who embraced the dark side of his own nature a long time ago. No one can judge him—or they can, but not without feeling like crap about it. That’s double for me, because maybe I could have helped him before the train left the station bound for hell.
I barely see any of his mother in him now, which is a true shame. When that remarkable woman brought him to the premiere of one of my films, they both had the same bubbly nature and obvious mischief, like the two of them shared the best secret and would never tell. Now, he’s his father’s son, his striking good looks a warning more than a draw, at least to those who recognize the danger lurking beneath his pleasing surface. But not everyone sees that truth, and he’s left a trail of destruction in his wake.
He’s infamous, shady, and possibly hotter to Tillie than all the rest of us combined. Will his unfaced pain and indifference repel her or attract her? My sudden urge is to shove him back on his boat and protect my Tillie from the heartbreak this man wields like a weapon, targeting anyone foolish enough to care about him.
The weight lands on me slowly at first and then like an anvil dropped from a cloud high above me. Fuck… no, really,fuck. This little shit is now my responsibility. What kind of sick joke is this? Things were complicated enough without festering mistakes from my past making an appearance.
