Omega Blues (Gay Romance)

Chapter Six: Wolf At Rest

Bren

I had never been good enough.

That's what it means to be an omega. I work hard just to be overlooked and ignored, to be useful so I won't be punished or shunned. Every wolf has a role in the pack, and the omega's role is to help everyone else. There's nothing embarrassing or wrong about being an omega.

Except when you're the first omega born from a line of alpha werewolves.

Before I was sent to train with other omegas, I was raised in the Flight pack: the strongest werewolf pack ever known. The Flight pack is the result of generations of carefully selective breeding—searching all over the world for alpha werewolves with the best genes to make the strongest children.

In any other pack, an omega is essential. But the Flight pack only needed alphas, so I studied the lores and history of werewolves to become as useful as possible for a new pack. Then my sister asked me to move to Minnesota to join her new pack, a pack that would live in the foothills of the Jagged Rock Mountains with access to a lot of land. She wanted someone who knew a lot about animals, so I trained as a veterinarian before traveling to the pack.

It was the first time I'd ever felt good enough.

When I work with animals I can forget that I'm a werewolf and pretend I'm a human, with a human-level control over my own destiny. The full moon takes that away.

I live with the fear that one day I'll shift in front of a human and expose werewolves to people, that I'll be the one to ruin the secrecy forever and start a witch hunt, a war between humans and werewolves.

I found my place in a pack, but moving to a community near humans meant a whole new fear. I lived with it until the fear became such a fundamental part of myself that I didn't even think of it as a fear anymore, it was just part of my life and another way I had to prove myself.

I wanted to be useful to humans, just like to werewolves. I had to be the best human, to pass so effectively that if I ever messed up then the people around me would just laugh it off. I imagined Carol at work saying, Bren, a supernatural fearsome beast? No way! He's just a good vet!

I also had a sanctuary at home. I was surrounded by my books and my food, a totally separate world from the pressure and responsibilities of my real life as an omega.

I would happily have lived my life as a human, but the werewolf curse stops that. Every full moon I'm dragged into my wolf shape, proving that I'm truly a wolf first and human second. I can take the shape of a wolf all year round, but I can't stay in human shape.

I love wolves and I like humans, but I struggle with werewolves. They're the ones who know that I'm not good enough.

Matt's a human. He can be anything, do anything he wants with his life. But all he wants is to give up his great human life to be tied forever to a werewolf pack.

It's up to me to talk him out of it. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy spending time with him.

There were two separate packs I was meant to visit over the weekend, continuing Will's work of keeping all the local wolves and werewolves in harmony. My time with Matt after work had made me late, and some of the pack I hadn't been able to visit got worried and came to find me.

After my time with the pack, I came back to visit Matt. With my alpha Will and the rest of the pack out of contact, there was no one to give me orders. I had nothing to do but go back to my house to be with Matt.

*

Matt played my records. He danced a bobbing hop that reminded me of new pups finding their legs, springing playfully in the snow.