Page 14 of Dual Nature

Colt’s head shot up, and he met my gaze, just barely flinching at my aggression. “It’s not smuggling when your own brother is the one who changed her, Zander. I have every right to be here and to take her back to our pack.”

Tossing back my head, I started to laugh, a loud belly laugh that almost made me shed a tear. “You think that, do you? Well, I have news for you, pup—if she gets noticed by anyone else, then you can kiss your omega goodbye. She has no pack scent nor a mate mark to keep her safe. How the hell did you even know about this?”

“She called me earlier, right before I called you. Cory bit her, and she hasn’t had her first shift yet. They might not even know who or what she is,” Colt challenged, stalking over to me.

Before it could come to blows—as it often did between alphas who weren’t pack—Lane cut him off.

“Easy, Colt, we need to get moving. She said she was going early to get food, so if we don’t want her sitting alone at a diner in some strange town for too long, then we need to get a move on.”

Colt just growled at me, shoving Lane off, and stomped to the SUV, yanking open the door so hard the hinges groaned. I didn’t even try to argue with him as he slid into the driver’s seat, knowing that Lane was right about this situation. Even a pretentious prick like myself would put the needs of an omega before my own. But the little omega doesn’t need Lane to be in the front seat. Smirking at the frown on the stuffy alpha’s face, I cut him off and claimed the front passenger seat. I made myself comfortable, sliding my Gucci shades on and pushing the chair all the way back. It was far too easy to ruffle Lane’s feathers, so it made for easy entertainment.

Pairing my phone with the radio so I could control the music, I flipped to my newest album, knowing it would piss Lane off to no end. “I’m guessing you guys haven’t heard this yet since that pack of yours likes to live under a rock.”

“Staying out of werewolf politics doesn’t mean we live under a rock, Zander,” Lane grumbled as he sighed heavily from the backseat.

I peered at him over the top of my shades. “You keep telling yourself that. Just know that ends once you tell the Senate that you have an omega in your pack. Especially when they find out she’s a changed omega. They are goddamn fucking rare.”

The SUV came to a screeching halt. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Fucking hell, man! You trying to get us killed before we even leave the airport?” I snapped. “If you’re going to be like this, then it might be better if I drive the rest of the way.”

“Explain what you meant about a changed omega. Why would the Senate care?” Colt said, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly it was making his knuckles white.

I looked at him closely, trying to understand what had made him so upset. “Um, okay… Well, some omegas can come about by being bitten, but two conditions have to be met. One, the bite has to come from an omega. Two, the bitten individual must be a person who would have been a natural omega had they been born as a wolf. I would say there aren’t many of them. I mean, how many omegas do you know that would attack someone instead of running away?”

Colt shook his head slowly. Was that sincere disbelief on his face? “Why don’t we know about this? How many omegas could be out there in the world, so scared to ask for help that they end up dead or captured?”

It was then that I figured out he was envisioning his brother in this woman’s place, what could have happened to him if he hadn’t been born into the pack he was. From the few things I knew about Cory, I was aware that Colt had taken on the role of guarding him and keeping him safe within their old pack. When an omega was raised in a healthy pack, they were given a protector to keep an eye on them until they were mated and under the protection of an alpha. Cory had never gotten the chance to find a mate, or even to live much of a normal life.

Through some of my connections, I’d caught wind that he was being kept by Delilah yesterday, and if that was true, I shuddered to think what his life had been like in her care. I’d planned to tell Colt once I checked a few things out, not wanting to get his hopes up. I had heard whispers of some of the shit Delilah was into, and given her reputation, my own hopes hadn’t been very high. This led me to wonder how Finley had wound up being on the receiving end of an attack by an omega. It never would have been Cory’s first reaction to lash out—he had to have been left with no other option but to attack.

“What do we know about this woman?” I turned slightly so Lane knew I was directing the question back at him.

I could hear Lane stiffen as if he didn’t want to share anything with me, but that was pointless because I was an older alpha than him. If I wanted him to back off, I could make him. Before this woman stepped foot on the pack lands where I resided, I was going to make sure she wasn’t a threat. I might not want to be bound to a pack, but I would always protect those who gave me protection in return.

“I don’t know much other than her name, that she was bitten by Colt’s brother, and that she was hurt. Thanks to her new abilities kicking in this close to the full moon, she’s healed,” Lane answered begrudgingly.

I rubbed my hand over my jaw as I mulled that information over. “She said she was staying in a safe place that only had MREs to eat, the phone she called us from was blocked, and she was surprisingly knowledgeable about our journey. Something about this doesn’t add up to me. No omega would be able to survive being attacked; they don’t have the drive to fight back like other werewolves.”

“Well, she hasn’t shifted yet, so her nature wouldn’t be changed as much… Right?” Colt interjected.

“Possibly, but I plan on having all those answers before she’s on my plane back to Tennessee,” I growled, feeling my wolf’s hackles rise along with my suspicions.

It wasn’t hard to find the town. It was just as she’d described; Maybelle’s Diner was right off the short two-block strip they called their ‘downtown.’ Colt took a parking spot right in front near the door so that she wouldn’t be out in the open for long when we left.

With it being so close to the full moon, I was more worried about her shifting early. If that happened, it could bring on her heat and, subsequently, our rut, and I did not want that to happen with an omega I’d just met. The chances of marking her would be too high, and I wasn’t going to bind myself—and all the danger that came with who I was—to some stranger.

The moment Lane opened the door to the diner, I was smacked in the face with her scent. There was a bite of cardamom and clove, but it was sweetened with a hint of vanilla that made you want to bury your nose in its warmth. My wolf sat up, eyes alert, seeking out the owner of this addictive scent, and seconds later, I found my gaze landing on a slight woman sitting in the back corner, staring at us with wide eyes. The bright cobalt blue of her eyes was just as alluring as her scent, and before I knew what was happening, I was standing before her. Her long brunette hair had hints of red running through it in the sunlight, and her frame was so small, almost as if, were I to hold her too tightly, I would break her.

Mate. That scent rocked me to my core.

My wolf let out a growl, not liking how skinny she was. She needed to be healthy if she was to be a good mate and give us strong pups.

Mate? Pups? What the fuck was I thinking? I didn’t even know this woman, and I was already planning to keep her. I’d heard the call to your true mate was one you couldn’t fight, but I’d always assumed it was still a choice. After all, we weren’t purely animals. But this right here felt like an obsession, like this woman was a drug, and I needed my fix now.

It was then I noticed that Lane and Colt were on either side of me, both as rigid as I was, attempting to keep themselves from pouncing on her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lane take a deep breath, pulling in her scent and closing his eyes as his chest started to rumble. Hearing this, my wolf thrashed inside me, furious that this other alpha would dare lay claim on something that was ours. Colt echoed the sound, causing me to whip my head in his direction and snarl, rising to my full height.

A whimper of distress pulled my full attention to the omega trembling in the booth in front of me. The need to fix whatever had made our omega whine had me tossing the table out of the way so I could kneel in front of her, oblivious to what was going on elsewhere in the diner.