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CHAPTER 1
Zorah
The touch skimmed down her neck like the slow meander of a single tear. Nearly imperceptible, the mere suggestion of a sensation near the top of her spine, it wheedled along her hairline. Feathering into her hair, the soft stroke of so many invisible fingers coaxed an unwilling shiver from her sensitized skin.
"... Andthenhe opened his eyes and said, 'what did I miss?'" Matteo brayed at the culmination of his anecdote, his loud guffaw jarring Zorah out of the seductive reverie. Bowing her head, she composed a weak smile and pretended to hide a giggle she couldn't bring herself to fake for the story she hadn't been paying attention to.
It was always like that when the touch found her. Seduced by its eerie, whispered caress, everything else faded from existence.
Back in the moment, Zorah scanned the gathered crowd. Around the firepit, with the alcohol flowing and the guitar twanging, the Pack party steadily gained steam. She ought to be circulating, getting to know the quieter Alphas who took a backseat to the more aggressive suitors like Matteo and Riddick, looking for the best mate she could choose. That had been her plan, after all. Her plan for the party. Her plan for the summer. Her plan for the rest of her life. A plan proving to be more difficult than anticipated.
It was fast becoming a problem. Between managing Grace and Lars's unruly brood and helping with chores around the village, her days evaporated like water on hot stone. In a few short weeks, her parents would arrive at Morris Hill to fetch her home and finalize her mating to Nelson. A grimace pulled up her lips at the thought of her cousin's grabby hands and oversized, rubbery lips. He was Alpha, sure, but a less appealing one she'd never met. Not that her parents cared. Omegas were rare, and as the only Omega of child-bearing age in River Bend, they intended to leverage her Omega status in the most advantageous way possible.
"Are you excited about the Omega bunkhouse?" Matteo asked, sliding his head into her wandering field of vision.
Schooling her features, Zorah raised her cup to her lips. The strong liquor and tart berry juice mix was a rare treat. At home, even as a fully grown twenty-six-year-old Omega, she'd never been permitted to partake. Yet another resentment to add to the long list of constraints and prohibitions she'd lived with her entire life.
Buying time with an overly large gulp, Zorah studied Matteo's expectant face. He was an agreeable enough Alpha, irreverent and funny, with a fun disposition and easy smile. Yet, like all the unmated Alphas vying daily for her attention, her Omega nature remained stubbornly unmoved.
"When will it be done, do you think?" she asked.
The Omega bunkhouse was the second large building project the Morris Hill Pack had undertaken that summer. The first being the reconstructed mess hall, and its completion provided the cause for the evening's celebration. The original mess hall burned down during an attack by a rogue gang of Alphas earlier in the summer. Zorah's memories of that night blurred together in a smear of red flame, black soot, crying children, and the howls of the dying rogues, summarily dispatched by furious Morris Hill Alphas defending their homes and families. She'd retreated to Hunter's cabin along with the other Omegas and pups, to wait out the fight.
Everyone in Morris Hill survived, but the mess hall had not. As a further complication, after the smoke cleared from the fight, a half dozen terrified, unmated Omegas the rogues had been trafficking were discovered, and the Pack had nowhere to house them other than temporary tents. In the six weeks since, the Alphas busted tail to rebuild the mess hall from the ground up and added two new structures to the village: a bunkhouse for unmated Omegas and a private cabin for Omegas undergoing a Heat, unofficially dubbed the "Heat Hut."
Zorah, for her part, lived with Grace and Lars while she took care of their kids, so the controversy around the Omega bunkhouse didn't affect her. But it remained a hot topic of conversation among the Alphas. They would much prefer the unmated Omegas becomematedOmegas to solve the housing problem, but that was not the Morris Hill way. Here, Zorah learned — to her absolute astonishment — Omegas chose whom they mated, not the other way around. If her parents had known this was the custom in Morris Hill, they would've never consented to her visit.
"Another week to finish the cladding." Matteo rocked his head side to side. "Maybe two. Working on beds to go inside. It'll be nice for you all, much better than the stinky old Alpha bunk."
Zorah smiled. "Is it really smelly? Don't you clean it?"
Matteo wrinkled his nose. "I don't want to clean up after those slobs. Riddick can mop up his own jizz puddle," he quipped, tossing the jibe at Riddick as the curly-haired Alpha sauntered up to join their conversation. As usual, any Alpha occupying Zorah's attention one-on-one got interrupted by another one, or two, or three. "That's if he can pry his hands off his cock long enough to grip a broom."
"Hey, Zorah." Unfazed, Riddick flashed his high-beam smile, complete with a glinting gold tooth, and pulled at the healing scar that slashed across his cheek — a souvenir from the attack.
Despite her inner Omega's obstinate disinterest, Zorah couldn't deny his rakish good looks. With tawny brown skin and a wild tumble of cinnamon ringlets sprouting every which way, she could find no physical fault with him. Yet her Omega remained silent.
Riddick's fingers teased a soft hello against her elbow as he positioned himself close to her side. Of all the Alphas, Riddick pursued her affections with a relaxed, but determined, focus.
Matteo's brows dipped toward the bridge of his nose at the cozy insinuation, and Zorah flashed him a conciliatory smile to dispel tension. For a bunch of tough Alphas, their emotions bruised easily where courting her was concerned.
"We're talking about the Alpha bunkhouse," she said to Riddick. "Matteo says it stinks, but maybe once all the construction is done, you'll have time to clean up. Or perhaps you could bribe some Omegas to help you."
Riddick rocked back on his heels, eyes sparkling in the reflected firelight. "That would be such a kind gesture, we would be so appreciative."
Zorah's smile stretched. "I saidbribe, not guilt." She rested her index finger on her chin in mock contemplation. "Maybe you could offer a trade. Do you have anything to exchange?"
"And before you open your mouth to offer your dick," Matteo interjected, "think of something she might actually want."
Suppressing a genuine giggle, Zorah flashed Matteo a chiding look at his vulgar joke. He never censored himself in deference to her supposed delicate Omega sensibilities. None of them did. But once she got over the initial shock, Zorah found she liked the scandalized thrill of their off-color jokes, and not just for the transgressive exhilaration, either. The ribald banter underscored another important difference between Morris Hill and River Bend: no one here treated her as a fragile, precious thing to be coddled and sheltered. Here, she was a whole person. A desirable Omega, yes, but a flower that could bloom freely in the sun, not one preserved between pages of a book, pressed flat and unchanging, forever.
"Well..." Riddick drawled the word. "That's an interesting question. What might entice a sweet Omega like our little Zorah here?"
The hated endearment doused her good humor like a guttered flame.
Little Zorah doesn't know what's best.
Listen to your parents, little Zorah.
