I, Omega

Kari Gregg

www.loose-id.com

I, Omega
Copyright © September 2011 by Kari Gregg
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eISBN 978-1-61118-563-8
Editor: Judith David
Cover Artist: April Martinez
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Chapter One

He wasn’t always like this.

Once upon a time, Gabriel had crunched numbers as a payroll accountant for

Smith, Wheeler and Hayes, with his own office and—more significantly—an off-

network printer he didn’t have to share. He’d driven a blue Taurus. He’d

contributed five percent of gross to his Roth IRA and planned to pay off the

mortgage on his loft apartment a decade ahead of schedule.

Shoulders hunched as he scurried along the trash-strewn alley, he blinked rain

from his eyes and pushed sopping clumps of hair from his face.

Once upon a time, he’d been normal.

Human anyway.

Not anymore.

Gabriel swept the street with an assessing glance before he turned down

another narrow back street partially blocked by overflowing garbage cans. Darker

there, but his newly preternatural eyes saw better in the dark. Scents were sharper

too. His nose wrinkled at the reek of rotten food and God only knew what else from

the Chinese takeout place across the alley from his current bolt-hole. The stench

worried at his overstimulated senses like a sore tooth, so much so that he’d nearly

abandoned his newest sanctuary his first night there. But if his stomach lurched at

the eye-watering aromas, it’d be worse for the others. They wouldn’t linger here.

His master wouldn’t find him.

Gabriel ducked into a gap between a mound of graying produce pallets and the

stripped shell of a dead delivery truck. Bending in the tight space, he nudged aside

sodden cardboard he’d used to hide the broken window. Gabriel was a small guy,

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only a couple of inches above five and a half feet, and he’d lost any fat he’d managed

to glue onto his lean body within weeks of living on the streets. But squeezing

through the window of the abandoned building still wasn’t easy. Pushing the air

from his lungs, he twisted his shoulders, wriggled his hips…

He tucked his body for a softer landing on the basement floor inside. He rolled

to a crouch and froze. Listened. Restaurant trash negated scent as an early-warning

system so Gabriel relied more heavily on his hearing since moving to this hellhole.

But the downpour masked everything.

Cold, wet, he shivered as he waited for a telltale sign.

No hope for it. In these conditions, he was as good as blind.

It was almost like being human again.

He shuddered in remembered fear, but, scowling, he pushed to his feet. He

couldn’t let his fear rule him. If he thought about what had happened, what was

still happening to him… No, it was better not to think. Keep moving. He had to

keep moving.

He crept to the furnace room he’d staked out as his shelter. A flash of fur the

size of a house cat to his left would’ve revolted him a couple of months ago, but now

he noted how readily he’d find fresh meat. Only if he had to. Most nights, he’d

rather starve. He used up more of his body’s precious stores of energy chasing the

little bastards than he gained when—if—he cornered one. Hunting made him

weaker, not stronger. Just another item to add to his You Suck As A Werewolf list.

God, he was tired of being hungry.

He reached for the plywood he’d cannibalized for a door. Gabriel slid inside

before he scrambled for the damned rat.

His scent washed over Gabriel first.

Earthy, male. Gabriel’s mouth watered at the acrid tang of sweat. Nothing

smelled as good as his master. Nothing. That scent sent shivers up and down

Gabriel’s spine and pooled heat in his suddenly knotted gut.

I, Omega

He had to stop. Breathing through his mouth had made his arousal bearable

when the shifter had drawn near before. This close though? Gabriel couldn’t resist.

His nostrils flared in gluttonous rebellion. He inhaled lustily, bringing that

intoxicating scent into his lungs.

“Close the door, Gabriel.”

He shuddered in equal parts fear and need.

The shifter knew his name.

Of course he knew it. By now, he probably knew more about Gabriel than

Gabriel did. Gabriel’s heartbeat still stuttered.

“Boy,” his master growled in warning.

Gabriel pulled the makeshift door shut. The scrape of it closing split the

darkness like a thunder clap. His fingers dug into the sheet of disintegrating wood.

His forehead kissed its rough surface as he leaned into it to brace his shaking

knees.

Christ, he was hard. His dick rubbed painfully against the teeth of his zipper.

That scent was making him crazy.

“Turn around.”

He smothered hopeless laughter.

Had he the strength, Gabriel would’ve leaped at him and begged his master to

take him. That was the bliss and the horror of it. Starved and empty no matter how

much he ate, hormones ping-ponging inside him as new instincts took hold, Gabriel

was helplessly drawn to the shifter. The human part of Gabriel wanted to run.

Gabriel had invested two months living like a vagrant to escape him, for fuck’s sake.

But a growing part of him—the part his master had given him—wept in relief.

Swallowing down terror and longing, Gabriel slowly pivoted to face him.

He sprawled on the bed Gabriel had made of foam packing sheets overlaid by a

quilt with a busted seam at one corner that some fool had tossed into the Dumpster

outside. The thick shock of blond hair still surprised him. Gabriel expected

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werewolves to have dark hair and eyes, but his master’s hair was golden with

streaks of lighter strands the color of sunshine. It smelled of sunshine too and

verdant forest. Crisp, pure, and clean.

The shifter twisted the knob of the camp lantern so it flared bright, though his

eyes never strayed from Gabriel. He wondered if his master’s gaze held some sort of

hypnotic power over him. Why not, when the rest of him did? He wondered that

those eyes could be such a pale shade of blue. Shouldn’t a werewolf’s eyes be feral

yellow? Or black? Gabriel wondered why his master had bothered to hunt him, why

he’d been allowed to survive in the first place, and if he would kill Gabriel quickly

once he realized Gabriel’s transformation had taken root so poorly.

“Come here.”

Gabriel’s mouth went dry. Glance lowering, he shuffled forward. He could not

hold that stare. Meeting it felt too much like a challenge, one he couldn’t and didn’t

want to issue.

The game was over. His master had found him.

Gabriel was his to do with as he pleased.

Again.

Gabriel didn’t even know his name.

Without being bade to do so, Gabriel dropped to his knees when he reached his

bed and jerked both hands to the small of his back. His eyes focused on gray

cement. His spine straightened. His shoulders squared. His knees spread on the

gritty floor to widen his stance.

He moved into the position his master had taught him with disturbing ease.

Kneeling for him comforted Gabriel—though not just the new wildness that had

been bred inside him, but also the human sub he’d been before. Weeks and months

of worry, fear and pain dissolved at the ritual of offering himself to his dom—to this

dom. Gabriel’s galloping heart slowed. The tightness in his chest released. His

hands stopped shaking. The terror that had gripped him these past months

abruptly loosed.

I, Omega

The shifter would keep him or kill him. Or fuck him.

Gabriel no longer had any say in what happened to him. If he ever had.

“Good boy,” he said on a low rumble, sliding toward Gabriel on the pallet of his

bed. When fingers briefly skated over his hair, Gabriel trembled and wished he

could blame the quivering response on fear. God knows terror had made him shake

in his shoes more than he cared to recall these past weeks, but he leaned toward his

master’s hand, craving the affection and husky approval in his voice. With that

scent wrapped around him and a soft caress twisting Gabriel’s gut, he needed to

please his master more than he needed his next breath.

“Pity you aren’t always so biddable.” He threaded his fingers into Gabriel’s

hair and palmed his scalp. “You ran from me.”

Gabriel gulped, but he didn’t reply. He knew from that one mind-shattering

night with the shifter that he wasn’t to speak until invited to do so. When a hand

fisted in Gabriel’s hair to yank his gaze up, Gabriel didn’t utter a word, though an

anxious whine fell from his lips no matter how he tried to contain it.

“We know how much you like to be punished, though. Don’t we, pet?” One

corner of his master’s mouth curved at the evidence of Gabriel’s distress. “And we

both know I’ll always give you what you need.”

Gabriel’s pulse thundered in his ears. “Always?” he whispered then cringed at

his audacity.

“Always, Gabriel.”

He stared into Gabriel’s eyes. Wholly captivating. Enthralling. Though nerves

ate at his spine, Gabriel would not—could not—look away.

“Strip your jeans down your thighs.”

His stomach clenched. As he fumbled with his zipper, Gabriel’s gaze darted to

his master’s nose, the thick blond hair that brushed his brow, to the pale scruff of

stubble that roughened his jaw—everywhere the shifter’s grasp would allow. But it

was the eyes that commanded him. Beckoned him. Gabriel licked his lips and

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shuddered at the cold blankness in the unwavering stare. Whatever the shifter

intended to do with Gabriel, this was the real punishment—forcing Gabriel to look

into his eyes. Gabriel knew it. His master knew it too.

Shoving wet denim down his hips, Gabriel bared his ass and jutting cock.

His master smiled. “Hands, pet.”

Gabriel yanked them to the base of his spine again.

Humming in satisfaction, the shifter tugged at his hair so that he stumbled off

balance and wrapped the fingers of his free hand around Gabriel’s aching, needy

dick.

Gabriel groaned out wanton lust.

He chuckled. “Have you missed me, pet?”

God, he had. Missed him. Horror at what the man had done to him hadn’t

dulled the sharp, keening want. Gabriel had dreamed of him in the months since

that night and thought of him endlessly. No matter how long Gabriel lived, he’d

never forget the bitter taste of his master’s cum in his mouth, the sounds he’d made

when he’d fucked Gabriel, or the exquisite pain of his teeth slicing into Gabriel’s

nape.

His grip on Gabriel’s cock tightened.

Gabriel panted.

“Boy?”

“Yes, Sir,” he finally said around a broken moan.

“Yes, Sir…what?”

Oh Jesus, he was losing his mind. “Y-yes, Sir, I missed you.”

He swept his thumb over the head of Gabriel’s cock. His fingernail digging into

the slit scrambled Gabriel’s brains. “And yet,” he said on a gravelly purr, “you did

not seek your master.”

I, Omega

Gabriel bit his lip to hold back the pleas that struggled to tear from his throat.

For mercy. For the orgasm he already felt tingling in his balls. For just one

moment’s reprieve to think.

“The night you offered yourself to me, your safe word was sparrow. It still is.

Do you understand?”

Astounded that he would even now—especially now—be allowed a safe word,

Gabriel blinked at him. And knew, regardless of what the shifter did to him, Gabriel

wouldn’t use it. He’d fucked up so badly…Gabriel wouldn’t deny his master again. “I

understand. Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re welcome.” The shifter gave his dick a lazy pump. “Over my knees, boy.”

Gabriel draped obediently over his lap, ass arched high while his toes and

fingertips dug into the floor for balance. His master adjusted his position so

Gabriel’s cock rooted between his denim-clad thighs. Gabriel’s desire fought scared

embarrassment while he was maneuvered into place. Desire won.

One big hand rubbed the rounded globes of Gabriel’s ass. The other pushed

against the small of his back, holding him in position. “Ten should sear this lesson

into your memory. Ten and then the last two months will be forgiven. Do you

understand?”

Gabriel braced his body, determined that he wouldn’t add to his transgressions

by squirming. “Yes, Sir.”

“Count each stroke.”

Panicked arousal coiled in his stomach. “Yes, Sir.”

His master’s fingers massaged his ass cheeks. “You won’t come without my

permission.”

Gabriel hoped to Christ he could obey. The shifter had given Gabriel a cock

ring the night he’d been bitten, but no such mercy had been offered to him now. “No,

Sir. I won’t.”

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“Good boy.” But that single, taunting hand didn’t lift from the quivering flesh

of his ass cheek to deliver the first blow.

Gabriel pushed up and into the shifter’s open palm. Not because he looked

forward to the spanking. He didn’t. At least, he kept telling himself that his

stomach didn’t jitter because he was that damn eager for it. No, he arched his back

and spread his knees to give his master better access to his cock and balls because

he preferred his subs open. Vulnerable. And wanton.

As did Gabriel.

“Greedy slut.” One finger traced his crease, up and down, then back again.

Gabriel’s ring clenched and fluttered open, trying to draw that teasing fingertip in.

“My slut.”

His lips parted on a whispery gasp. Yes, Gabriel was his slut. Gabriel wanted

only to be his slut. He wanted his master’s cock thrusting into his mouth and down

his throat. Gabriel craved his taste as he’d craved nothing else. He wanted to take

the shifter into his body. He needed his master to spurt inside him, painting him

with spunk. Gabriel needed his master’s delicious scent all over him, inside and out,

declaring Gabriel his boy. His very good boy.

The fears that had driven him faded.

The promise of forgiveness overwhelmed those fears, his pride—everything.

Gabriel arched into his master’s touch and did nothing to smother his

whimpers.

“You shouldn’t have run.” His hand finally lifted from the flesh kneaded to

aching sensitivity.

Tears burned Gabriel’s eyes with the hard shock of pain at the first blow.

In this, the shifter differed from every other dom who’d mastered him. Gabriel

had been spanked countless times. With paddles, belts, and the flat of many a hand.

He loved a hard spanking and had cried during the best of them, but not like this,

I, Omega

with the wet of his tears spiking his lashes at the first slap and his chest squeezing

against the howl that wanted to rip free.

Other doms played at spanking him.

His master made him feel it. Made it real.

Even more so now that the shifter had changed him. That first night had been

a blur of pleasure and pain, but no matter that Gabriel was a poor shadow of a

werewolf, he could take more now than he could as a human. His body wouldn’t fail

under harsh discipline. He hadn’t realized—then—how much the shifter had held

back, unwilling to damage him.

He knew now.

He felt it with each stinging throb that infused the flesh of his burning ass.

“One,” he gasped, riding the pain as best he could. “Thank you, Sir.”

His master hummed quiet pleasure, perhaps satisfied that Gabriel had

remembered to thank him or maybe just admiring the handprint he’d undoubtedly

left on Gabriel’s heating ass cheek.

His cock hardened to steel at the sound. His balls tightened. If he’d been given

leave to come, he would’ve shot. Explosively. He hadn’t been able to get off since his

master had claimed him, so he desperately needed to come, but Gabriel held on to

his orgasm with gritted teeth.

He absolutely would not disappoint his master again.

Though he knew what to expect, Gabriel flinched at the next blow. The crack

of the shifter's hand meeting Gabriel’s skin echoed in his ears as the ache in his ass

spread. Gabriel welcomed the pain. There was no room in his head for fear of what

he was becoming, no more worry about what the shifter would do to him. All he

could feel was the fiery pulse of his cheeks as his master stroked his ass. His

concentration narrowed to holding still for his punishment.

“Two.” He shook his head at the tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Sir.”

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The tears spilled over when the shifter brought his hand down again. Gabriel

sniffled, his belly tightening at the hurt lodging into the muscle of his ass, and his

voice quavered when he gave the count and thanked him again.

Crying didn’t sway his master. If he’d meant for Gabriel to enjoy the spanking,

Gabriel would’ve, but this was no reward. When he sobbed, the shifter simply

smacked his ass harder, waiting only long enough for Gabriel to catch his breath to

give the count before delivering the next agonizing blow.

Gabriel broke at the seventh stroke.

His ass was an inferno of misery. It burned, his skin hot and tight. Tears

clogged his throat. His chest heaved as he tried and failed to pant through the pain,

but it was no use. The agony of his throbbing ass overwhelmed him.

“I can’t,” he wept, draped boneless and defeated over his master’s lap as the

shifter patiently waited his count. “H-help me, Sir. Please.”

“Hush.” He stroked Gabriel’s tender backside with gentle fingers. “Use your

safe word if you need to.”

He stiffened, violently shaking his head. “No!”

Gabriel wouldn’t.

His safe word would make everything stop, but he needed his punishment to

be over. Badly. He could feel his master’s frustration and disappointment like an

albatross around his neck, and he couldn’t take another moment with that

deadweight dragging him under.

“Stubborn boy.” His caress traced Gabriel’s hip. “Find your center, pet. Stop

fighting me.”

The shifter was right. Gabriel couldn’t ride the pain of that cracking palm

while his traitorous heart struggled against his master’s claim on him. Gabriel

would slip into his headspace when he accepted and submitted. Not a moment

before.

He just couldn’t do it.

I, Omega

“No, don’t stop!” He wailed when the restraining hand lifted from the small of

his back. “I’ll be good for you. Your good boy. I p-promise.”

The shifter chuckled. “I know you will, Gabriel.” His fingers twisted in

Gabriel’s hair, angling Gabriel’s head to one side before raising his hand to his lips.

Not his hand.

His wrist.

Gabriel’s damp eyes rounded as his master’s mouth opened, teeth sharp and

menacing. He bit down.

Holy Christ.

Gabriel’s stomach lurched.

Worse, his mouth watered.

He’d had months to get used to the idea of being a werewolf. Since he’d never

managed a shift, even during the full moon, and he’d quickly realized his senses

weren’t as keen as those who hunted him, Gabriel was a piss-poor werewolf, but

he’d come to terms with it. He’d tried.

Adding vampire to the list pushed him over the edge.

He reared back when his master shoved his bloody wrist toward Gabriel’s

mouth.

The shifter grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and held him in place.

Gabriel lifted his hands to claw at him, kicking his legs to push away—

“Breathe me in, pet. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Which was rich considering he’d been beating the tar out of Gabriel’s ass. The

shifter was stronger than Gabriel, though. He stoically held Gabriel’s mouth to his

dripping wrist and waited for Gabriel to gulp for air.

When he did…

Oh God.

Gabriel’s longing crippled him.

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He felt the scent of his master’s blood in the pit of his gut. In the thunderous

roar of his pulse in his head. In the hungry tremble of his body. He moaned out

wicked delight. And despair.

His master released his iron grip, threading his fingers into Gabriel’s hair

instead. “That’s it, boy. Taste me.”

His dizzy senses took flight. Gabriel obediently lapped at his bloodied wrist,

shocked at the brutal punch of desire that slammed into him at his first sip.

And he’d believed the shifter's scent addicting? Intoxicating?

His heart leaped at the salty copper of the shifter’s blood on his tongue. He

rubbed his dick against his master’s thigh and growled in rapturous thirst. Gabriel

sucked at his master’s wrist as he had once sucked his cock—in primal, giddy

abandon.

The shifter laughed, toying with Gabriel’s hair until Gabriel shivered. “You’ll

never hide from me again.”

No.

Gabriel would never resist him now.

He fed anyway. He licked the punctures, urged on by the shifter’s palm at

Gabriel’s skull and his sly murmurs to drink more, to drink deeply. Sealing his

doom didn’t matter. Gabriel’s thoughts focused on having more of him. More of his

master’s fingers in his hair. More of his blood in his mouth.

More of his cock in his ass.

With each draw of his lips on the wound, Gabriel’s body hollowed. Rather than

filling, Gabriel emptied. His body shook with the screaming arousal that flooded

through him.

The shifter forced Gabriel from his thick wrist. “Enough.”

“Master…please,” he whispered, and he felt his eyes widen when he realized

his mistake.

His glittered feral triumph. “What is the count, pet?”

I, Omega

Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat when his master licked at the bite on his wrist.

Gabriel jerked his glance away, but it was too late. It’d been too late since that very

first night.

The shifter owned him. Running away hadn’t changed that.

“Seven. Thank you, Sir.”

His mouth thinned. “Gabriel,” he rumbled in warning.

“Master.” He licked the shifter’s blood from his lips. “Thank you, Master.”

He smiled.

Exhilaration jolted through Gabriel. He’d never seen the shifter smile before,

not like that. His pale blue eyes lit up as bright as a summer sky, the

transformation all the more stunning after his forbidding glacial stare. One corner

of his mouth kicked up higher than the other. His eyebrow arched. His head tilted

to a devilish angle—

Gabriel had pleased him.

The part of Gabriel that was still human and struggling so fiercely died right

then. Satisfaction bloomed in his chest, unfurling the tension that had gripped him.

Whatever he was, this man was truly his master, and now that Gabriel knew the

alluring thrill of pleasing him?

He’d do anything to earn another smile.

He would never run again.

“I know you won’t.” Lips curved in that wondrous bow, he nudged Gabriel’s

head down and repositioned him, throbbing ass tipped high for the remainder of his

punishment. “Such a lovely pet.”

The strike of his master’s palm against his abused ass was excruciating. Fresh

tears leaked from Gabriel’s eyes. New sobs tore from his throat. His dick, swollen

and aching, dripped precum. “Eight,” he sniveled. “Thank you, Sir.”

The shifter struck him harder than ever. The inhuman strength of his new

body couldn’t save his poor ass; Gabriel wouldn’t sit comfortably for a week. But the

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pain was better now. Fueled with his master’s blood, Gabriel relaxed into it.

Accepted it.

He’d found his headspace.

Suffused with peace, Gabriel skated on the edge of the world. His mind floated,

bleary and vague. Lost though no longer alone, he fell deeper into his subspace—a

quiet rush that never failed to stagger him. His spirit—his very soul—sang.

He couldn’t live without the pain that made him fly.

Nor could he live without his master.

Not now.

The shifter saw to that, and Gabriel was done fighting him. If he killed Gabriel

after, so be it. He’d have this first.

So Gabriel arched his back and pushed his ass up in invitation. “Nine. Thank

you, Sir.”

He teased Gabriel’s cleft so that he trembled anew. “Who do you belong to,

pet?”

“You, Sir.”

His master rewarded him by presenting Gabriel with his finger to suck and

then sliding the tip—only the tip—into his grasping hole. He pumped it slowly in

and out, taunting Gabriel with what he wanted.

“One more, boy. Then I’ll fuck you. Hard.”

His balls hurt, eager to loose their load. He moaned out his delighted hunger.

The shifter played with him until he squirmed, then played with him more

until the only sounds out of Gabriel’s throat were plaintive whines and breathless

groans. Until he was desperate for his master to take him. To fuck him.

The last blow cracked the flesh of Gabriel’s tingling ass so fiercely his head

rocked back. He cried out, his orgasm clawing at the base of his dick, and he

couldn’t hold his pleas back anymore. “Please.” He gritted his teeth against the

fervent need to come. “Master, please.”

I, Omega

Chapter Two

He caressed Gabriel’s flaming backside, urged him to the bed with his hand at

Gabriel’s hip. “Hands and knees.”

Gabriel scrambled to comply, planting his knees and shoving his ass high in

please-fuck-me offering. “Down.” His palm between Gabriel’s shoulder blades

pushed his cheek against the tattered quilt. He splayed Gabriel’s arms over his

head. The clink of the shifter’s loosening belt buckle was a symphony to Gabriel’s

ears. He stripped the belt from his jeans and looped it around Gabriel’s wrists,

pulling it so tight the leather dug into his skin. Gabriel fisted his fingers and tried

to yank his hands apart, struggling in earnest only after he found the belt wouldn’t

budge.

God, he loved this.

His dick jutted from his groin toward the quilt, stiff and eager at both his

helplessness and the wicked offering of his ass to the shifter’s pleasure. He fought

the belt because he liked fighting it, but he also tipped his aching butt higher,

bowing his back to present his reddened cheeks to best tempt his master.

Gabriel trembled at the rasp of his zipper lowering.

The shifter spit in his hand to wet his cock and covered Gabriel.

He moaned, pushing his hole to his master in frantic entreaty.

When he smacked Gabriel’s hip, perilously close to the flesh that still

throbbed, Gabriel gasped.

“Be still, boy.” He lined his dick to Gabriel’s hole and pushed. The head of his

fat cock popped inside, a magnificent burn to rival the awesome pain of Gabriel’s

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freshly spanked ass. “Don’t move.” His master slowly fucked his way in, stretching

Gabriel around his thick girth inch by glorious inch. “Just take it.”

Gabriel mewled into the quilt, struggling to relax as the shifter impaled him.

He’d taken men with no lube except spit and no stretching to prepare him before,

and the truth was he liked it to sting more than a little. He wanted to be ravaged,

his body despoiled.

His master did not fail him.

“Don’t come,” he growled in husky reminder when his dick was buried balls-

deep and Gabriel’s chest heaved with his effort to accept the cock rooted in his ass.

Then, he fucked Gabriel.

Hard.

As he’d promised.

Gabriel locked his knees so he wouldn’t rock in time with the violent, driving

thrusts. His hole hurt. The sweet friction of the shifter’s dick scraping inside him

when he retreated from his body electrified Gabriel. And when his master shoved

back in? A wild shriek tore from Gabriel because the shifter pegged his sweet spot

every time. The pain and the pleasure of the brutal fucking coupled in Gabriel’s

mind as his master coupled with his body. The stab of his dick consumed Gabriel.

His world narrowed to the shifter’s lunging cock and the bewildering joy of offering

his ass to his master’s pleasure.

“Good boy.” He leaned over Gabriel, blanketing him from thigh to nape, where

the shifter settled his mouth. “My beautiful slut.”

Oh shit.

Gabriel knew what was coming next—what his master had done to him two

months ago that had started this nightmare. He swelled inside Gabriel, stuffing his

ass full, rhythm faltering as he neared orgasm.

Gabriel tucked his head—though tilting his jaw to offer his bared nape.

“Take me, pet.”

I, Omega

He screamed when teeth sliced into him.

The shifter’s cock, already impossibly hard and huge in Gabriel’s ass, pressed

forward until the tight ball of his master’s knot pushed against Gabriel’s rim,

demanding entrance. The shifter groaned, slurping at Gabriel’s blood as he swiveled

his hips to work it in.

Sweat beaded Gabriel’s forehead.

Moaning, he wriggled his hips to take the swollen node into his body. He knew

it’d hurt. He recalled with perfect clarity how his hole had stretched that first time,

the snap of his ring closing around the knot his master had fed into him.

But he wanted this too. He wanted to lie under the shifter, tied for long,

blissful minutes by the seal of his ass around his master’s dick. He craved the heavy

weight of the shifter’s body surrounding him, his cock shooting into him and the

cadence of pulsing bursts that flooded him with warm spunk. He wanted to feel it

dribbling down the back of his thighs when the shifter eventually slid free.

He longed to smell of his master’s spent lust.

Gabriel still yipped in remembered pain when the swelling at the base of his

master’s cock breached his hole, but his master didn’t hurt him as before. Gabriel

stretched to admit him, all of him, even this part of his sex. Gabriel welcomed him

into the clutch of his body, moaning out his stunned pleasure as his master

anchored his dick deep. “Yes,” Gabriel whimpered, though he hadn’t been given

permission to speak. “Oh my God, yes.”

The shifter snarled, his tongue licking at the blood spilling from Gabriel’s

neck.

Senses whirling in chaotic abandon, Gabriel quivered beneath him. The shifter

grunted against his bloodied nape. His cock pulsed in Gabriel’s ass.

Gabriel's dick wept thin ribbons of precum as his master reached orgasm; his

master's cock spurted thick globs of cum into his body. Again. And again.

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Gabriel hadn’t known what to expect that first night. Held over at work, he’d

arrived at the club after most doms had selected among subs for scenes. Swallowing

his disappointment—Gabriel hadn’t played in weeks—he’d finished his water and

had been slipping to the door when the stranger who now owned him had beckoned

him. The man had allowed Gabriel to kneel at his feet and permitted Gabriel to slip

his hand into his pants to take out his beautiful cock. His master had let Gabriel

suck his head, only his cockhead, until Gabriel had been desperate to give the

stranger any damn thing he wanted, as long as that dick fucked his ass and fucked

it hard. He’d led Gabriel to an empty warehouse down the block where he had

pushed Gabriel to the cement.

Which Gabriel had expected, had pleaded for, and eagerly anticipated.

But when Gabriel felt the swollen node of his knot pressing against his ring,

Gabriel balked. The bulge at the base of the stranger’s cock wasn’t normal. Not

normal at all. Gabriel hadn’t wanted it fucking into him.

Doms often did things to Gabriel that he didn’t want, though—delicious things

that frightened him. For Gabriel, that was part of the lifestyle’s allure. He could

struggle, scream and shamelessly beg, trusting that the scene wouldn’t stop unless

he genuinely wanted to end it. He was submissive to the core; he needed men to

dominate him. But he also wanted that illusion of force.

That night, he hadn’t safe worded.

But he’d fought.

Because he’d wanted the stranger to make him take it.

Maybe the shifter wouldn’t have bitten Gabriel if he’d safe worded or docilely

submitted to his knot stabbing into him. Gabriel had often suspected since that

night that his pained and terrified struggle had provoked his master, that the bite

had been an instinctive response to Gabriel’s defiance.

Gabriel had lain beneath him while the shifter had come. Lain trembling.

Hurt. Crying. Not daring to move. Not daring to breathe. Gabriel simply lay, his ass

I, Omega

tied to his master’s dick by the knot that had taken forever long to empty inside

him.

A human orgasm is measured in seconds.

The shifter lodged inside him minute after breathless minute. Minutes that

felt like eras. Entire civilizations rose and fell as he shot bursts of cum into

Gabriel’s ass. Could’ve been ten minutes. Or two thousand years. Gabriel honestly

didn’t know, overpowered by the experience of his master's jetting dick filling him.

Because for the first time in Gabriel’s life, he’d felt helpless. He’d been helpless. The

shifter’s cock wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave Gabriel’s body until he’d finished. No

matter how hard Gabriel cried or how much he hurt, his master could not dislodge

his spitting cock from Gabriel’s ass without tearing him. So Gabriel had wept. And

submitted. And gloried in every moment, terrified yet wholly enraptured by his

vulnerability.

Lost in his pleasure, the shifter had been too overcome to pay Gabriel much

mind at first, but as the initial rush of his orgasm had eased, the gulping at

Gabriel’s neck had slackened. His hands had petted rather than restrained

Gabriel’s. His touch comforted Gabriel in his bewildered confusion, his pain.

Soothed him.

Aroused him.

His new master had fucked him with his still-pulsing dick, and when the

shifter had finally allowed him to come? Gabriel had shot so hard he’d seen stars.

He’d also fainted.

That probably had a lot to do with blood loss and the damage to his then-

human body, though.

Kneeling on the makeshift bed with his master's weight pressed to him,

Gabriel hoped so, because he wasn’t human anymore, not entirely. Nor had his

master’s fucking damaged him. Most importantly, this time Gabriel knew. The

ruthless demands the shifter would make on his body were intimately familiar to

him now, and Gabriel wanted it. He craved that gift of weakness and gratefully

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offered himself up to the shifter who mastered him. Gabriel wanted to wallow in

every heartbeat of his helplessness, especially if he was allowed to come once his

master finished with him.

Pressed to his spine, the shifter’s body stirred and lifted, taking some of his

weight from Gabriel. His mouth suckled the bite at Gabriel’s nape. The stuttering

rock of his hips smoothed to easy thrusts, his dick sliding marvelously on the spunk

he’d sprayed into Gabriel’s hole. His hand looped around Gabriel’s stomach to grasp

his cock and, finding Gabriel painfully hard, the shifter purred in his ear, “Good

boy.”

Gabriel’s heart warmed at the praise.

He hadn’t come.

Yes, he was a very good boy.

His master licked the shell of his ear and stroked his dick. “Fuck yourself on

my cock, pet.”

Gabriel wasn’t so sure he could manage that without coming, but he obeyed.

He ground his hips, working his ass on his master’s dick as much as the knot still

lodged in his hole permitted.

Gabriel moaned.

Fuck, he felt good inside him, hard, enormous, filling him until there was no

room for anything else. Gabriel bucked his hips, burying the shifter’s dick so far in

him, he swore he could feel his cock drumming against the back of his throat. The

snug fit of his groin to Gabriel’s ass cheeks stung hideously, but the pain only sent

Gabriel flying higher. He tightened his muscles, squeezing his master’s cock like a

fist to milk the rest of the orgasm from him, using all his considerable skill to make

it as good as he could.

Grinding his groin into Gabriel’s abused cheeks to keep the pain sharp, his

master played with Gabriel while he worshipped his cock with his ass. The shifter

swept the bulbous head of Gabriel’s dick with his thumb on every upward stroke.

I, Omega

Gabriel’s need, the pain, his pleasure, all of it whirled inside him. A bead of sweat—

or was it blood?—slid down the column of his neck.

“Are you mine, Gabriel?”

His spine would disintegrate if his master didn’t let him come. “Yes.”

He kissed the side of Gabriel’s neck. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he moaned, shaking all over. “God, yes.”

He scraped his teeth over the skin covering Gabriel’s frantic pulse. “Say it.”

“I’m yours.” His master’s cock pegged Gabriel’s prostate, splintering his senses.

His hand worked magic on Gabriel’s dick, the hurt of his hips against Gabriel’s sore

ass stealing his breath. The shifter added a twist at the end of the next stroke that

made his vision gray.

“Forever, Gabriel.”

“Yes,” he cried out. He’d promise anything as long as his master never stopped

fucking him. “Please!”

He skimmed his lips along the line of Gabriel’s jaw. “Come.”

The orgasm tore free of Gabriel’s body, thick strings spurting from his dick to

slick his master’s fist. Pleasure sliced through him, shredded and devastated him.

Left him trembling and weeping in the shifter’s arms.

“Shh, pet.”

He pulled his cock free of Gabriel’s hole with a wet plop that trailed sticky cum

down his crack. The scent of the shifter’s cum inside him, the intensity of the

orgasm that had been denied him these past weeks… It shattered Gabriel. He

collapsed, muscles loosing, and sobbed. Like a little girl.

Gabriel wanted to be strong. He wanted to be everything the shifter would

ever desire.

He wanted to run like hell because no matter that his master had just fucked

him, Gabriel needed him. Still. Not just his body. Gabriel’s heart needed too.

And his ass hurt.

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And his mind just would not stop spinning.

So he cried.

“I’ve got you.” The shifter drew Gabriel against him, his embrace warm,

soothing. “It’s all right.”

“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “It’s not!”

He lifted Gabriel off the quilt and pulled his boneless body flush to his,

Gabriel’s butt to his belly. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s chest and swung

his legs over Gabriel’s too. He pinned Gabriel in place; Gabriel couldn’t move. “Calm

down, boy. Deep breaths.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to tell him to go to hell. Or beg him for help. But

Gabriel didn’t do either. Instead, he sucked in great gasps of air that somehow

bypassed his lungs, because that oxygen didn’t dent the dizzy waves that swept over

him, nor did it slow the tears that slid down his wet face. Panic attack, the part of

him that was still the cool, analytical accountant noted. Could Gabriel be surprised

when he’d endured so many of them when he’d been human and he had never before

been so overstimulated and overwhelmed?

He needed his Xanax.

He needed to tell the shifter to fuck off and then he needed his Xanax.

“You left your prescriptions in your apartment when you ran, Gabriel.

Remember? Focus on your breathing. With me now. In.” He inhaled, filling his

lungs. “Out.” He released the air on a slow hiss. “Again.”

Gabriel didn’t obey him right away, so lost was he in his manic fear. How could

he want this? Crave the shifter so badly? Gabriel had accepted long ago that he was

submissive, and for that he was not ashamed. He’d hit the clubs regularly and had

long-term relationships with doms more than once. He loved his kink. He’d been a

damn good sub before his life went to shit. Obedient. Well trained. Eager to serve.

The shifter’s mastery over him was so consuming, though, so complete… His

master hurt Gabriel when he needed pain, forced him when he needed to be forced,

I, Omega

and pleasured him until he was adrift in the chaotic bliss that stirred within him.

Gabriel had only been with the shifter a couple of hours that first night, but his new

master had taught Gabriel to need him then. And only him.

In all his weeks of hiding, in spite of his terror, he’d longed for the moment his

master would reclaim him. How fucked-up was that? Cold, hungry, and miserable,

Gabriel had fantasized about the shifter. Had yearned for him. Gabriel had

depended on his master one day seeing beyond the camouflage that concealed him.

He had to find Gabriel. Had to. How else could this nightmare of fear, defiance, and

wayward uselessness end?

In blood, death, and tears.

Because the master who would be Gabriel’s savior was also the one who had

destroyed him.

Gabriel hated him.

Needed him.

“Stop thinking, boy. Just breathe.”

Eventually, Gabriel’s body listened to what his mind and heart would not. He

sucked in oxygen when the shifter did and tried to slow his choppy exhale. Gabriel

concentrated on the husky whisper of his low voice, his hot breath tickling Gabriel’s

ear.

His pulse slowed to a steady hum. His heart stopped hammering his rib cage.

He still shook, but with the shifter surrounding him and controlling the air he

breathed, Gabriel had no hope of stopping that. Gabriel angled his nose to his

master's throat as the panic attack subsided. Grateful for the embrace that

imprisoned him and at the same time kept him safe, Gabriel relaxed and let the

tang of sweat and their mingled sex smells flood over him.

His master’s arms tightened around him. “Better?”

Gabriel’s lips curved against his stubble-roughened skin. “Yes.” And at the

same time, horribly no, but Gabriel was not so much a fool as to make that

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confession. Or to forget his manners. “Thank you, Sir. I’m sorry for”—he sighed—

“everything. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I have you now. That’s all that matters.” He kissed Gabriel’s temple. “How do

you feel?”

Good question. Gabriel flexed his butt cheeks and winced. “Sore.” Cum slicked

his hole and his thighs, pasting his skin together. “Messy.” His nose wrinkled. “You

didn’t use a condom.”

“I never have. Wearing one would be counterproductive with you. You were too

far gone with our mating lust our first night together to notice.” He chuckled into

Gabriel’s hair. “I’m immune to most human diseases, as—now—are you.” The

shifter thrust his hips, wedging his softening cock in Gabriel’s crease. “I was less

careful, but you took me more readily this time. I didn’t damage you?”

“No.” Gabriel’s face burned with embarrassment. “Just hurts.”

“You needed it to hurt. Still do. You want the ache in your ass to remind you

who’s fucking it, but there’s no need. I’ll never lose you again.” His mouth brushed

the line of Gabriel jaw. “Blood and protein will help. Once you are safely in pack

territory, I’ll hunt for you. Fresh meat and as much of my blood as you can stand.”

He shivered, burrowing into the heat of the shifter's big body.

“Gabriel.”

That’s all he said—only Gabriel’s name—but there was no less demand in it.

“What’s happening to me?” he whispered, quivering because he feared the answer.

“What are you?”

The shifter smiled against his skin. “Your master.”

Yes. He was Gabriel’s master, wholly and completely. Gabriel’s twin natures,

human and werewolf, waged war inside him at every turn, so it seemed, but in that,

human and werewolf agreed: this man owned him.

As far as the shifter was concerned, the rest was irrelevant.

Gabriel wished it could be that simple.

I, Omega

“You changed me.” He swallowed, tried again. “You bit me and made me

different too.”

“My bite had nothing to do with it. Blood and sex lock you to me, but even that

isn’t enough. Only mating can produce the change.” He nuzzled Gabriel with his

stubbled jaw. “You provoked my beast when I fucked you and accepted me as your

mate when you took me into your body. The more I fuck you, the more you will

thrive—my beast’s semen is the trigger.”

Gabriel blinked. “Your beast’s…?”

“Do you think humans wouldn’t have noticed a trail of torn and broken men if

I’d fucked others as I’ve fucked you?” He laughed. “None of them rouse me as you

do.” He nipped at Gabriel’s ear. “None of them were born to be tied to my dick. Just

you. Only you.”

His knot.

Taking his knot had done this to Gabriel?

Gabriel gulped, stomach roiling sickly as he struggled to understand this. To

accept it. “Why me?”

He shrugged. “Our beasts are driven by instinct.” He licked at Gabriel’s

earlobe. “My beast chose you.”

Which meant his master had not. Hope and sick fear that he might be

discarded collided inside Gabriel’s head. He quivered in his master’s embrace

because he dreaded the shifter’s abandonment more than he longed for it. The clash

of emotions, his uncertainty, wore Gabriel down. “I don’t know who—what—I am

anymore.”

“You’re mine. That’s all you need to understand.” His grasp tightened around

Gabriel like steel bands. “Mine to feed, mine to fuck. Mine to play with, punish, and

protect. Say it.”

Gabriel’s breath locked in his chest at his furious growl.

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The shifter snarled Gabriel’s name against the tender skin of his throat in

stark warning.

Gabriel’s heart thudded. “I’m yours,” he gasped, scrambling to remember it all.

“Yours to feed, yours to fu—”

Gabriel shouted when sharp teeth pierced him.

His dick happily stirred.

Licking and slurping at the blood trickling from Gabriel’s neck, his master

pried Gabriel’s legs apart with his powerful thighs. One of his restraining arms

released Gabriel, his hand lowering to play with Gabriel’s stiffening dick. Gabriel

was thirty-two, for Christ’s sake, not some horny twink, but Gabriel’s cock didn’t

seem to know that. His master stroked him hard in embarrassingly short minutes.

Gabriel’s head whirled with how rapidly his blood rushed from it to his slutty dick.

His hips thrust into the glove of the shifter’s hand though the grind of his ass

against his master’s groin streaked pain like a lightning bolt through him.

He lifted his mouth from Gabriel’s throat. “Good boy.”

Gabriel bit his lip. Sweat slicked his body.

“Feel how your body responds to my scent, my touch. Mine alone.”

The world faded away to nothing except his master’s throaty growls and the

feral pleasure tightening his balls. His body tingled with his need to come. He

sucked in his belly. He gasped and writhed, his body pleading as the shifter

mercilessly toyed with him. He thumbed the head of Gabriel’s dick, giving each

stroke that sly twist that made his heart sing.

“Come for me.”

Gabriel’s shattered wail of completion echoed around the dank, shadowy room

as he sprayed, spurting white ropes of cum that spattered the shifter’s fist and

Gabriel’s groin.

Spent, he collapsed against the steady, sturdy wall of his master’s chest.

I, Omega

“Very good,” he said, voice warm with praise and approval, as though Gabriel

had performed an especially difficult task. “Open your mouth for me, pet.”

The shifter slid from behind him. He laid Gabriel back on the quilt. He leaned

over and fed his hardening dick to Gabriel’s panting mouth. Senseless after a

second orgasm too quickly following his first, Gabriel could only part his lips wide,

but apparently Gabriel’s skilled tongue wasn’t desired. Or necessary. He pushed his

cock to the back of Gabriel’s throat, waiting for Gabriel’s reflexive swallow to

squeeze the sensitive tip before retreating and fucking into him again. Gabriel

breathed in through his nose when the shifter eased out, musky sex smells coiling

inside Gabriel. That smell and his taste rejuvenated Gabriel. His tongue soon

chased the dick that withdrew from his throat. He lapped at his master as though

the shifter’s cock were an especially tasty treat.

“That’s it, boy.” He speared his dick down Gabriel’s throat. “Suck me.”

Gabriel hummed to add that little extra bit of pleasure, his cheeks hollowing to

make the blowjob feel good, so good.

When the base of his master's cock began swelling, Gabriel widened his mouth

to take the forming knot in too, but the shifter shallowed his thrusts. “No, Gabriel.

Just this. Only this.” He jabbed his hungry tongue forward, but his master

controlled him, giving Gabriel only what he desired.

Gabriel whined plaintively.

He smiled, eyes glittering. “Soon.”

Oh God.

As wonderful as he smelled, no one tasted as good as his master did either.

Gabriel redoubled his efforts, his tongue darting to work the tip until the thrusts

quickened so that Gabriel could not keep pace.

Though the swelling of his knot had warned Gabriel, he wasn’t prepared when

his master shot.

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At the club that first night, the shifter had pulled Gabriel from his unzipped

trousers when he’d come. Gabriel had opened his mouth to take in as much as he

could, but most of his cum had wetted Gabriel’s face and neck. Lost in his lust,

Gabriel hadn’t the sense to note how very much of it had covered him—more than a

human’s.

His master fed him every bit of it now.

Gabriel, who had gulped down an embarrassing number of men, choked.

He swallowed as the shifter’s cock spurted and spit, but taking it all was

impossible. Spunk trickled from Gabriel’s lips and dribbled down his chin. When he

gasped for breath? He sucked in semen that soon dripped from his nose and wetted

the wiry blond hair at the shifter’s groin as his master continued fucking his cock in

and out.

Gabriel loved every minute of it. Every burst of cum. Every thrust that

brought more and still more to his greedy mouth.

His heart raced at his master’s encouraging moans and his guiding palm at the

base of Gabriel’s skull. His taste and musky sex smells became Gabriel’s world. His

cum slid down Gabriel’s gullet, painted his chin, and flavored the very air he

inhaled through his nostrils.

The shifter pulled free, hand at the base of his dick to splash the final pulses of

spunk over Gabriel’s face.

Gabriel couldn’t have been more owned.

His master stared at him, pale blue eyes glittering pride and possession. His

chest heaved with the pleasure Gabriel had given him.

Gabriel licked salty cum from his lips.

The shifter swiveled his hips to slap Gabriel’s semen-slicked face with his

softening cock and Gabriel loved that too. Loved being mastered by his dick. “Clean

me up, boy.”

I, Omega

He eagerly set to work, lapping at cum that had pasted into the blond bush of

hair at his master’s groin first. Gabriel dipped his head to lick his balls clean and

then tongued over the length. When he reached the tip, Gabriel swept the last

traces of the shifter’s spent lust from his slit before he sealed his mouth around the

bulbous head again to suck.

He pulled Gabriel away. “Enough.”

Gabriel sighed, wallowing in the bitter taste still thick on his tongue. When he

lifted his bound wrists to wipe at the spunk that drenched his nose, eager to lap at

that too, his master’s hand flashed out. Quick—inhumanly quick. “Leave it.” He

tugged Gabriel’s hands away. “My scent has a slightly intoxicating affect that

makes you more docile.”

Gabriel’s cock jerked in whorish delight, and he winced because his poor dick

had been as thoroughly exercised as his sore ass.

“Lie back.”

He did as he’d been commanded, sprawling over the makeshift bed.

His master ripped away Gabriel’s shoes then stripped his damp jeans down his

ankles. He attacked Gabriel’s shirt next, tearing it over his head so that his ragged

T-shirt bunched at the belt binding his wrists. Rather than release Gabriel to

remove the shirt, the shifter retrieved a pocketknife from his pants to cut the

threadbare cotton away. “You’ll bring nothing with you. Anything you require, you’ll

get from me.” He nipped at Gabriel’s bottom lip, the small sting dizzying to

Gabriel’s whirling senses. “Do you accept?”

He shivered. “Yes, Sir.”

By the time his master had finished undressing Gabriel, he bonelessly lolled,

too fucked-out and exhausted to mind the itch of cum drying on his thighs. Too

sated and sleepy to care when the shifter rubbed the sticky smears from his face

into his neck and chest.

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His master turned him. Gabriel sucked in a pained breath when he dragged a

hand over his crease, relaxing only when the shifter massaged the semen that

dribbled from his hole onto his back.

He covered Gabriel in it.

Painted him in his master’s cum.

When he rolled Gabriel over to face him, a gratified smile curled the shifter’s

lips.

His dick jutted from his gaping zipper, hardening as he’d tended Gabriel.

Gabriel spread his legs to give his master access to his limp cock and his

aching, hurting hole. “Sir.” Gabriel was used up, spent, and wasted, but that

scent…God, his scent.

Gabriel’s lashes drifted lower, his eyelids heavy and cumbersome.

Predatory eyes never leaving him, his master dug into the front pocket of his

jeans to remove a cell phone. He blindly stabbed the buttons. “I’m ready to move

him.”

He snapped the phone shut and returned it to his pocket. “You belong to me.

Remember that, Gabriel.” He zipped up, then gathered Gabriel to him, lifting

Gabriel’s lax body high against his chest. “Sleep, pretty baby.”

Gabriel drifted off in the gentle rock of his master’s arms.

I, Omega

Chapter Three

“…looking for the brat!”

“He’s been missing two months. Parading him in the public eye now would

only rekindle media attention.” Gabriel’s eyelids flickered, his master’s voice pulling

him from sleep. He lay on a hard surface, the thin twist of blankets beneath him

hardly cushioning the floor. He shivered at the cold. His master’s hand dipped to

muss the hair at the crown of his head. When Gabriel inhaled, the sex smells the

shifter had sprayed over him and into him filled his lungs, but the scent of others—

shifters like his master—teased his senses and jangled his nerves. Craving his

master, needing that reassurance, Gabriel pushed into his casual caress. “He needs

time,” his master said.

“Senator’s sons don’t vanish without drawing a media blitzkrieg.”

“If the brat can convince his father to back off—”

“No one expects the boy to hold press conferences, Cal.”

Gabriel’s eyes flashed open.

Him.

They were talking about him.

More importantly, his master’s name was Cal.

Hands yet bound by his master’s belt at his wrists, Gabriel braced on his

elbows and peered up between Cal’s parted knees to find pale blue eyes studying

him. Cal’s finger traced the line of Gabriel’s brow. “The senator will demand to see

him.” Cal shook his head. “Gabriel’s too vulnerable. Easily confused.”

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Considering Gabriel didn’t know where he was, how he’d gotten there, or who

Cal spoke to, confusion wasn’t a difficult state to achieve. A quick glance around the

table he’d been placed beneath revealed a circle of scuffed shoes and blue jeans,

while Gabriel was naked and covered with his master’s cum. He stank of their sex

and judging by the steady throb of his abused ass, his butt still bore a rosy blush

from the spanking Cal had given him too.

Lowering his gaze, Gabriel lifted off the floor and because he couldn’t help

himself where his master was concerned, he nestled against Cal’s leg. His ass ached

horribly, so he balanced on his hip. He rubbed his forehead against the shifter’s

knee.

His master smiled down at him. “Come here, pet.”

Part of Gabriel still wanted to defy him. Whatever remained human in him

wanted to scurry from beneath the table and run like hell for the door. Any door.

But Cal would never let Gabriel out of his sight again, and Gabriel’s spanking

earlier would pale in comparison to how his master would punish him if he ran

again. And…

Gabriel needed him.

More than he needed to run.

It was Cal’s scent. Had to be. Knowing their sex smells dazzled him didn’t

strengthen Gabriel’s resistance, though. The wildness Cal had given Gabriel was

too eager to succumb to the shifter and proud to be his. So, uncomfortably aware of

his nakedness and the abrupt silence of the others around the table, Gabriel

complied with his master’s bidding. He clambered onto Cal’s lap. Heart racing, he

tucked his legs to his chest to shield his dick from the others’ staring eyes. Eyebrow

arched, Cal enfolded Gabriel in his arms. Gabriel tilted his head and mashed his

nose into the curve of the shifter’s neck.

Oh yes, there it was.

That scent.

I, Omega

Gabriel would bear any discomfort, any embarrassment if he could have that

scent.

“You see how insecure he is.” Cal’s slow hand petted Gabriel’s hair.

Gabriel sighed.

“But he does obey you.”

“He obeys his instincts.” When Gabriel nervously fidgeted at Cal’s implacable

tone, his master swatted his stinging backside. Gabriel froze, the smarting in his

ass stealing his breath. “He obeys fear and lust. Not me.”

One of the gathered men snorted. “What’s important is that his instincts will

compel him to do exactly what you tell him to do. Especially now that you’re fucking

and feeding him again. We should use that.”

“Until he accepts his place among us, exposing him to outsiders would

overwhelm him and set a dangerous precedent.” Cal petted him, trying to ease the

sharp shudders of his body, but the scent of the others, the reminders of the world…

Gabriel’s gut clenched. “Shifters have gambled with his kind and lost before.” Cal

glared at each of the men around the table in turn. “I won’t risk him.”

“The feds haven’t called off the search.”

“If they find him, seize him before we’re ready… That’s a risk too.”

“If you push him to come forward, we can guide and protect him.”

Cal laughed, a harsh bitter sound that tightened Gabriel’s throat. “Protect

him? You’ll break him, Burke.”

Gabriel pretended he and his master were back in his bolt-hole as Cal argued

with the other men about what to do about him. His father using every asset at his

disposal to search for Gabriel was no shocker. Painfully aware of Gabriel’s kink

after a political opponent had obtained graphic photos of him ten years ago, his dad

had gritted his teeth through the election-year scandal and loved Gabriel anyway.

And worried.

Incessantly worried.

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Gabriel loved him too. Too much to subject him to this. His father’s

constituents had forgiven him a gay son—a perverted gay son. Gabriel seriously

doubted voters would tolerate adding werewolf slave boy to his list of sins.

So he closed his eyes and let himself go to his master’s careless fondling. Cal

played in his hair and rubbed his back. Purposeful fingers skated over the aching

flesh of Gabriel’s ass while the shifter’s possessive embrace reassured him.

Soothing. Comforting to be held.

“A phone call. Just one call.”

Gabriel cringed from the cell phone that skidded across the table’s scarred

surface.

“That’s all it will take to convince the feds that he’s off on a lark with a new

boyfriend.”

He stiffened because Dad would never in a million years believe that. When

Gabriel had spotted his master near his apartment building two months ago, Cal

hadn’t been the first stranger Gabriel had noticed watching him. Following him.

Studying him, as though looking for a sign, some signal that yes, his life truly had

gone to shit. But seeing Cal had been the first warning that had truly scared him.

The coiled strength of his master’s body leaning against a neighboring doorpost

after days of nothing, the spine-meltingly familiar smell of the shifter even a block

away, Cal’s hungry stare sweeping the crowded sidewalks when his head had

snapped up and Gabriel knew his master had caught his scent too—all of it made

Gabriel realize he was in a lot more trouble than his sudden craving for raw sirloin

had led him to suspect.

He’d turned the corner before Cal spotted him, and never looked back. If his

master couldn’t find him? None of them could. No more strangers sniffing him in

elevators. No more delivery men scrutinizing him over electronic clipboards for

packages he hadn’t ordered. No more walking into his apartment, the hair on his

arms prickling because Gabriel could smell whoever had been there while he’d been

I, Omega

out—not his master, oh God, just once let it be his master—and could almost feel the

rape of strangers pawing through his things.

Gabriel had ignored that. Just paranoia. After the brutal fucking he’d taken,

no matter how willing and eager he’d been for it… Cal hadn’t wanted him. His

master had left him. Gabriel was okay. Skittish nerves be damned, he had nothing

to be afraid of.

When he’d seen the man who had fucked him into a dazed and bloody stupor

only the week before, though, Gabriel had known. All the fractured pieces of

himself—and the thousands of eyes he’d felt watching him—had finally begun to fit

together. To make sense.

He was screwed.

He wasn’t a total moron so he’d already figured that out, to an extent. He’d

healed far too quickly after what Cal had done to him. If the shifter had left more

than two functioning brain cells in Gabriel’s head once he’d finished with him,

Gabriel would have hauled his bruised and bloodied body to the nearest ER because

he should’ve had shots. Stitches. Something. But broken and exhausted, he could

only focus on home. He’d holed up like an injured animal waiting to heal or die.

When he’d roused two days later? The shifter’s finger-mark bruises had barely

colored Gabriel’s hips. The punctures his teeth had torn into Gabriel’s nape had

scarred, but the skin had knitted. Gabriel could walk normally too. The tears he’d

expected to make his ass pure misery weren’t there.

And his senses had begun to hone. Distracting. Uncomfortable. Gabriel wore

sunglasses inside—especially inside—because bright lights and the glare of

florescent bulbs hurt him, and his hearing had become so sensitive, migraines ice-

picked through his head. Pain that none of his prescriptions could dent had crippled

him so he’d called in sick when he never missed work. He slept a lot. But with Cal’s

bite mark gone save faint scars that appeared decades old at his nape, with the

damage done to Gabriel healing so quickly… Add the strangers sniffing him,

Kari Gregg

following him, searching Gabriel’s apartment when desperate hunger for red meat

had forced him out and Gabriel had wondered if he might be losing his mind.

Until he’d spied Cal awaiting him. Stalking him.

Gabriel hadn’t imagined him.

He wasn’t crazy.

But he was in trouble with a capital T.

Predators circled him. Not just the one who’d fucked him but others like his

master. The rapidity of his healing didn’t change the fact that he was weak, still

hurting. Defenseless. And so goddamned hungry his skin crawled with it. Whatever

they wanted from Gabriel, he had no hope of standing against them. None.

Especially against Cal. Gabriel had barely resisted the urge to race to the shifter

who’d done this to him. He’d wanted to throw himself at his master’s feet, plead for

mercy. Make it all go away. To please, please, please never abandon Gabriel again—

when he had brought this fucktastic disaster down on Gabriel’s head to start with.

The only way to save himself was to disappear. So he vanished. He left

everything. That day. That moment. That nanosecond. Gabriel walked away from

his meds, his career, clothes, money. He’d left his life. Nothing had been worth the

risk of getting caught. Nothing. So his bills didn’t get paid. His plants died. The

career he’d invested ten years of his life in? Gone.

Give it all up for a hookup? For a lark?

Never.

“Gabriel?” Cal prompted, his voice gentle, coaxing.

His breath whooshed from his lungs. He trembled in equal parts fear and

yearning.

“Tell them.”

Gabriel buried his nose against Cal’s throat so that his world became that

wonderful scent. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Dad will know it’s a lie.”

Cal smoothed a hand over the crown of his head. “Tell them why.”

I, Omega

Gabriel breathed his master in. His fingers twisted against the shifter’s chest,

but he didn’t fight the belt binding his wrists now. He couldn’t. His bonds comforted

Gabriel as much as Cal’s hand in his hair did. “I would have never walked away

from my life for a casual hookup.”

His master hummed low in his throat, a husky satisfaction that set Gabriel’s

legs to trembling. “Of course, you wouldn’t run away with some random man,” Cal

said, his tone dipping in snide disgust on the last. “You’re no child. Lust alone

wouldn’t drive you.”

God, he loved his master’s hands in his hair. The intimate rumble of Cal’s

voice in his ear. Gabriel nuzzled into the shifter’s stroking hands, needing more.

“No, Sir.”

Cal didn’t disappoint him. His master rubbed at the scar on Gabriel’s nape.

“Your heart rules you. And fear.”

Gabriel angled his head into his master’s caress, his body quivering and

wanton. “Yes.”

“You wouldn’t take off because a man made your dick hard.” Again, his master

spat it out, as though men—human beings—were loathsome to him.

Gabriel bit his lip because, deep down, wasn’t he just a man? As much as

Gabriel had changed and was still changing, wasn’t that still a fundamental part of

him too?

Cal traced the edges of Gabriel’s scar, featherlight but deliberate. His full lips

curved. “What would your father do if you contacted him after two months of

silence,” he said, “spinning senseless fables about running away with a nameless,

faceless, anonymous man?” When Gabriel shuddered, Cal rubbed his back. “It’s all

right, pretty baby. I’m right here. Tell them how the senator would respond to such

lies.”

His belly flipped. Gabriel wanted—too much—to yield to the purring seduction

of Cal’s body, that voice, his scent. He wanted to be naked for his master, body and

soul, and that scared him worst of all. “I don’t know, Sir,” he mumbled, then sucked

Kari Gregg

in a hard breath when Cal’s fingers squeezed his nape, clamping over the scar he’d

torn onto Gabriel.

Gabriel’s pulse raced. His ears rang. Panic and alarm washed over him. “He’ll

have called in favors at the Defense Department and NHS to track incoming calls,”

he said in a rush. “They’d triangulate my location from cell towers and come for me

within the hour. Please!”

Cal’s grip loosened so Gabriel could breathe again. He bent to kiss Gabriel’s

temple. “Good boy.”

Gabriel didn’t feel like a good boy.

He felt like a fucking idiot.

Why had he flinched from the phone when calling Dad would take him home?

His master grunted.

Gabriel’s stomach twisted. He kissed Cal’s throat. “I’m sorry,” he said though

he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for.

Cal slid the offending cell phone back across the table. “Gabriel will call his

father only when he’s ready to tell the senator who I am and what he is to me.”

Gabriel’s body shook. His chest tightened.

He’d failed his master.

Again.

The failure clawed into him, more painful than the spanking he’d taken, as

agonizing as a million scraping knives over every nerve ending in his body. Gabriel

trembled—because he couldn’t disappoint Cal anymore, not ever again. He couldn’t.

“You’re my master, Sir,” Gabriel tried, his voice as lost, frantic and confused as he

was.

The men at the table laughed.

He cowered at their derision, but Cal chuckled, warm breath stirring Gabriel’s

hair. “That’s right, pet. I am your master.” He drew back, forcing Gabriel’s gaze up

with one finger under his chin. “And you are…?”

I, Omega

Gabriel’s brow furrowed. His brain scrambled. What was he? Cal’s mate? The

shifter had spoken of mating when he’d fucked Gabriel, but Gabriel was more than

a lover. He was his master’s boy as well.

His pet?

His slave?

What was the right answer? What would win Gabriel his master’s smile? He

anxiously licked his lips. “I’m yours, Sir?”

Cal’s eyebrow arched. “Is that a question, Gabriel?”

His heart seized. “No, Sir. I-I’m yours.”

The shifter stared at him long minutes.

Gabriel’s hopes fell: no smile.

“We can’t hide him forever, Cal.”

The corner of his master’s lips curled at least. A ghost of a smile. An almost

smile. “He’s scared. Confused.” Cal bent to kiss Gabriel, and eager to redeem

himself, Gabriel opened immediately for him. Cal chuckled. “But he’s smart too.

He’ll figure it out.”

Gabriel scowled, because what kind of dumbass shit was this? He wanted to

know what was happening to him. He needed to know. Hell, yes, he was scared, but

he’d feel better—he’d be a better whatever-he-was-supposed-to-be for Cal—if

someone would tell him what was going on.

“Explanations won’t help you accept what you are. You won’t understand what

you haven’t felt or welcome what you haven’t yet experienced.” Cal kissed Gabriel’s

frown away. “And I don’t hate you for being human, pet. I never could.”

At the sudden creak of a door behind him, Gabriel pressed closer to Cal. His

eyes rounded on his master, heart abruptly thudding.

Cal leaned forward, forehead touching Gabriel’s. “Shh, pretty baby. I’ve got

you.”

Kari Gregg

“They’re here,” a deep voice boomed, and Gabriel jerked in Cal’s embrace,

unable to control his reflexive fear.

“Good.” Cal skated a kiss over Gabriel’s gasping mouth. “Send Dr. Kowalski

first.” The shifter’s tongue lapped at him and Gabriel squirmed, painfully aware of

his cock thickening behind the dubious shield of his bare legs in response to the

kiss, but also enthralled with the head-spinning attention of his master’s lips on

him. Giving way to Cal’s taste and the erotic dance of his master’s tongue twining

with his, Gabriel hardly noticed the scrape of the chairs as the others rose from the

table.

Cal lifted his head. “You aren’t being punished.” He pecked at Gabriel’s

tingling lips. “The past two months were forgiven. Remember?”

How could Gabriel forget while his ass still throbbed from the spanking the

shifter had given him? But he nodded, angling his mouth for another kiss.

His master denied it to him. “Answer me, boy.”

He’d do whatever Cal wanted to get that kiss. “I’m forgiven,” he said on a

whispery pant. “I’m not being punished.”

He moaned as his master’s lips teased him again. “Focus on me, boy. Keep

your focus on me.”

His world shifted dizzily when Cal boosted Gabriel from his lap to the table.

The hard grit of scarred and weathered wood bit into Gabriel’s already stinging ass

and into the back of his thighs. “W-wha—” His eyes flashed wide. He tried to tuck

his body to hide his stiffening cock, but Cal pushed him down flat on the table’s

surface. “No.” His heart thrashed against his rib cage. “Don’t—“

“Help me hold him,” Cal told the other men.

Hands grabbed him while Gabriel struggled through the sexual haze his

master’s skilled mouth had cast over him. He tried to process what was happening,

but fingers bit into his flesh. Strange hands. Unfamiliar fingers. They pinned his

shoulders to the knotty pine, locked his arms high above his head and weighed his

thighs down.

I, Omega

He couldn’t… Gabriel needed Cal to look at him! “Master,” he cried out, his

panic at so many hands, so many of… Restraining him. Their hands all over him,

when only his master’s hands should touch him. Only ever Cal. But they were

everywhere, too many faces crowding over him, too many of them making Gabriel

be still. For what…?

He couldn’t breathe.

“P-please,” he stuttered, fighting for air. “I’m sorry!”

“You didn’t disappoint me. You haven’t displeased me,” Cal said, but Gabriel’s

throat had already tightened. “Are you listening? It won’t hurt. I swear to you, it

won’t hurt. Breathe for me.”

Too late.

Panic attack number two of the day was in full swing.

Gabriel sucked in oxygen. He kicked and jerked and fought against the hands

restraining him. His eyes rolled in wild terror at the unsmiling men hovering

around him. His vision grayed so that even his master’s grim features blurred.

“Doc!” Cal shouted.

Oh god oh god oh god.

Tall, burly, with long dark hair and tricked out in black leathers, a newcomer

plunked a medical bag beside Gabriel on the table. Gabriel startled, jerking to flinch

away from the bag and whatever fresh horror awaited him within it, but he didn’t

move far, frozen in place by the unyielding grip of his master and everyone else.

Fear coiled, sour and venomous, in his stomach.

“This him?” The stranger lifted his nose into the air to sniff. Just like the men

in the elevator before Gabriel had run.

“D-don’t. I—I—I’ll be… Can’t touch me!” he babbled incoherently, twisting his

head from side to side until one of them—God, who?—fisted his hair at both temples

to lock him down. The only part of Gabriel free now was his wilted cock, his balls

having crawled up inside his body. “Make them… P-please…”

Kari Gregg

But nobody was paying attention to his begging, not even Gabriel.

Pupils blown, stare greedy and feral, the doctor looked down at him. The

stranger’s slow glance traveled the length of Gabriel’s naked body, pausing at his

soft dick, before finishing the predatory inspection to frown at Cal. “Never mind.

Even stinking of you, I want him. Where can I scrub up?”

Gabriel inhaled as much air as he could. And shrieked.

“Calm down, pet.” Cal’s face appeared directly in his line of sight, pale blue

eyes scant inches away so all Gabriel could see was his master. “No one else can

have you. Ever. Just me. Only me.”

Gabriel’s scream cut off only because he’d run out of air.

Only him. Yes. He wanted to tell his master that. Gabriel needed to make Cal

understand that the others’ hands on him…they had to stop! Just him. Gabriel

would be so good for his master if only Cal ever touched him, but the words wouldn’t

form in Gabriel’s head and his breath had frozen in his chest.

“He’s here to chip you with a GPS locator. That’s all, I promise. I won’t let

anyone else fuck you. I won’t let them hurt you. Just look at me…”

His terror of the others gnawed at him with razored teeth, his heart

thundering so loud in his ears that his master’s low words soon faded to a dull

drone. The dizzy spots that danced in front of Gabriel’s eyes made it hard to

concentrate on the anxious concern in Cal’s.

Chip him?

His master wanted to… He expected Gabriel to… GPS?

Tracking him?

Like a…an animal?

“No,” he whined, and the tears started to fall at the first blow of betrayal at

Cal’s mistrust. “I’ll be g-good. I won’t run. I won’t!”

Cal brought both hands up to cup Gabriel’s cheeks. “Not a punishment,

Gabriel. Repeat after me: not a punishment.”

I, Omega

He squeezed his wet eyes shut. “Not a punishment,” he said. And sobbed. “I

won’t…I promise! Please don’t make me—”

“It’s for your protection, pet. Not to punish, but to keep you safe. Open your

eyes. Focus on me.”

Gabriel didn’t want to see his failure reflected in his master’s gaze. He couldn’t

stand it.

He needed his Xanax.

He needed Cal to hold him.

“I’ll hold you after. Look at me now.”

Gabriel eyes flashed wide. “M-Master,” he choked out. “Please.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong, pretty baby. You’re still my good boy.” Cal

blew out a sharp breath. “Your only job from now on is to be well, safe, and happy.

The RFID chip will guarantee that.”

His mouth worked up and down, but Gabriel’s heart was trying to beat a hole

through his chest. The evidence that he’d failed his master so completely reduced

him to a weeping mess.

Cal shot a glance over his shoulder. “Knocking him out is too dangerous, but a

sedative—”

“Before you fed and fucked him again maybe, but his body’s resumed mating.”

The doctor approached the table. Gabriel shuddered convulsively at the snapping of

latex gloves on the stranger’s hands. “His chemistry is fluctuating too wildly.

Human dosage would likely have no effect. Ours would kill him.”

The doctor stared down.

Brilliant sparks danced in front of Gabriel’s eyes.

Oh Jesus.

Oh fuck.

Kari Gregg

He wheezed. And cried because he was afraid of passing out. He had to make

them stop! He wouldn’t, couldn’t leave his master. Not now. Not when Cal was the

only thing holding him together. Surely they must see that?

The pad of Cal’s thumb rubbed his cheek. “You’re going to be all right, boy.

Calm down. Breathe for me.” He glared at the doctor. “Do something!”

The man shrugged. “Feed him.”

Gabriel managed a faint whine, unsure if he wanted his master’s blood that

much or if he was still that horrified by his desire to feed from Cal’s wrist on top of

everything else.

“If I give him my blood, he’ll need sex.” Cal grimaced. “And he’s to be tattooed

as soon as you’re finished.”

“No!” Gabriel arched his back and struggled against the hands holding him.

Nausea churned his stomach. Chipping? Tattoo him? “No,” he tried again, though

his shout came out as a shaky whisper. Didn’t they understand that they didn’t

need a RFID chip or a tattoo to proclaim Gabriel as Cal’s property? Couldn’t Cal feel

how much Gabriel needed him? “M-Master. Please.”

Cal bent, his calm blue eyes shadowed with concern. And regret. “I’m sorry.”

“Where do you want the implant?”

“I bite his nape and his throat when I fuck him.” He rubbed his nose along

Gabriel’s. “Left clavicle?”

The doctor nodded.

Gabriel deflated, stunned defeat sapping all the tension from his body.

Nothing would sway his master then. Nothing. Gabriel’s fear, his tears, none of his

begging would change Cal’s course. The shifter’s distrust hurt Gabriel more than

the spanking that still made his ass ache. More than the first time Cal had fucked

him. More than anything. Ever.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you alive.” Cal lifted his wrist to his

mouth and bit down. “Don’t ask me to put your life in danger. I can’t. I won’t.”

I, Omega

Gabriel stopped fighting them.

He hadn’t the strength anyway and struggling was pointless. He wouldn’t

compound his failure by safe wording, so there was nothing to be done except

submit to this…this…horror.

He didn’t bother resisting the lure of his master’s blood when offered to him

either. Why? When what streamed from Cal’s wrist was the only thing that made

sense. The only thing that mattered, that made any of this shit bearable.

He drank.

His agony numbed him through the positioning of the surgical drape over his

shoulder, through the cold wet wash of acrid disinfectant on his skin. And as the

doctor had said, the coppery wet that Gabriel sucked from Cal’s wrist soothed him

but also hollowed him to a cavernous shell. No matter that Cal had just shattered

him, even hating his master for forcing him to this, Gabriel still wanted him. More

by the second, by his every heartbeat. Though he knew nursing Cal’s blood from his

torn wrist would make his arousal worse, a million times worse, Gabriel didn’t stop.

He needed the shifter’s blood every bit as much as he needed his cock.

Cal brushed his hair from his face with gentle fingers. “As soon as he’s

finished.”

Though his blood calmed Gabriel, he wept bitter tears.

“Just a pinch.”

Gabriel winced as the needle pierced high on his chest.

“Human dose,” the doctor said, pushing the plunger on the syringe. “It won’t

anesthetize the area entirely, but it’ll take the edge off.”

Cal frowned. “I promised him that it wouldn’t hurt.”

But it already tormented him.

“More blood.” The doctor twirled his finger in a circle. “Make a fist to force

yours to pump faster. The effects will only be temporary and fade quickly, but

overfeeding will tank him up better than any drug in my arsenal.”

Kari Gregg

Gabriel sucked at his wrist, tongue sliding over Cal’s skin. Aching for him. The

doctor was right, though. Moments later, after the doctor doubled over Gabriel’s

shoulder with a stainless steel scalpel, he felt only a small tug on his skin through

the spine-melting desire that enthralled him. The doctor mopped the cut he’d made

with gauze. Gabriel moaned helpless protest when he returned with a gun of some

sort, molded of blue plastic and weirdly menacing.

Cal pumped his fist, and his blood spilled into Gabriel’s mouth all the faster.

“Almost done, pet.”

He gulped at the hot, salty wet. His hole tightened and released, desperate to

be fucked, but he sucked at the wound his master had made for him, determined to

endure this without shaming Cal.

“A little pressure,” the doctor said, pushing the tip of the gun into the incision.

Gabriel’s belly tightened.

The doctor released the trigger and the chip, the capsule, whatever it was, shot

into him.

Gabriel groaned at the dull twinge of pain.

Cal’s fingers petted him. His blood slid past Gabriel’s lips. “Good boy.”

His dick hardened at the praise and the need exploding inside him. But most

especially with the certainty that now Cal would never, ever lose him again.

Gabriel’s cock curved up toward his stomach to leave sticky trails of precum on his

skin in spite of the crowd of shifters pinning him to the table.

Eyes narrowing on Gabriel’s neck, the doctor kneaded the incision, working

the chip deeper into Gabriel’s body. “You marked him.”

Cal’s lips thinned. His free hand rubbed at the jagged scars that wrapped thin,

spidery lines from Gabriel’s nape to just below his ear. “He ran.”

“If you hadn’t marked him so thoroughly—”

“I know.” His master scowled. “It won’t happen again.”

I, Omega

The doctor snorted. “If they know where this is”—he patted the incision—

“they’ll just rip it out of him.”

Gabriel shuddered. And slurped at the shifter’s blood.

“I won’t endanger him.”

The doctor rolled his eyes and, ignoring Cal, looked over his shoulder instead.

“Receiving a signal?”

“We got him,” someone shouted back.

They laid the laptop next to Gabriel on the table, screen zoomed to a satellite

map of Brooklyn and the surrounding coastline. A red dot on the wharfs of New

Jersey pulsed, concentric circles flaring out like waves. Gabriel bit into the meat of

Cal’s wrist, horror battling sudden fascination because the red dot? Was Gabriel. It

must be him. They’d taken him from the city and across the bay to Jersey while he’d

been out cold, cradled in his master’s arms.

Sipping from Cal’s bloody wrist, Gabriel watched the stranger show his master

that hovering over the dot that represented him brought up coordinates, though the

string of numbers was gibberish to Gabriel. Latitude and longitude maybe? The

doctor directed Cal to right-click on the dot and when he did, a window popped up.

“Within the hour, those fields will contain his temperature and pulse rate so if he’s

taken, you’ll know what condition he’s in, if he’s dead or ali—”

“I’d know.”

Desire burned in Gabriel’s gut at the low intimacy in his master’s voice and

Cal’s widening pupils when he stared at him.

“Right. Sorry. Used to dealing with humans.” Shrugging a stiff shoulder, the

doctor jabbed a finger at the screen again. “You reset the password here. Remember

your settings because once you change it, I can’t break in. I’d have to rechip him.”

Gabriel’s mouth released Cal’s wrist. He licked the shifter’s blood from his lips.

He needed.

“Finished?” Cal asked, his stare never leaving Gabriel.

Kari Gregg

“If you treat his wound, yes. I’m done with him.”

“Leave us.” His gaze swiveled around to encompass the men that still held

Gabriel in place. “All of you.”

The hands pinning him down were immediately snatched away, but Gabriel

lay still on the table, his body shaking as the others hurried to the door.

“Congratulations.” The doctor rolled the surgical drape off him, trapping gauze

dotted with blood inside. “He truly is extraordinary. I never believed in my lifetime

I’d see, forget treat, a human ome—”

“Get out,” Cal said through gritted teeth.

Gabriel whimpered, tilting his hips up in invitation.

His master glared at the doctor. “Now,” he growled.

The man paled. “Of course. Excuse me.”

Cal’s head turned after watching the doctor’s scramble to the door. He

smiled—the beautiful, crooked, eye-crinkling smile that Gabriel began to suspect

his master reserved only for him.

Gabriel had pleased him.

Giddy warmth filled Gabriel’s chest, made him ache in all the best ways. His

heart still wrenched at what the shifter had forced him to do, but his pulse also

roared in his head. His balls drew up close to his body, ready to shoot. He wanted

his master and with the RFID chip now embedded in Gabriel’s body, he damn well

knew the shifter wanted him too.

Cal reached for his zipper. Gabriel squirmed at the rasp of it lowering, his

spine arching as Cal released his hard dick from the confines of his jeans. His

master said nothing, nor did Gabriel. Cal simply climbed atop Gabriel on the table

and positioned Gabriel’s ankles on his shoulders. Gabriel bit his lip when the

shifter’s cock pressed to his hole.

“Thank you,” Cal said.

He pushed inside.

I, Omega

Gabriel tossed his head back, moaning long and loud at the intrusion, but

stretched and still sticky from the fucking his master had already given him,

Gabriel’s body accepted him. His eyes rolled into the back of his skull as the

shifter’s cock spiked into his ass.

Cal fucked him slow and steady. His stomach rubbing against Gabriel’s aching

cock set fires to blaze within him. His master bent to lick the incision on his

shoulder, lapping at the cut. “Come when you need to, boy.”

Gabriel complied within moments. Everything went white. His body clenched,

and his dick shot ropes of warm spunk on his stomach.

Cal held him close. He blanketed Gabriel with his body as his cock lodged

deep. Gabriel tightened his ass around the shifter’s knot, loving the heavy weight

and Cal’s rigid length buried inside his sweat-slick body. The rapid rise and fall of

Cal’s chest pressed to his maddened Gabriel.

God, had anything ever felt this perfect and right?

Gabriel echoed his master’s husky groan when his dick pulsed. His fingers—

yet bound at both wrists by Cal’s belt—clutched at the shifter’s shoulder. Gabriel

felt him spilling hot, thick, and wet inside him. In spite of the cum flooding his ass,

Gabriel panted because he wanted more. He needed more. Cal had taught him that.

Thank God, his master opened his mouth over Gabriel’s neck and bit. Gabriel cried

out in primal joy as Cal gave him what he desired. What he needed. The shifter

licked at Gabriel’s blood while he stuffed Gabriel’s body with burst after burst from

his still-thrusting dick.

Eventually, his hips stopped rocking.

His mouth on Gabriel’s throat nuzzled lazily.

Gabriel blinked at his master.

“I’m not your only predator, pet. Never forget that.” He smiled when Gabriel

blew out a long, wavering breath. “Others would seize any opportunity to take you

from me. From us.” He skated his mouth to Gabriel shoulder to kiss the incision; the

skin was already mending. No scar. “That’s why.” His master lifted above him,

Kari Gregg

stared down. The hard implacable chips of ice that were his eyes knotted Gabriel’s

stomach, where the shifter’s cock still lay hard and thick inside him. “There will

never again be a time when I can’t find you. I’ll always be able to bring you back.”

Gabriel shivered. “Master?”

His mouth curved. “Yes, pet?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. “The tattoo?”

Cal’s head dipped. His tongue laved a wet trail on Gabriel’s neck, just below

his right ear. “Here. My initials: CPT.” The shifter planted a soft kiss and chuckled

when Gabriel sighed. “Because collars can be removed.”

Though Gabriel’s fingers dug into his master’s shoulder, his heartbeat

steadied. “I’m afraid of needles, Sir,” he finally whispered.

His master’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll fuck you while Jarod’s doing it. You won’t

notice a thing.”

Gabriel tensed.

Cal laughed.

Gabriel’s lips quirked. “Not funny.”

Cal nipped at his neck.

“Not funny, Sir,” he corrected.

“Good boy.” His master shifted to meet his gaze, then grabbed his chin between

two fingers to hold Gabriel still when he would’ve glanced down. “I’ll help you

through it, and when it’s done, no one can ever part you from me.”

“I won’t run.” Gabriel gulped. “I promise.”

“You aren’t being punished; you’re being protected.” Cal snorted. “But you’ll

run. When you’re scared or hurt, your first instinct is to run. You can’t help it any

more than I can resist chasing you.” The shifter leaned to brush his mouth over

Gabriel’s. “Be smart, pet. Run to me.”

I, Omega

Chapter Four

He called the others in, and Gabriel’s heart thundered in his ears, afraid his

master truly did mean to fuck him as he was tattooed. But Cal slid his cock free of

his butt.

Cheeks burning, Gabriel glanced away as his master tucked his softening dick

into his jeans. While Cal directed the tattoo guy where to set up, his warm, wet cum

trickled from Gabriel’s ass. They didn’t have to hold him down when Jarod sanitized

the spot on Gabriel’s neck that his master had selected for the tattoo, but Cal

pointed to the others regardless. They pinned Gabriel down. “Nothing fancy,” Cal

told the guy. “He doesn’t like needles.”

Gabriel didn’t struggle. He didn’t protest. Or cry.

He simply closed his eyes.

He ignored the hands holding him still and the faint buzz of the tattoo gun.

Gabriel concentrated on his master’s low voice as Cal encouraged him. It didn’t hurt

as bad as Gabriel had feared it would, and he ignored that too.

And then it was done, just like Cal had promised.

Gabriel couldn’t get away. Not ever.

Cal lifted him from the table. Gabriel wrapped his legs around the shifter’s

waist and held on tight, his heart bleeding with how badly he needed his master to

hold him. “Shh, pretty baby. It’s over. It’s all over.”

But he knew it wasn’t. Tagging him with the RFID chip and marking him with

the tat were only the first steps into a new life he couldn’t begin to understand. Cal

cuddled him close, though, free with kisses, casual touches and approving murmurs

that settled Gabriel’s frayed nerves. Cal brought Gabriel back to their new shared

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reality, easing Gabriel into their now—the present where Gabriel was irrevocably

Cal’s.

Something in Gabriel responded to his master’s rewards and if not that, to the

shifter’s coddling. He eventually relaxed against Cal. Gabriel stopped shaking. He

wrapped himself around the shifter when Cal’s wonderful hands left him. Gabriel

blindly tipped his mouth up, lips parted—beseeching—for more.

Cal brushed his hair from his face with a gentle finger and patiently listened

to Jarod drone about how to maintain and protect the tat. He dabbed at the tender

spot of Gabriel’s neck with a square of gauze. “I haven’t bathed him,” he told Jarod

when the other man had finished reciting aftercare instruction. Cal kissed Gabriel

again.

Tender kisses.

Adoring kisses.

Gabriel sighed into his master’s mouth.

“How many times have you fucked him tonight?”

“Twice.”

He should’ve been embarrassed, but he was too tired. Too cherished. Too

floaty. Too…everything. His master stroked his cheek, kissing him over and over

and over again.

“All right.” Jarod grunted. “No tub baths, though.” Tools clattered as the other

man packed up his supplies. “You can protect the tat with a layer of petroleum jelly

in the shower, but wipe it off as soon as you’ve finished. Use the ointment. Twice

tomorrow, then switch to moisturizer. Remember: lots of blood, lots of protein.

Mating should speed his healing, but with his kind, you never know. Call me if he

has any trouble.”

Cal kissed Gabriel’s temple. “Let’s clean you up, boy. Then bed.”

Gabriel nestled into his master’s body, sore, sated. Treasured.

Claimed.

I, Omega

Odd, how alarming and yet comforting that felt. But for now, he was mostly

reassured. “Yes, Sir,” he said, content to be Cal’s.

His master smiled down at him, and Gabriel’s heart lit.

Gabriel had pleased him.

Gabriel tensed in renewed panic and clung to Cal as tight as a spider monkey

when the shifter carried him into a cavernous room filled with men and women

gathered in groups of twos and threes. Their scents clamored in Gabriel’s head—

everyone in the room was a shifter like his master. They were also naked. When

Gabriel spied one of the shifters who had restrained him kicking off shoes and

jeans, Gabriel trembled so fiercely that he wondered that his limbs didn’t shake out

of joint.

“Hush, pet. Just through here.” Cal strode through a narrow doorway and into

a tiled room with a flickering fluorescent bulb that stabbed into Gabriel’s retinas

like needles. He cringed, lifting his bound hands from Cal’s neck to shield his eyes.

“It hurts, I know,” his master crooned, settling him on a long bench in front of

dented lockers. “Your eyes will be sensitive until you adapt to our night vision.”

Gabriel winced at the increased glare of the hideous bulbs when Cal stood. He

sighed in relief when the shifter marched to the switch near the doorway to kill the

damn light that tormented him.

“You’ll be easier on our hunting ground—protected from what pains you as

your body changes.” Cal returned to him, crouched. His master kissed him.

“Tomorrow, pretty baby. Now give me your hands.”

Cal loosened the belt binding Gabriel and rubbed the bruised flesh before

skimming his lips over each wrist. “Your skin colors magnificently. I’ll be the envy

of the pack.” He winked. “With your ass still wearing a pretty blush from your

spanking, I already am.”

Gabriel’s face heated.

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His master chuckled. “Get used to being naked, boy. Shifters rarely bother

with clothes on our own territory.” He pushed to his feet. “And as my pet, you even

less so.”

Cal efficiently stripped out of his clothes and handed them to Gabriel, who

folded each item and laid them in a neat pile on the bench. “Up.” Cal tugged on

Gabriel’s arm until Gabriel stood. The crown of his head didn’t reach the shifter’s

chin. Gabriel stared at the flat disks of his master’s nipples. “You ran the city like

an unruly whelp for weeks, but you’ve come to heel very nicely since.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Gabriel’s mouth watered at the hard nub peeking from the

thick mat of pale hair on his master’s chest. He wanted to lick. He wanted to taste.

Gabriel had never seen his master naked before. Cal had liked Gabriel bare-

skinned and vulnerable so far, only ever unzipping his pants to fuck his boy. As a

submissive, Gabriel had grown accustomed to that dynamic; it hadn’t occurred to

him to mind. Even when he’d seen the nudity of the others in the outer room,

Gabriel hadn’t wondered at Cal’s clothing. Cal was his master. Of course, he wore

clothes. The shifter would bid Gabriel to remove them only when Cal wanted

Gabriel to kiss or caress him.

Seeing his master out of those clothes scrambled his mind. Cal was—

Beautiful.

Unlike Gabriel, pale and thin, his master’s skin glowed with a healthy tan that

sculpted over dense muscle. Cal’s shoulders stretched endlessly. Gabriel had known

that already, having snuggled against them. His fingers now itched to touch, to

trace the contours that had cradled him. Gabriel had expected the hair. Cal was a

shifter, after all. Gabriel hadn’t imagined the curls on his master’s chest to be so

fair, though, the same light shade as the thick pelt on his head. Gabriel gulped at

the six-pack of Cal’s abs, the tapering of his waist…

Good God, what could this gorgeous man ever find desirable about him?

I, Omega

“I’d planned to chain you while I cleaned us both, but you’ve done well, boy.

Much better than anticipated. You’ve earned a reward.” He drew Gabriel into his

arms, flush to Cal’s beautiful body. “Would you like to bathe me?”

Yes.

Oh yes.

Please.

Gabriel burrowed into Cal’s heat. “Yes, Sir. Thank you.”

His master smoothed the hair at the back of his head. “Sweet boy.”

“Everything’s prepared for him,” a tall man with cropped brown hair said from

a doorway leading farther into the shower rooms.

Gabriel jumped, startled.

“I left a temporary collar for him. And his leash.”

Gabriel stiffened.

Cal’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “As long as Gabriel behaves, I don’t

think the leash will be necessary. But thank you, Burke.”

Gabriel had already come three times, but his poor cock jerked.

He winced.

Ow.

The other man slunk forward on the balls of his feet and, reaching them, he

dipped his head in wry acknowledgment.

At Gabriel.

Fear jolted through him. He scooted closer to his master, shoving his nose into

the shifter’s armpit. He’d crawl inside Cal’s body if he could.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet the boy.”

Anxiety balled Gabriel’s stomach.

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“As you can see, he isn’t ready for introductions. He’s still very shy.” Shooting

a wink over his bare shoulder, Cal pulled Gabriel farther into the shower room. “I

expect everyone to give him time and space to adjust. Tell the others.”

Oh, thank God.

Gabriel didn’t have long to enjoy his relief, because Cal pushed him against

the wall as soon as they rounded the corner, trapping Gabriel between the inferno of

the shifter’s body and cold tile. When his head jerked up in surprise, his master took

his mouth. Cal’s lips claimed him. His master stabbed his tongue inside to tempt

him to play and Gabriel opened for him, falling into Cal’s kiss as readily as he’d

given his body to the shifter that first night.

Gabriel forgot everything else.

Cal’s fingers pinched his chin to hold Gabriel steady. He lifted his mouth away.

“You may speak freely for the rest of the night. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He smiled. “Cal.”

Gabriel swallowed. Hard. “Yes, Cal.”

The shifter beamed, stroking Gabriel’s hair. “Don’t worry. You’re still my pet,

but we’ve put off discussing your hard limits too long. I expect you to look me in the

eye while we do.” Cal’s hips nudged Gabriel’s. “I want you to tell me what’s spinning

round that pretty head of yours.”

Gabriel already felt his skin crawl at meeting his master’s stare for even so

short a time, but he nodded his assent. “It’d help if you didn’t smell like sex, Sir.”

Cal huffed out a laugh. “Come on then. I’ll let you wash the sex smells away.”

Gabriel didn’t see how allowing him to touch his master would erase the

seductive musk of their sex. He’d arouse Cal, and the shifter would fuck him again.

They’d both reek of sex more than ever. He was willing to try, though, especially if it

meant getting his hands on Cal. “Thank you, Si—Cal.”

Cal guided him to the showers. “You’re welcome, boy.”

I, Omega

An alcove of the shower room had been fitted with an old-fashioned claw-foot

tub that had been filled with hot water and bubbles. Cal slathered a layer of

petroleum jelly just below Gabriel’s ear to protect his new tattoo and then climbed

into the bath. Kneeling on a towel the shifter had folded on the floor next to the tub

to cushion his knees, Gabriel leaned to wash and explore his master’s body while

Cal prompted him.

“Cock and ball torture.”

Gabriel winced. “Okay.”

“Knife play.”

“All right.”

“Look at me, Gabriel.”

He glanced. At Cal’s frown, he ripped his gaze away.

“You’re lying to me.”

He bit his lip, wiping down the shifter’s broad shoulders with a soapy rag.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Orgasm denial.”

Gabriel shivered. “Yes.”

Cal snorted. “No, pet. I meant you won’t come for the rest of the night as

punishment for lying to me.”

His cock twitched in slutty delight. He loved being punished. “Yes, Sir.”

“Cal.”

Gabriel carefully circled his master’s nipples with soapy cotton. “Yes, Cal.”

“Good boy.” He leaned back in the water, letting Gabriel have his way.

“Guiche.”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying again.”

And on it went.

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Gabriel was no newbie to the lifestyle. He knew what he liked and what he

didn’t. He also knew what he would tolerate and what he couldn’t. As a submissive

who’d played since he was old enough to buy fake ID, the routine of negotiations—

including the grilling his master had begun—was familiar to Gabriel. Comforting,

even.

But he lied to Cal. Over and over. And over again.

He couldn’t stop himself. Every time the shifter mentioned a limit, hard or

soft, one he could endure only with very great care or one that would break him,

nausea churned his stomach. Buzzing filled his ears. He’d never before had

problems discussing his limits, but with Cal? Impossible. Urgent instincts,

crushingly new to him, demanded he yield to his new master—give Cal whatever he

wanted. Anything he wanted. And if the giving broke Gabriel? He’d gladly break as

long as he never denied Cal again.

So Gabriel lied.

He pretended it didn’t matter, and he lied.

Better to focus on the luxury of bathing his master. Gabriel cleansed Cal’s cock

and balls with the soapy rag. Adored him.

“Ball gag.”

“Okay.”

“Damn it, Gabriel!”

He cringed under the lash of the shifter’s anger. “I’m sorry!”

Cal jerked Gabriel’s gaze to his with a fist in Gabriel’s hair. “Don’t be sorry. Be

honest.” He blew out a frustrated breath and forced a stiff smile. “It’s all right to say

no, pet. Any master worthy of you will respect your limits. Human or shifter. That

hasn’t changed.”

Gabriel shuddered.

I, Omega

“I can’t play with a pet I’ve needlessly damaged.” Cal stared at him, blue eyes

fierce and vivid. “You’ll disappoint me if you don’t tell me what you can and cannot

take.”

His heart pounded. “Yes, Sir.”

“Cal. Right now, I’m Cal.”

He’d never stop being Gabriel’s master, but Gabriel nodded anyway.

Gabriel yanked his stare down as soon as Cal released him.

“The first no will be your hardest. The chip and that tat were difficult for you; I

thought a less threatening limit might be best. Obviously the wrong choice.” The

shifter pushed out a long breath. “Do you want me to give you to other men, pet?”

No!

His eyes snapped shut.

“Gabriel?”

He couldn’t stand it. He wanted only Cal, needed only his master. The other

shifters frightened him. None of them smelled right, and the thought of anyone else

touching Gabriel filled him with sick dread.

No. Such a simple word.

Terror squeezed the air from Gabriel’s chest.

“Shh, pretty baby. I won’t make you say it.” Cal cupped Gabriel’s cheek with a

gentle palm. “Can you shake your head for me? Will you do that?”

Gabriel’s stomach knotted, but yes, he could do that. He nodded again.

“I’m proud of you, boy. You’re doing so well.” He brushed Gabriel’s mouth with

his. Cal leaned back, laughing, when Gabriel’s tongue traced the seam of his lips,

begging entry. “You’ll have a kiss when you tell me the truth. Would you like to be

shared among the others?”

Gabriel stared at the water, gathering his courage, and jerked his head from

side to side.

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“Good boy.” Cal kissed him, teasing him with both tongue and nipping teeth.

Gabriel lapped at the shifter’s mouth, enjoying his reward until, chuckling, Cal

lifted his head. “Finish bathing me.”

Happy for a task to focus on, Gabriel dipped the rag in the sudsy water and

concentrated on wiping Cal’s hips and groin.

“The guiche, Gabriel?”

Cal was right. Having done it already—without his master lashing out with

either a fist or disapproval, which was worse—shaking his head was easier this

time.

“What about other piercings? Your nipples, for instance.”

Jesus, Gabriel didn’t want to admit he wanted it. He hated needles, but Cal

wasn’t the first dom to suggest piercing them. Gabriel’s nipples were so sensitive.

They beaded now as he imagined the shifter toying with decadent barbells or rings.

He glanced at Cal under his lashes.

His master could get him through the piercing. Cal would make it okay.

Gabriel wouldn’t faint like he had when he’d made the monumental error of

piercing his ears in college. Or rather piercing one ear, since he’d dropped like a

stone and ended up in the emergency room with a concussion after bashing his head

on the jewelry counter.

Cal had gotten Gabriel through the tattoo, the RFID chip

implant…everything. With his master’s help, Gabriel could endure the piercing.

And then the shifter would play with his ornamented nipples incessantly.

Gabriel trembled. And nodded.

Cal scowled at him. “Boy…”

His stomach twisted. “Rings, Sir. For both nipples.” He sucked on his bottom

lip. “If you’ll help me.”

“I’ll always help you, sweetheart, whenever you need me.” Cal pressed a kiss

next to his ear. “As soon as I get you home.” The shifter’s warm mouth moved to the

I, Omega

crook of his shoulder. Cal sucked, bit and kissed Gabriel until his toes curled and he

knew he’d bruise by morning. “Would you like that, pet?”

Fuck, Gabriel hated needles. “Yes, Sir.”

Cal’s teeth nipped his ear lobe.

Gabriel gasped.

His master chuckled. “Wash me, pet.”

Gabriel scrambled to soap up Cal’s legs.

“Ball gag.”

He shook his head.

Negotiations went more quickly after that. Cal returned to territory they’d

already covered, grilling Gabriel over every slight shake of his head to determine

hard and soft limits. A hard limit was a hard limit—sacred ground. Cal promised to

respect them all, though the shifter reserved some of Gabriel’s soft limits as possible

punishments, “since you enjoy spanking so much.”

Gabriel skimmed the washrag over Cal’s right hand. His eyes narrowed to dab

the cloth between each finger.

This hand had beaten his ass cherry red.

This palm stroked his cheek when his master kissed him.

Gabriel loved Cal’s hand and what it had done to him.

“Why did you run from me, Gabriel?”

“I woke up alone. Scared.” Rather than meeting his master’s eyes, he lavished

each of his fingers, one by one, with soapy suds. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

He’d been even more terrified that Cal might.

He sighed, as though he heard what Gabriel could not say. “Mating was

difficult for you. Humans taking our beast always is. Once your bodies begin

adapting to us, mating is a pleasure, but the first time can be physically traumatic.

I left to hunt fresh meat to heal the damage I’d done to you.” He grunted. “But I

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underestimated you. I didn’t think you’d wake up, forget find the energy to leave,

before I returned.”

The trickle of water from the rag that rinsed the bubbles away echoed

musically. “I found a dead rat.” Gabriel’s shoulders lifted in an embarrassed shrug

as he dipped the rag into the water. “It tasted awful.”

His master halted him with the hand he’d just washed, curving it over his

cheek to force Gabriel’s gaze to his. “I should have never left you alone. Not for a

single minute. I’m sorry, Gabriel.”

His teeth worried his bottom lip. “It’s okay.”

The shifter’s eyebrow kicked up to a dubious arch, but Cal didn’t pursue the

lie. His hand lowered. Gabriel tended to the other arm, his studious gaze drinking

in every pore and follicle. Gabriel dabbed the soapy rag over Cal’s skin.

“After you realized I was hunting you,” he finally said, “why did you hide from

me then?”

“You found me. That’s over now.” Gabriel’s stomach knotted. “I don’t want to

talk about it.”

Cal’s fingers darted from the cradle Gabriel had made of his hand to yank

Gabriel close. Gabriel cowered at the furious glitter in the shifter’s blue eyes. “I may

not answer your questions, boy, but you will answer every one of mine.”

Gabriel’s heart thrashed against his rib cage. “Yes, Sir.”

The shifter’s fingers dug into his scalp.

He whimpered at the painful tug at the roots of his hair. “I was afraid you’d

kill me, Sir. Please.”

Cal’s forehead furrowed. His grip loosened, but did not fall away. “Explain.”

Why? So Cal could kill him now instead? His master wouldn’t let him gloss

this over with another lie, though, so Gabriel didn’t try. “I’m not normal.”

The shifter scowled. “Of course not. When we mated, your body began adapting

to mine. You haven’t been human since.”

I, Omega

Tears burned his eyes, but Gabriel refused to let them fall. “I didn’t say

human. I said I’m not normal. For your kind.”

“You don’t know what’s normal for my kind,” Cal said, mouth thinning, “and

even if you did, you weren’t born a shifter. My bite, my blood and semen inside you,

none of it will ever make you as I am.”

Unable to stand his anger, Gabriel closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Water trickled as Cal’s arm lifted from the tub. He framed Gabriel’s face in

both hands. “Open your eyes.”

“Please don’t make me,” he choked out, throat tight.

“To hell with Jarod.” The shifter blew out a long breath. “Come here.”

When his master pulled him into the tub and curled Gabriel atop him, Gabriel

buried his nose in the hair on Cal’s chest and breathed his master in. He couldn’t

fathom how he’d resisted this scent—or Cal—for two months. “I’m sorry,” he said

again.

“You’ve no reason to apologize, pet. You are what you are.” Cal rubbed

Gabriel’s back, silky strokes that warmed Gabriel from the inside out. “My beast

sensed what you would become and mated to you anyway. So what you are? Is

perfect.”

Gabriel snorted, though it sounded more like a shaky sob. “I can’t…I can’t shift

like you and the others do. I can’t see in the dark as well as you can, and my

hearing isn’t as sharp. I suck at hunting too. I can’t catch anything bigger than a

rat, which taste awful, and”—he sniffled and castigated himself for it because he’d

sworn he wouldn’t cry—“I’m a terrible pet. A horrible boy for you.”

His master’s fingers squeezed his nape. Pain streaked through his body so that

Gabriel whimpered. “Don’t say that.” Cal shook him. Hard. “Don’t ever say that.”

His tears finally slipped free. “I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorr—”

“If I hear you talk like that again, I’ll beat you black and blue.” Cal pinched his

neck so tight Gabriel’s skull felt like it’d pop. “Understand?”

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Gabriel cried out, stunned, hurting.

And collapsed atop his master when Cal abruptly released him.

He tried to calm his galloping heart, catch his breath.

“Oh, pretty baby, what am I going to do with you?” Apparently, what Cal was

going to do was wrap his arms around Gabriel and hold him close. “I’m sorry I

scared you.” Cal kissed him. “But I can’t allow you to say such things.” Gabriel

trembled against him as the shifter’s newly gentled hands rubbed the ache from his

neck. “You’re perfect for me, Gabriel. Perfect. Never doubt that.”

Which only made him cry harder.

Cal sighed. “Here.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down.

The acrid scent of his master’s blood slapped into Gabriel, twisting his gut.

Cal offered his wrist to Gabriel’s mouth. “Two months without my blood. No

wonder you can’t think straight.”

His thinking was probably the only thing about him that was straight, but

Gabriel latched on to Cal’s wrist anyway. God, he’d never get enough of this. The

shifter’s blood danced over his tongue, salty but not bitter like his master’s cum

was. Metallic and a little sweet. He groaned rapturously.

Cal chuckled. “The pack will tease me for spoiling you.”

The ache in Gabriel’s ass argued otherwise, but lousy boy or not, Gabriel

wasn’t a stupid one. He drank.

“You can’t shift because you aren’t a shifter and never will be.” Cal fingered

Gabriel’s hair with his free hand. “My semen altered your body chemistry to amplify

your natural instincts and make you hardy enough to tolerate pack life, but mating

won’t reengineer you into something you aren’t.” When Gabriel glanced up at him,

the shifter’s mouth curved to a feral bow. “When you need meat, I’ll hunt for you.

When you need blood, you’ll have mine.” Cal’s eyes darkened. “You’re my pet, my

pretty baby. Mine to care for. Mine to keep.”

I, Omega

Gabriel quivered when Cal urged his mouth from his wrist and tipped

Gabriel’s lips up. He nipped Gabriel’s bottom lip and slid his tongue inside Gabriel’s

panting mouth when he obediently opened. The shifter’s eyes were still dark when

Cal lifted his head. He swatted Gabriel’s throbbing backside. “Out of the tub, boy.

Jarod will bitch for hours if he finds out I dragged you in with me, and I’ve waited

long enough for the pleasure of grooming you.”

He didn’t trust the hungry sparkle in his master’s stare, but Gabriel did as Cal

said. Skin pebbling at the cold, nipples beading, he snagged a crisp white towel from

the stack to the side and briskly dried Cal. “Kneel,” his master told him.

Gabriel dropped to the hard tile floor.

“Hands in front, pet.”

Swallowing hard, Gabriel complied.

He’d seen the items left by the towels so Gabriel was unsurprised when his

master buckled restraints to his wrists after briskly toweling him dry nor when Cal

shackled the cuffs together. “Comfortable?” the shifter asked, checking the fit.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Cal.”

The corner of Gabriel’s mouth curved. “Yes, Master Cal.”

“Burke’s right.” He rustled Gabriel’s hair. “You’re a brat.”

Peering at his master beneath his lashes, Gabriel grinned.

“And you like feeling helpless.” He nodded to the leather cuffs at Gabriel’s

wrists. He buckled a collar low around his neck too, fingers sliding between

Gabriel’s skin and the leather to ensure a comfortable fit. “Good. After two months

of hiding, I intend to keep you bound as much as practicable.”

Gabriel blushed.

“This collar’s only temporary, to make you feel more comfortable around the

pack, but it fits higher than I like. Too close to your tattoo?”

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The thin strip of leather slid but stayed over an inch away from the skin that

still smarted from the tat when Gabriel rolled his shoulders, so Gabriel shook his

head.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“No.”

“Good.” Cal grabbed lube, the prepared bag—Gabriel’s stomach

somersaulted—and a stretch of tubing before urging Gabriel to his feet. The shifter

led him to a deserted shower room. Nozzles lined the utilitarian gray walls. Drains

spaced across the floor of an open area with no dividers or privacy curtains.

Gabriel had already surmised privacy was a thing of his past, though.

Cal twisted the knobs to adjust the water. “Lie down on your left side, right

knee tucked against your chest.”

Oh, Gabriel hated this.

He really, really hated it, but he obeyed his master, quivering at the cold wet

tile against his skin.

His master flipped the cap of the lube with a quiet snick that made Gabriel

shudder. Cal slicked his fingers. He dropped to his knees. When he rudely worked a

finger inside Gabriel’s ass, Gabriel hissed.

“Shifters produce five times more semen than humans, and our recovery time

is faster, so you’ll be filled a great deal more and more often too.” Cal nodded to the

enema bag. “Regular cleansing and antibiotics will keep you healthy until your body

has finished adapting to mine. Infections aren’t sexy, healthy, or fun, pet.”

Gabriel tucked his chin against his chest while Cal lubed the tip of the tubing.

“Yes, Sir.”

The shifter didn’t correct him.

Probably because, to accept what Cal wanted from him, Gabriel needed Cal to

be his master now.

I, Omega

Gabriel still whimpered when he inserted the tube into his hole. “Hush.” His

master stroked his flanks to ease him before lifting the bag high to hang it from the

shower head above them. Cal’s fingers expertly twisted the release valve. “Warm

water now.”

Gabriel moaned brokenly when he felt the first rush of fluid flood into him. Cal

sank lower and let Gabriel cuddle to him, allowing Gabriel to rest his cheek against

his master’s broad shoulder. “Take it, pretty baby. For me.”

Of course, he’d take it.

Gabriel didn’t like enemas, but they weren’t a hard limit. He’d liked the scent

of his master’s sex inside him, though, and he’d miss smelling of Cal. If the scent of

their sex soothed him, as the shifter had said before bringing him to this place, how

would his nerves jangle once that scent had been washed away? Gabriel didn’t want

to consider it. He didn’t want to be more afraid than he already was. He was tired of

running, sick of hiding. If his master’s scent inside him helped Gabriel stay, even if

he knew the peace of belonging to the shifter for only one night, Gabriel didn’t want

to lose it.

He sucked in his breath, wriggling as the water and medicine pushed into his

body, insistent. Taking his master’s mark away from him.

Gabriel hated it.

Cal stroked his hair. “Be still.”

Gabriel was still.

The water built pressure in Gabriel’s body. His stomach bloated. Cal

murmured in his ear, caressing his belly. “A little longer, pet. Just a little more.”

Gabriel blew out short, choppy breaths, hating this. Hating Cal for making

him do it. Hating himself for needing the shifter so much.

Cal reached around him. “Removing the applicator now. Don’t release until I

tell you.”

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Gritting his teeth, Gabriel squeezed his ring tight to hold the fluid in as Cal

worked the hose free. A vicious cramp tore through his belly. His head whirled at

the pain.

“Hold as long as you can, boy.”

His eyeballs felt like they were swimming in what had been pumped into him,

his stomach tender and swollen. Gabriel whined—he couldn’t help it.

He hated enemas with the fire of a thousand suns.

With the passion of a thousand masters.

Cal tipped his chin to force his gaze up. “Release.”

Gabriel didn’t right away. He had to get the medicine out. He knew that, but

he also knew—too well—the embarrassment of gushing water pouring from his ass.

And damn it, he didn’t want to lose his master’s scent inside him.

“You’ve my blood inside you now. You won’t lose me or my mark. I promise.”

Cal patiently waited. “Yield to me, Gabriel. Just let go.”

He surrendered to the inevitable.

His breath left him in a pained whoosh.

Water and the spunk Cal had sprayed inside him poured from his hole,

drenching his ass and thighs, pooling on the tile beneath him. Mortified tears

burned his eyes, but Gabriel didn’t close them. He stared at his master, giving that

to Cal too, because pleasing him meant more to Gabriel than clinging to his pride.

The rush from his ass slowed to a trickle sliding down his skin. Gabriel’s anger and

resentment frittered away, the frantic worries of minutes ago fading—replaced by

the peace of his submission. The satisfaction of pleasing his master unfurled inside

him, a more gentle headspace. Tranquil. Peaceful.

Floaty.

Christ, no wonder Gabriel was such a slut for him.

I, Omega

Gabriel coasted on the lethargic euphoria long minutes, pleasantly vague and

flying while Cal caressed him. Blissed-out, Gabriel blinked at the shifter. His lips

curved to a slow smile. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re welcome, pet.” Cal kissed Gabriel’s forehead. “I’m glad you respond so

well to this. You’ll need it regularly, for some time.”

“Okay.”

Cal smiled. “Time for your bath, boy.”

Kari Gregg

Chapter Five

Cal helped him stand, supporting Gabriel when he wobbled on rubbery legs.

Once sure Gabriel would remain upright, he removed the dreaded enema bag from

the shower head. He gave Gabriel another sweet kiss and looped Gabriel’s bound

wrists over the nozzle instead. Gabriel hung from the shower, the muscles in his

shoulders straining as they took most of his weight. His toes scraped the floor.

He rubbed into his master’s hand when Cal cupped his cheek. “Still feeling

subby, are we?”

Gabriel sighed.

Cal kissed it from his lips. “Good boy.”

He set to scrubbing Gabriel clean. Cal squeezed a dollop of shampoo into his

palm and worked a foamy lather into Gabriel’s hair, angling his head this way and

that to rinse it away. Gabriel basked in his master’s attention, very much the

spoiled and pampered pet Cal claimed him to be.

The shifter scoured Gabriel’s bound arms with a soapy washcloth then slid it

over his back and shoulders. Cal’s brow lifted when Gabriel snickered as the shifter

washed his armpits. “I’ll wax you from the neck down once I have you safely home.”

Cal swabbed the tufts of hair under both arms. “Keeping your body smooth and

hairless will be a pleasure I’ll enjoy adding to your routine.”

Gabriel’s nipples hardened to buds.

His cheeks burned fiery hot.

“You like that, boy?” Cal grinned. “You should. Your naked body, devoid of

hair, will identify you as my pet to shifters faster than any tattoo or collar.” Cal

I, Omega

cleaned his spunk from Gabriel’s neck and winked. “I’ll moisturize your skin every

day too, until you’re as soft as a baby’s butt. So the spankings will hurt more.”

Gabriel squirmed.

Wicked, wicked Master.

When Cal finally stopped teasing him and reached his nipples, Gabriel

whimpered. Since the shifter had bitten him, sometimes just the brush of his shirt

made Gabriel hard. Eyes focused on his face, Cal invested extra time wiping the

nipples clean. He nodded decisively. “Soon.”

Gabriel trembled. “Yes, Sir.”

Yes, to all of it. To waxing him. Piercing his nipples. Even the enemas. His

master was right—Cal spoiled him mercilessly, and slutty boy that Gabriel was, he

lapped up the shifter’s pampering as voraciously as he’d gulped down Cal’s cum.

He could learn to love his master. So easily.

Maybe he already did.

Gabriel certainly loved what Cal did to his body.

Though he hadn’t believed it possible, his cock obediently jutted by the time

his master’s attention turned to Gabriel’s groin. Cal washed his dick as thoroughly

as he’d cleansed the rest of Gabriel, not lingering over the task, though the shifter

took extra care dabbing the rag over Gabriel’s perineum and carefully probing his

hole. He spread Gabriel’s ass cheeks, inspecting him for damage.

And smiled at Gabriel’s whispery groan.

Apparently satisfied, Cal crouched to wash Gabriel’s thighs, his calves and,

turning him, Cal took great delight in Gabriel’s gasps as he wiped his sore ass.

“Is it very painful?”

Gabriel’s head hung, the tingling in his hypersensitive body almost more than

he could bear. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good.”

Kari Gregg

He shouted, more surprise than genuine pain, when Cal swatted one tender

butt cheek.

Cal rubbed at his stinging flesh. “Why were you punished, Gabriel?”

He shivered as he sank deep, ever so deep, into his submission. “This boy

should never hide from his master.”

“Wrong.” Cal delivered another slap, harder, to the other cheek.

Gabriel’s muscles tensed, his body arcing like a nocked bow.

Fuck, that was good. He’d never tire of it. Never.

“I didn’t punish you because I needed it. I spanked your ass cherry red because

you did—because you needed to know I didn’t blame you for not trusting me.” Cal

palmed both globes of his ass to massage the hurt in so the pain was bright and

fresh. “Telling you that I forgave you wouldn’t have convinced you, though. You felt

you had to earn it.”

Oh God, another failure. “I’m sorry.”

“Manners, pet.” Cal smacked him again.

He jerked, leather cuffs digging into his wrists as he twisted under the

showerhead. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Don’t be.” The shifter chuckled. “You respond so well to spanking.” Cal

swatted him, the crack of his palm meeting his flesh resounding in the deserted

shower.

Dangling helplessly, he could only moan.

His master stroked his warming skin and blew out a long, slow breath. “You’re

stunning like this, Gabriel.” His fingers skimmed Gabriel’s stinging ass cheeks, his

hip. “So sexy.”

Gabriel’s cock leaked precum that the shower washed away while the

satisfaction of pleasing his master filled his soul. “For you.” Everything, all that he

was and could ever hope to be, was for Cal. “My beautiful master.”

“You’ll give me anything I want.”

I, Omega

He wasn’t ashamed of it. “Yes, Sir.”

“Except your trust.” Cal dropped to his knees.

Gabriel’s heartbeat stuttered. “Master?”

Cal looked up, arching a teasing eyebrow. “Don’t come,” he said.

His warm, wet mouth engulfed Gabriel’s cock.

Gabriel shrieked.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

Every nerve ending in his body cracked and sizzled. His orgasm—immediate

and demanding—coiled in his balls and clawed up his tingling dick. He writhed, to

get away from his master’s hot mouth or push himself deeper, Gabriel didn’t know.

Didn’t matter.

Cal clasped both hips and held him in place as he worked Gabriel’s cock down

his throat.

After the soft, fuzzy warmth of Gabriel’s headspace, the brutal slap of arousal

cut into him like a thousand whips, pummeled him harder than a million floggers

and bound him tighter than the heaviest chains.

Gabriel begged his master.

He sobbed and pleaded.

His eyes leaked tears because he could not obey.

He wanted to. Even if Cal hadn’t commanded Gabriel not to come, he wanted

this soul-shattering pleasure to never end. The shifter’s tongue dipping into his slit

tore a moan from his lips. His master’s teeth threatening the head of his cock rocked

his world. And holy Christ, how the muscles of Cal’s throat worked the tip when he

swallowed. His mouth tormented Gabriel, wringing searing pleasure after pleasure

from his hard, aching dick. “Please, please, please,” Gabriel blubbered mindlessly,

but Cal only growled, the vibration working up Gabriel’s cock and setting him on

fire.

Oh Jesus.

Kari Gregg

Oh Christ.

He was going to fail his master.

“Sparrow!” Gabriel shouted, his body drawn tight. He grimaced, fighting to

hold his orgasm back. “Sparrow, Sir. Please!”

Cal released Gabriel’s dick from his mouth with a wet pop.

Gabriel collapsed, though his arms felt like they’d pull out of their sockets

bearing his weight. He inhaled great heaving pants of air into his lungs. He shook.

Violently. His head spun dizzily.

“Good boy.” Cal’s hot breath fanned his throbbing cock. He nuzzled Gabriel’s

groin, even the slight brush of the shifter’s cheek agony to him. “Very good boy.”

He wanted to be Cal’s good boy.

But his dick hurt.

And he couldn’t catch his breath.

Gabriel whimpered.

When his master skated a chaste kiss over the bulbous head, he keened in

abject misery.

“I pushed you to safe word to make sure you trust me enough to use it when

you need to. So you would understand that you can stop me. Always. I’ll never

punish you for that. Keeping you happy and whole is too important to me.”

Gabriel’s brain had lost the ability to form words, so he whined instead.

Cal stared at him, that magical mouth tauntingly near Gabriel’s poor aching

dick. “You need so beautifully, pet.”

When he pushed to his feet, Gabriel cried out.

Chuckling, Cal reached over Gabriel’s head and lifted his bound hands from

the shower head. When he would’ve collapsed to the floor, the shifter lifted Gabriel

in his arms. He planted a kiss to Gabriel’s forehead. “You won’t come again tonight,

pretty baby. That was your punishment for lying to me, but I’ll keep you on edge.

Because driving you out of your mind pleases me. Would you like that, sweetheart?”

I, Omega

Gabriel nestled against his master’s hard chest, both anticipating and

dreading the hours until dawn. “Yes, Sir.”

Cal smiled.

That smile was worth the agony in Gabriel’s balls.

* * *

Gabriel writhed beneath his master, mindlessly pumping his hips.

Dawn had begun lighting the oppressive darkness of the central room an hour

ago. The other shifters stirred, some gathering around a communal coffee pot, most

of them watching Cal pleasure him.

The shifter still hadn’t allowed Gabriel to come.

His cock felt raw. Swollen and abraded.

He tossed his head from side to side, moaning shamelessly.

Cal lifted his mouth from Gabriel’s groin, lips red and puffy from sucking him.

“Beg.”

But Gabriel couldn’t. His breath had lodged in his throat the moment Cal had

swallowed him down again, and he hadn’t managed more than wordless groans

since. Lashes lowered with his senseless desire, he could only let his eyes speak for

him.

His master pumped his dick. “Disobedient pup,” Cal said, tenor husky with

amusement—and lust.

Gabriel whimpered when his master reared off him. Cal dragged him by his

iron grasp on Gabriel’s cock. God, the pain. Gabriel needed to come so badly and the

rough handling hurt so good.

Tugging on his dick to guide him, Cal draped Gabriel over his lap and

positioned him so his cock arrowed between his spread thighs. Gabriel had nothing

to rub against. Cal tipped Gabriel’s ass up, pushed his head down. “We’ll start every

morning with discipline, pet, but today, a treat. For being such a very good boy.” He

warmed Gabriel’s ass by rubbing his palm over first one rounded globe, then the

Kari Gregg

other. “I’ll spank you until you come. If you want more of this”—his palm cracked

down on Gabriel’s butt cheek, still sore from the punishment his master had meted

out the day before—“don’t shoot.”

A spanking and the promise of an orgasm?

Oh, he wanted.

He desperately wanted.

“Understand?”

When Gabriel didn’t answer right away, Cal smacked his ass again.

Gabriel grunted in giddy exhilaration at the heat spreading across his sore ass,

but he tried to glue his brains back into his skull to answer. “Yes.”

“Manners, pet.”

He moaned when Cal’s cupped palm cracked down again. “Oh fuck, Sir. Yes.”

Another smack. “Profanity is the mark of a lazy mind, Gabriel.” Cal swatted

him again. “I’ll tolerate it from you no longer.” And again. “Since you enjoy spanking

so much, I’ll cage your cock.” The next smack caught Gabriel’s balls, sending a jolt

of lust up his backbone. “Answer me properly, boy. Do you understand?”

Cal punctuated his command with a stinging blow that had Gabriel’s cock

dripping precum to the floor. “Yes, Sir. I understand.”

“Good.”

The repeating crack of his master’s palm meeting Gabriel’s abused ass rent the

air. He stiffened as the strength of each slap built, the muscles of his ass protesting,

but his dick didn’t flag. It leaped with eager interest, wanting to blow. Needing to

blow, but oh, how Gabriel craved his master’s hand warming his butt.

Yesterday, Cal had spanked Gabriel because he had displeased him.

This morning his master spanked him because he’d pleased Cal well.

Both Gabriel and his ass knew the difference.

Each stroke caught his breath but did not push him too far, too fast, or too

hard. His skin heated evenly, the shifter’s big hand caressing him from the dip of

I, Omega

his spine to the curving crease where ass met thigh. Cal’s hand struck his balls

when his palm landed at erratic intervals, keeping Gabriel tense with anticipation.

Making him hurt.

He held on to his orgasm by the skin of his teeth.

At least he did until the shifter teased his crack and ringed his hole with one

fingertip.

Done.

Gabriel shuddered. His vision grayed.

His devious master shoved two fingers inside him and rubbed his gland.

Gabriel screamed out wild release as his dick, untouched, sprayed the nest of

blankets with hot, gluey wet. Over and over again, his cock jerked and spurted. His

mind spiraled in gluttonous satisfaction. His hands tightened to fists. His muscles

bunched then abruptly loosened.

His spent body collapsed over his beloved master’s lap.

Cal held him, gentle hand skimming up and down the bumps of Gabriel’s

spine. He murmured nonsense words of pride and praise while Gabriel quaked

through the aftermath of what Cal had done to him.

“I don’t suppose you’ll share him?”

Cal brushed away the hand that had fallen on Gabriel's aching ass cheek. “I’m

in too good a mood to kill you. Go away, Burke.”

The other man laughed and patted Gabriel’s sore butt again. Sleepy and

satiated, Gabriel didn’t even shy from the careless fondling.

“If you hadn’t wanted us to watch, you should’ve posted guards at the locker

room again.”

“The pack invested weeks hunting him. I think you all earned the show, and

my pet likes being on display.” Cal shoved the other man’s hand away, more

insistently this time. “He does not like others molesting him.”

Shutting his eyes, Gabriel let the voices roll over him.

Kari Gregg

His master would take care of everything.

“Like that, is it?”

“Shut up.”

Just like he’d taken care of Gabriel.

Content, he drifted to sleep.

* * *

They’d been in the Jeep for days.

Weeks.

Decades.

Gabriel shifted to his left hip, trying to relieve the torturous pressure on his

ass. Cal wouldn’t allow him to ride without a seat belt, so both his lap and shoulder

straps pulled tight to hold him in place. After two spankings in less than twenty-

four hours, Gabriel’s backside was an unbridled misery to him.

“Stop fidgeting,” Cal said, voice exasperated as he navigated the country road.

Gabriel shot him a resentful glare. “My butt hurts.”

“Considering how much you like to be spanked and how little I intend to resist

you?” His mouth curved. “Get used to it.”

Gabriel’s lips pursed, the ache in his ass driving him mad. “I wouldn’t be so

sore if you hadn’t put me in this ridiculous getup.”

“That’s enough.” The shifter shot him a foreboding glare. “You are mine, and I

will dress you as I see fit.”

He had seen fit to paste Gabriel into teeny-tiny boy shorts an obscene shade of

blue that showed off the lower curve of both of his rosy butt cheeks and rubbed at

his ass incessantly. He’d strapped Gabriel’s similarly abused dick into a cock ring

before stuffing him into the offensive shorts and occasionally reached over the

gearshift to rub at the clearly defined outline at his crotch to keep Gabriel hard.

And just for fun, Cal sometimes pushed aside the absurd pink tank top that

declared him Daddy’s Boy to pinch Gabriel’s sensitive nipples.

I, Omega

He looked like a rent boy.

He looked like Cal’s slut.

Which Gabriel supposed he was, but he hadn’t liked the sneering glares when

they’d stopped at an out-of-the-way rest area because Gabriel had needed a

bathroom. Though to give his master credit, Cal hadn’t left Gabriel’s side for a

moment. The shifter had led him into the booth in the men’s room and held

Gabriel’s dick while he’d pissed. Gabriel didn’t think he’d ever get over it. He had

never felt so completely embarrassed.

Or so completely owned.

Which was the purpose of this ludicrous exercise, he had no doubt…but still.

Would his master not allow him some dignity? Yes, Gabriel had run from him, but

once Cal had found him, had he even once hesitated to give the shifter what he

wanted? Everything he’d wanted? Including the RFID chip in his shoulder that

made Gabriel a slave to him and the simple monogram tat that itched like hell just

below his ear.

Gabriel had thought his punishment had ended with the brutal spanking Cal

had given him the day before. He’d hoped his master had forgiven him, that

Gabriel’s compliance to the RFID chip and the tat, to Cal’s every demand since, no

matter how extreme, had earned him an iota of trust.

Obviously not.

Cal had dressed him like a whore to humiliate him, to remind him of his

submission, and, most importantly, to ensure Gabriel wouldn’t run again.

Only a fool would wander far in this outfit.

“I’ll attach a leash to your nipple rings for prolonged heel training.” Cal’s

mouth quirked. “You’ll need a lot of work. Perhaps attaching the leash to a cock ring

as well as your pretty nipples will speed you along. Would you like that, pet?”

Kari Gregg

Gabriel’s jaw set to a stubborn angle, but he bit back his retort because,

frankly, his ass couldn’t take more abuse. The fact that his dick leaked precum at

just the idea of it pissed him off more. “Yes, Sir.”

The shifter huffed out a laugh. “Cal.”

Gabriel’s lips thinned and he stared out the windshield at the endless stretch

of asphalt and green fucking trees. Cal had given him permission to speak freely

again when he’d strapped Gabriel into the Jeep, but Gabriel didn’t trust it. Not

when Cal acted the dom with every word and breath. One misstep and Gabriel’s

silly blue shorts would circle his ankles while the shifter swatted his ass along the

side of this godforsaken road. “Yes, Cal.”

“Manners, pet.”

He frowned. “Yes, Cal, I’d like that.”

And he would too.

Damn it.

Cal tapped the steering wheel with idle fingers.

The sound annoyed Gabriel.

Everything annoyed him.

“You were an accountant before. Did you enjoy your work or was it just a

paycheck to you?”

Gabriel’s lips thinned to a mutinous line at the reduction of his career to the

past tense. His master had stolen that from him too. Gabriel hadn’t dared appear at

the office once he’d realized Cal and the others searched for him. Ten years of

dedication—poof! Gone.

Cal growled his name in warning.

Gabriel tilted his jaw away, ignoring him.

His master calmly reached over the gearshift, between his obediently spread

thighs and crushed Gabriel’s testicles between his fingers.

Gabriel saw stars.

I, Omega

His jaw dropped, a pained wheeze working from his throat.

Nausea curled in his belly.

He wriggled to escape Cal’s viselike grip and stilled only when his master

increased the pressure.

He whimpered.

“Do I have your attention, Gabriel?”

Ears buzzing, stomach rolling, he jerked his head in a frantic nod.

“I will not tolerate disrespect from my boy. When I ask a question, I expect to

be answered. Immediately.”

Cal squeezed.

“Yes, Sir.” Gabriel swallowed down bile. “I’m sorry.”

He sagged in his seat when the crippling pain loosed.

Cal patted his dick through the shorts. Damn thing was harder than ever. His

master stroked him through the thin material, sending frissons of pleasure

streaking through Gabriel’s body—including his tortured balls.

“Talk to me, pet. Did you enjoy your work?”

Because he was an easy slut, Gabriel lifted his hips to press his cock into his

master’s palm. “Yes, I liked my job, Sir.”

The hand on his dick didn’t pause, but when he darted a glance in Cal’s

direction, the shifter frowned at the road ahead. “When I thought about my mate, I

imagined him making a home for me.” He thumbed Gabriel’s cock head. “A full-time

slave with me as his only focus.”

Gabriel pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t pant.

“But if you prefer a career, I’m willing to allow it—as long as you work under

my direct supervision at Thorpe Industries.”

Gabriel blinked, torn between the arousal Cal was kindling to life and the

promise of—“What?”

Kari Gregg

He flashed a grin. “The pack owns TI. I’m not just pack alpha; I’m also TI’s

CEO. Haven’t I mentioned it?”

No, Cal damn well hadn’t mentioned it! Gabriel considered a glare, then

thought better of it because now that his master was playing with him in earnest?

He really wanted to come. He also wanted a job. Nothing could appeal less to him

than rattling around Cal’s house, wherever it was, his only purpose in life making

the shifter’s whites whiter. “No, Sir.” Sweat gathered on his upper lip. Fuck, Cal

knew just how he needed to be touched. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Cal.” His eyes sparkled devilish merriment. He picked up the pace, stroking

Gabriel so good his eyes crossed. “You have heard of us then?”

Thorpe? Who hadn’t heard of Thorpe? TI wasn’t a major player in the global

market, but on the East Coast and its headquarters in Washington, DC

particularly, Thorpe Industries had earned a reputation as a solid investment firm

since Wall Street’s collapse. Even at Gabriel’s old job, in his old life, he would’ve

killed for the chance at a position there.

“Gabriel?”

“I’m familiar with TI, yes,” he hissed, because his master chose that moment to

dig the nail of his thumb into Gabriel’s thinly covered slit. Gabriel ignored the

incessant throbbing of his ass and settled squarely in the seat so he could spread his

legs wider.

“You can flex time from home and drive into the office when I do.” Cal’s eyes

narrowed on him, disapproving lines grooving the corners of his perfect, lush mouth.

“You won’t talk to me unless I’m playing with your cock or your ass, pet. I don’t like

it.”

Gabriel’s lips parted on a choppy moan. “You’re always playing with my cock

and my ass, Sir.”

Cal snorted. “Would you like that, boy?”

Yes. Oh, yes. “Play with my cock and my ass as much as you want.”

I, Omega

Cal threw back his head and laughed, giving Gabriel’s happy dick an extra

twist. “The job, pet. Would you like to work for me?”

How could his master expect him to think when he was this close to coming?

“Whatever you want, Sir.”

“Good boy.” Cal smiled. With a flick of his wrist, he rolled the edge of Gabriel’s

tiny shorts down and released the snap to the cock ring. “You may come.”

Gabriel obediently sprayed what felt like gallons of spunk into the gaping V of

his teeny tiny boy shorts, and his master made him sit in them, sticky and stinking

of his own sex, until they reached their destination on the edge of the Virginia

highlands uncomfortable minutes later.

Squirming at the clammy wet spot in his shorts, Gabriel climbed from the Jeep

and gaped at the traditional white colonial that was his master’s home. Potted

plants dotted the wide front porch and—swear to God—a wooden swing hung from

the rafters. Cal’s home was a showpiece of wide verandas and gingerbread trim.

His master slid behind him, pressing the hard length of his cock to Gabriel’s

crease through his ruined shorts and the shifter’s respectable Dockers. Cal nodded

to the chains supporting the swing. “I’ll hang you from those and fuck you, pretty

baby.” He bit the lobe of Gabriel’s ear. “Soon.”

Gabriel shuddered.

His master swatted his ass and pointed to paths flanking both sides of the

house. “Those lead to cottages and guest houses for my pack mates.” He waved at a

red barn in the distance. “We still occasionally sleep, eat, and fuck communally,

though. If all goes well, I’ll formally collar you there tonight.” His eyebrow arched

when Gabriel’s bound hands jerked high to finger his bare throat, the temporary

collar Cal had buckled Gabriel into gone before they’d left Jersey that morning.

“You didn’t think I’d leave you uncollared, did you, pet?”

Gabriel couldn’t tell if the flutter in his belly was relief or raw panic. “No, Sir.”

Kari Gregg

He just hadn’t expected it so quickly, not when the tattoo on his neck declared

him Cal’s property and the chip at his collarbone traced every move he made with

an accuracy of up to five feet. A collar was just a technicality at this point.

Still, Gabriel heard the creaking door of his steel cage slamming shut.

Cal grinned as though he’d read Gabriel’s mind. The shifter probably had. Cal

had kept Gabriel on a short leash of blood and sex since finding him, but he knew—

he knew—he hadn’t imagined his master answering him when he hadn’t spoken a

word. Cal had done it too often.

Thank God Gabriel was so horny all the damn time or he’d flip out again.

Another panic attack didn’t interest Gabriel, especially since the doctor who had

implanted his RFID chip had forbidden any medicine except Cal’s bloody wrist

which just fed their sex.

The predatory glint in Cal’s eyes made him appear, for the first time, wholly

wolfish. “I promised I’d hunt for you. All the blood, protein, and fucking you want,

but I need to check in first.” He’d sent the pack ahead of them so he and Gabriel

would have mating time alone, whatever the hell that meant. “Wander around.

Explore your new home.” Cal waved an expansive hand. “The faster you become

familiar with the pack’s territory, the more readily you’ll adapt to your new place,

your position.”

Which was kneeling at his master’s feet.

Gabriel’s stomach knotted.

As much as he loved the lifestyle, he’d never entertained the notion of a 24-7

relationship. Hadn’t wanted one. He liked to play and play hard, but once the fun

was over, he’d also liked going home. He didn’t want to live fully immersed in his

submission, a slave to the will of his master.

No one had to tell him that Cal expected—no, demanded—that of him. Oh, the

shifter called Gabriel his pet instead of his slave and gave Gabriel permission to

speak freely at times, but Cal punished him when what Gabriel said displeased him

even then, so Cal was still very much his dom.

I, Omega

Gabriel couldn’t escape him.

He didn’t want to.

In spite of everything, Gabriel liked him. He liked his master’s smile. Liked his

wicked sense of humor. Gabriel loved the sex, hell yes, and the shifter’s domination

over him couldn’t be more electrifyingly good. But Gabriel liked how affectionate

Cal was when they weren’t fucking too, the casual caresses and touches the shifter

constantly showered on him. Cal’s meticulous consideration for Gabriel over the

past twenty-four hours had been fathomless. No matter whom his master had

spoken to or what Cal had been doing while he’d prepared the pack to move back

into the country, he’d sensed when Gabriel was hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable,

happy—Cal knew Gabriel’s needs and emotions better than Gabriel did. His master

had fulfilled those needs sometimes before Gabriel had even been aware of them

himself. Gabriel had never encountered such a careful, attentive dom.

Gabriel couldn’t bear leaving him.

But what would happen to him—the man he was inside—if he was locked in

the shadowy world of seeking only what his master desired?

“Gabriel?”

He picked nervously at the stains at the crotch of his ridiculous shorts, his face

heating because he had no idea what Cal had been saying. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

His master chuckled. “Come to me.”

Cal peeled Gabriel’s shorts down his legs, unfastened his wrist cuffs from one

another, and pulled his tank top over Gabriel’s head. “Kick the sandals off,” his

master told him and bent over his wrists to fasten them together again—behind

Gabriel, this time—while he did as Cal commanded. “Stay.”

His master rifled through the back of the Jeep, returning with leather

restraints for Gabriel’s ankles too. He stood, docile as a lamb, while his master

fitted them to him, secretly grateful his master tossed the chain meant to run

between his ankles aside. “You need to stretch your legs, so I won’t fetter you, but

Kari Gregg

stick near the house. If you aren’t kneeling at my side within moments any time I

call for you, you’ll enjoy the fresh air and get your exercise inside a kennel.”

Gabriel groaned. “Yes, Sir.”

Cal dragged his hand up Gabriel’s calf and thigh when he pushed to his feet.

He wrapped his fingers around Gabriel’s dick and pumped until sweat beaded

Gabriel’s upper lip. “This is mine. Do I need to tell you that you are not to touch this

again for any reason?”

He wildly shook his head.

The shifter pulled on his cock, yanking Gabriel up onto his toes. “Defy me even

once and I’ll fit you with a chastity belt.” Cal gave Gabriel’s dick another hard,

punishing jerk upward. “You’ll forget what your cock looks like without my hand on

it.”

“I’ll be good, Sir.” He panted. “I p-promise.”

His chest deflated, the air rushing from his lungs when his master lowered

him by his aching dick. “Pity.” Cal stroked him once. Twice. “You’d enjoy it, I think.

Immensely.”

Gabriel’s gut balled at his feral smile.

Cal released his poor cock and winked. “Enjoy your free hour, Gabriel.”

His stomach lurched. “I will, Sir. Thank you.”

The shifter pivoted and strode into the house.

He trembled, bound, naked, his dick hard and hurting.

Alone in Cal’s deserted front yard.

A glint of metal at the corner of his eye assured him that, yes, the shifter had

indeed left the door of the Jeep gaping and the keys still dangled in the ignition.

His head dipped. His glance darted around him. Gabriel scanned the house,

the cluster of cars in the driveway, and the surrounding woodlands. No one. Even

the birds in the trees and the chattering squirrels had silenced, as though waiting

to see what Gabriel would do.

I, Omega

His mouth thinned.

He slunk to the Jeep and—awkwardly since Cal had fastened his wrists at the

small of his back—he pushed the door shut with his hip.

The absurd transparency of Cal’s test grated Gabriel’s nerves.

He was submissive. Not stupid.

He glared at the house.

His master, who hadn’t allowed him a moment’s privacy since claiming him,

would never leave Gabriel unchaperoned. Cal would never, ever leave him bound

and unprotected either. The shifter was too careful and meticulous to forget keys in

the fucking car too.

Asshole.

Gabriel curled his toes in the dirt of the driveway, muscles tense with

indignation. Would serve Cal right if he started walking and never stopped.

Whoever had been assigned to watch over him would snatch him before he got far,

but that was completely beside the point.

Disgruntled, stomach twisting at his master’s insult, Gabriel pushed away

from the Jeep and slunk to the path to the left of the house. He stepped clear of the

trail, though, and several yards into the tree line. Sticks and rocks bruised his

tender feet. Ignoring the discomfort, he turned. Dodging low branches as best as he

could, he trudged a rebellious line parallel to the path.

Cal had bade him to look around. So he’d look around.

Gabriel would just do so from the concealing safety of the underbrush, where

no one—with the possible exception of his unseen chaperone—would see his dick

jutting from his groin. That the pack had watched his master pleasure him—

thoroughly—that morning was irrelevant.

Gabriel picked his way through the woods, cursing the thorn bushes that

pricked him in unmentionable places and Cal for his treachery on general principle.

“You’re Uncle Cal’s omega.”

Kari Gregg

Gabriel cried out his surprise, whirled and promptly fell on his sorely abused

ass.

His breath caught.

His eyes watered.

Ow.

A blond barely old enough to shave and just as naked as Gabriel gawped from

three feet away. He was tall—taller than Gabriel—and muscled. Fit. Under any

other circumstance, Gabriel would be terrified of him—bound, naked and

vulnerable to a stranger—but… The young man smelled of Cal, Gabriel’s Cal, his

master who looked after Gabriel with such fastidious care even when he was acting

like an asshole. Besides, the blond’s guileless brown eyes glimmered with curiosity.

And concern. “You okay, dude? You landed hard.”

“I’m all right. Just clumsy. I’m…” His voice trailed off. Cal hadn’t instructed

him how to introduce himself or even if Gabriel should speak to the others. Another

trick? His mouth snapped shut.

The young man nodded, eyes rounding on Gabriel’s dick. “Cal’s pet. Mom told

me about you.”

Heat crept into Gabriel’s cheeks because other than the sexual calisthenics Cal

had put him through, there wasn’t much to tell. That’s all he’d been to his master

for the past twenty-four hours—a wet mouth, a willing hole, and a spank-happy ass.

That’s all he’d let himself be.

Cal had tried to talk to him in the Jeep, had made every effort to draw Gabriel

out during the long drive south. Not just about his career—about everything. He’d

asked about Gabriel’s relationship with his father and the rest of his extended

family. How Gabriel had ended up in New York, so far from the small town in

southwestern Pennsylvania where he’d grown up. Who was more disturbed by his

lovers and his kink: the media or his politically conservative father?

I, Omega

Gabriel had refused to answer in more than dull monotones and single

syllables until Cal had taken him in hand. Literally.

How could Gabriel be so stupid?

No wonder Cal thought he was idiot enough to fall for keys left in the ignition.

Gabriel hadn’t given him any reason to believe otherwise.

He glanced at the blond from beneath his lashes. Cal hadn’t given him

permission to talk to anyone, and he’d suffer if he displeased the shifter again. But

no matter how insulting the ploy was, when given the opportunity Gabriel hadn’t

run. And if he wasn’t going to run, he needed to be more than Cal’s boy, more than

his slave. More than a ready hole to fuck. And in spite of the trap his master had

laid for him, Cal wanted that too.

It had to start somewhere.

“I’m…” Gabriel’s breath locked in his throat as he remembered that none of

the other shifters had ever said his name. When they’d spoken of him, they’d called

him Brat or referred to him in terms of Cal’s ownership. His boy. His pet. Could

Gabriel tell the young man his name? Was that allowed? Gulping nervous fear, he

settled for what Cal most often referred to him as. “I’m his pet.”

“Yeah, I know.” The blond grinned. “Your butt is really red.”

“I…fell.” The heat in Gabriel’s cheeks intensified. “Before, I mean.”

“Uh-huh.” The young man laughed. “I knew Uncle Cal was into leather and

shit like that, but… Holy fuck. What’d he do to your ass?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Paddle? Flogger?”

“His hand.” Gabriel shuffled his feet and stared at the forest floor, wishing it

would swallow him up. “I was bad. Very bad.”

Or very good.

He hadn’t decided yet.

“He shouldn’t have punished you.”

Kari Gregg

“The last time wasn’t a punishment.” Gabriel gulped, remembering how badly

he’d needed Cal to hurt him in New York, how desperately he’d wanted his master’s

forgiveness. And how quickly Cal had given it. “I’m not sure the first spanking was

a punishment either.”

“He hit you more than once?” The blond snorted in sudden disgust. “Uncle Cal

is to blame for losing you in the first place. Taking out his mistakes on you isn’t

right.”

Gabriel’s chest tightened. “He did it for me.”

The shifter ignored him. “You have to be careful with omegas because they

scare so easily, especially when you’re an alpha like Cal.” His brows furrowed as he

studied Gabriel. He took a step back. “I’m an alpha too. Are you scared of me?”

“No.” He smelled of Cal—like the surrounding forest and…innocence. He didn’t

look like he wanted to throttle or fuck Gabriel anyway, which was a relief. The

blond was the first adult he’d met who hadn’t at least occasionally stared at his ass,

his dick or his mouth in wanton lust. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Good.” The shifter took a cautious step forward. “I don’t want to screw this up.

If Uncle Cal’s already punishing you for his own mistakes, he’s doing enough to fuck

you up already.”

“I told you. He wasn’t punishing me.” Not really. “He was taking care of me.”

Gabriel’s stomach twisted at the blond’s answering sneer. “He left you. Again.

To wander around in the woods alone. When three other packs are hunting you.

They won’t give up on stealing you from us until you and Uncle Cal have bonded

either. But he still let you go. Unprotected.” The shifter’s lips thinned with derision.

“Cal’s a ginormous fuckhead.”

Gabriel dug an anxious toe into the dirt and dead leaves at his feet. His

shoulders hunched. “He’s your…a-alpha. You shouldn’t talk about him like that.

You owe him your respect.”

“Shut up.” The shifter’s dark eyes beaded, mean and vicious. “Just shut the

hell up.”

I, Omega

The pit dropped out of Gabriel’s stomach. His heart kicked against the wall of

his chest in immediate alarm.

The young man tensed, his spine snapping straight.

Having landed flat on his ass when he’d fallen and with his arms bound behind

him, Gabriel was reminded of his helplessness the moment the blond crowded

against him, towering over him. Young man or not, he was a shifter, an alpha, same

as his master. There was no mistaking that scent, nor the sharp tang of aggression

pouring off him.

The shifter could do anything to Gabriel that he wanted.

Cal wasn’t here to stop him.

Gabriel cowered, jerking his glance low.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” The shifter fisted Gabriel’s hair and

yanked so hard Gabriel’s eyes watered. “You’re an omega. Not even a pack omega,

you’re a human omega, which makes you the bitch of the whole world. Without Cal

or another alpha to protect you, you’re nothing but a pack whore. So shut the fuck

up, boy.”

Though his grasp on Gabriel tore at his scalp, Gabriel cringed away.

“Jake!”

Gabriel stiffened at the furious shout behind him.

Great.

Just perfect.

“Let go of him right now.”

The blond sprang away from Gabriel as though Gabriel had leprosy. Or AIDS.

“I didn’t hurt him.”

Gabriel heard joints pop as his shifter babysitter knelt behind him, one huge

hand settling heavily on Gabriel’s shoulder. “You all right?”

Kari Gregg

Christ, his eyes were burning again. Gabriel had always been a bit of a queen,

but whatever Cal had done to him had completed his transformation to total pansy.

In less than a day too.

No wonder the blond had bullied him.

He kept his stare glued to the leafy ground and nodded.

“See!”

His bodyguard rubbed at Gabriel’s smarting scalp, smoothing the hair the

blond had mussed. “You don’t have to hit him to hurt him, Jake. You were too

rough. And you hurt his feelings too. That can be a lot worse, especially for him and

especially now.” The shifter squeezed Gabriel’s shoulder. “He doesn’t know how to

deal with us yet. Hell, Jake, he hasn’t even been collared. You just turned eighteen,

technically an adult… Christ, what were you thinking?”

Just when Gabriel thought he couldn’t be more humiliated, he had to be

defended. From an overly large, testosterone-addled teenager.

His life was shit.

The shifter released Gabriel and pushed to his feet. “You need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said automatically.

The blond snickered.

Gabriel blushed.

His babysitter snarled the boy’s name so venomously Gabriel flinched.

“I’m sorry,” Jake mumbled.

“Not to him. Apologize to your alpha. Before he catches your scent on him and

thinks you’re challenging him.”

When Gabriel glanced under his eyelashes, Jake’s face had paled a sickly

green. “B-but…I didn’t do anything, Burke. I wasn’t claiming him. I didn’t mean

anything by it.”

I, Omega

Gabriel thought he did. Maybe he hadn’t intended to be vicious, but the young

man believed what he’d said. Gabriel was his master’s bitch and without him, he’d

be everyone else’s bitch too.

His shoulders shook. Because he suspected Jake was right.

“You approached, insulted, and threatened your alpha’s mate. His human

pet—and an omega.” The shifter shook his head. “Cal will respect you more if you

tell him yourself. Now go.”

The blond scrambled.

Gabriel ignored the stick poking his butt and waited for Burke to do whatever

the hell he intended to do to him.

“Jake’s dad was Cal’s best friend. Before he died, he asked Cal to look after his

son, and being gay…that boy is Cal’s only chance at kids. He spoiled Jake. We all

did.” The babysitter his master had assigned to watch over him blew out a quick

laugh. “Underneath the snarl, he’s got a good heart, though. He just doesn’t know

much about the world yet and that’s our fault as much as his. He’ll make a good

alpha someday.” The shifter grabbed Gabriel’s biceps to pull him off the ground and

released him as soon as Gabriel stumbled to his feet. “Come on. Your master needs

you to talk some sense into him.”

Kari Gregg

Chapter Six

Gabriel followed Burke’s retreating back through the woods and onto the path,

which was kinder to his smarting feet.

Omega.

Burke and Jake both had said he was an omega. Cal’s omega.

His bitch.

Gabriel pinned his stare to Burke’s broad shoulders, exhaling between parted

lips to slow the thunder of his heartbeat. It didn’t work.

He knew what an omega was. In the wild, alpha wolves led the pack and

nothing he’d seen in the past twenty-four hours had dissuaded him from seeing Cal

in that role. His master led. Period. In nature, wolves who supported the alpha were

called betas, and Gabriel couldn’t argue with the strong inner core of men and

women who gathered around his master to ensure Cal’s orders were followed. If

both of those roles fitted among werewolves, then it stood to reason that the omega

of a shifter pack would fulfill the same function as one in the natural world.

As an omega, he would be picked on, bullied. Abused.

Even under the umbrella of his master’s protection…

Gabriel was a sub. Yes, a thousand times, yes.

But he was no masochist.

His body vibrated with a kinetic energy he couldn’t control. Behind him, he

balled his fingers and fought against the restraints. The burn of his straining

muscles depleted the empty tank that was his body’s well of energy, but the frantic

hurt and its twin—fear—still twirled madly inside him.

I, Omega

He was more than this.

He was more than a naked slave, suitably bound.

More than a scared sub, desperately needy for his master.

He had a stock portfolio, for chrissakes, and a timeshare in Key West.

“What Jake said isn’t true.” Burke tossed a glance at him. “You know that,

right?”

No. Gabriel didn’t know that. Because he was the naked slave following

obediently behind. He was the scared sub, and if Burke didn’t take him to his

master, right now, the anxiety boiling inside him would rip him apart.

Gabriel’s breath hitched when they climbed the front steps of Cal’s home. He

ducked his head to hide his watery eyes as the shifter held the door open for him.

He didn’t wait for Burke, though. He couldn’t. Once his nose caught his master’s

scent inside the house, his nerves shrieked so fiercely he scurried to reach Cal. His

master would make it okay.

Cal made everything okay.

“For God’s sake, Brat, wait.”

His bare feet skidded on the hardwood floors. He cried out when his shin

knocked against a table. He winced when he banged his hip against a doorjamb, and

still he would not slow, would not stop. Instead, racing from room to room, he

gasped at the welcome rumble of his master’s voice nearby. Cal’s smell knotted

Gabriel’s stomach, made his whole body shiver. But he didn’t know the old rambling

house. One room bled into another and another, additions that had been

haphazardly built onto the existing structure transforming the interior into a crazy

maze. Living room. Kitchen. Dining room. Den. Gabriel heard his master’s voice,

and, God, he could smell him. So close. But Gabriel could not find him. He yanked

away from Burke’s grasp on his arm, a sob tearing his throat.

“Stop!”

He scrambled away, blindly searching.

Kari Gregg

Jesus, what if he never found Cal?

“Gabriel!”

His head jerked up at his name. Only his master called him that, but his gut

twisted because it wasn’t Cal. Burke held a door open. “Through here.”

Gabriel ran.

Down the long hall of another addition.

Through another wide doorway.

He skidded to a halt.

His master sprawled on one end of a dark leather couch. The first buttons of

Cal’s shirt gaped, undone, and a tumbler of amber liquid dangled loosely in his

grasp. Other shifters gathered near him. The blond who’d scared Gabriel stood at

stiff attention facing Cal, but nothing mattered to Gabriel except the familiar,

furious scowl etched across his master’s face, the slight tension in Cal’s body that

bespoke his displeasure.

The room stilled.

Cal turned, pale blue eyes focusing on Gabriel.

A broken moan escaped his lips.

Gabriel raced to his master, dropping to his knees before he reached Cal so

that he slid in an awkward tumble across the oak floor, but then he was there.

Finally there. Gabriel rolled, tucking his body over his master’s feet. Safe, with the

heat of Cal’s body pressing into his side, Gabriel rocked back and forth. “I’m not, I’m

not, I’m not—”

“I’m sorry, Cal. He got away from me.”

“I trusted you to watch over him. My pet! My most prized possession.” The

gentle hand his master reached down to comfort Gabriel belied Cal’s enraged snarl.

“And you return him in this state?”

I, Omega

Gabriel rubbed the wet tracks of his tears against his master’s leg, absolutely

certain he’d fly apart if Cal didn’t hold him. “Please, please, please. I’m not,” he

babbled, eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t make any sense, even to himself.

Cal pulled his hair to urge him up. “To me.”

Trembling all over, Gabriel rose from the floor and climbed into Cal’s lap. He

dived against his master’s chest, trusting the shifter to catch him.

Cal did.

Gabriel curled into a fetal ball. “I’m not,” he said again. And wept.

“Of course you aren’t,” Cal murmured into his hair. He planted a kiss on the

top of Gabriel’s head. Then Cal bit his wrist. Shaking, crying, Gabriel gratefully fell

on the wound the moment Cal snaked his arm around Gabriel’s ribs to press it to

his mouth. “You know how vulnerable he is,” his master said, voice low with

menace, but it softened when Gabriel sobbed against his bloody wrist. “Hush, boy.

It’s over.” He rubbed at the tension bunching the muscles of Gabriel’s shoulders. “I

have you now.”

“You told me to keep my distance since his sense of smell is sharpening—”

“Enough.” Gabriel shuddered at the dark warning in his master’s voice, but

Gabriel didn’t pause at Cal’s wrist. He couldn’t. Gabriel sucked, drinking greedily.

“Jake.”

“He’s just an—”

“Jake!”

Gabriel flinched.

“Gabriel is not just anything.” His master’s fingers whispered through his hair,

softly stroking as Gabriel drank. “Properly nurtured and cared for, an omega—

especially a human omega—is the glue that holds a pack together. He balances me.

He’s already made me more approachable to the pack, and when I’m not, he’ll risk

my wrath to intercede for you. He’ll listen to your ideas, your problems, and broach

them to me when you don’t dare. He’ll love you, all of you. Unconditionally.”

Kari Gregg

Gabriel’s head faintly buzzed, his pulse quickening. Because Cal was wrong.

He couldn’t be…he couldn’t do these things. Gabriel was nothing and too scared.

“None of us could be as devoted as my pet will become—when he trusts us not

to abuse him,” Cal shouted.

Weeping, Gabriel released his wrist. “Master.”

“Shh, pet. I’m not angry with you. You’ve done nothing wrong.” He pulled

Gabriel closer so that Cal’s magical scent wrapped around him as readily as the

shifter’s arms. “Just breathe me in.” His thrusting wrist, still streaming hot, red

blood, brooked no argument, so Gabriel fastened his mouth again, though the

escalating tension among the others twisted his stomach. “I didn’t leave the keys in

the Jeep or allow you to wander to test you, pretty baby,” Cal said, tone furious. “I

tested them.”

The others—the nameless, faceless others Gabriel couldn’t be bothered to

notice in the room when he’d finally found his master—shifted in their seats,

grunted, gasped.

Jake cursed under his breath.

Cal gathered Gabriel against his body, cradling him as though he were fragile

and precious. He tucked Gabriel under his chin and growled to the others, “Get out.”

Chairs creaked. Doors were pulled wide.

“I was wrong,” Jake said, voice low but steady. “I was wrong to assume you

weren’t treating him properly, wrong to approach him before you formally collared

him. Wrong about everything. I’m sorry, Uncle Cal. I’m not a kid anymore. I will do

better.”

Cal held Gabriel tighter. “I hope so.”

“Can I tell him I’m sorry too?”

As distraught and scared as Gabriel was, his heart broke for Jake. He was

young, after all, and only now learning how to be a man. Part of that—an important

I, Omega

part, to Gabriel’s mind—was learning how to live with your mistakes and atone for

them. Which couldn’t have been easy. Facing Cal in full snarl terrified even Gabriel.

Then again, everything terrified Gabriel.

His master pushed out a short, choppy breath. “Not now, Jake. Just go.”

The plod of the young man’s bare feet on the hardwood floor as he trudged

away echoed in Gabriel’s newly sensitive ears, leaving the room quiet but for

Gabriel’s shuddering sighs as he licked at his master’s wrist. With the others gone,

Cal’s grasp on Gabriel loosened. Which Gabriel didn’t like.

Cal nudged his thighs apart. “You’ll like this,” he promised, reaching with his

free hand for Gabriel’s cock. “You need it.”

Gabriel arched up, into his touch. Of course, he liked it and his master was

right. He needed the reassurance of Cal’s touch. He loved sucking at his master’s

wrist, the coppery taste of the shifter against his tongue. Gabriel adored the

familiar glove Cal’s hand made around his dick.

He jerked Gabriel off in firm strokes. “Come.”

Mewling helplessly, Gabriel spilled into his hand and watched, chest heaving,

as Cal brought his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean.

God, Gabriel wanted him.

Not to come. His master had already awarded him with his orgasm and

judging by the vague hurt in his balls, he’d emptied. For a while, at least. But

Gabriel still needed Cal inside him, his master’s cock anchored deep in his ass.

Showering Gabriel with his cum. Declaring Gabriel his.

“Hush,” Cal whispered, retrieving a packet of lube from a pocket. He unzipped

his pants and lifted Gabriel over him. Gabriel’s knees bracketing his hips; his

master’s probing finger slicked him. He pushed back, riding his hand, wanting

more. Needing more. Cal positioned the head of his dick at Gabriel’s hole. “Ride

me.”

100

Kari Gregg

Gabriel slid down, grunting at the stretch. Ignoring the discomfort, he didn’t

stop until his ass settled on his master’s lap, until Cal’s dick spiked like a steel rod

into him.

Then Gabriel began to move.

Up.

He rotated his hips in little circles when he bore down, his ass greedily sucking

the shifter’s cock in. Gabriel finally let go of Cal’s bloody wrist to throw his head

back, wholly entranced by the invading fullness of Cal’s dick spearing him through.

His master’s sigh rocked his world. “Good boy,” Cal panted, arching into Gabriel’s

every grind.

Dear God, how could Gabriel ever live without this?

His master’s fingers kneading his flanks as Gabriel fucked him felt like a

benediction, the scent of Cal’s awakening sex heady and exhilarating. The coppery

flavor of the shifter’s blood in his mouth enthralled him. The scratch of fabric from

Cal’s pants on Gabriel’s abused ass cheeks with each thrust rattled his senses, and

he could not contain his throaty cry when he felt the insistent push of the shifter’s

knot against his rim.

Cal kissed him.

With a low groan, he bucked up, anchoring his dick into Gabriel’s trembling,

sweat-slick body.

Gabriel closed his eyes, clenching his ass around his master, and shuddered in

wanton relief when Cal’s cock pulsed, spraying him with the first bursts of cum.

How had Gabriel become this…this…needy, aching thing? More animal than

man, Gabriel was an eager slut for his master—a slave who needed to be fucked and

filled often.

“Oh shit, sweetheart, yes,” Cal moaned.

Gabriel’s heart pounded as spunk flooded his ass. Leaning his forehead to Cal’s

shoulder, Gabriel held on to his master and gratefully let the world fade away.

I, Omega

101

* * *

His master didn’t formally collar him in front of the pack that night; Cal didn’t

allow the others near Gabriel again for days. Endless days of blood and sex. Of

learning to please his master and exploring what it meant to be Cal’s boy.

Gabriel did get his collar that night, though. Kneeling for Cal on the floor

beside their bed, bowing his head to expose his throat shouldn’t have felt

so…profound. After the RFID chip implant and his master’s initials permanently

etched into his body, the thin gold chain Cal fastened to Gabriel’s throat was only a

formality—or so he told himself. It should’ve been anticlimactic. But it wasn’t. The

tat and the tracking chip welcomed Gabriel to his new life with the shifter and the

new world Cal had opened to him. The collar acknowledged Gabriel’s humanity,

though, honored and cherished that part of him. Cal’s hands shook as he fastened

the necklace at Gabriel’s nape, his touch usually so sure and strong. He tested the

snug fit with two fingers between the gold links of the chain and Gabriel’s neck.

Satisfied, he traced the length to the wolf’s-head charm that dangled at the hollow

of Gabriel’s throat.

That was the night his master first allowed Gabriel to make love to him.

Free to touch Cal, taste him, twine his body with Cal’s as he wanted, the

fetters of Gabriel’s submission fell away. He didn’t squirm in discomfort at meeting

the shifter’s pale blue eyes then. How could he? Drinking in the hungry glitter in

Cal’s stare when Gabriel finally rose up over his master to take Cal inside him was

imperative, so necessary to Gabriel. He bore his master’s mark on his neck, the

shifter’s scent in his body. The protein Cal had hunted for Gabriel had filled his

stomach so the angry buzz of starvation in his head had cleared. His master’s blood

warmed him. His master’s cock filled him, and Cal’s token hung at Gabriel’s throat.

Of course Gabriel looked at him.

And sighed Cal’s name when he came.

Gabriel was still Cal’s boy. His master spanked his ass cheeks to provide

Gabriel with a rosy blush every morning. He hadn’t seen clothes since the absurd

102

Kari Gregg

shorts had been stripped from him upon his arrival, so until Cal finally relented and

permitted the others into his home again, they gawked from afar at the evidence of

Gabriel’s morning discipline whenever Gabriel stood at the French doors in his

master’s study looking out at them. Watching. Wondering. Which was often. As

often as Cal would permit. Gabriel never felt more settled and focused, at ease with

himself and with his place than when he was with Cal.

He hated anything that took his master away from him.

The enemas continued, though the shifter’s care of him transitioned from

unabashed kink to an affectionate adoration that the world probably wouldn’t

understand even if Gabriel did. Cal had waxed Gabriel’s chest, his limbs and his

armpits until those areas were hairless, as he’d promised, and Cal was right. The

others Gabriel spied from their windows or afar when Cal led him outdoors

universally boasted thick pelts on their bodies. Not Gabriel. Aside from the dark

hair that crowned his head and the dark stubble that shadowed his groin before his

master shaved him, Gabriel was kept smooth. As befitted his station as the shifter’s

pet.

Gabriel liked being his master’s thoroughly fucked boy.

He liked showering his master in kisses and chanting Cal’s name when their

sex had a softer edge of something more.

He liked trading sections of the Wall Street Journal with him over breakfast

and laughing with Cal at the horrifically bad werewolf movies they watched in their

bed. And walking with him outside in the yard, the sunshine transforming the

honey color of his hair to spun gold Gabriel couldn’t stop touching.

He liked all of it.

Except the shortness of his leash.

His master would’ve kept him sequestered from the other shifters forever,

Gabriel suspected, if he hadn’t protested his master’s long and frequent absences

when Cal attended to pack business.

I, Omega

103

“Don’t leave me,” Gabriel had said when his master lifted off his trembling

body after fucking him into a boneless puddle on the gleaming dining room table.

“Please.”

Cal had blown out a long breath, rubbing the spunk that trickled from

Gabriel’s hole into his stinging ass cheeks. “You need rest.”

Yes, he did. His master hunted for him often, but the feral nature his master

had given him adapted at a frantic pace now. Gabriel’s head hurt all the time, the

pain made bearable only with frequent feedings at his master’s bloody wrist. His

joints and muscles ached. Sometimes when Cal fucked him, color sapped from

Gabriel’s world, his vision reverting instead to the sharper grays and blacks of the

night vision he was inheriting from Cal. Gabriel had been so upset the first time his

master’s eyes had transformed to startling slate gray, Cal had held him for hours,

through a relentless panic attack that wouldn’t ease until the human part of

Gabriel had come forward so he could see his master’s familiar pale blue eyes again.

In spite of Cal’s painstaking care and attention, Gabriel was exhausted,

though. Overwhelmed. He slept a lot. “I need you more,” he told his master.

Because Gabriel did not lie, Cal allowed Gabriel to accompany him to the

study, where he worked with the pack’s beta shifters from that afternoon onward.

Gabriel’s most cherished place on the planet became the spot on the floor between

his master’s legs where he knelt, cheek pressed to Cal’s thigh while Gabriel lightly

dozed, smiling at the shifter’s fingers in his hair as Cal directed his pack mates—

most of whom worked at TI—in the day’s business.

None of them spoke to Gabriel.

None of them looked at him.

Cal wouldn’t allow it.

Burke still brought juice to Cal—the pineapple-orange blend Gabriel

preferred—on Gabriel’s fifth day in the compound and only Gabriel’s second after

the others had been allowed near him again. “For the brat,” the beta shifter said.

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Cal accepted the offered glass, one corner of his mouth kicking up. “Thank you,

Burke.”

Gabriel concentrated on a square foot of oak flooring and resisted the urge to

lick his dry lips, but his master simply nudged his chin up. Cal pressed the cup to

Gabriel’s lips. Once he’d drunk his fill, he laid his head on his master’s knee and

stared up at Cal. Gabriel never spoke to his master while the others were around.

Gabriel hadn’t wanted to risk anything that might persuade Cal to send him back to

their empty rooms upstairs. So he waited several minutes before his master noticed

his silent appeal.

Cal arched an eyebrow.

Gabriel’s gaze shifted to Burke. Back again.

Cal’s mouth curved, that wonderful smile that quickened Gabriel’s breath. His

head dipped in a slight nod.

Taking a deep breath, Gabriel’s eyes trained only on his master, he mumbled,

“Thank you, B-Burke.”

Everyone in the room froze. Papers didn’t crackle. The staccato rat-a-tat of

fingers on laptop keyboards halted. Focused only on Cal, Gabriel could not see, but

felt the group’s eyes on him. His stomach jittered a little, but his master’s heat

warming his body made everything okay.

“You’re welcome, Brat.”

Gabriel smiled.

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Chapter Seven

The other shifters grew more casual with Gabriel after that. They rarely

talked to him directly, but they often spoke of Gabriel to his increasingly indulgent

master.

“He looks tired,” Burke said.

Cal’s fingers skated over the crown of his head as Gabriel leaned, resting

fitfully against Cal’s knee. “He was up half the night watching CNN.”

The other shifter grunted. “The pictures—”

“…are too far away and grainy to ID Gabriel. Or me.”

Gabriel roused and pushed against his master, needing to feel Cal’s solid,

sturdy body pressed to his. The shots a concerned citizen had snapped from a cell

phone at the rest area they’d stopped at on the way to the pack’s territory were too

blurred for positive identification in spite of photo-enhancing technology. The neon

blue of Gabriel’s tiny boy shorts had flared like a beacon, but the features of his

face, captured in profile when they’d approached the Jeep, were shadowed and

indistinguishable, Cal’s even less so.

But the Jeep…

The news channels hadn’t shut up about Cal’s Jeep Wrangler. Gabriel had

gawped in their bed when the news alert flashed across the flat-screen TV.

Breaking news.

Since when had a questionable lead on a two-month-old disappearance of a

senator’s gay son rated a special news break? Wasn’t America at war with someone?

Several someones?

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Cal had pulled Gabriel to him, kissed him. “You had no idea how intense your

father’s search had become, the media attention he focused after you vanished?”

Dumbfounded, nausea coiling low in his belly, Gabriel had shaken his head.

Gabriel knew now.

He also now knew how many red Jeep Wranglers had been sold in New Jersey

in the last five years. Anderson Cooper had told him so. A lot. Hundreds, possibly

thousands more vehicle registrations would be added to the list of traces once the

police plowed through records from Pennsylvania and New York too. Talking heads

on the news channels agreed that finding the Jeep was the proverbial needle in a

haystack, but after months of nothing, the fuzzy pictures taken at the deserted rest

stop amounted to the best lead the cops had.

It could take weeks—months—to locate Cal’s Jeep. If the police found it at all.

Cal had admitted buying the Wrangler in Pennsylvania, but the pack’s home

territory was in Virginia.

Surely the feds wouldn’t look so far away?

Gabriel trembled.

“Shh, pet.” His master feathered his thumb over Gabriel’s nape, a gentle caress

meant to soothe him. “You’re safe here.”

“For how long?” Burke asked, his strong tenor voicing the doubts that Gabriel

didn’t dare, the fears that balled his stomach. “One of the other packs could call in a

tip to drag the brat away from us.”

Gabriel’s breath caught.

“They won’t. Without a shifter to steady him, Gabriel would be lost to us all.

The others want him, but no one would risk destroying him.”

Gabriel rested his cheek on Cal’s thigh, let his master’s husky murmur as he

talked with Burke roll over him. Other shifters weren’t looking for him, not on Cal’s

home ground and under the ever-watchful guard of the pack. Gabriel hadn’t

glimpsed a shifter who didn’t carry his master’s scent since Cal had reclaimed him

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in New York. He trusted his master to protect him from other shifters; Gabriel had

never worried about that.

But the cops…

The cops made his knees liquefy and his hands shake.

The feds had the power to take him away. His master’s position as pack alpha

wouldn’t matter, nor his money or the power he wielded as the CEO of Thorpe

Industries. None of that would stop the police once they’d traced the damned Jeep.

Only one person could call off the search: Gabriel’s father.

“I’m your omega, Sir,” Gabriel said, though he focused his gaze on the frayed

denim encasing the shifter’s thigh instead of meeting Cal’s piercing blue eyes. So his

master wouldn’t see that he was guessing.

Of course Cal knew. He always knew. “Yes. You’re my omega. My mate.” He

shook his head. “But that hardly touches on what you are to me.”

Gabriel bit his lip.

He’d been trying out answers in hopes of stumbling over the one that would

fulfill the requirements for calling his dad since Wolf Blitzer had flashed the first

grainy image of Gabriel in his tiny blue shorts last night.

So far, he hadn’t had much luck.

“You’re very near to bonding to me, sweetheart. Don’t rush it. You’ll call the

senator long before the FBI locates the Jeep.”

Gabriel peered at him from under his eyelashes, his heart warming at the

concern shining in Cal’s stare. “Promise?”

His lips curved, the special smile that proved his master was pleased with him.

“I promise.”

“He’s eager.” Burke grinned. “Good sign.”

“A very good sign.” His finger outlined the shell of Gabriel’s ear. “You’re sure

the others have pulled back?” he finally asked his second-in-command.

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“Denny thinks the other packs are convinced you must have won the brat over

or he would’ve run again by now.”

Gabriel’s shoulders fell. His mouth pursed. “I won’t run,” he mumbled under

his breath. He still didn’t know what he was doing, what was happening to him. He

couldn’t wrap his mind around how a relationship with Cal could work, because

Gabriel’s nerves grated whenever he thought of submitting to his master 24-7 even

though he’d been doing that—had thrived on it—for over a week. He didn’t know

how they’d work together at TI either. He didn’t know how they’d live together once

the dangers posed by the feds and other shifters had passed. He didn’t know

anything—except that he needed Cal. His body needed their sex, but his heart

needed his master too. “I won’t ever run again,” he said, scowling at Burke.

The beta grunted, his clumsy fingers carding through Gabriel’s hair in silent

reassurance.

Cal snarled. “Must you fondle him?”

Burke chuckled. “He likes it.”

And Gabriel did.

He hadn’t at first. He hadn’t wanted any of his master’s pack mates touching

him. He hadn’t even liked them looking at him, but only at first. Before he had the

protection of Cal’s collar, the tat on his neck, and the RFID chip in his shoulder.

Before the other shifters had horribly failed their alpha’s test.

Before Cal had made them stay away.

Now?

He liked Burke’s careless affection, the way the other man couldn’t resist

petting him. Every time Burke was near him—and since Burke was glued to Cal’s

side, the shifter was always near Gabriel—the beta touched him. Fingers in his

hair, rubbing his bare shoulder, stroking his arm. Jake too, though the young man

who’d called Gabriel the pack’s bitch that first day was far more likely to flop down,

lay his head on Gabriel’s knee and grin up at him in mute invitation to play.

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His master had yet to allow Gabriel to accept.

Cal barely tolerated them. “He isn’t ready for—”

“He never will be ready if you continue holding him back.”

Gabriel’s muscles bunched in alarm at the blatant challenge, gaze flashing up

to Cal. Gabriel’s heart thumped at the furious sneer twisting his features. The

shifter was so protective of him. Too protective. He’d grown absurdly defensive,

more each day he’d allowed his pack mates near Gabriel. As though he expected

them to fail Gabriel worse than ever before and already punished them for their

transgressions.

Burke should’ve known that.

Should’ve heeded the warning.

“He’s mine.” Cal grabbed Burke’s arm, fingers clenching so that his knuckles

shone white against his tanned skin. “I will decide what roles he is and is not ready

to assume.” He flung the other shifter’s hand away.

The beta’s eyes narrowed, his forehead creasing with his frown. “You’ll

smother him.”

Wrists ringed in black leather cuffs—though not bound together today—

Gabriel reached forward to caress Cal’s thigh, seeking to ease the foul temper from

the shifter before Cal’s rage got the best of him—and Burke. “Please,” he whispered,

bending to nuzzle his master’s leg. Please don’t hurt Burke. Please don’t punish him

for caring for me too.

Gabriel didn’t have to say it.

Cal was hardwired into his brain. Gabriel knew that now, understood and

accepted it. Cal sensed Gabriel’s thoughts and emotions, often better than Gabriel

could himself. It should’ve terrified him, but he liked being open and vulnerable to

his master, naked in every way. Cal had tried to explain it to him once, soon after

collaring him. When his master had punished him for his plan to call his father on

the sly. Phones were peppered throughout Cal’s home, and at times Gabriel was

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only lightly guarded. Why wouldn’t Gabriel try to call Dad when Cal’s attention was

distracted by pack business?

Because his master knew what was in Gabriel’s head and would smack his ass,

cage his cock and refuse him an orgasm for three torturous days. Even though

Gabriel had begged him. Had cried and pleaded. He hadn’t called his father, after

all. He hadn’t disobeyed.

Yet.

Cal would have none of his excuses, not in the days Gabriel’s ass had throbbed

from the brutal spanking he’d earned and not when his dick had ached to come

while the shifter had fucked him through each of those three excruciating nights.

Gabriel hadn’t defied Cal in deed, but he had done so in his heart. No matter how

denying him the intimacy of physical release with his master had hurt Gabriel, Cal

hadn’t relented. But he had held Gabriel. And told him the mating bond forged

between shifters and humans was especially strong. Cal must be familiar with the

shadowy corners of Gabriel’s mind. How else could he know how best to keep his boy

safe, healthy, and content?

That road ran both ways, though.

Making his boy safe, healthy, and content also meant allowing pack mates to

touch and talk to Gabriel when Gabriel needed the pack’s reassurance and support.

He stared at his master, eyes beseeching.

Cal gritted his teeth, but he didn’t lash out at his beta, so Gabriel considered it

a victory. He kissed his master’s leg and shivered when Cal’s hand replaced Burke’s

in his hair.

“Denny’s wrong,” Cal said. “The others won’t surrender my pet to me without

irrefutable evidence that he’s bonded to me.”

Burke’s fingers rejoined his master’s in his hair.

Gabriel lazily stretched under their coddling attention.

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Burke’s eyebrow arched. Laughing, he nodded to both their stroking hands.

“You don’t think that’s evidence of your bond?”

“Only that I have bonded with him.” Cal bent to kiss Gabriel’s temple. “And

that we both spoil him.”

“You should beat him more.”

The shifter chuckled. “He enjoys it too much.”

Gabriel’s mouth bowed to a grin against his master’s thigh.

Yes.

He did.

When Jake finished with whatever had demanded his attention on his laptop

and sprawled on the floor to cuddle with Gabriel too, Cal jolted upright, his glower

easing only at the whisper of Gabriel’s happy sigh at the warmth all three shifters

showered on him.

Cal squared his shoulders.

The stiff muscle under Gabriel’s cheek slowly loosed.

“We’re patrolling our borders?”

Gabriel relaxed at the stilted question. Yes, Cal’s overprotective instincts

smothered him, but the shifter was trying. Improving. For him.

“Random patterns, doubled at night, as you directed.” Burke shrugged. “We’ve

found no signs of reconnaissance or foreign scents in the woods and the roads

leading into our territory for the past two days.” He shot a shaky smile at Jake.

“Maybe they’ve pulled back in anticipation of a raid.”

Gabriel jerked, his head snapping up. His eyes widened in terror. Dizziness

washed over him as he felt his blood drain from his face. “I-I’m your lover,” he said

to Cal, voice shaking. “Your partner, Sir.” Please.

Cal’s mouth quirked. “Of course, you are.” He tipped Gabriel’s mouth up with

one finger under his chin to brush Gabriel’s mouth with his. “You’re upsetting my

pet, Burke.”

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The beta nodded. “To make him more vigilant.”

Jake’s head tilted to a curious angle. “What’s vigilant, Uncle Cal?”

“Careful,” he answered. “Wary.”

“Which the brat will need to be,” Burke said, “if he wants to run with you this

afternoon, Jake.”

The young shifter shot up from Gabriel’s lap, beaming a thrilled grin. “Really?

I can take him for a run?”

Gabriel rubbed at his chest in hopes of calming the rapid staccato of his

heartbeat. The police couldn’t be so close. Not yet. If the feds were staging for a raid,

Cal would know and would move mountains to protect him. Gabriel believed that as

he believed in nothing else. If the searchers had drawn near, Cal would never leave

Gabriel’s side. He’d double the guard and restrict—

Gabriel’s pulse throttled into high gear.

“Master…?” he wheezed, the air already locking in his lungs.

“No, pretty baby, the feds aren’t coming for me. Deep breaths.”

“His panic attacks would slack off if you’d let him take his rightful position in

the pack.”

“His panic attacks won’t go away until he’s confident of his place with me.”

Cal’s lips thinned to a stubborn line. “His position among the rest of you—”

“…will make him feel more secure in his relationship with you,” Burke bit out.

“The brat’s instincts will prevent him from accepting the bond until he’s certain

your beast will allow him to fulfill his purpose.”

Gabriel swallowed, but his mouth had gone bone-dry. “Please let me call Dad,

Sir. Please. I’ll beg. I’ll do anything.”

The beta rolled his eyes. “He’s afraid of humans, Cal. Not us. Why are you so

blind to what that means?”

He stared up at his master, anxiety curling around him like a familiar friend.

“Don’t let them take me.”

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Cal’s shoulders drooped. He traced the line of Gabriel’s brow. “The other

shifters have pulled back? You’re sure?”

Burke jerked his head in a nod. “They’re planning something. Soon. I can smell

it. You have to show the brat’s omega that you’ll meet his needs, including his need

to belong to the pack. If his omega isn’t sure that you’ll trust him with us, we’re

doomed.” His glance darted to Gabriel. “Losing you—and us—would kill him.”

Gabriel bit his lip. And shuddered.

“I’ll be careful with him, Uncle Cal. Vigilant, like Burke says.” Jake nodded,

eyes solemn. “Just up to the old logging camp and back. We can do it in under an

hour, piece of cake.”

“Absolutely not.” Cal’s spine snapped straight, his body as rigid as cordwood.

“The logging camp is too far.”

The skin around Gabriel’s eyes tightened. They rounded, surprise streaking

through him when Jake abruptly turned to him, gaze pleading. “You want to run,

don’t you, Gabriel? See the second-growth pine that replaced the oak?” The blond’s

stare flashed to Cal. “He smiles when I talk about going into the forestry program at

Virginia Tech in the fall. And he can run. He needs to run, Uncle Cal.”

His master’s brow furrowed. “I said no, Jake.”

“Allowing him to go would prove your trust,” Burke argued. “You could be

bonded by nightfall.”

Cal cursed under his breath. He scowled thunderously. “Fine,” he said, mouth

tight in disapproval. “Triple our guard on the perimeter. No! Put everyone on the

perimeter.” He leaned down, yanking Gabriel’s mouth up for a bruising kiss.

Even having been taken by his master only hours ago, Gabriel—and his dick—

happily stirred. He groaned, senses whirling at the stab of Cal’s tongue past his

lips, how good the shifter’s aggressive stamp of possession felt when his tongue

swept inside.

Cal lifted his head, breathing ragged.

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Gabriel gasped. Blinked up at him.

“All right.” Cal’s hot stare ate at Gabriel as voraciously as his mouth had.

“You’ll have one hour, Jake. One.” Jake grinned, tossing an arm around Gabriel’s

shoulders to hug him. “If you’re a minute late—”

“We won’t be,” the shifter promised, his young body vibrating with excitement,

eyes sparkling. He turned to Gabriel, kissed his cheek. “It’s deep in the woods,

Gabriel. We’ll have to be quick to make it back in time, but you’ll love it.”

His master nodded. “Today, pet, you can run.”

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Chapter Eight

Gabriel raced through the woods, whip-thin branches lashing his stomach,

shoulders and legs as he loped after Jake. The shifter had sprinted ahead, eager to

guide Gabriel to the deteriorated logging camp, show Gabriel the world. His world,

anyway. Laughing, Jake shouted back to him, “C’mon, Gabriel. He’s never let you

hunt with us before. You have to run. Come on!”

The blond had forgotten who was human and who wasn’t the moment they’d

left the trail behind them. Incapable of equaling a shifter even on the cusp of

manhood and as young as Jake, Gabriel kept pace for all of two nanoseconds, but

the exuberant rustle of underbrush as Jake plowed through the stunted trees and

scraggly bushes that made up the forest floor prodded at Gabriel’s oversensitive

hearing. He could track Jake by sound, so he didn’t mind if the shifter ran ahead.

He’d find Jake.

Eventually.

Until then…what wasn’t to like?

The summer sun filtered through a thick canopy of leaves that left the wooded

understory cool, not meltingly hot like the backyard Cal had confined him to these

past days. Jake was right: shifter or human, the woods called to him.

He needed to run.

He liked the burning stretch of muscles too long inactive. He'd enjoyed the

joyful snickering of the young shifter’s teasing as Jake had prodded him along. And

the frightened scurry of animals darting from their path. The twittering of birds

high above was a sweet song in his ears.

And oh lord, the scents.

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Nostrils flaring in gluttonous awe, Gabriel couldn’t get enough. The crisp tang

of violently green trees stirred his hyperstimulated senses while the subtle, fertile

musk of dead leaves and crackling twigs grinding under his bare feet set his soul to

flying.

All of it summoned Gabriel. Welcomed him. Beckoned him.

Run.

Be free.

Just a little faster.

His legs pumped. His heart thrashed against his rib cage.

Gabriel had never felt so alive. So aware. So…

Happy.

Nothing could ever hope to rival the wonder and beauty of this.

God, he wanted to share it with Cal. Run with him. Be free with him. His

panting breaths quickened as he imagined his master jogging beside him, pictured

the curving slash of Cal’s smile when he slowed for his pet. Or better—Gabriel

trembled—chasing him. Cal would toy with him. Wild and wicked, the shifter would

hunt him, spurring Gabriel onward until his master finally took him down.

Gabriel stumbled to a halt, dick bobbing and aching at his groin.

Okay, so running with a hard-on wasn’t a good idea.

Bending with hands to his sweaty knees, Gabriel panted out a breathless

laugh. Cal pushing him to the pine needles that carpeted the forest to fuck him

would be worth the fleeting discomfort of racing through the woods with a needy

dick.

He must convince Cal to run with him. Soon. That very day. That evening.

He wanted to be claimed.

Catching his breath, Gabriel glanced around. Bright, vibrant greenery

surrounded him, swallowed him whole. No Jake in sight. He angled his head to

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listen for the shifter’s progress, trying to gauge which direction the blond had raced

in—

He froze.

Instinctive fear skittered up his spine.

The birds had stopped singing.

When had the melodic chirping ended?

The animals had gone still and silent too.

Gabriel’s eyes rounded.

Oh crap.

No.

No, no, no!

He dipped his head, quietly sinking low to the ground. His pulse roared in his

head, but now that he was no longer so enthralled by the woods, the squirrels, and

signs of deer, the rustling leaves of wildlife in the undergrowth…

Oh shit. He could smell them.

His eyes snapped shut.

Shifters.

Not his master’s. Not pack. The others here had carried a subtle perfume

common to them and to Cal, the scent of the woods they hunted in. But not these

shifters. They smelled of—Gabriel concentrated…

Honeysuckle.

And car exhaust.

And holy fuck, they were closing in on him.

Moving as silently as he could, Gabriel crawled forward, to the left, as far as he

could from the foreign scent of the shifters that preyed on him. His blood iced to

glaciers in his veins, though, because he knew it was useless. He was still just a

human. Only a pet. His senses had sharpened with the feast of Cal’s blood every

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day since New York, and Gabriel was strong too, far stronger with his master filling

his belly with as much fresh game as he could stand.

But he wasn’t a shifter.

They’d make a meal of him.

Gabriel stifled a whimper and dared to scurry faster, though his speed

disturbed the undergrowth. They’d find him more readily. But Gabriel couldn’t stop.

He needed to get away.

He needed his master.

“Stop.”

Oh God.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t make his legs move fast enough.

A fist snarled in his hair, jerking him to an abrupt halt. His arms collapsed

under him. Gabriel cried out, face slamming into the forest floor.

“I told you to stop, boy.”

Oh shit. Oh fuck. Jesus!

Cal.

Please, Cal. Please.

But it wasn’t his master’s fingers that wrapped over his nape, squeezing

painfully tight. So forcefully, a hurt whine slid from Gabriel’s lips.

Two barks of laughter rang out.

Gabriel fought to drag oxygen into his body, but couldn’t manage more than a

raspy wheeze.

“You aren’t going to give us any trouble.”

Gabriel shuddered. Please, merciful God, don’t let these bastards rape me.

The fingers at his nape squeezed.

Hot wet burned Gabriel’s eyes.

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He swallowed, though his mouth had gone bone-dry. “No, Sir,” he choked out,

voice scratchy and tight. He had to survive this. He had to make his way back to

Cal. No matter what. So he told the strangers what they wanted to hear. “I won’t

make trouble.”

“Good.” The hand vising his neck eased, fingers tunneling into his hair to pull

him upright instead. “Look at me.”

He didn’t want to.

His head rocked back when the shifter’s open palm smashed into his cheek. It

wasn’t a hard slap. His face barely stung. Gabriel didn’t believe the blow would even

bruise, but…

“Look.”

Cal had never hit him.

Not once.

Gabriel’s bottom lip quivered. Tears leaked from his eyes.

He looked.

Cold, dark eyes fringed with sooty lashes studied him.

Gabriel’s gaze darted down. Because that would be expected of him too.

“Kneel.”

Gulping, fervently praying that Jake had doubled back to find him and was

even now streaking through the woods to report the intruders to Cal, Gabriel

dropped to his knees and pasted his gaze to the red laces of the shifter’s hiking

boots.

If they ordered him to open his mouth?

Gabriel swore he’d bite off whatever they were stupid enough to try to shove

into it.

He’d fight.

He’d lose.

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But he would fight.

Because he belonged to Cal.

“Give me the bolt cutters.”

Gabriel risked a quick glance up, spying the second of the shifters pass a long

tool with flourescent orange handles and blunted pinchers at one end to his partner.

Gabriel gulped, trying to draw comfort that the strangers weren’t planning to use

his mouth, at least not yet. He flinched nonetheless when the jaws of the bolt cutter

threaded his master’s collar, the metal pinchers gritty and cold against the hollow of

his throat.

Taking his collar shouldn’t make his stomach roll and his body tremble. More

than the strip of gold links at his throat claimed him for his master now. More than

the initials inked below his ear. More even than the RFID chip embedded in his

shoulder.

Gabriel whimpered anyway. “No. Please.”

“Be still.”

Gabriel’s muscles bunched.

The shifter with the cold eyes grunted.

Snap!

The bolt cutters jerked as the pressure abruptly released. The tip gouged into

Gabriel’s skin, biting into his neck. He cried out, raising his hands to slap them over

the wound and lurched away from the source of the sudden pain. Losing his

balance, he fell hard on his ass.

Blood seeped between his fingers.

Openmouthed, panting, he stared with accusing eyes at the pair of intruders

who’d hurt him.

“Shit.” The cold-eyed bastard tossed the tool aside. “I clipped him. Here, get

your hands down. Let me see.”

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“No,” Gabriel screamed, body stiffening with a wave of mindless fury. How

dare they hurt him? How dare they even look at what belonged to Cal? “He’ll kill

you for this.”

“Are you crazy?” The junior shifter’s jaw dropped. “Phillip said not to damage

him!”

“I was careful. Not my fault he jumped,” the first shifter said, his tone surly as

he pried at Gabriel’s slick, rigid fingers. “For God’s sake, boy, be still. And I told you

to put your hands down!”

Gabriel twisted, struggling to break free. “Fuck you.”

“Wait, Alex. Omegas are supposed to be gentle. Submissive. Maybe we grabbed

the wrong guy.”

Gabriel clocked the first shifter in the chin with his elbow.

The guy shoved Gabriel, deflecting the full force of the blow, but dislodging

Gabriel’s grip so that a fresh gush of blood spilled from his throat.

Cal would have taken the hit rather than allow Gabriel’s blood to spill so thick,

hot, and wet. His master would’ve never risked further harm to him. Only Cal

showed such care of him. Only Cal would—and could—keep him safe.

Only Cal.

Gabriel’s back arched, his efforts to get away from the shifters redoubling.

“He’s the omega. For Christ’s sake, how many humans do you think run this

territory stinking of Thorpe?” The intruder wrenched at Gabriel’s hands so hard it

felt like he’d tear a finger off, but Gabriel held tight to his neck. Keeping them away

from his blood. Keeping his master’s collar pressed to his throat. He would not let

them take him. Or taste him.

He’d die first.

“Cal might’ve taken a human lover.”

“The pack would’ve driven a lover away. No omega would tolerate a rival.” The

shifter glared at his partner. “Stop arguing and help me.”

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Gabriel contorted his body, wrestled and cursed them, but he was no match for

the younger Jake, much less two mature adults. Once the second shifter pinned him

down, his partner tugged Gabriel’s hands free.

The slight weight of Cal’s collar slithered from his neck, the wolf’s-head

pendant dropping into detritus of the forest floor.

Violence and bloodlust spiraled through Gabriel in giddy abandon.

“Shit, that’s deep.”

The cold-eyed shifter grimaced. “And bleeding like a son of a bitch.”

The other shifter groaned.

“If you leave now,” Gabriel said, lips bowing to a malevolent smile as he fought

their grip, “I’ll beg him to kill you quickly.” He chuckled, cold and malignant. “You

won’t suffer. Much.”

Both men paled.

The second shifter’s jaw dropped. He froze. “They’ve bonded.” His eyes bugged

in their sockets. “Oh fuck, they’ve bonded.”

“No. Not yet. Thorpe would be here if they’d bonded.” The shifter who’d hurt

Gabriel shook his head in fierce denial. In terror. “We’d already be dead.”

Gabriel laughed as warm wet slid from his neck to his shoulder and down to

the rotting leaves beneath him. He laughed because the migraine even the regular

feedings from Cal’s wrist hadn’t been able to erase abruptly vanished. The trees

above him faded to grays and blacks, color draining from his world. He could see

farther, into the treetops, watch the ants crawl in an industrious line on a limb high

above him. The scents of the forest, Gabriel’s own sweat, the tang of the shifters’

fear—each suddenly intensified, stealing Gabriel’s breath, but not in anxiety. This

was no panic attack, but rather exultation. Wonder. Joy.

Cal.

Gabriel sensed his master’s riotous heartbeat as clearly as he felt his own

heart pumping in his chest. He shared his master’s fury and mindless fear as Cal

I, Omega

123

directed his pack mates on how best to lock down their borders to keep the

intruders in. “West along the mountain ridge, then drop into the valley to cut them

off…” His master’s shouts were no more than sly whispers in his mind, but Gabriel

heard. Elation exploded inside him because he felt his master too, Cal’s cold rage

and his panic.

But especially his love.

More than any and everything else, Gabriel felt his master’s love.

So he laughed. “He’s coming for me,” he told the shifters who’d stupidly

touched him. He crowed as they scrambled back, finally releasing him, his laughter

competing with the approaching thunder of four-wheelers and the pair’s

increasingly frantic whines. “Run.”

The two shifters pivoted and crashed into the undergrowth, their bodies

already contorting as they shifted.

Gabriel couldn’t care. Though he hadn’t yet seen Cal or anyone else in the pack

shift or laid eyes on them in wolf form, as soon as the intruders fled, they ceased to

exist in his mind. Unimportant.

He blindly searched the leaves, fingers scrabbling through the rot until his

thumb brushed the edge of the wolf’s-head pendant that until moments ago had

nestled at the base of his throat.

Cal.

Nothing mattered to Gabriel except reaching his master.

He snatched at the severed collar and heaved himself off the ground, slapping

his palm over the wound on his neck that still seeped blood.

He grinned and sprinted toward the increasing rumble of the four-wheelers,

his course unwavering though the mechanical roar split in opposite directions.

Because he wasn’t truly running toward the riders. The four-wheelers would chase

down the fools who had tried to take him; his master raced to him on foot.

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Kari Gregg

Cal could feel Gabriel too, had all along. His master sensed the strength of

their bond growing, exponentially now, and rushed to his boy, to Gabriel, to his

bond mate.

Gabriel crashed through a stand of scrub pines, unheeding of the branches

that scratched his skin—and skidded to a halt.

Alone, Cal crouched on the forest floor, his breath still stuttering at the

swiftness of his shift returning him to his human form.

Gabriel sighed. “You can’t hide your beast from me forever.”

The shifter panted. “My beast would’ve frightened you.”

Gabriel shook his head, nostrils flaring at the scent of his master’s wolf so

close. His cock stirred between his legs. “Not anymore.”

Cal’s chin tipped up.

The wide smile he beamed melted the bones in Gabriel’s body, made Gabriel’s

skin itch to be touched and his ass clench in anticipation.

His master rose to his feet, staring at Gabriel across no more than ten feet of

virgin forest. He jerked his jaw at the wound at Gabriel’s throat. “They didn’t taste

you.”

Gabriel shook with arousal. With excitement. His dick lengthened, curving up

toward his stomach. But still Cal did not come to him. “My blood is for you,” he said,

creeping a step forward, emboldened when his master only arched an eyebrow. “My

body is yours, Sir.”

Cal chuckled, but held his ground as Gabriel crossed the vast universe that

seemed to separate them, until Gabriel’s skin brushed the silky warmth of his

master’s. Cal lifted his arm and gently pushed Gabriel’s hand from his neck. He

tilted Gabriel’s jaw to better examine the wound. “It hurts,” he said.

“Yes, Sir.” The pain had been easier to ignore when the adrenaline of terror

and rage had overwhelmed him, and once his bond to his master had forged, he’d

been senseless to anything else. Even now, the harsh sting of torn and ravaged skin

I, Omega

125

skimmed only the shallow surface of his mind, Gabriel’s focus narrowed on the

beautiful shifter instead.

Cal dipped his head to lap at the wound.

Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath, his dick so hard he hurt.

His master’s mouth lifted, his hot breath washing over Gabriel’s neck. “Hands,

pet.”

Moaning, Gabriel yanked his hands to the base of his spine. When he widened

his stance, feet shoulder length apart, his master licked at the blood slicking his

throat. “Good boy,” Cal said, voice low and sexy. When Gabriel’s spine straightened,

shoulders squaring to adopt the rest position Cal preferred, Gabriel’s chest thrust

out. As the honey-colored curls that blanketed the shifter’s chest teased Gabriel’s

nipples, the nubs beaded to stiff attention. The head of his cock, already tingling,

met his master’s hip, leaving a wet smear of precum in his wake. “Very good boy.”

Cal fastened his mouth to the wound and sucked.

Gabriel’s eyes snapped shut, senses spinning dizzily. Behind him, his hands

fisted and pressed into the small of his back. He whined. Pleaded.

His master laughed, those magical lips retreating. Cal examined the wound,

tracing the now-mended skin with tender fingers. “No scar,” he finally said.

“It was an accident, Sir,” Gabriel panted between gritted teeth.

“You want me to let them go.” Cal grimaced before one corner of his mouth

kicked up. “You truly aren’t afraid of us. Any of us.”

Gabriel licked his lips, nervous of the power that roiled inside him, but more

importantly, scared of how Cal might respond to the fresh strength Gabriel now

realized had been inside him from the first. He was not so anxious that he didn’t

seek out the bond that had built between them, though. His stomach knotted. He

stared into his master’s pale blue eyes, watching the color sap to slate gray.

Cal’s nostrils flared.

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Kari Gregg

So did Gabriel’s, scenting the musk of the shifter’s arousal mixing with his

own. I am your omega, your mate. Shaking with nerves and lust, Gabriel smiled. I

am not afraid of what we are.

I, Omega

127

Chapter Nine

Cal’s lips curved, the hungry sparkle in his stare enthralling Gabriel. Making

him weak and at the same time strong. You’re still terrified of what the humans

could do to us. “I’ll spare the lives of the shifters who would have taken you from

me,” he said, edging closer so that skin met soft skin and their breaths mingled, “if

you can answer my questions, pet.”

Sharing his master’s hopeful teasing and his eagerness, Gabriel’s heart

thundered.

Cal leaned forward until their foreheads kissed. “You remember the

questions.”

He quivered. “Yes, Master.”

“Good boy. The first question answered correctly: Who am I? Your master.” Cal

skated his mouth over Gabriel’s, and Gabriel opened, desperate for the shifter’s

taste and his tongue. Cal chuckled. “So ready to be mine.”

“Yes,” Gabriel whispered against his lips and was rewarded with Cal’s hand

lowering to fist Gabriel’s cock. He whimpered. “Always yours. Forever yours.”

“You knew that the night I first fucked you. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”

Gabriel licked at his master’s lips. “Oh my God, yes.”

Cal swept his mouth with his tongue. “The second question, pet?”

How was Gabriel supposed to think when his kiss rocked him, his balls had

pulled up tight to his body, and the shifter’s slow, sure strokes lit him on fire? “The

world,” he moaned, trying and failing to stop his hips from thrusting into his

master’s fist. “I am your world.”

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Kari Gregg

“And nothing works for me without you in it. Never forget that, Gabriel.” Cal

smiled, fine and precious, more beautiful than the curving slash of his mouth when

Gabriel pleased him. His smile matched the happy glitter in his stare and the

blissful satisfaction shared through their fledgling bond. “This is our mating troth.

Right here. Right now.”

Gabriel shivered when Cal released his dick.

“Lie down with me.” He urged Gabriel to his back on the bed of soft pine

needles that carpeted the forest floor. He took Gabriel’s mouth again and again—

drugging kisses, enflaming kisses.

Gabriel’s head spun. Cal reached behind Gabriel’s bowed back, snatching

Gabriel’s wrists to wrap Gabriel’s enthusiastic arms around his neck. Crying out,

Gabriel clutched his master tightly to him, spreading his legs for Cal’s body. “Yes,

please. Fuck me.”

Cal kissed him. His big hands tilted Gabriel’s hips up. His master’s cock

greeted his hole. Gabriel writhed anew, starved for the shifter’s dick filling him.

“When you call the senator this evening, you’ll tell your father that we left the

country two months ago to mate—to marry—in Canada.” Cal slicked his fingers

with spit and drove two quickly inside Gabriel’s ass, pumping in and out.

Gabriel winced.

Oh God, it hurt.

His fingernails dug into the meat of Cal’s shoulders, but he didn’t twist away

from the invasion. He pushed out, grinding into the thrusts to take the shifter’s

fingers deeper.

He bit his lip at the pain, tasting blood.

It was wonderful.

He was wonderful.

Perfect.

I, Omega

129

Gabriel wanted to feel Cal’s cock in his ass this time—especially this time—for

days, feel the ache of his master’s possession of him as long as he could.

“You’ll tell your father that I swept you off your feet.”

“You did,” Gabriel moaned.

“Yes. I did.” Cal shuddered at Gabriel’s raspy protest when he pulled his

fingers free.

Gabriel arched his spine, pressing his aching dick into Cal’s groin. “I need

you.”

“And you need so beautifully, pet.” He spit on his palm, smeared his cock and

lined up with Gabriel’s hole. “After marrying you, I stole you away to a remote cabin

TI owns in western Canada for an extended honeymoon.” He pushed.

Gabriel threw his head back and grunted. The head of his master’s cock

popped into his ass, his ring snapping around it. “Cal,” he whimpered, barely riding

the burn yet needing him, all of him. “More.”

“Hush, boy. Just take me.” He fed his cock into Gabriel, inch by excruciatingly

slow inch until his balls wedged into the crack of Gabriel’s ass cheeks. Blowing out

sharp breaths, he paused. “So fucking good. Not going to last, sweetheart.”

Feeling the ball of his master’s knot pressing to his hole, Gabriel wriggled his

hips, trying to work it in. “Don’t care. Fuck me, Sir.”

Bracing one arm next to Gabriel’s shoulder, Cal leaned over to claim Gabriel’s

mouth as his dick claimed his ass. His other hand reached for Gabriel’s eager cock.

His body jerked, his master swallowing his greedy moan with a consuming kiss. Cal

shoved his hips forward, forcing his knot in. Anchoring his dick inside Gabriel.

He cried out, hurting. Horny.

Happy.

His master worked his cock up and down, rubbing the sensitive tip on each

upstroke. “Shh, Gabriel. It’s in. I’m all the way in now. Ease up, pretty baby.”

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Kari Gregg

Gabriel stilled, sweat sheening his body as he struggled to relax tensed

muscles. Cal lapped at his gasping mouth, tasting him. His tongue danced inside,

teased Gabriel as the glove of his hand teased Gabriel’s dick. Cal’s knot didn’t hurt

as badly as the first time the shifter had fucked him, but Gabriel’s ass needed long

minutes to adjust to his cock and the knot that felt the size of a softball at the base

of the shifter’s dick. Though Gabriel had sucked him so often these past days, he

knew Cal never swelled a fraction as big. Gabriel would hurt more taking his fist if

Cal ever wanted—

“Sweet Christ, boy.” Cal’s jaw clenched, his stare hot and greedy on Gabriel.

He quickened the mind-blowing strokes on Gabriel’s dick. “I need to move.”

He bucked his hips. The hard length of him stuffed Gabriel full, rubbing his

prostate, incessantly rubbing until Gabriel thought he’d lose his mind. He mewled

like a well-fucked sex kitten, his orgasm already eating away at his spine, but he

was a good boy. His balls would explode before he failed his master by coming

without permission, not now, not when their mating was so important. His cock

tingled, aching for release, his balls drawn and tight. Cal rocked forward and back,

deep in his body. He stared down, watching Gabriel fly apart.

His eyes glittered feral delight. “You’ll come when I’ve finished filling your ass,

boy,” he said, but his hand on Gabriel’s dick quickened.

“Oh God.” Gabriel couldn’t help himself—he thrust into his fist, riding the knot

in his ass. “Please, Master. Please.”

“If you come before I pull out,” Cal said, grinning evilly as he lunged into him,

“I’ll turn you over my knee and smack your ass so hard—”

Gabriel screamed.

His cock spurted, painting his chest with spunk.

“Oh fuck, yes,” his master bellowed, dick pulsing as burst after warm burst of

cum flooded Gabriel’s ass, taking Gabriel’s orgasm higher. Cal shoved Gabriel’s jaw

aside with his chin and then bit. When his master’s sharp canines pierced his

throat, Gabriel’s body jolted, overstimulated and overwhelmed. His vision blurred to

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131

white. His heart froze. His body lit up, the scent of their sex and his spilling blood

infinitely intoxicating to him. Even after his balls emptied, Gabriel lay compliant

beneath Cal, shaken by the intensity of his orgasm and grateful for the prolonged

throbs of his master’s cock inside him that kept him flying with delicious

aftershocks.

Cal fed his cum into Gabriel’s ass, his mouth slowing on Gabriel’s neck what

felt like twenty lifetimes later. He lifted up. Stared at Gabriel.

Gabriel’s mouth curved.

His master’s eyes had gone gray again.

“There’s no telephone service at the cabin in Canada, no electricity or

television. No Internet. Nothing but acres of pristine woodlands to run and hunt in

by day and a warm comfy bed to fuck you senseless in at night.” Cal nuzzled his

neck, licking and nipping. He laughed at Gabriel’s weak whimper. “I’ll take you

there as soon as the media finds a new scandal to chew. A friend will doctor our

marriage certificate for the night I picked you up in the club in New York, but I’d

like the senator to witness us repeating our vows to each other.”

Gabriel hummed a vague response he hoped Cal would accept as assent. He’d

mated to a shifter, but still wanted the trappings of a formal ceremony. His father

had consistently voted against gay marriage, but would almost certainly demand to

attend Gabriel’s wedding too.

“I know.” Cal chuckled. “We’ll tell him, regardless of his voting record, he has a

new son-in-law tonight.”

Gabriel hissed in pain as Cal slid his dick from Gabriel’s ass.

Cal bit into his wrist and offered it to Gabriel’s mouth. “Drink, pretty baby.

And then I’ll spank you until you come for me again.”

Gabriel’s mouth watered at the rich, coppery scent, his dick already stiffening

at the promised spanking he craved. After nearly being taken away, he needed to

wear the rosy blush his master would give him. Badly. “I won’t be able to walk.”

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Kari Gregg

“You need the reassurance of a hard punishment, the reminder that you are

still mine.” His master’s mouth quirked. “I need it too, need my boy to wear my

mark. I’ll carry you home after.”

Gabriel’s breath caught, heart racing in anticipation of his palm cracking

across Gabriel’s bare ass cheeks.

Cal bumped Gabriel’s mouth with his streaming wrist. “Drink for me, Gabriel.”

He sighed. “I truly am your whole world?” he said, though he didn’t have to

ask. Bonded to him, Gabriel sensed the truth in Cal now. He knew. But sometimes,

he needed to hear it too.

He lapped at his master’s blood.

Cal smiled at him, finger nudging Gabriel’s hair aside to stare into his eyes.

“Yes, Gabriel. You really are.”

Loose Id Titles by Kari Gregg

Blood Oath: What Rough Beast

I, Omega

Kari Gregg

Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with

her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. Once Kari discovered the

fabulous play land of erotic romances at RWA’s National Conference in 2009, the

die was cast. Finally! A market for the smoking hot stories she loves!

When Kari’s not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked

mud-wrestling (not really), and…coffee!

Document Outline

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Loose Id Titles by Kari Gregg
Kari Gregg

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