Page 72 of The Omega

I’ll have to be here to take care of things. To pick up the pieces.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that for someone else. That’s what I was doing now.

Taking care of my mate.

I touched the claiming mark she’d given me, wearing it with pride though I hadn’t claimed her in return. When I did, I’d make it special. Give her the moment she deserved. It’d been difficult to deny her begging for my mark during the throes of her heat.

Thinking about her begging had my cock pulsing again.

Hurry…

I set off on a jog.

I’d had her nest dropped off on the border of my territory, as close to my house as I could get it without exposing it to Dorian. The less he knew about my pack, the better.

My ranch house came into view as I crested the next hill. Sprawling acres under open blue sky with fat white clouds drifted lazily overhead. Frozen ground still crunched under my boots, but the cattle were out grazing. Just beyond the cottages that lined the house sat the small town and strip of highway before the mountains provided protection on either side.

I smiled to myself as I always did when seeing my land and pack spread out before me. This may have been my late mother’s dream and my father’s sketch, but it’d been me that made it into what it was today.

I’d cleared the land and built more additions. Cleaned up the town and brought in new business, funding entrepreneurs and investing in other services we couldn’t provide. We were self-sufficient. Safe. The perfect place to heal for any who needed it.

“Alpha Atlas!” The first of the little pups’ squeals came roaring into the yard as I closed the gate to the fence. It must’ve been Sunday, because the parade of pups that came rounding the bend to the ranch house wouldn’t have been here if not.

I watched them, amused, as they tumbled in a mess of fur and flying limbs to greet me, and tried to count if any extra had shown up in my absence. Though I hadn’t been gone long enough to expect any newcomers to be in this rowdy bunch. If we did get new pack members, I met them in the quiet places, just sitting beside them until they inched their way into the open like the rest of these wild ones.

“We thought you’d never come back!” a pup yipped.

“What made you think that?” I asked.

Hands grabbed my arms and before I knew it, I was swinging three pups on each bicep as they laughed and kicked their feet in the air.

“You disappeared from the TV.”

“They said you got kicked off the show.”

“Did you go to the city?”

“Did you fly on a plane?”

“Did you get me anything?”

“Whose mama let you all watch the show?” I growled playfully, sending a few of them scurrying back as I set the swingers onto their feet.

Giggles followed.

I wasn’t going to get a straight answer anyway. If one dam allowed her pup to watch the show, then they all would be watching it by default.

“Alpha Atlas is back!” One of the older pups—Wilson—took it upon himself to announce my arrival as he stuck his head inside the back kitchen door. I’d had a talk with him before I left about stepping up while I was gone and it seemed like he’d taken it to heart.

In less than a few years, I’d need to have a proper mating season run in this pack. I’d never had to do one since we didn’t have many wolves of age. But it was coming faster than I knew it.

I ruffled Wilson’s brown hair, smiling when his chest puffed with pride and he shoved me off, then stepped into the chaos of a normal Sunday as I opened the door to the main house.

The rattle of pots and pans came to a standstill as twenty or so female gazes turned to me. Then the chatter resumed and I was swarmed in its embrace.

Hugs and laughter and pinched cheeks. A pup still clung to my back. Everyone had something to say and I listened as best I could, making notes if any real concerns came up. But they mostly just said they’d missed me. I smiled a lot at that.

“And there he is.” Jeannette rose from her rocking chair, grabbing my hand with gnarled fingers that were still as strong as ever and giving me a look that would make a younger wolf cringe as she winked. “Is that your mate I smell on you?”