Annie Nicholas - Omegas In Love

“Me.”

A bell rang in the distance. Its inconsistent rhythm, as if riding on waves, jarred on Katrina’s nerves. She opened her eyes and stared at an unfamiliar wall. The paint had once been white, but time and abuse had dulled it to a miserable shade of gray. The scents of dust and mold greeted her awakening senses. She wasn’t home. The hard floor under her back provided no comfort or warmth.

Turning her head to the side, she found a female lying next to her. Katrina rolled onto the balls of her feet, crouching low. Something tightened around her neck.

She reached for her throat and touched a solid metal collar. Reflexively, she swallowed.

A chain ran from her collar and she followed it with her gaze. It was bolted to the wall. Secured like a rabid dog? She’d been having lunch with Tyler. She’d wanted to surprise him. She’d been so proud of him for winning…

Chen.

She pressed her hands to her stomach, trying not to vomit. He’d found her.

He’d revealed the truth to Tyler. Chen had told her love they were mates. Why couldn’t the truth stay hidden? She hadn’t made that choice. It hadn’t been a true mating. She’d been forced.

As a useless, submissive female, her only function was to breed. Only her bloodline made her valuable. At least, that’s what she’d been taught and believed until she met the Omegas. She rubbed her lower abdomen to ease some cramps.

Katrina crept closer to the other female. The scent of fresh blood grew stronger when she approached. Upon closer examination, she noticed tangled, strawberry blond hair. She rolled the female on her back. Katrina’s heart went into suspension.

Spice, the alpha female of the Vasi pack. Her lips and left eye were swollen. A cut on her forehead bled and had turned her hair from platinum blond to strawberry. Katrina wasn’t sure what to do. Calling nine-one-one wasn’t an option.

That dirty bastard must have attacked the Vasi. He’d hurt her alpha female. She brushed the hair from Spice’s face.

Chen remembered Katrina as submissive, but she’d changed during recent years. Let him try to hurt Spice again and discover how feral she could be. Deep inside, she called for her beast. She’d shift and guard her alpha until she woke, then they’d fight their way out of here. She reached deeper, searching…

Nothing happened.

She couldn’t sense her beast. Cold claws of panic strangled her. Katrina grasped the metal collar and yanked. Panting, she tried to find her other self, her animal twin. Nothing responded. Empty. Alone. She cried out, a desperate, weak noise echoing in the deserted room, then collapsed to the floor.

A bitter taste coated her tongue. Silver. He must have made her ingest silver, poisoning the connection. Ever since they’d become legal citizens, it was illegal to incapacitate shifters like this.

Lying on her back, Katrina stared at the ceiling. Her fingers slipped from the collar. The Vasi would come, if not for her, then for Spice. Katrina curled close to her friend. How would she explain this when Spice woke?

Life in rural China, in the mountains, was hard even for shifters. They stayed isolated from humans in small villages so they could keep the bloodlines pure. Shifter babies were born human, but they all got turned in their adolescence. She’d never even considered staying human–that option wasn’t available to anyone born in a pack.

She recalled the day her parents sold her to Chen’s father.

Pressed against the wall, she curled in a corner of the bedroom. Nothing could jump her from behind and she had a good view of the door. A thick rug lay under her knees, softening the cold, wooden floor. She ran her fingertips over it. Silky and thick. Her birth pack couldn’t afford such luxuries. She’d never even seen a rug until today.

A large futon lay on the floor at her right. She didn’t hold any false pretenses of her role. Her pack had sold her for breeding. Whoever said beauty was a gift wasn’t born a shifter. It had only given her grief.

Her parents had delivered her to this strange pack. She knew they weren’t given a choice, but that didn’t ease the betrayal.

Pack came first.

She’d be mated to the alpha’s oldest son, Yul. As a child, her friends would whisper stories of soulmates. A shifter tale they wanted to believe. Katrina knew the truth, though. Daughters of pure bloodlines made babies for the highest bidder.

They provided her with a nice bedroom, a small writing desk and a chair. This was more than she’d had with her pack. Her mate could be a nice man. She didn’t even care about him being handsome. She’d give him babies and maybe he’d fall in love with her. Was this too much to ask?

The sliding door to her room cracked open.

She stiffened, unsure what to do next.

A pair of dark, cold eyes met hers. The hungry stare punctured her soul.

He slinked into the room. “You’re more beautiful than I expected.”

“Yul?” She knelt and bowed her head to the floor in submission, as she’d been taught since birth.

“No, that is my brother.” He whispered as he slid the door closed behind him and locked it. “I am here to save you by making you mine.”

With a shake of her head, Katrina banished the memory of meeting Chen. Some things were best forgotten.

Next to her, Spice moaned, then sat bolt upright, ripping out of Katrina’s clasp.

The sudden movement left Katrina breathless. She couldn’t help being in awe. Her alpha–who’d only been a shifter for less than a year–carried so much power. Sometimes survivors were much stronger than those born to shifter parents.

“Where the fuck am I?” Spice brushed her blood-matted hair from her face, then pulled at the metal collar around her neck. “What the fuck?” Scrambling to her feet, she stumbled as she struggled with the restraint.

Katrina watched, too exhausted and frightened to stop her.

“I–I can’t sense my beast!” She screeched her frustration. It split the air and Katrina’s hearing.

Covering her ears, she pulled her knees to her chest and curled into a ball. The raw sound reflected her terror. It shattered the bare threads of what courage she had gathered.

Spice knelt in front of her, panting, then pried her hands from her ears. “What’s happened? The last thing I remember was the sound of a crash at home. I walked out of my bedroom…” She shook her head with a look of concentration. “Nothing else.”

Chen’s pack must have attacked Sugar’s brownstone. Who had been there during the attack? Katrina clenched her eyes shut. Were any of them left alive? “It’s all my fault.” She rocked back and forth. She never should have run away from Chen. “All my fault, my fault–” A sharp slap stung her cheek.

Her eyelids popped open and she gazed at her furious alpha. Katrina deserved it. Chen had attacked the Vasi because she’d run away from him. The Vasi had been kind enough to give her a home. Spice should beat her to a pulp. Laying flat on her stomach, she submitted to her.

“Katrina, snap out of it.” Spice shook her. “Come on, where’s the person who stabbed me in the fucking heart with her claws? I need you.”

“They’re here because of me.” She moaned, pressing her face to the floor. “I ran away.” She repaid all their kindness with betrayal and pain. Her cramps were a bad sign. Chen’s timing couldn’t be coincidence. God, she didn’t want to bear his pups.

Spice stroked her hair. “We knew.”

“I was mated to their alpha.”

The petting stopped. “We didn’t know that . You were their alpha female?”