The Runaway Omega: M/M Wolf Shifter Mpreg Paranormal Romance Read online

  He smiled. They had no idea.

  “Hey,” he said to his pet pig as he stroked it. “We’re almost home. You’ll have a place outside. Don’t worry, I brought you a sweater.”

  Devin looked at him with black, beady eyes and Joseph couldn’t help but smile.

  At least he wouldn’t be completely alone, even if he felt like he might be going a little crazy. He knew that he would never find a life partner and a pet was… well, it was small consolation, but at least it was some consolation.

  He stroked the pig’s head and continued smiling. The fog had cleared up some and the drive had taken him a little less time than he’d been expecting, so he was going to have to figure something out for dinner. The place was so out of the way that he doubted he would be able to even order pizza.

  He pulled up to the cabin and looked around. He didn’t want to kill the ignition yet. He was always cautious when he got to new places, and the cabin was still a relatively new place for him.

  He wasn’t comfortable there yet. He probably wouldn’t be comfortable there for a while. Not until he knew, for certain, that he was going to be okay.

  This might even become his permanent home.

  He just needed to make sure to try it out first, and not just for the summer. He leaned over, stroked Devin again, and Devin oinked at him.

  “Stay in the car, okay, buddy? I’m going to have a look at the place. Make sure everything is on and working properly. I’ll also turn on the heat so that you can be cozy when we’re settled in.”

  Devin made a sound. That was enough to tell Joseph that he’d understood some of what he’d said. Devin was able to follow commands easily, because pigs were remarkably smart, and if Joseph told him to stay in the car, then he could almost be completely sure that Devin was going to do what he was told.

  Joseph moved his hoodie so that it was over his ears, because it was freezing and he wanted to keep the cold off them. He stuffed his hands in his pocket, gripped his keys, and moved closer to the house.

  Something was different.

  He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but… something.

  He thought that it might be another wolf. It wasn’t a pack, because a pack’s scent would have been more overwhelming, and an alpha would have known to stay away from another alpha’s territory.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew better than to infringe on another alpha’s territory. He had bought this cabin because he was sure that it was far enough away from any other wolf packs. That had been his intent from the beginning, and now…

  Fuck. He took a deep breath, trying to steel himself. The scent got stronger the closer he got to the cabin, which made no sense to him. It shouldn’t, in theory, be possible that there was another wolf here. He opened the door to his cabin and walked inside. He noticed how all of his hair was standing up on end, and he could feel his body start to tremble, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing. No answer.

  He knew that someone was in there, but they weren’t answering. Another wolf. The last thing that Joseph wanted to do was get in a fight with another wolf. Shifting was always painful and Joseph had to be prepared before it happened.

  His life was tightly planned around it so he hated when something like this happened.

  This wasn’t an alpha, though. It didn’t smell like an alpha. It smelled like a wolf, certainly, but not a wolf that was a threat. The scent was familiar, and compelling, but Joseph couldn’t be sure about it.

  “Hello?” he said again, as he took another step toward his kitchen. He didn’t think that anyone was going to say anything in return, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying.

  He could feel himself going into fight mode, but he fisted his hands at his sides and told himself to keep his cool. It was for just this sort of situation he had trained so hard.

  Yes, it might have been going against every single one of his instincts, but that was something that he was more than well equipped for. It was the reason he had a pet that doubled as a snack. He was a good wolf.

  He was a better person.

  “I know you’re there,” he said, his voice echoing in his ears. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need you to come out so I can see you, okay?”

  He heard a whimper, but it wasn’t nearby. Taking a deep breath, his arms close to his sides, he turned on his heels to go check in the pantry. It was big enough that a person could hide there, provided they weren’t too big. It was also totally empty. He still hadn’t gotten around to hanging up the shelves in there, so there was even more space than there would have otherwise been.

  “Little wolf,” Joseph said. “Come out. I won’t hurt you.”

  He could smell the pheromones when he said that. It had partly been confirmation. He needed to make sure that the wolf in his house was an omega. If there had ever been any doubt, this dissuaded him from it. This was firmly an omega. He could smell it. He could feel it in his blood, flowing to the rest of him, going straight to his cock.

  He swallowed. He needed to get a grip.

  This might be an omega, but he was also a human being. He was a person.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice quiet, as he started to open the pantry door. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. You don’t have to run. I just want to talk to—”

  The moment that he had opened the door a couple of inches, he was knocked back. He was startled as he bumped into the back wall. He heard himself swearing under his breath.

  Of course this was his fault. Joseph knew exactly why this had happened. It was because he was caught off-guard. He was trying so hard not to startle the person in his pantry, that he had failed to realize that he would be easy to take down if it came down to a confrontation. His nostrils flared. He was getting angry.

  This person was in his house, not the other way around. Wolf or wanderer, whatever they were, whoever they were, they shouldn’t have been in his house without asking.

  “Hey!” he exclaimed. He took off running after the wolf. He didn’t need to see the omega, which was lucky, because he had disappeared in a flurry and he had left Joseph behind as if he was some sort of inconvenience and nothing else.

  It didn’t matter, because Joseph could follow him with his nose. His scent was overwhelming enough to be able to do that and the guy had decided to go upstairs instead of outside for some inexplicable reason. He could smell the fear coming from the omega, coppery, a bit like blood.

  He needed to find him and calm him down. Tell him that he wasn’t interested in mating. This wouldn’t be the first time that he would have to turn down an offer from an omega who had wandered away from his pack.

  He followed the scent to the bathroom. The door was closed. The hallway upstairs was freezing, too, and it was only when he looked around that he realized that one of the windows had been broken. In its place was a garbage bag to seal the window, duct tape on his walls.

  Joseph sighed and knocked on the door. “Hey,” he said. “Seriously. I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk.”

  He waited a few seconds, but there was no answer. He wondered how long the intruder would be able to hole himself up in there. He would have to come out soon, but soon could mean hours, maybe even days. Nights. He would have to come out to shift.

  “Listen,” he said. “If you don’t come out and talk to me, I’m going to…”

  What was he going to do? Blow and blow until the door came down? Turn and drag him outside by the scruff of his neck?

  Nah. Those weren’t options.

  He closed his eyes. “If you don’t come out, I’m going to call the police.”

  That seemed to garner some sort of response, though it appeared to take forever. He could hear shuffling and then steps coming toward him. The handle moved slightly, but the intruder seemed to think better of it and stopped himself from opening the door.

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “You’re in my house,” Joseph said. “You will understand why I d
on’t feel safe.”

  “Spare me the bullshit,” the deep voice replied. “Please. We both know I couldn’t take you even if I tried. And I’m sure as hell not going to try.”

  “Okay. Well, like I said, I just want to talk. But I don’t want to do it through a door.”

  The man seemed to consider this. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t hurt me?”

  Joseph sighed. “None,” he said. “Nothing but my word. I promise you, I’m a man of my word.”

  “And why should I believe that?”

  Joseph rolled his eyes. “Because you should, okay? You're the one who is in my house, hiding away from God knows what.”

  There was no answer for a second, which was enough to get Joseph to continue.

  “This is where I live, in case you haven’t noticed, and I still haven't called the police. If I was going to, I would have already done that. If I was going to hurt you, I would have already done that too.”

  “I guess,” was the weak answer.

  But it was enough. It was all that Joseph needed and it was clearly all that the man needed because he opened the door, slightly, just enough to show a little bit of his face.

  There was not a lot of light, but Joseph could feel his heart jumping in his chest. He didn’t think it was just his scent, though of course that didn’t make him like the man any less. No, it was also the elongated shape of his nose, the sliver of his lips, the wide dark eyes with the curled eyelashes.

  Little wolf, he caught himself thinking. He almost said it, but he knew better than that. This man was a stranger.

  “I’m Joseph,” he said to the man in the bathroom. “Joseph Turner.”

  “I’m… Wes.”

  Joseph smiled. “Okay,” he said. “You don’t have a last name, then?”

  “I do,” Wes said, opening the door. “I mean, I do have a last name. It’s West. But people call me Wes.”

  Joseph could feel the crease in his brow. “Then what’s your first name?”

  Wes looked away from him. “I don’t have one.”

  “You don’t have a given name,” Joseph repeated.

  “If I do, I don’t know what it is,” Wes said. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You don’t care.”

  Joseph tilted his head. He opened his mouth to say that he did care, but he didn’t understand why he should care. He probably shouldn’t. Yet there was something so magnetic about this guy… fuck, he wanted to take him in his arms, look into his eyes and tell him that everything would be okay.

  But he didn’t want to do that either, because he knew that was just his instinct. He knew that it was his instincts that made him want to be nice and protective toward this guy, but… there was something else about him that he couldn’t help but like off the bat.

  Something like a certain defiance. There was a fire in his eyes. One that he had never seen from an omega before, and it was making him feel things.

  Things that he should probably not be feeling.

  He tried to stop himself. This was stupid. He was being stupid. He needed to dismiss this guy, send him on his way. He wasn’t going to call the police, because he could tell that the man was afraid, but he wasn’t going to stand there and do nothing.

  He didn’t feel victimized. Wes was right. Joseph could easily take him, if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to.

  “Do you want a drink?” Joseph heard himself ask.

  Wes looked at him. He blinked a couple of times, then he nodded. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Well, you’re already here,” he said. “It would hardly be an issue.”

  Wes thought about that for what Joseph felt was way too long, but the last thing that he wanted to do was pressure him. It was clear that he was having to think this through and Joseph was getting nervous.

  He didn’t really know what to expect from this guy and it was putting him on edge. He needed to know what to expect. He didn’t like this. Having a drink with the guy would make it easier.

  He would get a feel for him when they were drinking tea with each other. At least then Joseph would be able to pin him down. He would be able to make an informed opinion about this intruder.

  Right now, all that he got were smells and his own nature, and that wasn’t good. He was having to fight it, every step of the way, with every single thing that he said to Wes.

  “Fine,” Wes finally said.

  Joseph tried to smile. He was still trying to be cautious, but there was something about this man that made him want to throw caution to the wind. He was magnetic. That was a problem.

  Joseph walked down the stairs, but he let Wes go first. He didn’t want to risk Wes going behind him and jumping out the window that he had broken, which was obviously how he had gotten into the cabin.

  When he was walking down the stairs, Joseph hugged himself. After the excitement of finding an intruder in his house, that was all he had managed to think about. Now that the excitement had passed and he felt himself calming down, he noticed the environment around him.

  It wasn’t any warmer in the house than it was outside of it.

  That was the first time that he realized it was still cold in the cabin, probably because this guy hadn’t turned on the heat.

  That concerned him, because it had been below freezing. Had he stayed in his bed? Had he bundled himself up and gotten under the covers in the guest bedroom?

  He looked at his wide back as he wondered all of this. The guy was young. He hadn’t seen his face that well, but he could tell that he was young from the way that he looked from behind as he walked away from him.

  He could see his broad back, the way that his shirt looked painted on. He bit his lower lip as he resisted the urge to reach out and grab him. He knew better than that. Joseph knew better than to touch an omega—that was the easiest way to lose control, and he already felt so close to losing it.

  Everything about this had thrown his carefully laid out plans into disarray.

  “You haven’t turned the heat on,” he said when they got to the first floor.

  Wes shrugged. “I don't want to make your heating bill go up. I figured I should try to make myself as invisible as possible.”

  Joseph regarded him for a while, wondering if he was telling the truth. “Do you mean you didn't want to make me suspicious?”

  Wes sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Though there wasn’t much light, Joseph could feel the fear, the uncertainty. He could smell it in the air. He could see the hair on the back of Wes’ neck standing up on end along with the hair on his arm.

  Wes was still ready to bolt—or to fight, Joseph supposed, if it came to that. He wanted to assure him that it wouldn’t, but the man had no reason to trust him.

  Joseph closed his eyes. He needed to talk himself out of the idea that he was the one that was supposed to make this man feel better.

  He was the one who had been victimized. He was the one who had walked into his house to find a stranger there, as if that was just a thing that he was supposed to have been expecting.

  He was starting to get angry then, until he heard the quiet voice coming from Wes, who was also hugging himself, and who, it suddenly occurred to Joseph, must have been freezing his ass off.

  “I guess. A little of both. I really did expect that I'd be gone by the time you got here.”

  Joseph softened the moment that he said that, though there was still an edge to his voice when he spoke. He didn’t want Wes to think that he was okay with him simply crashing in his house without asking for permission. “Okay,” he said. “And how long have you been here?”

  Wes looked away from him, putting his arms around his chest, hugging himself close. “A few days,” he said. “I didn’t… I didn’t expect you to be here so soon.”

  Joseph looked him up and down. “Were you going to rob me?”

  Wes’ eyes widened. He looked horrified by the very idea of that and Joseph couldn’t help but wonder if he was a really good ac
tor or if the thought had genuinely never occurred to him. “No,” he said. “No, I was never going to rob you. I just needed a place to stay.”

  “How long?” Joseph asked, his eyes narrow.

  “I don’t know.”

  Joseph scoffed. “Don’t I at least deserve the courtesy of your honesty, Wes?”

  Wes bit his lower lip. “Yes,” he said. “It’s just—it’s embarrassing.”

  “How about we have that cup of tea and you can tell me everything? I won’t judge you,” Joseph said. “I promise.”

  “You might.”

  “Well, I’ll try hard not to,” Joseph replied. “How does that sound?”

  “Honestly? Like more than I deserve,” Wes said. “Why are you being so nice to me? You’re…”

  He didn’t need to say anything else. Joseph knew exactly what he was, just like Wes knew exactly what he was. Everything was going unspoken between them. Joseph wanted to know if Wes would try to deny it, maybe as a self-preservation measure.

  “I’m not like the rest of them,” Joseph offered. “Come to the kitchen. We’ll turn the heat on, I’ll go collect Devin from the car, and then we can talk.”

  “Devin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that your partner?”

  “No, no. That’s my pig. Devin Bacon.”

  Wes blinked. “Oh. Right.”

  “I’ll be right back. Just gotta go turn that heat on.”

  Wes nodded, saying nothing.

  Joseph could feel his gaze on him as he walked out the door.

  Chapter Three

  Wes was… confused. Afraid.

  No, terrified.

  But mostly confused. He was having a lot of feelings, none of which he could make much sense out of, because everything about this encounter had gone so differently from how he had expected. He had been sleeping when Joseph had arrived.

  The last few nights had been uncomfortable. He had been alert, waiting for his pack to arrive, waiting for them to drag him back into the delipidated house they shared near the edge of town, close to nowhere. Wes had been right about none of them daring to go into private property, but they weren’t in heat yet, and he didn’t know how desperate they would get.