almost attractive. “You always liked me, didn’t you, Jack Henry?”
Jack Henry shook his head. He would accept what Lon was about to do to him, but he wouldn’t pretend to like it.
Lon grabbed him around the waist and pulled him against his body, grinding his hard cock into his stomach. Jack Henry thought he might vomit. He wanted to vomit, to cover Lon in filth, see how horny he felt then, but the bile only burbled in his stomach, turning it sour. Lon forced their mouths together, stabbing through Jack Henry’s lips with his thick tongue. Jack Henry gagged, the urge to vomit growing stronger. He tried to wrench his head away, but Lon tightened his grasp, piercing his skin with the threat of claws.
Elias. He was doing this for Elias. Only please, he begged whatever god might be listening, make it fast. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing his mind to go to a different place, one where Lon’s clumsy hands weren’t delving down the back of his dance shorts to grapple at his ass cheeks. It would be over soon, and he would never think of this again.
Unless…
What if the impending full moon had already caused an egg to drop into his fertilization chamber and Lon’s semen found it? Jack Henry hadn’t allowed his mates to fuck him without a condom since the night they bonded. How could he allow Lon to do it?
Suddenly he was fighting, as if the unformed child within him was mounting a battle on its own behalf. His shorts ripped as he wrenched himself out of Lon’s grip, rendered into pieces by Lon’s claws. Lon tossed the shreds of cloth to the side and advanced on him.
“You know, I think I like it better this way. Fight me, little omega. Fight me and lose. Maybe I’ll let you live when I’m done fucking you, and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll stand over your dead, thoroughly fucked body until Elias comes so I can kill him too. Hell, maybe I’ll fuck Elias. He likes that sort of thing, doesn’t he?”
Jack Henry shook his head. Lon had it wrong. It was Saul who liked that sort of thing. Saul who was bigger than Jasper, bigger even than Lon. Jack Henry didn’t know why that mattered right now, but it did.
“You don’t know anything about us,” he said as he backed up, skirting the edge of the dance studio to keep space between them. “You never knew anything about me either, only that I was an omega. That’s why I never would’ve chosen you. Even if there hadn’t been Elias, even if there hadn’t been Saul, even if there hadn’t been Jasper. Because I’m more than an omega.”
“Not to me, you aren’t. And we’ll see what those precious mates of yours think of you when I’m done.”
SAUL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everyone at the build site was acting weird today. They slunk away, one by one, making excuses Saul didn’t need to hear. No one owed him anything. The townspeople worked for free, so they worked whatever hours they chose to. Saul was grateful for it—for their labor and the materials they brought, the meals they invited him to or brought for him, and most of all for the company and the camaraderie. But today, camaraderie had been replaced by uneasy sideways glances and whispered conversations.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said as she packed up her tools.
“For what?”
She looked over her shoulder at her husband, then back at him. “We’re only human.”
“We welcome all types here.” Saul knew Jasper intended to ask Rebecca and her husband if they wanted to join the pack. They’d been such cheerful workers this whole time.
“We love you.” Rebecca grabbed his hand and squeezed. “We really love you. We hope you’ll stay.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” What the hell was going on?
“We’re only human,” she said again. “We can’t get involved in a pack war. We don’t have the strength for it. Or the stomach.”
A pack war? Saul glanced around at the otherwise empty build site. The farm would be letting out now, and offices in Galvetta had shut down for the day, which usually meant an influx of new workers. But there was no sign of a second shift today.
“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” he asked Rebecca as he followed her and her husband up the embankment to their car.
“I don’t know exactly.” She stopped to give him a rueful glance. “I just know we were warned that tonight wouldn’t be a good night to