Saving Briar

“I can’t believe that she got away." Cara raged, her eyes dark as she paced the room. "You were going to reject her this morning and you know you have to do it face to face."

"You should have let me slit the slut’s throat, then we wouldn’t be dealing with this. Or let Tim and Miles fuck her until she couldn’t walk, much less run. She’s already fucked half the pack anyways. I don’t know why you haven’t sent trackers out after her, after she insulted me, our pack’s new Luna, like that?”

“What did she say to you? I didn’t hear her say anything to you? She was trying to talk to me.” Alpha Theon Grigg was sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands when he finally spoke. Cara, his girlfriend since middle school wheeled around to face him, her cornflower blue eyes flashing.

“You didn’t hear it? Are you fucking kidding me Theon? That little slut Omega has been giving me shit for years. I swear she shrunk one of my sweaters on purpose last winter just to make me think that I’d gained weight."

"And she spilled my drink when she was bringing it to me once and had to fetch me another and then it took like five minutes to remake my strawberry shake. And now you’re acting like she didn’t say something horrible yesterday and I made up the fact that she deserved to be punished in front of the entire pack? Are you fucking kidding me?” She was shrieking by the end of her tirade and Theon head was between his knees, his head pounding.

He’d been blind sighted the previous day when the little dark haired Omega had approached him, taken entirely by surprise when his wolf had immediately lost his damn mind. The beast had insisted that they claim the beauty, who’d turned eighteen that very day. His wolf thought that he could just gather her in his arms and protect her, rescue her from the life that his very pack had subjected her to for the last eighteen years of her life.

He’d suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He’d allowed his pack to treat his Luna like a servant. He’d ignored her, and while he’d never harmed her, he hadn’t treated her well, he knew that. He’d noticed her before, of course, she was gorgeous. But he’d been so certain that Cara was his mate. He had never for a moment doubted it.

Theon had turned eighteen a month earlier and he’d just been waiting for Cara to turn eighteen in a couple more weeks. When she did he’d been certain their wolves would immediately recognize each other for who they were. She was his father’s Beta’s daughter and the strongest female in the pack. They’d grown up together and it was obvious that she meant to lead and rule. She was the Queen Bee at the high school, constantly telling everyone, including the teachers, what to do.

But he’d been so, so wrong. And when that little Omega had come up to him in the parking lot after school, looking so hopeful in her jeans and pink t-shirt he’d frozen.

"Mate," the girl had whispered as she stared up at him through her dark lashes.

Cara hadn’t frozen though.

She’d started to scream at the Omega and moments later she was attacking her. And then she insisted that two of the pack warriors hold the girl while she beat her, after the girl fell down from her blows, no longer able to stand.

When the warriors didn’t want anything to do with the beating any longer she had demanded that the girl be shackled in the prison, and Cara had accompanied them there as well.

And he had done nothing.

She shouldn’t have had that much power. She wasn’t the Luna yet. Hell, as his mate, the tiny Omega should be. But no one had ever denied Cara anything and even in this he let her have her way. As always the pack followed his lead.

Bending forward as he sat on the edge of the bed listening to Cara's rant, thought that he might be sick.

He knew that Cara was lying. He could smell the lie, he could practically taste it on his lips.

The Omega was untouched. She was a virgin. He knew it the second she’d walked up to him, smiling nervously, but brightly, having just recognized him as her mate, the one the Moon Goddess had destined her for.

As he held Cara in his arms that night she’d made him swear that he would reject the girl in the morning and then mark her. And he’d promised her he would. What else could he do? He was Alpha now. He thought of his father and his many lectures before his death on the importance of a strong Luna and raising strong pups who would carry on the bloodline.

The man would roll over in his grave at the idea of Omega blood tainting their family bloodline.

Yet his wolf was inconsolable. He alternated between raging and keening in his chest.

A warrior rushed into his room just after dawn. Cara was sprawled across his chest. Any desire that he’d felt before for her had evaporated the moment his wolf had growled out mine at the sight of the Omega whose name he still didn’t know.

“Briar escaped, Alpha. Sometime in the early morning hours.” The man before him was shaking and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She’s badly injured though, so we aren’t sure how far she’ll make it.”

Theon had felt his jaw tighten, his claws lengthening, and digging into the skin on his thighs as he struggled to stay in control.

“Thank you for letting me know.” He told the warrior, but most of his focus was on her name. “Briar. Briar.” He was repeating it over and over again in his mind.

He’d always just called her Omega. He’d never known her name.

And that was how they came to be arguing about the little Omega and whether she should be tracked down. He supposed that she should. His wolf wanted to do it himself. But Cara wanted to do it so that she could kill the girl, preferably after he rejected her.

His wolf wanted to track the girl down and beg for her forgiveness. But he knew that he didn’t deserve that. And that brought him back to his initial problem. He couldn’t mate an Omega.

“But is the Moon Goddess ever wrong?” his wolf asked him.

“This time she is,” he replied, hardening his resolve.

“Theon.” Cara whined, pushing him back on the bed and climbing on top of him. “You will send guards after her won’t you? So that you can take care of this situation? And then we can be together? Forever?”

Closing his eyes he took a deep breath as he felt her hands working at his belt buckle. A day ago this was all he dreamed of wanting. How had it turned into a nightmare?

Still, he felt himself grow hard as she took him in her mouth, but now, instead of staring down at her, he kept his eyes determinedly closed, the image his mind conjured up was the sweet, hopeful face of his mate as she had approached him on the previous day. His hands went down into the blonde hair he couldn’t see, and he ignored his wolf’s growl a moment later when she climbed on top of him.

“I’ll send them. I promise. I’ll do anything.” His eyes flickered open for a moment and he pulled away. “Now turn around. I want to take you from behind.”