The Omega Awakened: A M/M Omegaverse Erotic Short Fiction (Omegan Tales Book 1) Read online

  Don’t fuck me, Micah could imagine it saying. Don’t debauch me like that.

  Micah didn’t want to fuck it. He wasn’t that mindless yet. He was just too lonely to curl up in his nest by himself. It was the most bizarre thing. Micah’s actions were so foreign to him this time around. It’d only been two years since he’d started his heat, but he’d thought that he’d had a good grip on it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Where he’d been kinder to himself about his heat before, he was now frustrated and unforgiving. The way he looked, the way he begged, the way he cried - he hated all of it. Fuck his status. Fuck his body.

  Fuck how he’d turned into nothing but a useless caricature of his old self during one of the most important tests of his entire life.

  There were no redeeming qualities about it, there was nothing to be gained if you weren’t trying for a baby, and there was nothing fun about feeling unsatisfied for a week every. single. month.

  With a whimper, Micah shuddered through another surge of hormones. He reached between his legs again and began to stroke his cock. This time he moved slowly, eyes fluttering closed as he fell back into a sensory world that was too many colors and too much static. His hand moved up and down his own length slowly, grip almost painfully tight. He jerked himself off to the rhythm of his own heartbeat.

  If he were lucky, this wave would be over within an hour.

  If he weren’t lucky… well.

  It was what it was.

  2

  Jackson

  Jackson wasn’t a person who believed in destiny.

  Divine intervention, a higher power, preordination - they were all just words, right? Concepts that had no logical basis, but that humans had created to explain the unexplainable. If there were ever a thing that Jackson rolled his eyes at, it was the suggestion that his entire life had been plotted by a man in the sky waiting for him to make a move.

  But then there was Micah, a soft-spoken and level-headed omega who’d waltzed into the Alpha, Beta, and Omega Divergence Theory course on the first day of class and planted himself at the front of the room. Micah was everything Jackson had learned an omega would be: patient, empathetic, curious, and detailed. Those traits worked well, perhaps even better in a classroom full of proud and stubborn alphas who never raised their hands or asked questions. Nobody said it, but Micah’s presence was a breath of fresh air, and Jackson suffered quietly for an entire semester before he bent a knee to the idea of fate and fortune.

  It was a slow process, sure. But day by day, Jackson accepted the slow fascination that was growing around an omega that he didn’t even have the balls to talk to.

  In the end, it was pure, unadulterated desire that had given him the courage to stand up. When the omega had gone into heat and latched eyes with him, begging, pleading to give him what he needed, Jackson didn’t - couldn’t - hesitate. Micah going into heat was like a natural high. The man smelled unbelievably good, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that another alpha was going to slide in under Jackson’s nose and take that away.

  Without a doubt, Jackson knew it then. Micah was the omega that he’d been born to spend the rest of his life with.

  This was how Jackson found himself standing awkwardly outside of the big, brick building of Mitchum Hall, the only all-omega dorm on campus. Mitchum hall was strict on visitation; being a safe space for both mated and unmated omega, alpha students were rarely allowed past the front desk without a reason or a key. A wandering alpha in a place where omegas regularly went into heat was bad for business. A university with open policies like that wouldn’t make it very far with the more conservative donors.

  But Jackson didn’t care much for the rules.

  With the confidence of a man who knew himself to be right, he walked up to the doors and pressed hard on the bell. After a moment, there was a buzz, and then a soft hissing noise, and the doors opened slowly in front of him.

  The inside of Mitchum hall was so different from an alpha dorm. It was much more domestic. There was extra seating in the lobby, adorned with cute pillows and throws. There was warm coffee and chocolates at a small bar by the windows. The tables around the room had been decorated with magazines about housekeeping, and frosted vases filled to the brim with well-pruned flowers in the university’s colors. The most fascinating thing was neutralizers. There were large baubles of them dangling from the ceiling, buffering the hormones wafting in and out of the lobby. Jackson subconsciously adjusted his coat around himself, trying to keep his scent to himself.

  The front desk was similarly decorated. Jackson probably looked a mess as he approached, hair in disarray and cheeks flushed red with the exertion of running across campus in the middle of the winter. It was a simple, primitive line of thinking that made him tap on the marble of the desktop and breathe, “Hi. Hello.”

  The omega behind the desk startled. She yanked her headphones out of her ears and set them aside bashfully.

  “Uhm. Sorry. Hi. Can I help you?”

  Jackson couldn’t look at her. His instincts, his stupid fucking instincts, were making a fool of him. Not that it mattered, but alpha weren’t supposed to be shy. They weren’t supposed to be weak or apprehensive. And here Jackson was, staring down a plastic brochure package to avoid making eye contact with the petite omega behind the welcome desk.

  “I’m here to - to see my mate. He’s in heat. I just need to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Right,” the worker said. Her voice was tinged with suspicion, but she clicked something on her computer anyway. “What’s your name?”

  “Jackson.”

  The omega went silent and Jackson chanced a look at her. She looked unimpressed, tilting her eyes down at him and saying slowly, “full name, please.”

  “Jackson Ingram.”

  “And identification number?”

  “X372..281.”

  “Alright Jackson Ingram, can you give me your mate’s name?”

  “Uhm… Micah.”

  This time, Jackson didn’t need to look at the omega to hear the irritation in her voice when she said, “Full name, if you would.”

  “Micah…” Fuck. Dr. Jemma had said it. She’d said it so often, and Jackson couldn’t remember it. “Sorry. I don’t know it right now.”

  “What about their identification number?”

  “I… don’t know that either.”

  This was going to be a disaster. If Jackson were really lucky, within the hour he’d be dragged off campus for impersonation, fabrication of a bond, or attempt to illegally enter a heat room. He’d be a running gag. A joke of a man. He was already heated at the thought of being degraded like that. Yeesh, if Micah ever found out…

  The front desk worker typed something quickly. Each click of her fingernails were like the ticking of a bomb, counting down to the moment when Jackson’s choices would catch up with him. Jackson tried to keep his eyes averted, looking between the brochure packet and a gorgeous vase of Magnolias behind the omega’s head. Briefly, he wondered if Micah would like those. It would be such a stupid thing to ask for.

  Ah, fuck it.

  “Are those Magnolias?”

  “What?”

  “The flowers,” Jackson clarified. “Are they Magnolias?”

  The omega nodded slowly, completely baffled by the question. All at once, she blurted, “I’m gonna have to call the hall director. Could you wait a second?”

  “What? No.”

  “…what do you mean no? That was a rhetorical question. It’s not optional.”

  “What do you need to call them for?”

  The omega shrunk down in her seat nervously. She covered her nose with one hand and frowned at him. “Please go and take a seat.”

  “My mate is back there. I just need to -”

  “If you don’t take a seat, I’ll have to call security.”

  “I can hear him!” Jackson tried, smacking the desk frantically. “Just let me go and check on him.”

  The omega’s skin was dusting over in a light sparkle o
f sweat. Whether it was Jackson’s pheromones or the way he was fidgeting, the omega was getting distressed. She grabbed the phone, picking up the receiver quickly and dialing a number. There was an awkward, blank moment of nothing, and then she said, “Hello. Hi, yeah. I have an alpha up here who’s… visibly agitated about his omega. I can’t verify the details, but he’s getting restless. Could you send somebody to help us clear up this situation? Yeah. Thanks.”

  The nerves of his incoming rut were starting to get to him. Jackson whined in the back of his throat and bent over the desk, dropping his head onto the cool surface of it. The descent into rut had always been a maddening one. Younger alphas usually struggled to control their behavior in prerut, but they grew out of it quickly, recognizing their restlessness as a sign of their need to mate. This prerut, Jackson was feeling very much young again. As if his whole body were digesting liquid fire and spreading the heat through every nerve and every limb. He felt noticeably out of control, and that was as adolescent a response to prerut as anything.

  At the end of the day, it seemed that patience truly was a trait for the omega.

  By the time Jackson was acknowledged again, he’d taken to ripping up one of the brochures. It was in tiny little pieces on the desk when a familiar voice said, “Oh, Jackson. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Jackson looked up and sucked in a deep breath. He tossed what remained of the brochure aside and moved around the counter quickly, wrapping his arms around the nurse waiting for him on the other side. Her name was Mel and she was a godsend; a nurse who had moved into the house next door when he’d just turned thirteen and was still trying to find out what to do with himself. Being the adopted son of two alphas, everything that Jackson knew about omegas had come from her.

  “Oh, thank god it’s you.”

  “What’s going on with you, hm?” Mel asked, rubbing Jackson’s back. She sniffed cautiously at his neck, pulling back and making a face when the scent hit. “Oh, wow, Jackson. You can’t be here like this. The neutralizers aren’t going to be able to handle that scent load if you wait here too long.”

  “No. Yes, yeah. Sorry. I don’t -”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not. I need a favor.”

  Mel reached out and stroked his face lovingly, raising an eyebrow when he snarled at her. Her responding scent was a warning, something pungent and sour, and Jackson backed down immediately. She was an omega, but an omega that he trusted, and that meant no posturing. He sighed and dropped his head to her shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I just - I feel weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “My mate is back there and I feel like I need to see him.”

  “I had no idea you were mated,” Mel said. “When did this happen?”

  “I’m not technically mated,” Jackson corrected. “But he’s my mate.”

  “That’s not how that works.”

  Jackson huffed and ran his fingers through his hair. His hands were shaking. Horny and desperate, he begged, “Could you just… I don’t know, take me back there? He’ll tell you I am.”

  “Who? Jackson, you’re not making any sense.”

  “Micah.”

  “Micah… Micah who?”

  “I don’t know his last name.”

  Mel watched closely as Jackson went mute with a budding aggression. The omega at the front desk whimpered and jumped up from her chair, leaving it swiveling at the desk as she bolted for another room. Mel wasn’t impressed. She licked her lips angrily and then reached out and pinched the base of Jackson’s neck. He crumpled easily, wailing as a short, stabbing pain stemmed from the pressure point. When Mel released him, he was on his knees and heaving.

  “You do that again and I’ll have you sent off. I know you, Jackson, but I won’t allow you to scare my omegas. Understood?”

  “Yeah,” Jackson said, vision hazy. “Sorry.”

  “Now, I’m gonna take you downstairs - no, before you ask, I’m not taking you to anyone. We’re gonna look through your charts and see what’s going on, then we’ll talk,” and quickly, Mel pulled something from her pocket, a small plastic clasp, and stuck it to Jackson’s shirt. All at once, her scent was diluted. “This isn’t gonna last long. I think I’ve got twenty minutes before we need you out.”

  “Okay,” Jackson conceded. His hackles were lowered and his pride a bit wounded, but the alpha in him was purring at the idea of getting closer to his mate and so he didn’t say anything else.

  All campus dormitories were outfitted with heat and rut rooms, and it seemed that whether an alpha or an omega, students were kept in the darkest and most isolated place: the basement. Jackson followed Mel to the back of the building, and then trailed after her as she lead them down a series of stairs. Each floor lost a bit more color, dimming until the paint was nothing but a stale off-white, chips peeling from the wall and the bitter stench of medical tools cloying the air. Jackson’s nose was going haywire; he was being covered in the suffocating stench of a million different scents.

  The alpha covered his nose with his wrist. He hated these smells. This was the opposite of what he’d come here for - rather than a gaggle of scents, he’d come for one in particular.

  Because Micah’s scent was everything. The epitome of that freshly fallen snow, the first one of the season, where the air is crisp and frozen. Cold and alarming. Micah’s scent was like white noise; the relaxing patter of rain on a puddle, or the absence of traffic as the weather broke and the streets went clear. Desolate. The gray sky that dropped snowflakes onto your frosted windows.

  It wasn’t just that though. No, because his scent was all encompassing, and at the same time as it was frigid and cool, it was also… warm. Like a coat wrapped around your shoulders, or a scarf wrapped around your neck, or a pair of arms wrapped lovingly around your waist as you nuzzled in the winter chill.

  “Do you need a suppressant?” Mel asked.

  “What?”

  “I have suppressants. I can give you one if you think you’re going too deep.”

  “No, no, no. I don’t need one,” Jackson said immediately. Suppressants were the worst. They pushed off the rut at the expense of a normal cycle, and Jackson’s prerut this month was already bizarre. He couldn’t imagine it being more unpredictable. The thought made him anxious.

  “Don’t project like that. Nobody will make you take them just yet,” Mel clarified, “but I’d suggest them. It seems like you’re almost in rut. You’re not permitted to walk around campus in this state. In fact, you shouldn’t even be here in this state. If this didn’t feel like a medical emergency, I’d have sent you home already.”

  Mel walked Jackson past a series of offices and once they’d reached the end of the hallway, Mel swiped the badge that was clipped to her shoulder, unlocking a heavy brass door and leading Jackson through it.

  This room was an omega’s space. It was comfortable and warm . There was the residual scent of cooked food in the air and the hum of a heater in the corner. Candy and snacks were laid out everywhere, picture frames hung on the wall, and there were books stacked into every nook and cranny they could fit in. Jackson passed the desk and headed for the couch in the corner, trying not to laugh at the small sign on the wall which read Omegod, is it only Monday? Well, damn.

  “Take a seat,” Mel ordered, voice surprisingly even. She reached for a small device on the shelf above her computer and switched it on. It was another neutralizer, though this one seemed to function more like a vacuum. Within seconds, the air that had been slowly cloying with pheromones cleared substantially. Jackson knew they were still on a time limit. Neutralizers only worked so long as the scent load didn’t pass a certain capacity. They were useful in a pinch, and it didn’t surprise him that the omega doctors hoarded them. “When was your last rut?”

  “I… don’t know.”

  Mel sat down at the desk. Jackson stared at his reflection in the gold name placard, ignori
ng the sound of Mel typing furiously on her computer. After a second, the printer in the far corner of the room booted to life.

  “Jackson,” the omega said, words tight and laced with disappointment, “you should know better. That’s something you need to track.”

  “I know.”

  “An omega would be suspended for that. It’s unfair that you walk around campus in prerut when there are vulnerable populations here. This isn’t an alpha-only institute, no matter what your classes may suggest.”

  “I know,” Jackson sighed. The guilt was pooling in his chest. He wiped at his forehead with his hand, dismayed by the amount of sweat that clung to his palm. “I know, Mel. Look. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

  Without question, the treatment of alpha and omega biology was unequal. The rules and laws were supposedly skewed to protect omegas from overzealous and uncontrollable alphas. Track your heat and you could prevent riots. Track your heat and alphas would never bother you without permission. Track your heat and life would be easy. But the laws never really saved an omega from harassment or discrimination, not when alphas still lacked all sense of accountability and pushed them into an early heat with their prerut.

  “What’s gonna happen to him?”

  “Micah? I’m not sure,” Mel said, standing up slowly so that she could grab the paperwork from the printer. She moved to Jackson’s side and handed him the sheets. “The usual M.O. is suspension and then regulation for the next semester. His heats will manually be tracked by an adviser.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I’m telling you this because I care about you, Jackson. It’s your responsibility, not just as an alpha but as a person, to keep track of your body. One day you’re gonna be someone’s mate-”

  “I am someone’s mate.”

  “No, you’re not. What I mean is that one day, you’re going to give someone a mark. When they’re tied to you, then it’ll be your responsibility to care for them, keep them safe, take care of your babies. You can’t do that if you don’t even know your own body,” Mel reached out to touch Jackson’s arm and the alpha slowly moved it away, papers crumpling in his hand in aggravation. Mel had always been like this. Mothering, attentive, and careful. She smirked and then said, “Also, if you’re courting, it means you’re not mated.”