Posing for the Omega (For the Alpha #2)(17)

Koda sighed, his defensive posture melting away. “Ira I understand why you need the packs acceptance. I shouldn’t have said that, but I want to know what is going on.”

“I’ll tell you, once I’ve talked to my mate,” and I would. I looked out in the general direction of where the female luperci was being held. I wanted to talk to her, she would have answers to so much information that I’d want to know about.

“Ok, I guess that’s fair mutant.” Koda agreed and looked in the same direction I was glancing off into. “She hasn’t said anything...useful to anyone. Do you want something to eat?” Koda said changing his train of thought faster than a pig in heat.

Well, that had been a major change in subject, but agreeably a very good one. My stomach growled expectantly at the very mention of food. My brain started envisioning my favorite meals I’d eaten over a lifetime. Mother I’d love some toasted squirrels smeared with berries. A pitiful whine followed my stomach's loud growl so I nodded. I was extremely hungry while I was pregnant, and honestly I needed to keep my strength up so I could beat the beaver shit out of Zora for lying to me. “Please tell me you have some squirrel?”

“Yes Ira, there is some squirrel.”





I ate a lot of squirrels, again. It would be a miracle if I hadn’t actually killed the population before I gave birth. I only felt slightly bad eating as many as I did, they did breed quickly so they’d probably replace themselves fast enough extinction wasn’t an issue...I don’t think. I lay sighed as I curled up on my pile of pelts in my den. Thinking about squirrel extinction was a lot easier than thinking about my alpha, or the blood wolves, or even the female luperci. I really didn’t want to think about any of it anymore. My brain felt like it might actually melt and slip out my ear if I did keep contemplating all the questions and fears I had. Zora hadn’t come back in the few hours I’d spent with Koda, and I’d only seen Alloy long enough for him to confirm the alpha was taking time to think. I’m sure he was thinking. I needed to talk to him and he had to know he’d said as much before we’d come back to the dens, and here he was avoiding me like the next plague. My hand settled over my swollen belly and I rubbed the taut flesh where my pups were growing. Growing into what I had no clue at this point. If Zora was like me, then they would most likely be born luperci, right? That was a sobering thought. Having pups endure the cruelty I’d endured would be worse than having to experience it myself. I didn’t want my pups to feel the loneliness and contempt I’d grown up with. Hell, my own birth pack (or should I say something else since I wasn’t truly born there?) didn’t want me to return and wasn’t that just another talon in an already sore wound.

“Ira.”

I yelped, Zora’s deep voice interrupting my thoughts. I sat up rather quickly and watched as he walked into our den in his four legged from. Swallowing I watched him wearily. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to start. What questions did I ask first? “Y-you lied to me.” Wasn’t that obvious enough? Why in Mother green nature did I always state the obvious?

Alpha nodded, black eyes watching me intently as he approached the bed where I sat. “I did and for some selfish reasons, but also to protect you.”

“To protect me? Is everything I know about you a lie?” That was probably my biggest fear.

He shook his head. “No. I have not intentionally lied about anything else.”

“I don’t understand. How does the pack not know?” I asked, watching him closely.

He sighed. “I do not change into that form in front of them, and I, unlike you, was not born in my middle form. I did not take that form for a few years later.”

“Not born in it? So you were born to your parents?” That was a valid question with both me and Vey being foundlings.

He shook his head. “No. I was also a foundling. My dama was unable to have pups of her own. I was found by pack members returning from a long journey away from the pack lands. I was only a few days old when they found me and brought me back with them. My dama had said she took me in the moment she saw me, even blind as I was.”

Blind? A foundling? “I don’t understand? Blind? You aren’t blind now, I know you’re not.” Right?

Zora snorted. “No Ira I am not blind, my vision has never been…” He trailed off, seeming reluctant to continue. “My strength, but I can see clear enough that it does not hinder me. My sight improved as I got older before I made my first change.”

“You’re a foundling, but no one in the pack knows about it?” That can’t be possible, we had elder wolves. Granted not many of the old farts were still around but there was two or three that would remember something like that. Besides, why would his dama hide something like that?

“Yes, and they remember, but they do not think much of it anymore. No wolf but Alloy knows about my middle form, I have kept it from the pack my entire life.” Zora stood in front of me leaving only a few feet between us as he spoke. I needed the space between us, even though inside I wanted to touch him. I craved it, but I wrapped my arms around my belly instead to keep the urges at bay.

“Why did you keep it from the pack?” I figured this was another obvious question. If I’d had the option to hide it wouldn’t I have? It had been hard to live with the looks and contempt I’d lived with my entire life.