Scent of an Omega Read online

  Scent of an Omega

  Kaia Pierce

  Copyright © 2017 Kaia Pierce

  All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or part, without the express written consent of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Josh

  Chapter 2: Kaden

  Chapter 3: Josh

  Chapter 4: Kaden

  Chapter 5: Josh

  Chapter 6: Kaden

  Chapter 7: Josh

  Chapter 8: Kaden

  Chapter 9: Josh

  Chapter 10: Kaden

  Chapter 11: Josh

  Chapter 12: Kaden

  Chapter 13: Josh

  Chapter 14: Kaden

  Chapter 15: Josh

  Chapter 16: Kaden

  Chapter 17: Josh

  Chapter 18: Kaden

  Chapter 19: Josh

  Chapter 20: Kaden

  Chapter 21: Josh

  Chapter 22: Kaden

  Chapter 23: Josh

  Chapter 24: Kaden

  Chapter 25: Josh

  Chapter 26: Kaden

  Chapter 27: Josh

  About the Author

  Chapter 1: Josh

  Always picking on the new guy, I grumbled to myself.

  It was Friday night in the small town of Riverrun, Washington, and the riffraff were out in full force. Two of my colleagues were patrolling College Hill, which was mostly just underage drinking and therefore pretty tame. Rick, a deputy who started his position a month before me, was responding to a call about a shoplifter at the Stop-n-Shop convenience store.

  And then there was me. As always, I was relegated to desk duty. Since I’d arrived in Riverrun a month ago, fresh out of training academy, the most policing I’d done was responding to a domestic dispute that just turned out to be an elderly woman who’d fallen out of her wheelchair. Outside of that, all of my other hours went into paperwork.

  I mean, the station already had a secretary, Sarah, who was more than capable of handling it herself. I couldn’t fathom why the department wouldn’t want one more able-bodied deputy sheriff patrolling the streets, for any other reason other than just to mess with the new guy.

  So, like I said, it was Friday night, and I was filling out some paperwork. Tonight, my desk was papered in forms to get oil changes for two of the station’s patrol vehicles. The dispatch radio, manned by Deputy Chuck, crackled intermittently in the next room. I kept an ear trained toward it, keeping tabs on my coworkers’ various antics across town.

  I could hear Chuck laughing, and I supposed he was joking around with the other officers on the channel.

  At least somebody enjoys their job, I thought. Chuck, an old-timer who’d served the county for decades, was planning to retire in the next couple years, so he was perfectly content finishing off his long career in a chair. Ignoring a familiar ping of jealousy, I directed my focus back to the task at hand.

  Then, I suddenly heard a change in Chuck’s tone.

  Intrigued, I raised my head.

  “Attack, you said?” Chuck said. “Southside, you said?”

  My ears tingled. Southside.

  That was the rough part of town. The sleepy town of Riverrun wasn’t exactly Los Angeles, but if there was a place you didn’t go walking at night, it was the neighborhood of Southside. Only the most senior officers responded to calls to that part of town.

  Tonight, though, with all the frat parties on College Hill and Rick still untangling the mess at Stop-n-Shop, everybody had their hands full…

  Except for me.

  Heart racing, I leapt up from my desk and rushed into Chuck’s office. “I’ll do it!” I announced before he even had time to notice me.

  Chuck, balding and about twenty pounds overweight, gaped at me in surprise. Then, he seemed to compose himself and resumed his usual jowly frown.

  “Don’t be stupid, Joshua. I’ll call Rick or Jeremy or—”

  “They’re all the way across town, Chuck. It might be an hour by the time they finish what they’re doing and get there. I can be in Southside in ten minutes,” I said.

  Chuck laughed. “You’re not ready for Southside. Go back to your office and I’ll—”

  “With all due respect, I grew up in Detroit,” I said, interrupting him for a second time. “I may be a rookie, but I think I’m ready for Southside.”

  For a few seconds, Chuck simply stared at me, his eyebrows twitching as he struggled to come up with another reason to keep me at the station. With a sigh, I decided to try a different tactic.

  “You said it was an attack? Was it serious?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Chuck said a little resignedly. I could tell he didn’t like admitting it, although I still couldn’t understand why he wanted me to stay at the station so much. “An animal attacked a customer at Hangman Tavern.”

  “Okay, great! So it’s not like someone pulled a knife or a gun—”

  “No, it’s not,” Chuck said, completely straight-faced. This time, it was my turn to get interrupted. “But the victim is a member of the Black Paw MC. Anything involving a Black Paw biker spells trouble, no matter what. So keep that in mind, rookie.” He tossed me a set of keys.

  Numbly, I caught them in mid-air, astonished. “You’re letting me go?”

  “I ain’t your daddy. You do whatever you want.”

  “O-okay.”

  Delirious with glee, I turned toward the exit.

  “Hey, rookie.”

  I froze and looked back over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

  Chuck was still sitting in the exact same position in his chair, still wearing his headset. “You married? You got kids?”

  I almost laughed, if it weren’t for the grave look on his face. “No, Chuck. I’m a total bachelor.”

  Chuck nodded once. “Good.” Then, he switched on his headset. “Are you still there? Yeah, I’m having a deputy officer responding right away. He should be there in ten minutes. Make that twenty, he’s gonna have to tie his shoelaces first…”

  I chuckled, shaking my head as I hurried through the station’s exit. Always picking on the new guy, I repeated to myself.

  But by the time I got to the cruiser, I forgot all about feeling like a rookie. Tonight, for the first time since I graduated from the academy, I felt like a real law enforcement officer.

  Chapter 2: Kaden

  I loved the sting of wind on my face when I rode. I loved how numb my hands got from gripping the vibrating handlebars, and I loved the hollow feeling in my ears as I sped along faster than any human was supposed to go. Of course, I wasn’t just any human.

  I was a wolf shifter.

  My crew was all wolf shifters, too. The group of us formed the Black Paw Motorcycle Club, of which I was president and pack alpha. We usually spent Friday nights at Lucy’s, which was a shifter bar, but tonight I had to clean up a mess at the Hangman.

  It was all just part of being the alpha.

  Like Lucy’s, Hangman Tavern catered to a rougher crowd. But unlike Lucy’s, the owner and staff weren’t shifters, which meant I had to be careful. Secrecy was our code, and it was necessary for our survival as a species.

  It was about ten-thirty by the time I rolled up to the Hangman. There were two rows of motorcycles lined up by the entrance, which was pretty normal. I recognized three of them, which meant that two of my betas, Logan and Sam, were already here. The third bike belonged to Jimmy, and he was the reason why I was here in the first place.

  The front door was propped open, allowing me a glimpse of the party going on inside. Grinding heavy metal music throbbed from the sound system, accompanied by the clack of people playing at the pool tables. While customers streamed in through the front door, I marched around the building to the back, where I knew
my packmates would be waiting.

  Since the Hangman was right at the edge of town, there was nothing back there but a single light, a dumpster, and the woods. It was too dark to see much, but my shifter senses picked up the presence of three other Black Paw members right away.

  “Don’t worry, Jimmy, Kaden’s here now,” I heard Sam murmur from behind the trees.

  I crunched through the brush with my heavy boots, eventually coming upon Logan and Sam standing above Jimmy in his wolf form. Blood flecked the ground around them, leaving an irony stench in the air, but Jimmy’s gray coat was completely smooth and unblemished.

  I put the scenario together in my head. Somehow, something had attacked Jimmy while he was in his human form, bad enough to force him into a shift so he could heal.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said.

  Immediately, Jimmy began to shift back. A shudder rippled down the ridge of his back, and he flattened himself against the ground. There was static in the air. Then, the pattern of his fur blurred together and melted into his skin. Within the span of a minute, Jimmy was back to his six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered self.

  His nickname was Jesus, because as a man he sported a beard and long, dark hair. He shook it out and tied it back into a ponytail. Then, he caught the bundle of clothes that Logan threw at him and began getting dressed. After shrugging on his leather cut over his bare shoulders and chest, he finally cleared his throat and spoke.

  “Sam and I were inside drinking, and I decided to step out for a smoke right over there.” He pointed over my shoulder at an empty section of parking lot. “That’s when I got attacked by a wolf. I couldn’t shift right away because there were other people out here. It tore me up pretty bad. The others ran inside to get help, and that’s when Sam came out to drag me into the woods so I could shift.”

  I nodded. At that point in Jimmy’s story, Sam had reached out, utilizing our pack’s telepathic connection for help. Logan and I had been the first to respond.

  “Did you recognize the wolf?” I asked.

  Jimmy shook his head. “It happened too fast. It was a shifter for sure, though.”

  “Could it have been a Grayback?” Logan said, speaking of our rivals from the other side of town. Even though the question was directed at Jimmy, he was looking at me.

  I shook my head. “Not even a Grayback would attack another shifter in front of humans. Too risky.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t one of us, and it wasn’t a Grayback—” Logan began.

  “Then there’s a new wolf in town, and he’s looking for trouble,” I finished for him.

  Once the words landed in the air, my three packmates exchanged looks of alarm and fear. As their alpha, I was the strongest in the pack, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of that fear myself. Things weren’t going well for us. The last thing we needed was a shake-up.

  I opened my mouth, planning to tell them to go home to rest, that this business could wait until morning, when another ominous sign appeared. The shadow-black trees around us were suddenly washed in blue and red lights. Cops. For a gang of outlaw shifter bikers, that was never a good thing.

  “Oh yeah, I think the humans called 911,” Jimmy added.

  “Shit,” I growled. Just what I need. Frustrated, I ran a hand through my hair, trying to think. “Okay. You three go find someplace to hide. Well, actually—see if you can find any clues about this new wolf’s identity. I’ll go inside and do what I can to make this incident as boring as possible.”

  With a nod, my three betas turned around and disappeared into the trees, leaving me alone to stomp through the brittle, dry brush back towards the Hangman.

  A cruiser was parked diagonally, taking up two spots. The words River County Sheriff’s Dept. were splashed across both sides.

  Here goes nothin’, I thought to myself as I walked into the bar.

  The moment I crossed the threshold, the smell hit me like a bullet to the face.

  My heart throbbed. My veins pounded. Even the capillaries in my eyes quivered with my strong, elevated pulse. I got real hot under my leather and denim, and some muscle deep inside of me was coiling up tight as my wolf tried to claw its way out of me. It was awake, responding to the call. Even my cock was standing at attention now, so swollen with blood it hurt.

  I’d never experienced this before, but I knew exactly what was happening to me.

  Mate, a voice in my mind whispered. Mate. Mate. Mate.

  I was smelling the scent of my mate. My one and only was somewhere in this bar. Forgetting all about the debacle I had on my hands, I looked around, inhaling in small sips, because too much would overload my senses and make me lose control.

  Is it her? I wondered, walking past a busty redhead draped over a leather booth seat. When I walked past, one sniff confirmed that it wasn’t.

  Or her? I sniffed the air beside a mousy woman in glasses. My mate’s smell was getting stronger, but it still wasn’t her.

  “Hey, good-lookin’,” a youngish woman said as her cold hand closed on my wrist. I twisted out of her grip. It wasn’t her, either.

  I scanned the bar as I slowly made my way through the crowd. My cock was so hard it was choked inside of my jeans. It needed release, and I needed to know who my mate was. By the time I reached the back of the bar, there was nobody left but Sonny, the gray-haired owner of Hangman Tavern…

  And my mate.

  “Oh my god,” I whispered, forgetting to keep my thoughts to myself.

  Hearing my voice, the brunette man Sonny was speaking to turned around. The moment his green eyes locked onto mine, my wolf gave a violent jerk inside of me. My knees buckled, and I had to grab onto a nearby stool as I clenched my wolf back into submission.

  “Kaden,” Sonny said, alarmed, “You okay? You want some water? You know one of your guys was attacked by a wolf, right?”

  “I’m fine, Sonny. Yes, I heard,” I said, waving off his concern. Once I had my boots planted squarely on the floor again, I took a second look at the mate destiny had chosen for me, unable to believe my eyes.

  “The victim was a member of your club, correct?” my mate said, stepping forward. He offered me his hand to shake. “Hi. I’m Deputy Sheriff Joshua Camp.”

  Joshua. I suppressed a groan as my body reacted to the sound of his name. As turned on as I was in the presence of my mate, I was also furious. I stared at the badge pinned to his uniform. Then, I stared at his hand.

  “Kaden,” Sonny said carefully. “Jimmy’s in bad shape, and he’s disappeared somewhere. This man is gonna help you find him and the wolf that bit him, all right?”

  My heart was still racing. My cock was still throbbing. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. My mate was a man, and he was also a deputy sheriff.

  It was the absolute last thing I needed.

  “I don’t owe him anything,” I grumbled.

  “What?” Sonny said. His sheriff companion—my mate—looked equally confused.

  Before either of them could demand that I explain myself, I turned around and stormed off.

  Chapter 3: Josh

  “Hey, wait!” I said.

  The man Sonny had called Kaden was making his way toward the exit, taking my law enforcement dreams with him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I blurted out to Sonny, who simply stood back gaping silently.

  I pursued the biker, keeping my eyes on the back of his leather vest. There was a huge patch of a howling wolf’s head sewn into it, along with the words Black Paw Motorcycle Club in fancy script. He was a good head taller than me and crossed the room in a series of quick, wide strides. Before I knew it, he was out the door.

  Once I got outside, I searched frantically, but there was no visual sign of Kaden. Luckily, I heard the sound of gravel crunching under some heavy boots coming from around the corner. When I followed them, I caught a glimpse of Kaden stepping into the woods.

  “Hey!” I called out just as his wolf patch was eaten up by the shadows.

  I ran, reachi
ng the edge of the woods in mere seconds. The moment I crossed the tree line, I had to lift my knees to wade through the thick, scratchy underbrush, which kept clinging to my pantlegs. I knew Kaden would have an easier time with his heavy-duty boots, and it made me all the more desperate to catch up with him.

  “You’re not in trouble! I just want to talk!” I yelled. I thought I heard a twig snap somewhere and pointed myself in that direction.

  “It’s not safe out here!” a male voice hollered through the trees.

  I froze. “Kaden?”

  “Go back!” a different voice said.

  This time, I grabbed my flashlight from my belt and switched it on. “Who’s out there?” I said, swiveling around with my light. So far, all I saw were tree trunks and the shadowy spaces between them. I continued on in the direction of the voices. “As an officer of the law, I am ordering you to answer me!”

  The foliage got thicker and wilder the further I plunged into the woods. My heart was slamming away, and sweat trailed down the sides of my face and pooled under my polyester uniform. Still, I was determined. This was the most action I’d seen so far in my fledgling career, and I wanted—needed to resolve it to prove myself.

  Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. Immediately, goosebumps prickled up my arms and the back of my neck, and my blood ran cold. I’d never heard a wolf howling in real life, and the sound of it made my entire body react in a primal way.

  It’s only one wolf, I told myself. With a shaking hand, I wiped the cold beads of sweat off of my face and continued on.

  Suddenly, I heard heavy breathing up ahead. Encouraged, I plunged on. “Who’s there? Show yourself!” I said.

  “Go away!”

  Nearly blind in the darkness with only my flashlight, I took one step forward and stumbled out into a small clearing. My flashlight bounced around until I regained my balance, and I shined it onto a scene that perplexed me.

  There was a tall man with a shaved head, standing with his back facing me. Curiously, he was shirtless, although there was a leather vest with the same howling wolf patch hanging from a nearby tree. Just as I shined my light on him, he knelt to the ground and clutched the sides of his head.