The Omega Witch

A Night’s Run

Leaving school grounds proved to be more frightening to me than I realized. My wolf was careful, like me, which I couldn’t help but whisper thanks to the goddess for nearly every time she made a decision. I could feel her mentally kicking at me to stop but I couldn’t. This is far beyond anything I’ve ever done, especially as an unmasked Omega. 

I mean this was legitimately crazy. There really were no other ways to describe padding down the halls and watching her lift her paws so that her nails didn’t hit the old, worn wood. She sniffed at each doorway, calmed by the fact that each one had their contents all at peace and asleep as they were. 

I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much about my classmates or their habits ever in my life and I’m almost sure Damian is that short alpha that told me off before. His smell is just as off as it was in the Great Library… ugh, I want to vomit, I’d know it anywhere. The most my wolf got out of his room was that he also had just cleaned himself and poured a drink, something earthy… bourbon maybe? And of course all I can wonder is just how old he is. Is his age why he showed restraint? 

Now I’ve been lost in my own thoughts for a while, every so often I’m pulled back from it when I hear her tail swish and that sound of a word that Sylvia said rest on the breeze. I wish I knew what it meant. I wonder out loud this time if Zera means something to her or if it’s just a clue, and my wolf stops.

It seems she’s uncomfortable.

Like she knows something is off. Someone’s out here with us. 

I can feel her change, how she tenses and releases herself ready to run in the full cover of the night. It’s intimidating and powerful, like she’s the physical interpretation of my mental abilities. Being open to her feels different now, sort of, I think, how it’s supposed to be. 

When she lets her paws hit the soft muddy ground underfoot, I can feel how much calmer she is here. It's like we were born to be here in the woods. 

My wolf starts to walk off of the property, slowly, completely aware of her surroundings. The new moon, ever present like Selene’s dark eye that follows us. She knows everyone’s path, where they belong, where they’ll rise and how they’ll fall. Nothing about it makes me comfortable, but if it was a vision she sent us, she knows what she’s doing by sending us out like this. 

By the time we’re under a canopy of branches, because that’s all that’s truly here in the north, I sit back in my wolf’s mind, trying my best to listen. Her voice is somewhere…

Maybe if I stop thinking so much, maybe I can hear her. Maybe she’ll want to speak. I cringe at the way that came out, promising that’s not what I really meant. “Not like the humans ask their dogs for…” again I feel uncertain in my words, like I’m only embarrassing myself further. 

I take that moment to awkwardly make my mental exit. It’s time to just listen.

I can hear the way she moves through the twisted wood of the Great Forest, how careful her feet are as she begins to trot up and over the gnarly root systems and I can’t help but really focus on what she’s doing as if it would be on a test later. Again I’m silenced by the way she lunges forward. Her speed is surprising even though it shouldn’t be. We’re known for it, actually. 

She moves across the land the way I imagine Lilith did. Her exhale is just as soft as her inhale telling me she’s not expending much energy to make the distance. It’s amazing really. I watch as we pass through the trees and they turn to blurs of brown and grey. Idly I wonder what color we are, well what color our fur is, unable to see it at night, I remind myself to check in the morning. If we’re still formed as her that is. Only goddess knows just how long we’ll be. 

My wolf growls low in her chest at me, I think.

“We are one Vivian. You should know more about me,” I hear her say to me. 

“I know,” I answer, feeling put in my place. “You know why I don’t, though.”

It takes her another few moments of leaping over stones and into the cold, dark river, before she can return my statement. 

“I do, but it doesn’t mean to ignore my existence.”

“I don’t ignore you,” I gasp. 

“You do too,” she complains. “You don’t know my name and you make me smell like we’re an alpha, and I hate it.”

I’m silent in response. There’s really nothing to say. She knows why and shouldn’t be so stubborn about it. It’s for our protection and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. 

“I want our alpha to find us, Vivian. And if it means taking you for a run in the new moon, that’s what it means.”

“Oh my goddess,” I groan long and loud. “Don’t you think I have a say in that too?”

“You’re say is going to permanently keep us from…”

My wolf stops mid sentence as if something’s got her spooked. We’re miles out. I haven’t smelled anyone since we left and she hadn’t been paying much attention to more than the fleeting birds and critters around us. 

Focus, I tell myself. I can tell she wants to snarl at my choice of words but she holds back waiting on the new change. She points her nose up to the sky, sniffing the air around us. An earthy tone hits us first but I shake my head. We were just running through the woods and been in the river. That smell is us.

She’s not listening though. She knows.

Of course she does. 

She stops mid-inhale and that’s when it hits me. Damian tracked us here.

“Vee,” his wolf calls to me and mine growls, even bares her teeth at him. “Easy now,” he coos and I feel the need to suppress a shudder. It would have shown differently as her and given him the wrong impression. 

My wolf knows to keep moving, and she does. She toes around where Damian’s wolf, snorting in his direction, sure to show her disinterest. She swooshes her tail once, then continues on her way. 

“Wait,” he roars. 

I can feel her roll her eyes at him and I smirk. 

“I thought you didn’t like that,” I say playfully. 

“I don’t,” she assures me. 

“Then why did you?” I try to probe her but she says nothing, listening to how Damian’s wolf continues to follow her.

His footsteps pick up beside her, trotting to keep up, but keeps his silence. 

I have no idea why. 

Miles, it’s been miles and still he can’t get the hint. 

“Why are you following me?” my wolf finally asks, breaking the silence first. 

“I know what you are,” he lets his answer slide, hinting at our designation.

My wolf isn’t amused, asking, “And what am I?” 

She stops and stares his average sized brown wolf down. He looks odd to me. He’s not raging or foaming at the mouth. His eyes aren’t crazed and I don’t feel the need to back down. 

At the same point, he doesn’t respond. My wolf snorts at him, a clear message she isn’t enjoying his presence, then makes her way further south. 

It takes him a beat to realize we’d declined interest in him. His leap in our direction makes my wolf smirk and I feel myself shudder this time. 

“Please don’t tell me you’ll settle for that one,” I pray to her.

“Omega,” he growls. 

And yet my wolf keeps her uninterested pace. This is dangerous. All he has to do is howl to alert every last Alpha hiding here.

I frown at that wondering why he hasn’t and then again why we haven’t picked up any scents.

“Not interested,” I push myself forward in her consciousness. I can tell she’s pissed but I am not laying down for this Alpha.

My wolf stops in her place, digs out some old fallen leaves, pulls up dead grass and soft dirt underfoot. 

“You better not be doing what I think you’re doing,” I hiss at her.

“You can't tell me what to do,” she growls back at me. 

I feel my mouth pop open and lift my finger to assure her that I can too but quickly stop. Fighting with her consciousness will throw her off her game, whichever one she’s playing at, and I can’t... we can't have that. So, I shut up and decided to wait this out. 

Damian, rather, his wolf hasn’t moved from his last spot several feet away from her. I imagine he’s still perplexed that we haven’t bothered with him. What did he think? I’d just lay down and let him take us? 

I gasp at the feel of my wolf dropping to the ground to roll in the earth, finding just the right place for her to call it for the night. 

“You can’t be serious,” I whine. 

She doesn't answer me in words but mentally kicks me as if I can't possibly take the hint and just let her lead. It’s her turn after all. The moon goddess made it so, shifting us like that…  and now I’m in the dirt letting her carelessly flop around like no one’s watching, until she tightens up into a ball, ready to sleep for the night… with Damian there… 

I’m almost positive she’s enjoying herself, given how she just softly breathes, somehow not worried about being around a lurking Alpha. Damian, no less. 

“What’s your problem with him?” she asks in a mocking tone. 

“He’s not our Alpha,” I explain as if that’s the real reason.

“And?” she questions, pressing her ears back to warn him that he’s gotten too close.

“Were you not there when he challenged us? I thought you were always present.”

“I was there alright,” she smirked. “He may have been answering you at first, but he was talking to me. Think about it, ‘you might not like what you turn into?’ Come on V. How much do you know about those pheromones you were putting on us? And how do you know Omegas can’t take care of themselves without it? You don’t.”

“Neither do you,” I hiss. 

Granted, yes, okay… in the beginning it wasn’t safe to screw with them, just like how Jordan and Kristoph had, but it’s been hundreds of years since then. Science has improved. Sure we’re still learning, but my own advancements have gotten me the scholarship to school which is a high honor. I’ve improved the lasting effect of the “scent” when an alpha exerts an extra pair of pheromones that mends the omega’s need for protection with a lasting layer of comfort in his smell. Given the times and the sure fact that we’re Omega, we run the risk of biologically over sharing, and I personally don’t want to over share.

I’m not ready to be a mate and bare pups. 

I don’t even know what I really want to be but mating is going to take that freedom from me. And I am currently really enjoying outsmarting the Alphas. 

“Except you’re not,” she interrupts my thoughts. “Damian still tracked us.”

“Except that’s not Damian,” I nod in his direction, where he still stands. 

My wolf hums to me, then turns to look up at him, giving him her attention now. His ears perk up at her shift in demeanor, staying silent for her to make her first move. His lips part when hers does and I can’t help but wonder just what he’s doing. 

“What’s your name, wolf?”

Wolf! She said wolf! Not Alpha… oh my goddess I could have died right then— I swear I could hear her taunting me with the designation… but she said wolf…

I suppose he hoped she’d call him by his designation the way he straightened up. Being called wolf isn’t exactly a slap in the face but it does take our kind by surprise when it’s said. 

Damian’s wolf snorted at that, then padded forward towards us. I can feel the way my wolf responds to both of us, her muscles tightening, ready to run if she needs to. 

“Easy now,” he calms her. “I’m Takuya. I suppose I should have said something before,” my wolf assumes he’s trying to apologize for more than that but before he can continue sniffing around us she pulls in her hind legs a little closer.

Her tail settles over top of them, another clear sign even in the darkness that we are not giving and he moves over us careful not to touch but an obvious indication that he was there to protect. I feel uncomfortable and yet my wolf allows it, and then she offers him something in return.

Her name. 

“I’m Zera,” she said calmly. 

Takuya turned to look down at her curiously, hell, I’m looking at her the same way. 

“Zera?” he repeats her name. “That’s a rare one.”

Zera hums in approval remarking the same for him. “What’s it mean?” she asks. 

“Pathfinder,” he’s much shorter with his responses now which causes her unease. 

Thank you, I say, reminding her I’m here. 

“Pathfinder?” she repeats. “Who’s path are you on, Takuya?” 

“I’m sure that’s obvious, Little One,” he grumbles, aware that she’s teasing him.

“Don’t call me that,” she hums her warning, lying her head down on her front paws, “You're smaller than me and it’s offensive that you’d use that instead of my name, given your status.” 

Oh, f**k… I whine.

“My status?” he replied, then began to dig out beside me, ready to take his place as the protector. 

“You know,” she paused and let him lay beside her before adding, “the one you’re failing to hold with me?”

If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it. Instead I feel his body heat wrap around my back and it isn’t awful. I pray Zera didn’t hear me think that but I’m sure she did. He grumbles a little sending the vibrations through me, then adds, “You must be packless. I’m just doing my job.”

He doesn’t even sound like he’s sticking it to me but I feel that all the same. So what if I’m packless? What’s the difference at this rate? To be in a pack was to have security up until the pup presented and that determined the worth to the pack, which sounded shitty to me, nothing like the infamous Brother’s pack we still celebrate to this day. Alpha Dane and his mission seemed pretty made up since offshoots of packs steadily rose and did what they felt necessary to provide sustainable life.

Being someone’s property was not in the plans, and if I had to take my chances on my own, I would. 

Takuya’s cold nose tapped her shoulder, alerting Zera to his attention. Before she can say anything more, he asks, “Where are you going that it needs to be done now, in complete darkness?”

Zera sighs as I do. If we tell him he’ll expect us to turn back. Pathfinders and all… I shake my head and so does she. 

“What’s it matter to you?” Zera sighed her question, fighting the urge she felt to get up. 

She didn’t need to look at him to feel how he rolled his shoulders and I could imagine he did the same with his neck before speaking up, “It’s my job to care. You might not understand your role as an Omega but that doesn’t mean I don’t know mine as a Beta. Which,” he snorts at the way her body finally relaxes, “doesn’t mean I’m out of the race for one.”

Zera laughs softly at him, then says, “and what makes you think you’re running with me?”

“I’m pretty sure it was you who thought I could have been an alpha and that alone only ups my chances,” he smirks at her. 

Takuya pressed his front legs down into the dirt and puffed out his chest, and held his head high. He wasn’t positioning himself for her but instead keeping on alert while she rested next to him. He must have been waiting for her response but when it didn’t come he pressed again for more answers. 

“Vivian and I are tracking Jordan,” she says matter of factly. “We’d seen a vision tonight and as you know, time is ever fleeting.”

“As I know?”

“Yes?”

“What do you mean? How would I know that?” he asked incredulously. 

“You were the one who told the story. How don’t know you know? Nothing about it was slow,” Vivian listened to Zera explain. “Nearly everything happened immediately, well, except for the s*x,” she says and isn’t embarrassed in the least. “That was drawn out but I’m pretty sure it’s for male pleasure.”

It was Takuya’s turn to snort at her accusation, but still he remained. “Even if it was, I see no Alpha running with you through the woods to find an invisible target. Jordan—“

“Is alive,” Zera interrupted. “And we’re going to find her.”