The Omega's Mate: (3 page)

Ugh!  And we’re back to Cain!

Carly swung her legs out of bed and wriggled into her slippers.  Well, she wasn’t getting any sleep, so she might as well do what she always did when she couldn’t sleep. 
Bake
.

She might as well try out that zebra cake recipe again.  If it worked, she could include it in her shop.  At least her dream of owning a cake shop was coming true.  Although her love life was looking a bit muddled at the moment, things were going well in other areas of her life.

Yep, that was some comfort. 
Right?

Chapter Four

January 19
th

“Rise and shine sleeping beauty.  Time to go bear.”

The duty cop banged his nightstick against the bars.  Cain grunted, and rubbed his bleary eyes.   The narrow bunk creaked and groaned as he slowly stood up and stretched, filling the tiny cell.  He nodded to his quaking cell mate and made his way out.

Last night the skunk had been true to his word.  He called the cops.  Four patrol cars had shown up.  After a minor scuffle between him and eight cops, they’d finally forced him to shift back to human, and got him into a pair of pants and handcuffs.  He was then invited to join them at the police station. 
He’d tried to decline the invitation, but they insisted
.

He was tossed into a cell with a timid witch, who had been caught perving on his neighbor.  The witch vowed never to break the law again after that night.  Spending a night in an enclosed space, with a raging bear shifter, was enough to scare anyone straight.

Cain swaggered past some very resentful and bruised looking cops.  He saluted them and smirked.  After his freak-out, the enforced incarceration had given him time to think, and put things in perspective. 
Now he was calm, he was cool and he had a plan
.  Even his bear had given up ranting and acquiesced with the plan of attack.

Cain stepped outside to find his fuming manager, Bailey, waiting for him.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!  At least when you ended up in Orlando all I had to do was pay your airfare back, and promise that you’d never return to Sea World.  Have you any idea how much I had to pay that skunk to drop the charges against you?”

Cain shrugged unconcernedly.

Bailey threw up his hands.  “Not to mention the strings I had to pull to make the cops forget about you resisting arrest.  You broke two guy's noses!”

Cain snorted.  “Only two?  I must be slipping.”

“By the way, you can’t go back to your apartment.  That fucking skunk made that very clear!  I had Ethan pack up your truck with your stuff.”  Bailey tossed him the keys.  “You’re welcome by the way!”

Cain forced himself not to smirk. 
Everything had worked out perfectly
.

“I even found you a new place to crash.  Vance says you can take the room over the gym.  See how I take care of you?  Now all you gotta do is roll out of bed, and you can go straight to the gym.  You can head over there and unpack your stuff and start training right now.  Your fight with the polar bear is less than two weeks away.  And that bear is a mean fucker; he’s never lost a match.  You need to take this seriously.”

“Sure, okay.”

Bailey narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  It was unusual for the bear to capitulate so quickly over anything.  He argued his ass off over everything, just to irritate his jackal manager.  Maybe the incident last night had humbled him. 
Doubtful
.  The bear had gotten into worse scrapes before, and they’d just made him more belligerent.

“I’ll see you at the gym later then?” asked the jackal suspiciously.

“Yep.” 

Bailey hesitated.  He was half tempted to hang back and follow Cain, just to make sure he was doing as he was told.  He swore, sometimes Cain was like an overgrown toddler. 
A promiscuous, drunken toddler, but still!

Cain had been fighting for him for just over three years.  When Bailey first took the bear on, he had six other clients.  After seeing Cain fight they were swiftly dropped, so he could concentrate on Cain.  The bear fought like a demon and didn’t even care about getting paid for doing it.  The bear was a gold mine! 
He could just be a little wayward sometimes…

Bailey had once hired a babysitter to stay with Cain, but after the babysitter was found trashed and dancing naked on the hood of his car, Bailey reluctantly agreed to let Cain do whatever he wanted. 
Although, perhaps it couldn’t hurt to get someone to keep an eye on him.

The jackal’s phone trilled.  With some annoyance, he could see it was the manager of the polar bear.  The polar bear’s manager was putting pressure on him to ramp up the tension before the fight.  He wanted the two bears to meet in public and have a few verbal smack-downs, to boost the interest in the fight.  Bailey grimaced.  Cain would never go for that.  He didn’t want to make the fights personal. 
He just wanted to punch something
.

Bailey answered the phone and signaled to the bear.  He began heatedly arguing with the other manager, before jumping in his Lexus and speeding away.

Cain yawned audibly and sauntered over to his truck.  He rummaged through his meager belongings and pulled out a shirt, some boots and his wallet.  Getting in, his bear roared in approval as Cain drove past the gym and onto Rose.

*

“I love it!  It’s perfect!”

Carly was looking at Rosalee’s sketch of her mural.  It was a simple design of a wolf howling against a moon.

Rosalee beamed at the compliment.  They stood in the soon-to-be opened cake shop admiring the job the pack owned construction company had done.  The shop itself used to be a café, so the bare bones were there, including a working kitchen; it had just needed sprucing up a little.  It was located between the pack owned pizzeria Pizza Moon and a clothing shop called Charlie’s owned by a female tiger shifter.  Charlie, the tiger shifter, was married to a bear shifter called Dylan who worked for the pack construction company, and had been in charge of the work on Carly’s shop.  He volunteered so he could sneak and see Charlie every chance he got.

Not that Carly minded.  It thrilled her to see a mated pair who, after seven years and two children, was more in love than ever. 
It gave her hope, but also made her envious.

After consideration, it was decided that the name of the cake shop would be named ‘Cake Moon,' in line with the pizzeria.  Inside there would be a few tables and chairs for people to sit; as well as cakes and bakes Carly would offer beverages including coffee, smoothies and milkshakes.  If things went well, the little wolf intended to sell homemade ice cream too.

Apart from the mural that would be completed in tones of black and white, the bakery would be painted in light pastel shades of yellow, Carly’s favorite color.  There was a long counter for cakes along one wall and swing doors leading to the kitchen at the back.

Rosalee hugged the little Omega.  “I’m so glad you like it.  Now, have you thought about employees?  You’ll need help in here.”

“Actually, I already have two in mind.  I just pray they can stop arguing with each other long enough to make a go of it.”

In a small town like Rose, not much remained secret; within a day of Carly casually mentioning that she was looking for other people who could bake, she was approached by two very unlikely candidates each keen to work with her.

Rosalee looked at her curiously but didn’t say anything.  She tugged on a lock of Carly’s hair.  “Are you alright?  You look a little pale and tired.”

Carly shrugged and reddened a little.  She’d spent all night chasing away thoughts of her bear mate.  When she wasn’t crying over him, she was aroused remembering his acres of taut, hard flesh.  After baking for a while, she spent the rest of the night alternately huddled up in bed, cold at the thought of him being with those other women, and ducking under a cold shower to try and cool her beast’s rampant lust. 
Yep, definitely a screw loose somewhere
.

“I’m fine.”

“Good, because that butthole Bryce isn’t worth losing any sleep, you deserve better than him.  If I could, I’d get Adam to kick him out of the pack.”

Carly broke out into peals of laughter.  “If you did get rid of everyone in the pack who’d upset me at one time, or another, there wouldn’t be many members left.”

Rosalee huffed.  “Yeah well, I still think the way he treated you was lousy.”

Carly smiled calmly.  She didn’t have any ill will for Bryce anymore.  “He just couldn’t cope with me being an Omega.  One minute I’m crying, and the next minute I’m happy.
”  It was too much for an emotionally repressed wolf. 
Not to mention Carly couldn’t get on board with Bryce’s rough bedroom antics.

“His loss,” said Rosalee decisively.  “I don’t know why you went out with him in the first place.”

Because he asked...
  Other pack mates steered clear of her because she was an Omega.  Too much emotional baggage.  But Bryce hadn’t seemed to mind at first.  But then maybe he had just wanted to boast that he had bagged the Omega.  He had worked his way round almost every other available female in the pack.  When it came to the full moon wolves got a little wild and needed to sate this by hunting or sex.  Bryce took advantage of the single females on full moons.  Of course, now the pack was wise to him; perhaps that was the reason he had taken up with a human.

“You’ll find someone much better.  If you want to be fixed up with anyone, just let me know.” 

Rosalee looked at her hopefully, but Carly just shook her head sadly.  Her wolf whined.  She didn’t want anyone else.  She only wanted her mate.

Whilst Carly was a little stung that he hadn’t been breaking down doors looking for her, the wolf wanted to know why Carly hadn’t been doing the same for him. 
Two way street
.

“Thanks but I’m not really interested in being with anyone at the moment.”

Rosalee squeezed her shoulder, whilst Carly’s wolf grumbled. 
Liar
.

*

An hour later Cain stepped out of the Rose Bed and Breakfast, refreshed and ready to start the hunt.  He’d been to Rose once, and vaguely recalled the layout of the small town.  Thankfully his bruises had all but faded; he was looking a little more normal and less like a punching bag. 

The first thing he had done when arriving in town was get a room.  The bobcat, who owned the little Bed and Breakfast, was a little shocked to find the mountain of a bear before her, asking if she had any vacancies.  Eyes bulging, she timidly told him she didn’t think the bed would be long enough for him.

Cain gave her a cocky grin and told her it didn’t matter.  If he had his way, he would be happily ensconced in his little wolf’s bed tonight anyway.  He booked a room for two nights,
just in case she played hard to get.

After dumping his belongings in his room, he decided to freshen up a little.  He was a bit fragrant after his tussle with the cops.  He packed himself into the tiny shower and sighed as the warm water flowed down his taut body.  He couldn’t relax entirely.  He wouldn’t relax until he had his mate where she belonged. 
In his arms
. 

He thought again of her dusky pink trembling lips, her luminous eyes and her silken long hair.  He reached down and fisted his swelling arousal.  What he wouldn’t give to reach out and tangle his fingers in her soft tendrils, to pull those lips to his and taste her.  He bet she tasted as good as she smelled. 
Like freshly baked cookies
.  He was hungry and aroused just thinking of her.  It occurred to him he hadn’t eaten since… well since before the fight yesterday.  He’d never gone so long without food. 
Too busy thinking of his mate
.

Cain imagined how he would stroke his hands down her soft, voluptuous body.  He would knead the ample globes of her breasts with his hands, before taking them in his mouth.  He would feast on her warm, quivering flesh, making her scream and beg for more.  He pumped his cock rapidly, whilst picturing himself plunging into her waiting sex.  She would cry out at the intrusion of his massive manhood, but soon she would dissolve into ecstasy, and she’d be crying for him to take her harder
and faster.  The thought of her beautiful face flushed, lost in a sea of pleasure as she orgasmed was too much.  Clenching his jaw he tensed and exploded; his seed poured into the shower, swirling down the drain.

Cain shook with the power of his climax and the concentration it took not to roar out loud.  He didn’t really want the bobcat to know he was jerking off in the shower. 
People were funny about those kinds of things…

Afterwards, he quickly toweled off and got dressed.  He picked out the nicest clothes he had.  The only pair of jeans and sweater that weren’t ripped, or frayed in any way.  Stepping out into the cool winter-sun, he set forth to find his mate.

Walking along the street, he spied the library and the Sheriff’s station.  He gave the building a wide berth.  He’d never gotten along with cops, and he knew just about all the cops in there were wolves and pack members.  The Sheriff himself was the Beta.  He doubted they would help him; they’d probably be even more protective than Don and Hans.

Next to the station was a place called the Honeypot Diner.  His stomach rumbled menacingly.  He really should eat something.  His bear clamored at him to find their mate; he was wasting time.  Cain demurred and pushed his way into the Diner.  He could eat, and get information at the same time.

Cain got a few open-mouthed stares as he entered.  He was used to it.  His size always afforded him a few looky loos.  A pretty mocha skinned wolf with dark blonde, bouncy hair came over and gave him a menu, and asked him where he wanted to sit.  He opted for the counter.  Easier to chat to people.