No Reservations, Part One by Viola Grace

Chapter Five

Derek and Paul were relieved that they had made it to the wedding. Argus watched his cousin Adra walk down the aisle, and she beamed at him.

It was a nice beta wedding filled with nice betas and a handful of alphas. Argus’s uncle Derek was one of two betas in his family. The other two siblings were alphas. Argus was representing the alpha side of the family. He was the only one who had been friends with the family since childhood. His siblings had other interests.

Olivia’s sister was in the crowd, looking none the worse for wear after her binge the night before.

When it came to Lara, he kept his mind blank. He didn’t want to disrupt the wedding by clawing her up.

The pictures after the ceremony were strange, but he didn’t know why the betas would want pictures of their triad without any other family; it was very possibly for their exotic nature. Feline alphas were not commonly seen and certainly not in a group.

The reception started, and they moved together to their table. Paul and his fiancé were sitting with them, as well as some elderly relatives. The fiancé, Emily, smiled at Argus. “So, what is the difference between feline alphas and the other kind.”

Ambrose leaned over and said, “We don’t bark, and our hands are the most obvious difference.”

Emily blinked.

Ambrose took Dexter’s hand, kissed the back of it, flexed the tip of his index fingers, and the sharp, hooked claws emerged, previously invisible. “Like that.”

Dexter smiled and tapped his forehead to Ambrose’s. “I need my hand back.”

Argus looked back at Emily. “Is that enough of an explanation?”

Emily nodded. “So, you are romantically involved?”

Argus wanted to laugh. It was the head boop between the other two that had got her thinking. Possibly the kiss to the hand. What Emily couldn’t know was that Dexter’s hand still wore Olivia’s scent. Ambrose was paying homage to their omega. The scent would wear off soon, but today, she was with them.

Argus shrugged. “It isn’t particularly romantic, but we fuck when we want to.”

Paul laughed, and Emily blushed.

Ambrose chuckled.

Paul said, “Any luck finding a poor little omega to take you on?”

Argus smiled slowly, his hand near enough to waft traces of Olivia toward him. “Funny you should mention that.”

“Really? Congratulations!”

“Don’t congratulate us yet. There is a long road to go. She is recovering from abuse and heinous torture. The Omega Centre has never seen a case so involved or long-running.”

Paul frowned in concern. “That sounds serious. If she is that bad, how did they let you meet her?”

Dexter answered. “We brought her in.”

Paul scowled. “When?”

Ambrose got an email and checked his phone. He chuckled. “We are going to have to send her some worn clothing, guys. She broke into where they keep the binders and found our scent cards. She’s now gone feral over them.”

Argus snickered at the idea of their little kitten going feral, but he supposed she was a lot scarier to a beta. “We will courier something today. Everyone ready to sacrifice a shirt?”

Dexter murmured, “Boxers. Hell. Both.”

There was a second chime. “And can we send her something to keep her mouth busy.”

Argus groaned, and he wanted to get back in the truck and give her something to wrap her tongue around. Years of repressed sexuality were hitting her at once, and they couldn’t even watch.

Ambrose and Dexter groaned as well.

Dexter smiled. “We should send courting gifts.”

Emily asked. “Courting gifts?”

Argus answered, “Gifts that make sure she is thinking of us.”

Paul frowned. “You didn’t mention her yesterday.”

Ambrose murmured. “We didn’t have her yesterday. We are hers now.”

Argus waited for Paul to make the connection.

“Wait... not Olivia. She’s defective.”

Argus sighed. “No, she had been surgically damaged so that most omega impulses caused her agony and conditioned to hide the benign signs. She was never taken to the Omega Centre. She was taken to a Beta First surgeon, and he mutilated her.”

Paul grew pale. “Oh. God.”

Emily was concerned. “Olivia? Lara’s sister? She’s so funny and sweet.”

Argus nodded. “She is, and she’s ours.”

Paul scowled. “If she is as bad off as you say, how can you claim her?”

Ambrose chuckled. “She claimed us. I think she is just in it for Argus’s big cats, but I will take it.” He put his hand near his face and inhaled deeply, his lids going heavy.

If Argus had thought that he would rather happily sit and inhale a scent off one hand rather than spend an evening out, he would have considered himself insane. But now, it seemed like the most natural impulse in the world.

Dexter filled in a detail. “After she got out of surgery last night, they said that her recovery would be slow, but we can wait. We met her, and she chose us and then confirmed it to the centre. They are going to take care of her and catch her education up as well as teach her what she should already have been taught about being an omega.”

Paul blinked. “You are telling me that her father did that to her? The screaming that Lara always talks about.”

Argus nodded. “They had layers of stitching to connect her muscles and glands together. When they flexed for heat, she was tearing herself apart. The agony lasted as long as the heat did. Lara liked the sound of her screaming. She put a new lock on the soundproofed shed, which is where we found her with her fingertips dug into the wood, blood everywhere.”

Emily had her hand over her mouth.

Argus apologized. “I am sorry. This is not a conversation for a wedding.”

Emily looked grey, but she shook her head. “No. It’s fine. I am training to work with omegas in my practice and was going to ask Olivia if she could give me insight. Now, I wish I had done it sooner. I might have noticed.”

Paul narrowed his eyes. “If she is an actual omega, how did you miss her scent when you got to the bed and breakfast.”

“Well, she doesn’t give up much of it. And she had just mown grass and gotten out of a walk-in fridge. She smelled pleasant, but her scent is similar to a food item, and it was easy to dismiss. She is more mature than an untethered omega has any right to be, so it was easy to look past what my senses were telling me. It was only when she rubbed up against the boys that I started to get a clue. They were sensing what she was hiding.”

Emily frowned. “The boys?”

Ambrose chuckled. “Jaguars. He works for an exotic pet rescue, and these two bonded to him, so he takes them around and educates folks on why keeping them as pets is wrong. Wait. Argus, what was it she said about chickens?”

Argus grinned. “When she offered to let the boys run at night, she said she would mark all of her animals so that the boys knew they were hers and that she was going to have to scent mark the entire flock of chickens. There was something about the idea of her rubbing all those fluffy bodies against hers that captured my imagination.”

Ambrose blinked. “Wow. That is something. Shit. We don’t even know what her body looks like.”

Paul frowned. “Do you need to?”

Argus chuckled. “Eventually, yes.”

Emily smiled. “Wait a minute. There is something from a school website from when she was on the swim team. She was really fast.”

She flicked through sites on her phone and snagged a photo, enlarging it. “This might be inappropriate, but it was when she was fourteen, and she had just won gold for the school.”

Argus nodded. “We are interested in her now, not her then; we just need a reference for scale.”

Ambrose looked at his phone and said, “I am just going to ask for measurements so we can work on her wardrobe.”

Dinner arrived, and Argus copied the reference of the school site so he could find the image again. She had been grinning, head high, proud, and holding a gold medal while other girls had their arms around her. That would have been her omega manifesting. The gaze in the girls’ eyes were slightly unfocused and worshipful.

Emily’s face was right there next to Olivia.

“Emily, were you friends with her?”

Emily took her phone back. “I was. When her father started beating her, I tried to tell our church and the sheriff, but they wouldn’t help. That is when I first learned of the Beta First movement around here. She couldn’t run away, they had taken all of her resources, and when she came back after that visit, she wasn’t the same. She was nervous all the time, moved slowly, would stop, and breathe deeply at random times. If they had done some kind of FGM, that would make sense. It is horrifying but would make sense.”

Dexter scowled. “FGM?”

Ambrose answered, “Female genital mutilation. By removing part of the female anatomy, they remove pleasure and, therefore, the urge to sin.”

Paul sighed. “Yeah, they had a pretty strong presence here about ten years ago. An omega born in their midst must have been a tremendous blessing as far as they were concerned. They could use her to prove their asinine theories.”

The meal could have ceased to exist as Argus asked Emily about his new favourite topic... Olivia. He found out what she had liked, disliked, favourite colours, and that she purred easily when smug.

Emily grinned. “And she loves jerky, spicy pepperoni sticks, that kind of thing. We used to have friendship bracelets of woven threads as well.”

Ambrose got another email; he frowned. “Wow. Okay. Our little kitten has quite the rack.” He laughed. “And she fought them on the measurements until she was told they were for us, and even then, the betas that were around her were hypnotized by her scent. Her heat isn’t waning, but she’s healing well.”

Argus shuddered. “Better we are here then. I don’t want to be near her until she isn’t in pain.”

Ambrose got another picture, and he dropped his phone like it was hot. He whispered, “I asked how her sexual response was doing, and Margot took this.”

Argus looked at the image, and his claws flexed out. Dexter saw it and groaned. Olivia was on her knees, bent back with her thighs wide, the front of her smock was torn, and her breasts were fighting to spill out the tear. Slick covered her thighs, and her hands were cupping one breast and clutching at her inner thigh.

Argus nodded; his voice was thick with a growl. “She seems... better.”

The air around them was thick with alpha pheromones. Emily blinked. “Uh, what’s in the picture.”

Ambrose clutched the image to his chest. “Olivia is doing better.”

Argus muttered, “Send me that picture.”

Dexter murmured, “Me too.”

Argus looked at an amused Paul and a concerned Emily. “There was nothing overtly lewd in the image, but she is getting in touch with her omega biology, and since she has chosen us, we want nothing but to be with her through this. But she is healing, so we can’t.”

The speeches were made, the toasts were made, and the dancing started. After the requisite dances, Argus’s cousin Adra came over. She beamed. “Daddy said you might miss it. Gah, that is strong! Are you in rut or something?”

He smiled at his cousin. “No. Not yet, but probably soon. We found an omega.”

Adra hugged him, despite the pheromones. “Congratulations. Damn, I wish you guys had weddings or something when you did that.”

“We don’t. But once we settle, we may have a party.”

“That would be excellent. Come on, let’s dance.”

He smiled and danced formally with her. He waited, and then, he heard, “Well, who is she?”

“You may know her, but the details can wait for another day. We are hopeful that it is a good match.” He smiled. “Today is your day, and you should not have to think about unpleasant things.” He glanced over and frowned. “Shit.”

Lara Haven was being arrested on the dance floor. The officers of the Omega Centre and the federal representatives were there, leading her out. “Lara Haven, you are being arrested under the Omega Abuse Act. Anything you say can and will be held against you at a binding tribunal.”

Argus blinked. “I wasn’t expecting it to happen that quickly.”

Adra blinked. “Lara? So... the jokes she made about Olivia screaming and her dad slapping her to shut her up...”

“All true. Her dad had a surgeon lock her up, and whenever things flexed during heat… Pain.”

“Oh, god. That is... oh, god. I laughed at her.”

“When?”

“When she came back from the Omega Centre and said she didn’t feel good. I called her a wannabe and a defective and... I was horrible.”

“She never went to the Omega Centre. She’s not registered—well, she is now—but she had no protections, and her sister wouldn’t let her leave the property or have a phone.”

“Oh, god.”

“Don’t cry now. Don’t mess your makeup. But do know that once she recovers, if you invite me and the pride to any events, she comes along.”

“Oh, of course. I am just reeling. So, she’s really a proper omega?”

Argus thought to the image now saved in three places on his phone. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

“Does your father’s pack know?”

He chuckled. “You were the first after Paul and Emily.”

Adra was serious. “Do the boys like her?”

“The cats? Love her. Ambrose and Dexter want to lose themselves in her the same way I do. Well, not the same way as I don’t want them in the room for the first time, but that is weeks and weeks away. I believe we will be insane by then.”

Adra laughed. “Olivia is very sweet, but she has issues.”

“I know. She is in therapy, or she will be within a few days.”

“On the plus side, she is adventurous and patient, so you are going to have a fun time of it.”

Argus grinned. “I am looking forward to it.”