N.J. Lysk Books

For Janet Lysk-Wolf on her birthday, September 28th, 2020.

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When Lia presents as an omega, she knows her destiny is sealed. But if there is one person she can count on, it’s her best friend… who happens to be an alpha.

Amira would do anything to protect her best friend, but Lia’s been in love with Amira for years and whatever her wolf wants, her heart cannot take what’s not freely given.

Can Amira really give her what she needs, and if she does, will it mean giving up on her own dreams?

A friends-to-lovers romance.

 

 

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Notes: Janet’s idea of Ray & Josh as women really intrigued me, though these aren’t so much female versions of them as two female best friends in a similar situation as the one in “Omega for the Pack”.

Warnings for Omegaverse levels of dubcon.          

LIA  

She wasn’t bitter. It was not that unexpected, was it? Women presented omega every day.

But she wasn’t going to take the first alpha her family shoved at her. Especially not with her mother reminding her that she was bisexual and so shouldn’t she be open to anyone who wanted her? Like she was that desperate, or like she truly shouldn’t have cared about anything else about her partner since she wasn’t discriminating regarding their gender.

She was regretting coming out to her mum now—salt on a wound that wouldn’t heal for a long time.

Lia didn’t care about gender, but she did care about the little forever factor of mating with someone. She cared about trusting this person with her bloody life and wellbeing. And even her dad was acting like she was a kid who needed a little coddling while she came to accept her situation.

“Hey.” Amira’s voice, even over the phone, was better than a litre of vodka down her throat.

Lia splayed on her bed, closing her eyes and exhaling, feeling like she could breathe for the first time since she’d woken up the previous morning and realised her world was ending. “Hey.”

“Oh,” her best friend said softly. “So it’s true.”

Lia flinched, gritting her teeth, not so relaxed anymore. Of course Amira knew, it was impossible to keep a secret in their stupidly tiny pack. “Yes!” she spat.

Amira tsked her tongue reprovingly. “Don’t freak out on me,” she demanded, bossy and determined, just like she’d been at three and five and fifteen. Presenting alpha had made very little difference.

Presenting alpha as a woman was unusual, but it didn’t force you to do anything. For an alpha, all it took was staying away from an omega in heat and they could do as they pleased. And Amira was going off to university in a couple of months.

Not that Lia was bitter about that, either. “Really?” Lia asked. “I don’t get to freak out? My parents want me to choose someone before the next full moon!”

“Oh, wow, but—”

“It’s crazy!” Lia exploded, rolling onto her side and curling up around her mobile. “I can’t…”

“You won’t,” Amira told her firmly. “We won’t let that happen,” she added and Lia didn’t need to ask to know the plural referred to the two of them. Partners in crime, people had always called them.

She wondered if they could manage to be partners in justice, too.

Only…

“Amira…” she started to say, beg really. Because she wanted a solution, but she didn’t want empty promises.

“Lia, it will be fine,” her friend cut in. “I will mate you myself before I let anyone force you to choose a mate!”

The words echoed oddly in her brain for a few beats. “What?”

She heard Amira swallow and for the first time detected some hesitation. “Not mate, like… I’ll help you through your heat.”

The image was both intensely arousing and completely depressing. Lia had kept her crush under control all these years, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less to have the person she… someone she liked offering her a pity fuck.

“But it won’t come to that,” Amira was already saying with her usual confidence. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

AMIRA

Amira was an alpha, and a top student with a bright future who could have chosen from a number of top universities—even if she’d decided to stick close enough to come home on weekends.

She was also a complete idiot.

She had missed the bullet of becoming an omega and if she couldn’t remain a beta—as close to human as a werewolf could be—alpha wasn’t bad. Alphas were still free… as long as they didn’t tie themselves to an omega and the responsibilities that came with that, of course.

She had been more than ready to leave pack territory come next September without a glance back—well, she’d have called and visited, of course. And she’d have invited Lia over all the time…

But now fate had just closed a fist right around her best friend’s neck. And there was no way Amira could stand by and let that happen, not to Lia, who was tough outside but felt so very much, wanted so very much more from life than be stuck with an alpha her parents picked just to get pregnant and… Amira had to exhale and make an effort to stop grinding her teeth.

Her wolf didn’t like the idea of another alpha putting their hands on Lia, either. It was fine, she’d felt that way since she’d presented alpha, like her friend belonged to her somehow.

She did, in the way everyone we love belongs to us. Amira felt a little more possessive of Lia than, say, her parents, but so what? She liked Lia a lot more than either of her progenitors.

Too much, she knew that too.

But she hadn’t let it mess with their friendship all this time and she wasn’t going to start now. Even if she had offered… to have sex with Lia. Even if getting that close would probably confuse her wolf even more than it already was with all the time they spent together, and the way Lia made her feel like she was floating sometimes, an admiring look from her as powerful as the pull of the Moon herself.

Amira groaned and rolled over, burying her face into her own pillow like she had any hope of depriving herself of air long enough to suffocate. It had just been so instinctive to offer help— No, not just help but an actual solution, something Lia could believe in.

Amira didn’t do platitudes; she either could fix stuff or she could shout about it until everyone else at least knew it needed fixing. People said it had always been obvious she’d be an alpha, Amira personally thought it had always been obvious she was not blind or an arsehole. It wasn’t like she hadn’t stepped in to talk her own parents into giving her oldest sister more time to choose a mate when she’d been all of eight years old, did they imagine some gene that hadn’t even been activated could account for that?

Of course, her parents would have probably pointed out science didn’t really understand the process of presentation. It was an excuse the older generation loved—they seemed completely unaware that they’d fallen down on the job of catching up with the times and investing resources in researching those unanswered questions.

At least they knew mating wasn’t necessary to help an omega through their heat.

She carefully clenched her fists so her elongating nails wouldn’t tear her bedding, her breathing was too fast and she… she was aroused. Not wet or anything, just tense, skin hypersensitive like it was hungry for touch, mind focused on sensation in a way that she associated with the wolf.

It was fine, a perfectly normal reaction when thinking about having sex.

Only not that normal for Amira. Not unless she was exposed to an omega’s pheromones.

And that was exactly why she had never told Lia how she felt. She had a supernaturally good nose and ears, and Lia had even started talking about being bi back in Year 8, so it wasn’t… Amira wasn’t unaware she had a good chance if she asked.

But what would have been the point? Lia wanted something more, needed something more than what she could offer. And if Amira’s stupid wolf wanted something else, that was entirely its problem. It could have stayed a beta like most wolves did and saved them all the trouble.

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