Omegas (Vanguards Book 1) Read online

  Sugar stood in front of their door and wiped her sweaty palms on her old, worn jeans. Maybe she should have worn something nicer? Uhg, she had to stop thinking of him. He hadn’t given her a second glance since his arrival. She probably wasn’t his type. That was fine with her. He wasn’t her type either. She preferred men with pulses.

  His sexy half-smile, full of wicked promises and his insolent wink haunted her every thought though. Those blue eyes, broad shoulders, firm body, bald head—She pressed her hands over her face. No, no. no.

  The apartment door swung open, and the demon of her fantasies stood staring at her. Shirtless.

  She snapped her teeth together and jerked back. Words. He stared at her, waiting for her to make words.

  A thin sheen of sweat covered his pale skin as if he’d been doing some vigorous exercises. The circular tattoo she’d glimpsed through his shirt on their first meeting covered his heart, a black snake eating its tail.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Hello, sweetness. I grew tired of waiting for you to knock.” He stepped back and gestured for her to come in. His voice was smooth, so deep it almost throbbed against her breastbone.

  “How do you do that?” She rubbed her chest and his gaze followed her hand.

  “Do what?”

  “That thing with your voice?” It had to be a vampire trick. Something he used to lure young women, but that was silly. All he had to do was take off his shirt.

  Daedalus quirked an eyebrow. “You mean speak?” He tilted his head. “Are you coming in?”

  Chin tucked in and eyes glued to the floor, she crossed the threshold. Once she escaped the possibility of meeting his eyes, she scanned the apartment for the wolf shifters. The place looked cleaner than usual. Five wolves under one roof could make quite a mess. Daedalus must have them running a tighter ship.

  “How did you know I was out in the hall?” Her voice shook a little and she bit her bottom lip to keep silent until she pulled her shit together. Why had she come here? She twisted around, her every breath jagged and her heart out of sync. The oxygen in the room seemed to have vanished. She couldn’t peel her gaze off Daedalus’ half-naked body even if she’d had a crowbar.

  “I have a good sense of smell.” He closed and locked the door.

  Her pulse rocketed at the loud click. “You smelled me?” She shouldn’t be such a fool. Everyone locked their doors in Chicago. Daedalus lived with her friends and should respect her boundaries. Vampires swore to drink only from humans who volunteered their veins.

  Fingers ran through her curls as he walked past her. She twisted, but his back faced her. It must have been her imagination. The touch felt real though.

  He turned to face her. “I heard you walk down the hall too. Why were you waiting?”

  She didn’t know, looking for some courage maybe or a little self-confidence with an internal pep talk. “I was thinking about going back for a book Sam wanted to borrow.” Something unsettling occurred to her. “Can you read minds too?”

  He chuckled and leaned in close, his nose almost touching hers. “Possibly. Are you thinking dirty thoughts?”

  “No!” Her cheeks burned.

  “Then I guess I can’t.”

  Did that mean he was thinking them? Sweat trickled down her back. The shifters must have turned the temperature up in the apartment for Daedalus.

  He brushed past her to sit on the worn, beige couch and tapped the cushion next to him.

  His touch sent an electrical thrill through her body. She sat in the armchair across from him. If she accepted his invitation, she couldn’t trust herself to not jump on his lap. This sudden lack of self-control would get her in trouble. She forced her gaze to focus on his handsome face, but her eyes had their own agenda and roamed over his bare chest. Each time she jerked her gaze back up to meet his, her eyes would meander back down to those well-defined muscles.

  An unfamiliar quiet sat heavily in the werewolves’ living room, where laughter and banter normally filled the space. “Is anyone else home?”

  “No.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, a blatant invitation in his smug smile. “We have the place to ourselves. What did you have in mind?”

  A blush burned over her cheeks taking her to the edge of spontaneous combustion. What she had in mind was to tear her clothes off and fulfill her darkest fantasies, but she didn’t even know him. Wow, where was the thermostat? She needed to turn down the temperature before the werewolves set the building on fire. “Where did the shifters go?” she croaked, her mouth and throat gone dry.

  His smile widened as the burning heat in his eyes turned into amusement. “I’ve sent them on a mission.” He chuckled. “See…” He gestured around the room. “They don’t have a television, and the football play-offs start this weekend. My team is playing and I don’t miss their games.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I have a division of Pal Robi Security housed not far from here, so I’ve sent your friend to steal theirs.”

  She shoved away her irritation at the amusement tugging at the corners of his lips. “You want them to steal for you?” The nerve. He wanted to turn her kind-hearted and some-what naive friends into thieves. It made her blood boil. A mission indeed. She knew hiring Daedalus would be a mistake.

  He leaned against the couch, his arms along the back with a huge smile. “Is taking stuff from yourself stealing? Technically, I own the television.”

  She stood up, hands on her hips. “Will your security see it that way?”

  “No.”

  She stepped closer to him. “This isn’t a joke. Your security might hurt them. Your contract stated they wouldn’t be injured.”

  He stood up, and up, to overshadow her. The sexy smile faded. “Don’t quote my contract to me. A little ass kicking is part of the training. They’re shifters, Sugar, not human. They can take more of a beating than you think, or for that matter, than they think. Shifters heal fast and your friends need to learn more about their nature. If the Omegas—

  “Stop calling them that.” She poked him in the chest and she might as well have poked a wall of granite. Well, she’d showed him…just how weak she was.

  “What? Omegas? That’s what they are.”

  “It makes them sound weak.” She crossed her arms.

  The spark of amusement returned to his beautiful eyes. “Sweetheart, they are weak.” He winked at her snort of frustration. “But once I’m done with them, they’ll be better. If they don’t stop fearing pain, they may as well concede the challenge to the Ayumu pack.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  He cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

  She stood her ground, though her knees did knock a bit. “Instead of fighting. If they can’t win, they should concede or run away.”

  “Who said they can’t win?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his frown growing deeper.

  His question slapped her across the face. “Win? Eric and Robert are computer programmers. Katrina’s a waitress, Tyler’s a real estate agent, and Sam delivers pizza. Not exactly warrior material.”

  “The problem is you see them with only a human perspective. They went against pack instinct to follow their alphas, for whatever reason, and banded together. Do you have any idea how difficult that is or how unique they are? It takes strength of character. They’ll win with some guidance.”

  “What kind of guarantee can you offer them?”

  He shook his head. “None.”

  “They agreed to this?”

  “They didn’t have a choice, sweetness.” His voice became tender as he pushed her hair behind an ear. “I understand you care for them, but coddling them won’t help defend their freedom. Do you want them to be absorbed by the Ayumu pack? Where that alpha can make an example of them?”

  She shrugged his hand away and looked at her feet. “Of course not.” In her book, violence only begot violence. Nothing she would do or could say would keep the Omegas safe. Damn it, now she was calling them that. She hated to admit it, but maybe
Daedalus could help them after all.

  A wistful sigh caught her attention, and brought her head up. Daedalus sat on the couch again, his arms crossed over his bare chest while he watched her with intense interest.

  She sat on the edge of the armchair. “Does it need to be a fight to the death? There has got to be some other way for packs to resolve things.” Shifters were a secretive race and the general public knew very little. This lack of knowledge of course caused issues between the two races. Eric had told her the important bits like challenge fights between shifters to obtain dominance, aka power, in the pack.

  Daedalus’ expression did not soften. “There used to be. The shifter packs have diminished over the centuries due to infighting and territory wars. Many of the young were left untrained with no one to teach them to live by their shifter code. After corresponding with Eric, it became clear pack issues are getting worse, with slavery and crime being among them. The Omegas are damaged goods but young and good hearted. It’s a sad time when a vampire needs to teach shifters how to be ‘pack.’ I’ll do my best to instruct them.”

  “In the ‘ways of shifter code?’”

  He chuckled. “No, they’re not ready.” He grinned and leaned toward her. “Did I pass my interview?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. I didn’t come here to grill you though. I wanted to invite the Omegas to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Their schedule is pretty full. I’ll pass the message on.” He gave her a shy look. “What about me?”

  “Huh?”

  “Am I invited?”

  “Oh, of course. I didn’t know you could eat.”

  “I can’t, but I’d like the company.”

  “Sure, you’re welcome to come over.” What was she doing? First, helping Eric when he became a werewolf, then his pack mates, and now she found herself lusting after a kickass vampire. She had lost her mind.

  Sugar rose to her feet. “I should go.” On the way to the door she could sense his presence close behind her.

  The visit went better than she’d expected. Not an Omega to be seen, but her conversation with Daedalus cleared a few of her concerns. She didn’t think Daedalus would lead them astray.

  It wasn’t every evening she got to spend time conversing with a half-naked, sexy vampire. And at that, she still had her clothes on. Maybe they could be friends. If only he didn’t have this effect on her. There were a lot of good-looking men in the world, but she didn’t obsess about them. Then again, they hadn’t been vampire either.

  He undid the lock and opened the door for her.

  Something he’d said about the shifter packs nagged at her. She looked back at him and tried not to get caught up in the blue of his eyes. “When you spoke of the shifter packs’ changing over the centuries, it sounded like you knew them. You’re very old, aren’t you?”

  He barked a surprised laugh. “What a horrid thing to say.”

  “I didn’t mean... I meant... I’m sorry.” She touched his shoulder, then jerked her hand away. Her fingertips still tingled where they’d touched his skin.

  He continued to smile and took her hand. “I would have said ‘experienced.’” He pressed his full, lush lips to the back of her fingers, his stare never leaving hers. The kiss felt warm and moist. She bit her bottom lip to prevent a moan from escaping.

  The sensation of his mouth against her skin lingered all the way back to her apartment. What should she do? He represented all the things she feared—adventure, violence and passion. All the things she’d made sure were absent in her life. Her boring life.

  Sugar paused outside her apartment and glanced back. She wanted him, but if she fell in love with someone who never aged it would only break her heart.

  * * * *

  Sugar’s taste still clung to Daedalus’s lips. When he’d first caught her scent as she stood in the hallway, he had tucked his practice swords away and hovered by the door. Fear and anxiety intertwined in her luscious smell, but so had desire.

  He hadn’t planned on letting her escape so easily. The shifters wouldn’t return for a few hours so she and he could have fucked. She wanted to. Or so, he thought. Modern women were confusing. One moment she was broadcasting lust in tsunami sized waves then blam, ice walls had risen around her when he told her about the shifter’s mission.

  Her loyalty was admirable, especially from a human. Such qualities grew rarer as her race evolved into technology dependent fools. He also admired the way her worn jeans fit snug to her nice ass.

  Resting his head against the door, he knocked it on the hard wood. He needed to stop thinking with his cock and complete the mission. At first, he’d thought a late-night tryst would be possible, but clearly her relationship with the Omegas involved more than being just a neighbor. When she jumped up in anger at his description of tonight’s mission, and vehemence flashed within her eyes, it took all his restraint not to pull her against his body and kiss her until she begged him to take her.

  An ice-cold shower was next on his agenda. A long one. Getting away from Pal Robi Inc. seemed like a good idea at the time. Who would have thought he’d be at risk of losing his heart? He chuckled. Who would have thought he had a heart? Not him.

  He needed to cool off. Sugar represented all the things tender and gentle he lacked in his existence. She was a good person or at least, what he thought a good person should be like. Since she’d left his chest felt hollow. Not a good sign. None of the boys had claimed Sugar when he’d made a pass at her a week ago, and shifters were pretty territorial when it came to mates. But these boys didn’t act like traditional shifters. He’d better make things clear.

  He intended to have Sugar and if he succeeded, he wasn’t sure he’d ever let her go.

  Chapter 4

  Daedalus tucked his shirt inside his pants while checking his fangs in the mirror to make sure there wasn’t any flesh between his teeth. Maybe he should bring Sugar flowers. Women usually liked that. He knew she kept a meticulous care of her balcony garden. A plant would be a better gift, but where would he purchase one this late at night? His nest did most of these things for him. This was the first time in ages he’d lived outside of it.

  Swiping his hand over his head it came away damp with sweat. What the fuck? Ridiculous. That was exactly what he’d look like arriving at Sugar’s apartment without the shifters. As a Prime he shouldn’t be crushing on a girl. A tiny human with a heart of gold, who stood up to him even though she watched him with a combination of desire and fear. His clan brothers would string him up and use him for target practice if they ever found out.

  No. He’d go over and tell her that nobody, including him, would be able to attend dinner tonight. The end.

  Daedalus left the shifter’s apartment and strode to Sugar’s then knocked once on her door. The angel of his fantasies swung it open. A chaos of her curls made a golden halo around her face and would have taken his breath away if he had any left in his lungs. Her gaze slid past him as if checking for someone else, and her wide smile wavered when she saw he was alone. Clearly, she expected the Omegas, and a sharp pang of jealousy surprised him. He wanted to change her disappointed look and make her want him.

  “I know I promised they’d be over for dinner tonight, but they’re still out running, Sugar. They’ll have to come over tomorrow night.”

  She turned to look out the French doors that led to her patio garden. Rain beat down on the flowers and the wind tore at their leaves. “It’s storming.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her comment and he didn’t understand her concern. The storm front didn’t carry any lightning. A bit of cold rain and wind would break the monotony of the Omegas’ routine.

  Yesterday’s raid to steal a television had been a major failure. He had found the small pack hogtied on the apartment building’s doorstep very early this morning before the sun rose. Good thing the other tenants in the building had still been asleep. His security team had gone easy on the shifters in his view. If running in a storm had Sugar upset,
he’d best keep this hilarious story to himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard.

  Tyler and Robert had yet to speak to him since the incident. Katrina never did talk to him much. Eric and Sam showed promise though. They were “manning-up” to the situation and laughed with him.

  Curiosity got the better of him and he sauntered in, pushing past Sugar to examine the small apartment. The smells of dinner warmed the tidy little kitchen to the right. Books lay scattered and stacked on every available surface in the living room on his left. Layers of thick rugs covered the floors under a collection of comfortable, mismatched love seats. They faced the French doors overlooking her green garden retreat, setting the mood for tranquility. She didn’t decorate by style but by texture.

  He loved it.

  Except something was missing. He sighed and shook his head. “You don’t have a television either. Guess I won’t be watching the football game tonight.”

  She laughed.

  Smirking at the quiet, melodious sound, he shook his head in defeat. He twisted to glare at her. Not for laughing but for being so damn adorable. If she were any sweeter, he’d get a tooth ache. They had the apartment to themselves, the pups were out chasing raindrops, and he’d run out of things to distract him from his lustful obsession with the girl next door. The exit stood a few feet from him but he was moving away from it instead of toward it. Shit.

  She hid her beautiful smile behind her hand and the gesture made her tight pink blouse rise enough to reveal a peek of creamy, soft flesh. The buttons strained between her firm, full breasts. He wanted to rip it open and let those buttons fly.