Omega Mine- Search for a Soul Mate Page 2

  Hank would have thought the kid was a hypochondriac except that he looked pretty damn cheerful, as though what he really found fascinating was the story he was telling, rather than any true concern about the spread of disease through hand blowers in bathrooms.

  “Wow,” Hank said, without much feeling behind it. “I take it that before applying to be an Omega on a reality tv show you were in the paper towel business, Captain?”

  The kid laughed with his whole body, throwing his head back to reveal a strong throat with an Adam’s apple that bobbed vulnerably. When he stopped chuckling, he said with a grin, “No, of course not.” Then he stepped forward stuck out his hand and said, “Evan Vaughn. Cultural Anthropologist and fledgling professor.”

  Hank shook his hand and said, “Detective Hank Morrow, White Edge PD. Not a fledgling anything.”

  Vaughn chuckled again. “I know, man, remember? You’re kinda the reason I’m here.”

  Hank felt as though he’d been dropped back into his body from a great height. It was an odd sensation, one that left him feeling leaden and flat. He realized that, yes, for the last several seconds while listening to Vaughn talk, he’d forgotten about the applicants shifting restlessly outside of the door, the voices murmuring competitively over who would get to speak with him next, each vying for his time and attention.

  “Right, of course,” Hank said, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  At the end of the night, he was supposed to choose fifteen that he wanted to keep around for a second night, and reject fifteen that would then be sent on to the other Alphas. He didn’t know how he was going to even begin to do that. He couldn’t remember a single name. Except this kid’s.

  Vaughn. Evan Vaughn.

  “So, what’s the score?” Evan asked. “Have you met anyone interesting?”

  Hank looked at him hard and said nothing.

  “Oh, come on. I’m not trying to get any info from you that you don’t want to give. Listen, I doubt you’re going to be interested in me anyway.” Vaughn smiled, chuckling a little. “My research says that you’re more into leggy and blonde than short and hairy, so I’m pretty sure I won’t be on your list tonight, and we both know it.”

  Vaughn dropped into the matching chair on the opposite side of the sinks and gazed cheerfully across the two and a half feet between them. “So, is there anyone out there that you think might fit your bill?”

  Hank cleared his throat and said, “Not that I recall. No.”

  Evan seemed empathetic. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling between. His blue eyes were wide and his brows drawn low sadly. “That bad, huh?”

  Hank shrugged, and aimed to look unconcerned.

  “Maybe in the next batch, then? Who knows?” Evan reached out and touched Hank’s knee, a warm gesture, and he smiled. “You gotta keep your hopes up, man. I mean, surely out of a one hundred and forty Omegas there’ll be someone you click with, right? Positive attitude. It’s more powerful than you think.”

  “Right-o, Captain. Good pep talk,” Hank said sarcastically, and felt a small, strange peace when Evan didn’t seem to react to his tone at all. Not a flinch, not even a moment taken to reinforce his still-present smile.

  Evan, shrugged, and said, “Okay, so, don’t panic. I’ll tell you what, if you get up there and blank out, just look my way and I’ll feed you names, okay? People I’ve met tonight and liked. What do you say?”

  Hank raised a brow. “I say I can handle it on my own. Thanks.”

  “Oh, yeah, totally,” Evan said, smiling and standing up. “Of course you can. Never said you couldn’t.” He stood up then and walked toward the door, pausing before pushing it open, “But remember—if you blank out, I’m your man.”

  The cacophony of voices raised in hopeful expectation dropped to angry tones when they realized that the person exiting the bathroom was not the Alpha but another Omega applicant who had just scored alone time with the object of their fixations.

  Hank stayed in the restroom for another minute only standing up to leave when other applicants decided to ignore his request for privacy and sought one-on-one audiences with him as well, opening a flood gate of sudden bathroom urges in nearly everyone. Hank pressed through the crowd and out to the ballroom again, glad that the night was almost over.

  As it turned out, when the time came and he stood sweating on the stage they’d erected amongst the fake vines and palm trees, he couldn’t remember any names at all. A clinging and grinning Warren held the microphone in front of his face and urged him to choose someone from the crowd.

  “Who floats your boat?” Warren asked on a chuckle.

  Sweat slipped down Hank’s back. He threw his gaze desperately around the room. Hadn’t he thought the girl in blue was kind of smart? Or was it the one in purple? What about that guy wearing the cowboy hat? Had he thought he was funny? At least funny enough for one more day in his presence, or was that the guy he’d wanted to slug for making a stupid joke about the economy? He knew with a deep certainty that he’d rather be having a root canal, or ten of them, than standing there trying to choose between people he didn’t know or even care to know.

  His eyes landed on Vaughn who was motioning desperately at the woman in front of him, mouthing something like the name Debbie or Dabby, probably the first and not the latter, and in a rush of relief at knowing someone’s name, Hank said, “Evan Vaughn.”

  A collective undercurrent of a released breath ran through the room, though nothing loud enough that anyone other than Hank might hear.

  Evan looked stunned, but he quickly said, “Okay, um, yeah. Okay, man. Hold on.” He took a big gulp of his drink and sat it down before taking the stairs up to the stage two at a time.

  Hank’s hands were sweating and his heart was beating so hard that he was afraid he might start to trance on it. He didn’t know how he felt about having chosen Evan first. He wondered if the guys back at the station would think he’d gone a little queer, if they would think that Evan was his favorite, when it’d only been desperation that had made him say the name.

  “And your next choice, Alpha Morrow?” Warren asked, and Hank darted his eyes around, looking for anyone who didn’t repulse him. The blonde that Evan had pointed at…maybe.

  “Debbie,” he said, and she smiled broadly, nodded graciously at him, and mouthed “Thank you” before joining him and Evan on the stage.

  Evan stood to the right of him, and Hank turned to look at him, wishing that Evan could feed him some more names, but it would be too obvious now.

  Evan lifted his eyebrows and smiled, scooting a little closer to Hank. He whispered too softly for anyone else to hear, “Lots of B names here tonight, by the way.”

  B names? Hank coughed. B names. He tried to think of a B name. “Evan,” he said.

  Warren chuckled, “Yes, we understand that you liked Mr. Vaughn, but you’ve already chosen him for tonight’s short list.”

  Nervous rustling around the room, and Hank felt panic rising. He should have paid more attention. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He could smell something warm and soothing, surprising because everyone was supposed to have bathed thoroughly in unscented products before they arrived.

  He exhaled and remembered standing with a young brunette woman who had a kind smile. Her name had been….

  “Markie,” he said, and opened his eyes, hoping he’d gotten it right. He had, and her smile was still kind as she made her way up to the stage, her green shirt and brown pants hugging some nice curves as well.

  He closed his eyes again, took another breath, and again found the scent that centered him. A flash of jeans and brown eyes, something about the girl had made him feel less anxious than some of the others.

  “Barbara,” he said. A B name. He glanced at Evan and gave him a very small smile.

  Evan nodded, and mouthed, “That’s it.”

  Hank chuckled a little, feeling a wave of relief rush over him. He could do this. He only had twelve more names to go
.

  Oh God.

  Closing his eyes again, the names came to him with small rushes of memory—a soft hand was Melinda, a soothing voice belonged to Bernice, and Joe had the cowboy hat and he was funny after all, or at least not annoying, and Bobby was a woman with a Southern accent and blonde hair, and Bitty was a little chubby and somehow smelled like vanilla wafers, and Hank liked vanilla wafers.

  It went on until he’d chosen fifteen applicants to move to the next level. It seemed so arbitrary, ridiculous even, and yet he had to choose. It was part of the program. He kept waiting for something, waiting to feel “it”, but a moment of lust never hit him. He decided that maybe it would happen with the next group of Omegas.

  Tomorrow he’d spend fending off this group of fifteen. After that, he’d choose only three to stay for one-on-one dates, and then those three would return to him after they had visited all of the other Alphas, and, concurrently, the groups now with the other Alphas had visited him.

  At that point, it had to be whittled down even more, several more one-on-one dates would take place, and then Hank would have to meet some of the applicants’ families. It made Hank tense to even think about that.

  But at least he’d made it through the night. Thanks to Evan Vaughn.

  CHAPTER THREE

  David tuned into the first episode along with everyone else in the White Edge Police Department. They’d all agreed that Tuesday night, come hell or high water, everyone would try to make time to watch the show together in the break room of the station, and as Police Chief he wasn’t about to miss it.

  Everyone crowded in, from his assistant Ellie, to her pal from staffing Chantal, to officers from Hank’s team, Ben and Lee. There wasn’t a single person in the station from the secretarial pool to fellow officers who weren’t happy to have their thirst for information about their secretive Alpha, Hank Morrow, finally quenched.

  “He’s always been so mysterious,” Chantal said to Ellie, voicing what everyone was thinking. “When he was first assigned to us as Alpha, I knew he was going to be great at protecting White Edge, but I assumed he’d be more gregarious. Like Alpha Elden was before him. Remember?”

  Elden had been their prior Alpha. A fellow bear shifter, he had been much more chummy with his co-workers. Retired now, he lived with his Omega in the woods far outside White Edge, where they were raising a family of foster-cub shifters and adopted human children. Elden kept his nose out of White Edge PD work now, though, knowing too well the violence that could come from a perceived challenge to Hank’s authority.

  “Show your Alpha respect,” David said with irritation. “He is who he is, and we’re lucky to have him.”

  Chantal ducked her head in submission and dropped the subject.

  But truth be told, David was as curious as she was about Hank Morrow. His heart beat a little faster as the opening credits of Omega Mine began to roll.

  The show itself started out rather dull. The four Alphas were introduced to the audience, including some shots of them at home with voice-overs about why they were looking for an Omega.

  Cameron, Heather, and Fong all had a lot to say on the matter. Especially Fong who waxed lyrical on the subject while boating down the Seine, gazing wistfully into the water. His physique and his sensitive nature had the women in the room swooning immediately, and all of them whispered rueful questions like, “Why can’t our Alpha be like that?”

  Hank was featured in the middle of the group, as though the producers were hoping to downplay his taciturn nature by cramming him between the other three beautiful, talented, and vivacious Alphas.

  His at-home-in-White Edge shots mainly captured him leaning over the railing of a bridge, watching the people pass below, looking serious and possessive of everything around him. “This is my home,” he said. “These are the people I protect. I guess I need an Omega so I can keep on doing that.”

  David rolled his eyes. Hank sounded so lifeless and boring, so uncommitted. What television viewer, much less prospective Omega, was going to be lured in by that? Really, he was a hopeless case. David could only hope that Hank would somehow find someone just as boring as he was to take him on. So long as he and his Omega were committed to protecting White Edge, David couldn’t care less who it was that Hank ended up with. Though, he supposed, as a friend, he hoped Hank would be happy with his choice.

  A few Omegas were interviewed briefly, though there was a longer segment dedicated to an Evan Vaughn who’d apparently been studying Alphas for a while, and was working on his doctorate in Cultural Anthropology with a thesis dedicated to the subject.

  “All tribes of people since the beginning of time had an Alpha. A shifter who protected them and patrolled the borders of their lands…” Evan began, and he elaborated as the cameras followed him around a green, wet-looking campus that looked suspiciously like White Edge’s own Spruce University.

  “It’s fascinating, really, the way that Alphas are drawn to the boundaries, and I mean that both physically and psychologically. They’re the type of people you’ll find dealing with the fringes of society, like drug dealers or prostitutes, because that’s where the bad things happen. That’s where the outside predators can break through and cause problems for their people. That’s why so many Alphas excel in careers in law enforcement or the military. The black and white rules help them maintain their own boundaries, even when dealing with the criminal element.”

  Shortly thereafter it was revealed that, yes, Vaughn was a graduate student and junior professor at Spruce.

  “Why, that’s right here in White Edge,” Chantal exclaimed from across the room.

  “Wonder if they ever met before the show?” Ben asked, voicing David’s own curiosity. “You know, Hank and this Evan guy.”

  David thought that if Hank had met Evan at one of the mixers arranged through the university, then he was sure to be immediately out of the running. Which was too bad, because the kid seemed to have a handle on Alphas and what made them tick, something that David hadn’t expected from someone so young and energetic.

  The first episode concluded with each Alpha picking their fifteen applicants to spend time with the following day. Heather Kallet, beautiful and charming, seemed to have no problem choosing her fifteen, and while Fong was eloquent and poetic about how difficult it was to choose between so many amazing people, he didn’t seem that perplexed by the question of who to give the ax to in the end. Cameron was methodical and systematic, having made notes with a rating system, marking a score by each name. Hank, however, hadn’t seemed to put forth much of an effort the entire evening, and was now obviously panicking.

  When Hank blurted out Evan’s name, it became clear that some of the guys in the room weren’t watching the show because they hoped Hank found the right Omega for him, but rather because they hoped to live vicariously.

  “Aw, man, he didn’t choose that brunette with the great ta-tas,” Lee lamented, running a hand through his hair. “Why would he choose that hairy guy over her? I don’t get it.”

  “Because the hairy guy got his attention,” David said, reasonably. “The brunette with the ta-tas just pushed her boobs in his face like most of the other women there. I think Hank’s looking for something more than some breasts, gentlemen. He needs an Omega.”

  Still, he was curious, too. Vaughn had obviously made an impression, and yet David knew that Hank had never considered a male Omega. As far as David knew, Hank was as straight as a man could come.

  David looked at his watch as the credits rolled and asked, “So, who’s in for tomorrow night? Same time, same place?”

  Nearly everyone was in. David was supposed to have his son, Charles, with him that night but he thought he’d probably be willing to watch the show at the station. Well, as much as Charles was willing to do anything that didn’t entail his friends or a video game these days.

  Walking out of the station, toward his car, David spared a moment to send up a prayer to whatever deity might actually exist that his best cop a
nd his best friend would have some luck on this ridiculous television program. Because if he didn’t, David didn’t want to see what would happen to his friend.

  * * *

  Morning broke while Hank was running on the beach. The territorial markers glowed in the darkness, making it clear that this was his area and his alone. The area just past the markers for about half a mile belonged to no one, and then the next set of markers would begin for another Alpha, one of the three others who were part of these televised shenanigans. Hank wondered how they felt about being strong armed into this.

  The heat of the sun made the air taste and feel differently; it raised the particles of water, and increased the humidity against his skin. He considered shifting, but decided against it. Wet fur was always a pain to deal with when he morphed. He took a deep breath and turned his face to the sun, running toward the water until he felt it rush against his feet, and then turned back toward the resort.

  Long strides brought him to the stairs leading up to the pool area. He paused, hands on his knees, panting lightly. The run hadn’t been long enough to do anything but raise his heart rate a little, but it’d felt good to get out, away from the rustling and bustling of the resort.

  He stopped now, hands on his hips, and listened, checking for movement, activity, or trouble. Not unexpectedly, the predominant noises came from the camera crews setting up, and he knew it would only be a few more moments before he was found and they’d all be on him like fleas on a dog.

  Listening, though, he could tell that the Omega applicants were mostly awake. Many of them were preparing for the day. The hum of hair dryers and the rush of showers filled his ears, and then he heard a ruckus of rather distorted music thumping through a tinny set of headphones. Over it, he heard Evan Vaughn’s voice saying, “Come on, Debbie, give it listen! Can’t you hear how the beat echoes the tribal drums we were listening to just last night? The connection cannot be denied! It’s a thread that runs over continents and throughout history.”