The Ugly Omega

1.

Fall was getting near. Jake pulled his jacket close to his body, as a gust of wind, rounding the corner, blew through his too-thin clothes. There was no other way. Because his body temperature tended to get higher during his heat cycles, he couldn’t overdress or he risked overheating. The doctor supplying him with heat suppressants had warned him that was the highest dosage he could allow him to take without bordering on the criminal.

“Maybe put on an ad,” the old man had suggested. “Find an alpha who’d accept payment, to take you through at least one heat cycle. Your body will suffer permanent damage, eventually.”

Jake had shaken his head. He didn’t want to experience the delight that had to be getting so close to an alpha, only to have it yanked from him later. What the good doctor didn’t understand was that Jake worried more about his soul than the effects of heat suppressants on his body. Surviving that kind of temporary happiness was doubtful.

And no alpha, even for pay, would want him. Unlike the beautiful omegas who landed excellent marriage proposals, their wombs as pretty as their faces, he was ugly. He’s always been big, big hands, big feet, big everything. But he hadn’t known that to be a problem until he was identified as an omega – later than others – at eighteen.

That explained a lot, such as his attraction to men, which he had only considered to be the kind of desire he would never act on.

“You are an omega,” the nurse had informed him, the consternation in her eyes rivaling his.

“I can’t be,” Jake had argued, feeling his chest as if he wanted to assure himself that he was real and there.

“But you are.” She had stared at him with pity. Jake was big, but he wasn’t stupid. He was nothing like an omega. He wasn’t pretty. His jaw was square and his hair was coarse – that on his head, just like the one growing on his body everywhere. He was a steelworker, for goodness’s sake.

His first heat occurred soon after, and it had been a harrowing experience. Sheets drenched in sweat and cum. Nothing that could truly satisfy him. Sex toys bought with overnight delivery. Risk of dehydration. And the emptiness that followed, which made him feel worse that the unbearable physical itch in his backside.

His foreman accepted his leave of absence without asking too much about what sickness overcame him. But the man was no fool. In time, he understood why Jake’s absences occurred regularly, but he assured him that no one else would know.

“Do you have a guy? People like you usually have, even if they don’t get married and such,” the foreman said.

Jake shook his head.

The foreman nodded. “Then you need another kind of help.”

That was how he’d gotten to the good doctor, who didn’t ask a fortune for the pills and even cared about Jake as a patient.

Jake winced as the wind blew harder. He’d have a drink and go home. His heat would strike soon, and he needed to ask for another break from work. The signs were there, such as the heightened body temperature that spiked announced. One moment he was shivering with cold, and the next he’d feel so hot that he wanted to tear his clothes off his body.

Just one drink.

The Thirsty Dragon was open until ten. The faded badge atop the entrance showed a lame lizard that Jake doubted to have ever been a mighty dragon even in the wee days of that bar. But it would do. Their stout was strong, and the usual clientele surly and uncommunicative. Just like how Jake liked it. As an omega who hid his status, he didn’t have many friends, nor did he strike friendships easily. In the rough part of his world, people mocked omegas. Sure, secretly, they’d all love to bang one of those beauties, but they preferred to talk about them as if they weren’t really human.

“Can you imagine? A man with a womb? Getting preggo, knocked up by one of those fuckers who got lucky at the gene lottery?”

The gossip and talk of sour grapes usually came with envy for the alphas. They were stronger, faster, more intelligent than the vast majority of the population. And they were so handsome that only seeing them in commercials on TV made Jake feel a dull ache in his lower belly. How many times hadn’t he jerked off to the dullest interviews given by alphas who were titans of industry just because there was one of them on the screen? Jake was too ashamed to admit such things.

So he didn’t have many friends.

He pushed the double doors open. The opening was actually quite narrow, but the owner of The Thirsty Dragon thought that the double doors lent the place a certain air, like a saloon from the Wild West. It was all pretty much a steaming pile of bull, but Jake understood people’s needs to pretend. In a world that was hardly fair to those unlucky enough to have been born into mediocrity, they all needed something to hold on.

Jake worked his way through the sweaty, smelly bodies of workers packing the bar tight at this hour, to get to the counter.

He gestured at the bartender, who understood what he wanted without being told anything. Jake was a regular, once a week, on Friday, and he always had the same thing. A tall one, filled with the darkest stout in the city. Heck, it was so black, it could be the best in the entire country.

Jake paid no attention to anyone while the bartender filled his glass from the tap. Because he was such a big guy, people tended to give him a wide berth, even in a crowded place like The Thirsty Dragon.

That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t pushed against from both sides while he waited patiently for his drink. In the mirrored glass at the back of the bar, he caught his reflection. A thick brow, a stern face. Fate had a strange sense of humor to make him an omega. He was nothing like one.

His nostrils flared before he even properly sensed it. A scent. A strong smell, something like old leather, luxurious, expensive, that kind of thing. Jake turned his head, intrigued by it. It was so potent that it covered the otherwise offensive smells inside the bar. Jake found himself in the impossibility to think of anything else but that smell.

Alluring. Masculine. Jake realized with shock that his knees were growing weak and the same sensation in his lower belly, which made him jerk off to interviews of alphas on the TV, shot a wave of pleasure up his spine.

He should just leave. Sweat gathered on his upper lip. What was an alpha doing in a place like The Thirsty Dragon? Jake tuned out the din of the bar. Sudden selective hearing enhanced the sound of beer pouring inside the glass from the tap, someone snorting and belching not far to his right, the pumping of his own blood in his ears.

“Here you go,” the bartender said as he placed the tall glass in front of him.

Jake nodded, his dizziness growing, and searched his pocket for a fiver. That very moment, someone hit him from behind, and he lurched forward, knocking his glass in the process.

The bartender cursed loudly. “Let me just refill that for you,” he said, grabbing the glass. Jake always let the man keep the change, so he could accept a refill on the house.

But he needed to get out. He didn’t dare to pop another pill, since he’d taken too many already. Those suppressants, however, were the only shield he had that could prevent him from making a fool of himself by tearing his clothes off in the middle of a packed bar and asking to get fucked like a penniless whore.

He turned, his feeling of disorientation growing.

“Sorry, excuse me,” he mumbled while trying to cut his way through the bar patrons.

Brawls did happen at The Thirsty Dragon just like anywhere else. Only that Jake had been lucky not to be caught in one until now.

A cordon of bodies broke, a few chaps flying through the air in opposite directions like rag dolls. Like the rest of the bar population, Jake stopped and gawked at the man who had somehow managed to create a circular space around him, by pushing off several patrons at once.

He was a tall one alright. Jake couldn’t be sure, but he believed the stranger was eye-level with him, and that said a lot. He hadn’t yet met anyone as tall as him in real life, let alone taller. Alphas usually—

Alpha. Jake felt his breath hitching in his chest.

The stranger was dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket, wearing nothing underneath. His chest was large, his pectorals impressive. In the wan bar light, his hair shone with streaks of silver that dark it was. And his eyes were a hypnotic blue. A bit of blood marred the corner of his mouth, but he wiped it quickly with the back of his hand.

When he finished, he revealed a madman’s grin. “Come at me, fuckers,” he yelled, and at first, no one moved. “Ha! Bunch of fucking pussies.”

That was enough to make hell break loose. Jake ended up being pushed forward then backwards, as if he was a boat on a stormy sea.

The patrons were sure to give that insolent alpha a beating, no matter how strong he was. The guy had to be out of his mind to test his powers like this, but maybe he wasn’t as bright as most alphas were.

Going against an alpha, hurting him, was a punishable offense. Severely punishable. So Jake argued to him and won, that he only jumped to the stranger’s help because he didn’t want the police all over the place, closing The Thirsty Dragon where they served the best stout in the country.

He pushed people left and right. When he put his mind to it, others stood no chance. What he needed was to get to the crazy alpha and pull him out of there before things got hairy.

It looked like the alpha was in no immediate need to help. He shouted triumphantly each time he planted a fist in a poor chap’s face or kicked the unfortunate sucker who tried to hit him with a chair. Cries of pain, curses, and other choice words surrounded him, which only made him act even more like he was berserk.

Jake finally broke through the enclosure. He was face to face with the alpha, and it only occurred to him then that he’d most likely get the same treatment.

“Want some, big guy?” the alpha asked, licking his lips.

Jake stood there, absolutely dumbstruck. The alpha was a bit taller than him, and from up close, his smell was overwhelming. His face was harsh, but more attractive than anyone else’s Jake had ever met in his life. Jake thought, stupidly, that maybe he wouldn’t mind a punch to the face from someone as handsome as that.

The alpha moved closer, his grin announcing nothing good. But once he was inches away from Jake, his pupils widened, and his grin turned into a smirk.

What could’ve happened next was beyond Jake’s ability to guess. Taking advantage of the lull in fighting action, a short stout man with a bald head and a beard lunged at the stranger with an iron bar, produced from who knew where.

“Watch out,” Jake shouted.

In one step, which he didn’t recall taking, he was between the alpha and his attacker.

He got the brunt of the attack in the side of his neck. Jake had been told many times he had the neck of an ox, but he still felt that. When he brought his hand up, he felt it getting wet. It was only broken skin and not much else, but he still growled like an animal, grabbing the man’s iron bar and twisting it under the horrified looks at those present.

The attacker dropped it and squealed, quite the strange sound for a man his age and weight. Jake towered over him, the bent iron in his hand. Violence, it seemed, could suppress heat better than the old man’s pills, because Jake felt like he wouldn’t mind at all smacking some sense into that fucker.

“You absolute menace,” he heard someone laughing behind him. “Let’s go before these idiots get the gist that they’re actually many while we’re only two.”

Jake felt the pat on his back and then a strong arm grabbing his arm above the elbow and dragging him out, while the patrons of The Thirsty Dragon parted before them like a legendary sea.

***