Title: Second Chance Omegas
Author: Will Okati
Publisher: Changeling Press
Release Date: March 24
Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 394 pages
Genre: Romance, New Adult, Action Adventure, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Gay, Second Chances, Sex/Gender Shifters & MPreg
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Synopsis
Second Chance — a small town where anything can happen — and it usually does.
Only You: Once upon a time a teenaged Alpha fell in love with a pretty Omega from the wrong side of the tracks. Zachary was everything Alex wanted — sweet, sassy, and sexy as hell. Alex would have married that boy if Zachary hadn’t run. When the secrets they’ve been keeping come to light, will they shatter their bond for keeps, or bring them together in a forever kind of love?
Yes, You Are: Everyone assumed petite Darian would be an Omega, and big, athletic Coby would be an Alpha. When they met as teenagers, they had no reason to doubt that was who they’d be. But everyone was wrong. Opposites attract like lightning and steel rods when they meet again in Second Chance, but do they have what it takes to overcome the unexpected for the long haul?
Come for You: Gabriel, a dreamer and a librarian, is so shy and introverted that he’s still a virgin Omega at twenty-five — but he can’t help wishing for a fairy-tale Prince Charming. Meet captivating quarryman Alpha Wynn. For them, it’s love at first sight. But the happy ending is harder to come by. Who will rescue who?
Take You There: Ethan teaches music at the university. He’s not looking for Mr. Right, just Mr. Right Now. A quick, dirty alley encounter should have satisfied him. But now Ethan can’t get Blue out of his mind. The smoldering musician who caught Blue’s eye and what they did in the alley, should have been enough. Until Ethan finds him. And then, everything changes. Again.
Copyright ©2023 Will Okati
Outside, a glance at the sky warned Ethan that snow was on its way. Winter didn’t play games in Second Chance, though he’d been told that what he considered a blizzard was barely a dusting by their standards. Still, he wasn’t feeling the cold just then and like everything else in Second Chance, Carter’s shop wasn’t far. Ten minutes’ walk, and he was there at Old & New.
He paused, just for a moment, to take its measure. From the outside the shop didn’t look like much. One of a small row of shops nestled underneath a four story stack of apartments, probably built a hundred years ago and mostly unchanged since then except for paint and the advent of electricity. Carter might not have heard of that last one. The other stores boasted bright colors and eye-catching displays, but not this one. His had low-wattage lamps that didn’t cut the dimness inside, and piles of clutter crowded into his window.
Or — was it clutter, really?
Maybe not. A second, thoughtful glance told Ethan a different story. Nothing displayed there seemed to go together at first — blown-glass ornaments, a stuffed mourning dove, a tin miner’s lantern — and was that an antique viola? It was, and so old it made Ethan’s fingers itch to touch it. Nestled next to it he saw a single delicate cup that’d been shattered once upon a time and mended with moon-pale gold. The dim light didn’t hinder your view but enhanced it — made treasure out of what other people might have discarded as trash.
This was an artist’s shop. He might mend and fix and make, but he did it all with the kind of subtle skill that took a life’s worth of devotion to master.
That was a man worth falling for.
Ethan pushed open the door and let himself in to the tune of a silvery, soothing door chime instead of a jarring clanging one.
The inside matched the outside. Somewhat. A little more clutter, and a lot more… what was the right word? Ah. Yes. Foreboding. As if Carter hadn’t been able to resist showing off just a little on the outside, but inside his cave of wonders, he kept the emphasis on cave. Almost too dark to see anything by until you got up close and personal enough for a good hard look.
Then, you saw the wonders.
Ethan moved carefully though the haphazard walkways, marveling at everything and touching whatever wasn’t behind glass. Was there anything the man couldn’t fix? Shaker chairs. Meissen china. A whole collection of ship’s clocks and pocket watches and delicate rings. Wax cylinder records with a restored Victrola underneath. Slightly creepy taxidermy. Hundred-year-old Singer sewing machines, gleaming like new. Racks of vintage clothing.
As far as Ethan could see, the only thing missing from the shop was a proprietor.
Ethan turned to the left and the right, searching, but no, there was no one else walking the aisles or stationed behind the counter and a cash register as old as anything else in the shop. Odd. It didn’t track. No one who cared as much about things like these would abandon them. They couldn’t. It would cut them to the bone.
Which meant…
Ethan had a good ear. He’d trained it for years. When he closed his eyes and cocked his head and concentrated, he heard it: a quiet inhale from the far corner, behind a stack of railway trunks.
There.
A turn of his head, and there he was: Carter. Ethan had caught him trying to stand up slowly, maybe planning to sneak out or into the back of the shop, but too slowly for an Alpha on the hunt, who’d caught his scent.
“There you are,” Ethan murmured, drinking him in with greedy gulps. “Found you.”
“You,” Carter breathed. Only that, and no more. Barricaded behind the stack of trunks that came clear up to his sternum, he stayed put like a soldier in a bunker, pressed a hand to his throat and stared back at Ethan. His eyes were blue, a bright silver-blue, huge and unblinking. Ethan remembered those eyes going wide, and the lids falling shut with a flutter of sooty lashes against his pale cheek when he moaned in pleasure.
Those hadn’t changed.
Almost everything else had.
He’d cut his hair. All that beautiful hair gone, trimmed down to a Roman soldier’s crop with a short fringe falling over his forehead. Might have been running his hands through it, for it to stand up in the mess of tangles and spikes that it did. Fingers still slim and delicate, but slightly swollen. A little fuller around the cheeks too? Yes. Not weight gain; the rest of him looked on the edge of too thin — or at least the parts of him Ethan could see. He’d wrapped himself up in at least three layers, coat and turtleneck sweater and who knew what else underneath there, all the visible pieces in varying shades of black that turned his skin from ivory to porcelain. Dark circles ringed those beautiful eyes, and concern started Ethan moving forward, toward him.
“Don’t.” Carter flinched back and brought his hand up to say stop.
Ethan came to a halt, just about leaving a skid mark under his heels. He frowned. “What are you — are you scared of me? Do you think I’m here to hurt you?”
Carter’s hand fluttered and dropped to rest against his throat. His pulse hammered so hard Ethan could see the vein fluttering beneath the thin skin. “What are you doing here?”
Not scared. No. More like terrified, and of him. Ethan’s stomach dropped through the soles of his feet. How was he supposed to handle this? Like dynamite or glass no thicker than a breath?
Or — ah — like a student who’d lost their voice before a recital. Carefully, lest they throw themself off the nearest convenient high ledge out of sheer animal nerves.
Deliberately casual, Ethan tucked his hands in his pockets, and no matter how much he wanted to move toward Carter, stayed put. He shrugged. “Looking for you. Finding you.”
“Why?”
Carter’s face had become a mask, too still in an attempt to cover his alarm to read anything else there, so Ethan kept a careful eye on his body language. He noted the way Carter clung to the edge of those trunks, fingertips curled under, and frowned on the inside. “Because I promised you I would. You don’t remember?” He’d been tipsy, but not hammered or Ethan wouldn’t have touched him in the first place.
“The music. I couldn’t hear anything.”
Damn and damn again. It had been loud in there. Damn. Things were starting to make sense. “You didn’t even get my name, did you?”
“Not the — no.” Carter swallowed hard. He still hadn’t blinked. “How did you get mine?”
“Asked around until someone told me. I’m smarter than I look.”
Carter made a quiet noise of disbelief that made Ethan grin despite himself. “You teach at the college. You’re not a stupid man.”
Oh? He knew that? So Ethan hadn’t been the only one trying to find out a thing or two, just the only one who’d acted on it. Interesting. Ethan wasn’t sure he liked it, but he meant to find out the reason.
“Why?” Carter asked.
“Hmm?” Ethan eased slowly, slowly closer, sizing Carter up while pretending to be more fascinated with a display of trinkets and more of the mended teacups. He wasn’t sure he liked the changes in the man. Those were some dark, dark circles under those unblinking eyes. The man must have had some kind of lizard in his animal bloodline to manage that without going blind on the daily. “Why, what?”
“Why were you looking for me? You walked away.”
“Because I can tell when someone’s over-stimulated and needs a breather. Also thinking you knew who I was and that you wouldn’t mind seeing me again,” Ethan pointed out gently. One step closer, and then one more, keeping his interest surface-focused on the shop’s stock until he could flick his glance upward and catch Carter off guard. “Was I wrong?”
Carter’s tongue touched his full lower lip. “I…”
That was a no, then. Ethan nodded noncommittally. “You have trouble sleeping?”
“I — what?”
“Like you said, I teach. I know what it looks like when someone isn’t getting enough rest. I drink enough coffee that I barely sleep myself, but I don’t think you’ve had an hour or two at a time for a while. Am I wrong? Not that it makes you any less beautiful, mind.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Call you beautiful?” Ethan cocked his head to one side. “You are. Tired or not, you are.”
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Will Okati (formerly known as Willa) has lived through a few Interesting Times, but come out the other side a little grayer, a little wiser, and ready to get writing. Still as passionate about coffee, cats, and crafts as ever, but knowing that to your own self you must be true. Also still one of the quiet ones to watch out for, but life — like storytelling — is always a work in progress.
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