Free The Omega's Mate: by E A Price

dictionary.
    He’d never been one for relationships.  When he first started fighting, a fancy red wolf lawyer from Alexandria had been enamored with him.  For a few months, she’d drive down every weekend to see him, and they’d spend the whole time in bed.  Naively he’d considered her to be his girlfriend, but when he tried to ask questions of her life in Alexandria, she clammed up.  When Cain drove to the city to see her as a surprise, he found she was married with two kids.  Apparently she loved her husband, but he didn’t fulfill her sexual needs.  So, she had taken up with Cain.
    It soon became clear to him that the type of women who approached him, the type who came to his fights, were hero-worshippers.  If he didn’t win the fights, they wouldn’t be interested.  He wasn’t foolish enough to think he was a handsome man.  Women wanted him for his body, and the power he exuded in the fights.  Until meeting his mate, that had been enough.
    But now he wanted so much more.  He wanted to hear her sweet chatter and to share in every aspect of her life.  He wanted to wake up every day with her beside him, and go to sleep with her curled into his arms.  He wanted her stomach thickened with his young.
    When Carly did make up her mind on the color, lemon chiffon, they made short work of the first coat of paint.  Well, mostly Cain did, Carly was a little slow in comparison to the big bear.
    Taking a break, they went to Pizza Moon for a late lunch.  They sat and ate under the scrutinizing glares of Hans and Melanie; not to mention the curious looks of anyone else who wandered into the pizzeria.
    Carly blocked them out and focused on enjoying her mate’s company.  When they returned to her shop, it was to find a note from Rosalee telling them she had to leave and would be back in a few hours.  She signed it off by telling them not to do anything she wouldn’t do. 
    At Cain’s insistence, Carly sat and watched while he painted the ceiling.  He didn’t even need a stepladder.  Carly admired the hard lines of his body, as his shirt crept up the waist of his low slung jeans.  She was teased with inviting glimpses of his yummy, hard stomach.
    After they had started applying another coat of paint to the walls, Cain told her about growing up with his father.  His mother left them when he was a baby, after finding her true mate; he had no idea where she was.  His father worked for a logging company.  Like most Kodiak bears, he did manual labor.  It was unusual to find Kodiaks in office jobs.
    His father died when Cain was 19; from then on, Cain had taken various menial jobs, usually resorting in him being fired for his temper.  He shook away his discomfiture, and admitted that three years ago, and after a string of bad jobs, he found himself homeless.  Carly sent him a wave of encouragement.  He told her how there had been an open audition for cage fighters.  With nothing to lose, Cain decided to try.  He grew up fighting and had a few moves.
    At the audition he destroyed his opponent, a wolf funnily enough.  On seeing Carly’s look of displeasure, Cain skipped through that part of the story.   It ended with him being given regular fights and a steady paycheck.  Soon, he was a popular fighter, and people travelled from all over to watch his matches.
    Carly wasn’t sure how she felt about him fighting, so she kept her mouth shut.
    Carly spoke of her own life, not that there was much to tell.  She grew up in the pack; her mom was an Omega, her dad was a Beta, and they abandoned her when she was a teenager, then she lived with Hans’ family…  Cain growled intermittently as she glossed over the details.
    Talking about his childhood, he admitted his father had tried, but he never really got over the loss of his mother and had taken to drinking.  Cain didn’t admit it in as many words, but Carly understood his father hadn’t been kind.  The she-wolf pressed her hand against her mate’s