As Nature Intended

By M K Lee

When you first learn that you are an Omega, you learn all sorts of things you never imagined you would need to know when you were growing up. The essentials: Heat suppressants, scent masking, how to handle an Alpha that is scenting you, and of course, the laws that are in place to protect you, in a society that is accepting and progressive, yet still has elements of its attitudes stuck firmly in the past. You also learn that through no fault of your own, or conscious effort, it is possible for an Omega to adjust their body chemistry, to make themselves ready to do what some feel is their sole purpose in life: to breed.

Presenting as an Omega at the age of fourteen, Elliot has grown up cautious, distrustful of the world around him, yet determined to live a fulfilling life in spite of that. He is successful at work, has recently moved into a new apartment, and everything in his world appears to be falling into place. Which is, of course, exactly when his body decides to rebel, forcing ideas and urges into Elliot that he has spent his life trying to deny.

Enter reluctant Alpha, Oskar; as adamant as Elliot that he will not have his life disrupted by what he is, and just as horrified by his instincts as Elliot is finding himself about his own. Should they fight the inevitability that is their bond, that need they have for one another that will not get them a moment’s respite, or give in to just how easy, and effortless it feels between them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: M K Lee
• Release date: Sep 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386912354

M K Lee

M K Lee is a freelance writer who is almost permanently attached to their laptop wherever their travels may take them, writing everything from poetry blogs to language articles and many other things in between.

Book preview

Prologue

It wasn’t any external force that irreversibly transformed the course of humanity. No alien invasion or solar flare engulfed the planet to deprive it of its technology or strip its resources; the finger of blame for what came to be could only be pointed at humanity itself.

After centuries of civil disagreements, wars raged across the globe, and negligence of the very environment that supported it, the human population shrunk from one that was once feared to be unsustainable, to one that was barely enough to keep itself alive.

Evolutionists theorize that life will always find a way, that through genetic mutations and happy accidents, we will continue to evolve. To grow. To exist.

But evolution isn’t always a linear journey. Every so often, evolution reverts to more primitive means that ensure optimum conception and revolutionizes our very DNA.

Chapter One

Elliot remembered with painful clarity the events that had led up to the exact moment he thought his life might be effectively over.

One early evening the week after his fourteenth birthday during a sweltering summer, Elliot was stood on his aunt Ellie’s porch in the still blazing sun, sipping on homemade lemonade, when he first felt an unfamiliar ache in his lower back. He and his cousin Sebastian had been busy playing with the family’s new puppy, chasing it back and forth across the lawn, and in and out of the small cluster of trees at the bottom of the garden for most of the day, so it had taken him a while to notice, acknowledging far too late that the pain had been with him since early that morning.

By the time the sun finally set, Elliot’s skin was glistening with sweat, and a fever raged just beneath the surface like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His pulse raced, his heart trembled with a sense of anticipation, and coursing through his entire body was the palpable need to be ready, all radiating out from a point deep inside himself that ached in a way he didn’t understand.

Aunt Ellie had sent him to bed with pain relief and a soothing kiss to his temple, a grim set to her jaw that told Elliot even then, that she knew something that he did not. And when the following morning came, when that ache and need had him writhing and moaning in unaccustomed agony, leaving him trying to seek friction, and fullness that he couldn’t place, Elliot understood. With quiet horror, he moved, feeling a leaking slickness coming from him that soaked straight through his clothes and the sheets beneath him on the bed, leaving him unable to deny his new truth.

Omega.

An oppressive stillness had come to him then, forcing up memories of biology classes in school that he’d thought he’d tuned out at the time. About how somewhere along the line of humanity, it had become possible for both men and women to conceive offspring, and that from that development was borne the Alpha, Beta and Omega dynamic. Betas carried on much as regular people always had done throughout human history, but instinct drove Alphas to impregnate, and Omegas to get pregnant, with those needs underwriting every aspect of an Alpha or Omega’s life. During a period of population crisis, the allele for Omega had shifted from recessive to dominant, and Alpha to recessive, with geneticists theorizing it was because a single Alpha could impregnate many Omegas, and were therefore in an evolutionary sense far less essential. Elliot remembered joking about telling that to his Alpha friends, and the laughs it had gotten around the class.

Elliot also remembered from those classes the apparent fucked up way the human body chose to reproduce. How once upon a time, many, many generations ago, when the world was evidently an even worse state than it was then in Elliot’s lifetime, women could carry a healthy baby to full term at around nine months. But in Elliot’s lifetime, male Omegas statistically proved stronger breeders, had overall better fertility, could endure gestation periods of almost eight months, where most Beta women, if they made it at all, could barely cope with six. Omega women fell somewhere in between, and considered very rare, but were still at higher risk of complications than Omega men.

That only two genders were legally recognized, when an entire spectrum of creation, and existing was possible between people, would continue to baffle Elliot, even then, in that moment, trapped in a sterile waiting room where he was waiting for his results to be confirmed and unable to stop his thoughts from wandering, desperate for good news.

He had already paced around the room several times, pausing once or twice to glare at his reflection in the mirror to critique his appearance, taking in the family trait of strawberry blond hair that on his cousin Sebastian appeared red in places yet on himself Elliot could only think to describe as dirty. Pale blue eyes stared back at him, accusatory and mocking, goading him into actions he wanted no part of, until he had to turn away, only to be drawn back once again to looking at all his flaws, seeking out a visible reason for his predicament.

Elliot strained to hear the nurse beyond the closed door, but only muffled voices taunted him. The waiting left him incensed with fear, because the last thing he needed was for what was happening to him then to really be happening. But he could feel it intensifying in him, his instincts fighting to be allowed to surface and force him into wanting things he really didn’t want to think about. There was no other word for it; Elliot was frightened. He remembered that first, overwhelming heat, when he’d thrashed and begged for things he didn’t know, couldn’t understand, as his family stood by helpless and unable to do anything for him, and that aching sense of hard arousal so out of place in his innocent fourteen-year-old body that left him feeling wrong, and broken. Corrupted.

He remembered scaring Sebastian, only a year younger than him yet almost the same height, his petrified eyes peering at Elliot through a crack in the door as Uncle Bernard and Aunt Ellie tried to soothe him, tried not to look at Elliot as though he was different, something fearsome to them, because they didn’t really know what they needed to do.

Elliot remembered hearing Uncle Bern’s panicked call to his already-absent father, Carl, and his subsequent though much-delayed arrival, only to glance over Elliot with callous eyes that told Elliot one thing; this was his final failure as a son being what he was.

Remembering all those things, Elliot couldn’t, wouldn’t allow the Omega in him to rise and force such mindless need on him. It would not be his reality, and he would do all he could to fight it, whatever it took. He closed his eyes to the final assault of his most painful of memories. Of overhearing snatches of a phone conversation between his aunt and a doctor. Of being given sedatives, then picked up and carried in gentle, loving arms, bundled into a car and driven to an imposing-looking clinic to figure this out.

The Heat suppressants prescribed for him at the time, a carton of pills pushed across a pharmacy counter into his trembling young hands and clutched there as though they were his lifeline, had worked ever since. He’d lived normal – as normal as he could do, anyway, and more than that, he’d lived well. They couldn’t fail him, not after how hard he had worked.

Those muffled voices he still couldn’t make out were ending their conversation. Elliot swallowed hard and straightened in his chair, then leapt up to follow the nurse as soon as she appeared to beckon him into an office. He sat rigidly and watched her work, precise fingers typing furiously at a computer, not paying him any attention until she had completed what she needed to do.

So? Elliot asked, the moment she looked up at him, because patience was not a gift he’d been blessed with. Tell me.

The nurse looked at him kindly, and it was the worst look Elliot could have hoped to receive. Without her even opening her mouth, enough hesitance in the nurse’s expression for Elliot to know what she was about to tell him.

It would seem, Mr. Roderick, that the reason your suppressors have ceased working to full effectiveness is because your body is ready for you to breed,

***

Despite those being the very words Elliot expected to hear, he felt paralyzed by them, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat at the images that one word conjured for him. Breed, like cattle, like nothing more than livestock, to keep the population going.

The stories of old spoke of times when Omegas were rounded up and confined to be nothing more than that; breeders, birthing child after child after child, with no time in between to allow their fatigued bodies to recover. And to give Alphas something to play with, if the doctors running the centers were slipped enough money on the side, which happened for many years behind closed doors.

It had been only around 30 years ago, that those practices were first admitted to and made public knowledge by human rights activists and whistle blowers working within the repopulation institutions. The first test case, when a former resident of one of those so-called homes managed to successfully prosecute the authorities for willful neglect, had happened when Elliot was about five, long before he had any reason to pay attention to such things.

Society was no longer like that, and Elliot knew he should be grateful for that small mercy if nothing else. But the thought of having no control over his instincts, of seeking out being seeded, of going through all the anguish of a pregnancy alone and then-

Elliot cut himself off again, forcing himself to look back at the nurse with an unwavering scowl, purposely not looking at her name badge, not wanting to know the name of the person he was going to take out his fear and frustration on. Yeah, well, my body might be ready, but the rest of me isn’t, he countered furiously, as though that nurse sat before him was by some means able to fix things, to fix him, to take away the nightmare that was now his reality. To give him back his life.

No, it doesn’t mean that, the nurse confirmed with a sharp nod, it means we need to adjust your dosages, see if we can find a better balance that isn’t going to put you at risk,

Because, of course, the indulgence that was Heat suppressants came at a price. As though to force an Omega to submit, to perform as nothing more than an incubator for new life, the continued use of Heat suppressants could put vital organs at risk. Heart, liver, lungs, kidneys; all of them. At danger of shutting down in the fight to keep the biological urges at bay, and attempt to keep some control over his own body.

Elliot’s anger forced another memory on him of an impassioned debate with Uncle Bern about the unfairness of it all. Of how just because he could theoretically conceive a child didn’t mean that he ever would, or that he would ever want to, and that even if he did, there was no guarantee anything good would come of it anyway. Even Omegas could die in childbirth if there were complications and they didn’t receive the very best medical support.

Bern had let him curse and rage, and eventually cry into his shirt until he’d drained himself of enough fury to allow sleep to claim him. Even thinking of his uncle then sent a wash of calm through Elliot, with Bern having always been the father that Elliot’s own couldn’t be. Carl Roderick hadn’t spoken to his son since the day Elliot had presented, and Elliot had been raised by Bern and Aunt Ellie, who Elliott’s mother had insisted on naming him after the moment she had found out she was pregnant with him.

So, we up the doses, Elliot said, determined, shaking his head to clear it and gripping hard around the edges of his chair, so tightly that it dug into his palms and gave him something else to focus on other than what they were discussing. "Are you trying to tell me it’s riskier than me letting myself- than having me have a full-on Heat, where I’ve no control, and I’m chasing down some goddamn Alpha I don’t know, and getting myself knocked up, and dealing with all the fallout of that?"

The nurse’s lips pressed together in a line of disapproval that reminded Elliot he was wrong to be taking it out on her. But he couldn’t help it; lashing out had always been his knee jerk reaction when he was terrified, no matter how aware he was of doing it. And Elliot couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than losing control, than forgetting who he was, than having instinct force him into pregnancy. Pregnancy that might kill him outright anyway. Any aspect of this thing might kill him, Elliot thought with a bitter laugh, and he glared at the nurse even harder as though holding her responsible.

Mr. Roderick, I can appreciate that this is distressing-

"No one’s forcing you to carry kids you don’t want," Elliot bit back irritably, able to do little but observe the way his Heat surged his temper so much stronger than when it was under control.

Neither is anyone forcing you, she retorted, although you are correct. I am a Beta, Mr. Roderick. I cannot personally appreciate the... the difficulties endured by Omegas and Alphas.

Alphas didn’t have any difficulties, Elliot told himself petulantly. What could be so bad about having Omegas wanting you all the time, and all you needing to do about it was give them what they wanted? Give them what they were begging for anyway? His mind was cruel, immediately putting him in a scenario where instinct had taken over and he was the one doing the begging, the thought making his stomach lurch, and leaving him wanting to tear something apart with his bare hands.

I am sure you are already aware that pregnancy for a Beta woman is equally dangerous – more life-threatening – than it is for an Omega man. Much more, the nurse pointed out, an astuteness taking over her expression then, as she looked at him as though she was trying to get him to see reason, attempting to make him think clearer about the mess his situation was, by making their conversation feel more personal.

Elliot knew she had a point, even if he didn’t want to hear a lecture on it right then. Because again, evolution had completely fucked things up so much that it might be funny if pregnancy wasn’t so deadly. It might have created a way for more of the population to physically carry offspring, but it didn’t appear to have put much thought into how to safely get them out of the body. Especially for women, who could once give birth relatively safely with the correct care and skillful attention; for them childbirth was frequently fatal, for both parent and child. Elliot vaguely remembered hearing something about contractions, birth canals and the different elasticity and strength of an Omega’s womb compared with a Beta woman’s, but, as at the time of reading it, Elliot pushed the thought away, swallowing back another flood of bile.

I have two daughters, the nurse added then, with a slight narrowing of her eyes, and Elliot’s opinion of her immediately changed to one full of admiration. A Beta woman bearing one healthy child was considered by many to be almost a miracle, but two? Elliot knew of only two stories of women doing that, and they were both probably only half-truths lost in the passage of storytelling. He had never met a woman face to face who had been through that and survived. Even his own mother had died whilst pregnant with what would have been a sister for Elliot when he was three, which was probably the reason his father had withdrawn himself from the family as he had done. The comprehension made Elliot humble, and he shifted in his seat, avoiding the nurse’s gaze in contrition.

"Of course, Omegas were practically designed for the carrying part, so it is no surprise that they can go on to successfully have five, six, or even seven children. Again, with the correct medical help," she said; Elliot heard five, six and seven and paled at the thought, though lost a few more seconds to remembering that when he was sixteen he had read about breeding programs that set out to produce the most effective child-bearers, and it giving him nightmares for weeks.

So. Is it possible I did this? I mean- something to trigger this happening? Elliot asked, hating how scared his own voice sounded.

When you first presented as Omega, you learned all kinds of things that you never imagined needing to know, Elliot thought then. The essentials, which for Elliot right then were Heat suppressants, and all the other basics: practicing safe sex if you didn’t want to get pregnant, how to mask your scent, how to say no to Alphas scenting you, and a reminder of the laws to protect you in those situations. But also, that you, through no fault of your own, or even any conscious effort, could alter your body chemistry and unknowingly make yourself ready.

The nurse smiled at him kindly – motherly, Elliot corrected then, as he saw her through a touch less angry eyes. Have there been circumstances that you believe could have caused this?

What kinds of things would those be?

Well, The nurse began to say, and Elliot could tell by the way she fidgeted that she expected her answer would worsen his temper. There are several factors, really. And please remember, Mr. Roderick, that it could be any number of things, a combination of them, or even your body just... deciding. There is speculation that an Omega’s instincts respond strongly when brought into contact with influences optimum for a successful, healthy pregnancy and consequent rearing of a child. A new home, a more stable job, being claimed by an Alpha or meeting your mate-

"I’ve not been claimed by anyone," Elliot bit out, seething. He watched as the nurse fought to hold her tongue, keeping back a perhaps unprofessional, though thoroughly provoked retort.

Mr. Roderick-

I... I did just move though, Elliot added, the thought hitting him out of nowhere, making his stomach drop. "I mean. Quite recently. And- and a few months back I received tenure and I- I suppose that counts as making me more, uh, stable, in terms of life generally and financially. Professionally, obviously,"

The nurse’s lips set once more into a grim line. "It is a possibility, yes. Your own response to your new surroundings and circumstances could trigger the release of hormones informing your body that it is, lacking a better way of putting it, ready."

"I am about as far from ready as it’s possible to get," Elliot protested, dropping his head into his hands.

"And nobody said that you have to be ready, or do anything about this," the nurse replied calmly, studying Elliot as he grew more agitated.

Damn right about that,

We will adjust the dosage of your suppressants, see what effect it has on you. I have your prescription here; you’ll probably know within the next couple of days whether it has been effective or not.

And if it hasn’t? Elliot pleaded, images flaring in his mind along with feelings of desperation that he had no idea how he was supposed to deal with if he didn’t get help.

Mr. Roderick, The nurse told him gently, Omegas... often Omegas live normal, fulfilling lives without the need for Heat suppressants, without ‘giving in to their instincts’. It is just a question of-

Locking myself away and fucking myself raw? Elliot finished for her, flinching at the brutality of his own words and groaning out a mortified apology.

The corners of the nurse’s mouth twitched, telling Elliot she was fighting back a smile, and for some reason that went a little way to soothe him. Elliot, She said then, a softness to the use of his first name, you will find a way to deal with this, Let’s try this dosage change first, okay? Before we think about anything else. One thing at a time,

Elliot permitted his eyes to drift over her name badge, read Magda, and silently offered up a prayer to gods he had never believed in that Magda would somehow be his savior.

***

Sliding a bottle of water from the fridge and walked over to his kitchen window, Elliot glanced down at the park his apartment block looked over, at life going on as normal around him, and told himself to stop being so pathetic. Sebastian was coming over later, and the last thing he needed was him to pick up on his concerns and start being understanding, so Elliot needed to get himself out of his mood immediately.

A final grimace of frustration and he was rummaging around in his satchel for the prescription that was either going to help him get on with his life, or it wasn’t. Elliot slid the box from its paper bag, twice read the instructions, contraindications, and every shred of information he could find, before pressing a pill into his palm and swallowing it back to a chorus of please, please, please bouncing around within his skull. He leaned his palms on the counter for a full minute, waiting as though he might know instantly if the pills were doing as they were meant to, then cursed at himself and grabbed his satchel, heading into the living room to throw himself down on the couch.

It had been around two months since Elliot had first started noticing the changes in himself, starting with him waking in the early hours of a Sunday morning, writhing and moaning and so desperate to be filled, it was like that very first Heat all over again. There had been several occasions since when he had woken the same, and the undercurrent of need had been with him ever since, relentless in its demands.

Elliot’s Heats had never been pleasant, but the past two had been unbearable, with the urge to go out and find himself an Alpha fighting so hard for him to give into it, that Elliot had been beside himself trying to keep control. The shame he felt at how close he had been to canceling his lessons, and how often he’d worked through every toy he’d bought himself to get through his Heats, did nothing but add to his despair.

Elliot had ignored it for as long as he could, even when between Heats that urge became almost overpowering. Then the week before, he had caught himself deliberately following the scent of an Alpha around his local grocery store, then lingering far too long in the poorly lit parking lot, waiting to see if he was going to follow him out. When he had realized what he had been doing, Elliot had frozen, horrified with himself, then thrown himself into the car, locked the door, and shakily made a call to make an appointment.

Because of that early doctor’s appointment and following foul mood that morning, when Elliot had stamped into the lecture hall to teach his class, he had expected to find them difficult and adding to just how terrible he was feeling. Instead, the students had been focused and keen, quickly becoming engrossed in the work they were reading. Elliot left them three hours later, having temporarily forgotten all that was bothering him, reminding himself just how much he loved his work. Countless times he’d lost himself entirely to it, and that day of all days, that was precisely what he needed.

Elliot pulled out the thick wad of papers to grade and dropped them on his lap, deep in thought. Receiving tenure at