Welcome Frey Ortega to Sunday Spotlight! He's sharing a bit of his recent release, That Damned Alpha (Blackrock Hollow, Book 1)
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Sage Holbrooke was a free-spirited rebel living in a backwaters pack with an overbearing pack leader and a hatred for all things alpha.
But that's because he was born an omega: automatically on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Having to deal with going into heat, alphas going into rut, making sure he wasn't going to be claimed without his consent, Sage lived a life with so many rules that he just wanted to break free. So he did. Anytime he could. With -anyone- he could bend the rules with.
That is, at least, until he met Javi Castellano.
And then everything changed.
That Damned Alpha is a short novel complete at 36,978 words. It involves no cheating, a HEA, angsty omegas, and headstrong alphas.
Excerpt:
Sage Holbrooke never did say he was a shining example of how omegas should be.
He was a hunter—a go-getter—and when something was on his sights, he knew he had to go for it. Tonight, it was the man from across the bar. The man had that glint of danger on him, along with a scent of virility so strong it was almost cloying, and a confident ease that belied every action he took.
This particular stranger was an alpha, and he was hot. Those two things were all Sage needed to know.
The sound of country music played around them, thrumming just under the din of people playing pool and resting after a hard day’s work. There were plenty of guys in the bar, some of whom were eyeing Sage up and down like the tasty morsel that he knew that he was. Others still, were looking at him in disgust, knowing exactly what he wanted and why he was there.
But Sage didn’t care about any of that. His eyes were trained right at this man at the other end of the bar, nursing his drink. The men around these parts usually looked the same, but not this guy. He had a certain…air about him. It was a quality that Sage couldn’t quite explain, but he was definitely attracted to. One look at the stranger, and Sage knew one thing they had in common, however.
They were both not from around here. That was good. There were less chances of any of Sage’s indiscretionsleaking out to his personal life. Small towns and small packs being what they were, some dude from this town could still find their way back to Sage’s hometown, yammer away about what he’s done, and life would become hell of a lot harder than it needed to be.
Truth was, Sage didn’t like “playing” where he lived. People in small towns had a way of yakking and gabbing about the people around them, and Sage already had a bit of a reputation where he lived. They called him a promiscuous omega. Being somewhere new, a couple of towns away, was better for Sage’s sex life. Sure, there wasn’t a gay bar in a hundred-mile radius of his home, but little truck stops like these were good enough for the kind of fun Sage had in mind.
Even if the whole “one-night stand with a stranger” scenario could be more dangerous for him than just becoming a social pariah.
Sage grimaced, and fought off the urge to shudder. He didn’t want to think about that right now. Just focus on finding a guy, and getting laid. That’ll stop you from thinking too much.
And that was really the only reason he would ever decide to leave Blackrock Hollow, anyway. Sometimes, the call of a really good cock could temper any rational thought. Sage wasn’t even in heat, but if he was, he was going to be doubly fucked. Nonetheless, he understood that when a guy needed a good fucking, he really needed a good fucking.
Maybe the desire to get utterly plowed was just one of Sage’s quirks, and not a universal thing. Still, it didn’t really change the fact that he couldn’t do this sort of secret rendezvous with anyone from his small town. People talked. He could only imagine what they’d say in the slightly-larger-than-usual chance that he got pregnant from one of these trysts, let alone if they just found out that the reason he went out of town so often was to have a night of anonymous sex.
He wanted as uncomplicated a life as possible. Finding some guy to have a one-night stand with a couple of towns over was easier, left no messes, and then he could go back to the quiet little hovel he called his home.
Blackrock Hollow, Sage’s hometown, wasn’t even a dot on the map, really. Theirs was a town in the middle of bumfuck-nowhere, smack-dab in the heart of what Sage considered rural America. Blackrock Hollow was about as nondescript a town as a town could be. He couldn’t really troll around for a one-night tryst there. There was barely, like, a hundred people in their town.
Sage inwardly shivered. It would basically be like incest.
The only reason they even functioned as a town was that they had their own post office. And though gay relationships existed in Blackrock Hollow, it was usually a result of an alpha claiming an omega to be their own. Omegas were treated worse than second-class citizens simply because they were different.
It was sickening, but Sage didn’t want to think about that.
But this guy—this man that made Sage’s inner wolf growl and yip and whine and scratch at his insides just to let the omega inside him loose—well, he feltdifferent. First of all, because he didn’t look like he was from around here, the way that people were eyeing him as warily as they eyed Sage. Second of all, because he just seemed to ooze sex appeal. There wasn’t an inch of this stranger’s body that Sage hadn’t ogled by now—well, what parts of him that Sage could see over the bar, anyway. Then there was the scent of him, which told Sage immediately that the man was a wolf shifter, just like he was. The smell in the air called to him like a moth to a flame.
And true, there were plenty of alpha wolves around, but not many who were actually built to lead. This guy didn’t just demand attention, he commandedit, and it was downright intoxicating.
Sage was piqued, maybe even aroused, from the very moment he set his eyes on the other man. It was beginning to win over the anxiety he was feeling. He went from tapping his fingers softly on the bottle, over and over, to actually sipping the alcohol and calming his frayed nerves.
This alpha was all muscle and strength contained in an almost-ratty white shirt. He had tanned, swarthy skin that was ochre in hue. Judging from some mild crisscrossing of slightly lighter-pigmented skin across his hands, some on his chest, and even on his neck, the stranger had his fair share of scars—he’d probably seen a scuffle or two that had turned serious in his time. He had an angular jawline and dark eyes that were downright piercing. His close-cropped black hair trailed down into a thick five o’clock shadow that wrapped around the bottom half of his face.
All that, andhe swigged back a shot of tequila without even so much as a grimace. There was that slightly playful, amused expression on his face, and the sum total of all of those parts put together basically ensured that Sage’s hard-on was stiffer than a board. An erection that was definitively caused by this bronze-skinned Adonis of an alpha.
An alpha whose eyes slowly met his, and they were actually a deep, rich brown in color. Striking. Piercing.
The man grinned. If it seemed possible, the intensity in his eyes seemed even stronger.
Was he interested? He definitely seemed interested.
