Review: Omega Required by Dessa Lux

Title: Omega Required

Author: Dessa Lux

Length: 464 Pages

Category: Mpreg, Paranormal, Shifters

At a Glance: Omega Required may not have offered any new earth shattering plot surprises, but it had romance and compassion in spades, making it a lovely paranormal novel that many who follow this genre will enjoy.

Reviewed By: Sammy

Blurb: An alpha werewolf chasing his dream meets an omega fighting for his life in a strictly temporary marriage of convenience…

Alpha werewolf Beau Jeffries has been going it alone ever since he was cast out of his pack as a teenager for trying to help a human and endangering the pack’s secrets during the tumultuous years when the wider world was learning the truth about werewolves. He hasn’t lost his drive to help others, and he’s about to begin a prestigious medical residency–only to learn that, as the first werewolf the program has knowingly accepted, he’ll have to follow special rules, including the one that requires him to be married when he begins his residency.

Omega werewolf Roland Lea is just trying to survive. After escaping the last and worst in a string of abusive relationships that left him scarred and unable to conceive, he’s found safety in a refuge for homeless omegas. But despite the help he’s getting at the refuge, he just keeps getting sicker instead of better, further and further from being able to make it on his own. When he’s offered the opportunity to sign up with a mate-matching agency, he figures he has nothing to lose. No alpha is ever going to want an omega like him.

When Beau sees Roland’s profile, he knows at once what’s making the omega sick, and he’s determined to help. If he can persuade Roland to marry him, he can save Roland’s life while Roland helps him get through his residency. But will their hasty partnership be enough to bring them both through what’s ahead–and can temporary necessity lead to real love?

Review: Omega Required by Dessa Lux doesn’t necessarily break any new ground in the paranormal genre, but it does leap to the top of the pack for its dedication to portraying males as abuse victims who are often kept hidden from society. While this novel does speak of mpreg, there is no pregnancy, per se, nor is there an overabundance of discussion on that elusive practice of werewolf knotting we often read about in mpreg stories. Rather, this story focuses on the role of communication and how it impacts two young, packless wolves who have mated out of necessity rather than for love.

Because of his desire to treat humans rather than his own kind, Beau Jeffries has found his residency schools of medicine narrowed to a bare few. Most have taken one look and never seen past the idea that he is a werewolf and therefore deemed unstable and dangerous to be around humans. But Beau has wanted to help humans since he was young; in fact, he was tossed out of his pack for trying to help his best friend’s sister, who had cancer. Since then he has been alone, eschewing the need for a pack and, instead, viewing his fellow medical school wolves as a pseudo pack. Now he will be on his own, pursuing his residency and the school he desires, which has one stipulation—marry or else. They would also like him to at least consider a pack, but they will not budge on the idea that he must be married in order to attain residency.

Rory has suffered unlimited abuse at the hands of many alphas since an early age. Born to a human father and packless mother, Rory discovers at the age of thirteen that he is an omega and is sent away by his family to fend for himself with a nearby pack. There he is lured by an older wolf into a relationship that will end with him unable to conceive and hooked on a drug, which he uses to suppress his heat cycle and is slowly killing him. It is paramount to Rory that he not go into heat, as that would make him vulnerable to any unmated alpha, and he fears more of the abuse he has already experienced due to those very circumstances. Now at a sanctuary for omegas and trying to make a life for himself, the effects of the drug are causing him to slide into blindness and liver failure. The head of the center convinces him to try finding an alpha mate through a network set up to protect the omega and give them a choice over who they give themselves to, and this is the way that we find Rory and Beau meeting for the first time.

The two lonely wolves begin an arranged marriage together only to find that their mutual attraction blossoms before long. However, there is so much past trauma for Rory to deal with that even the idea of admitting to Beau he is drawn to the alpha is terrifying. For Beau, the stress of being on his best behavior at the hospital so as not to call attention to the fact that he is a lycan, coupled with his growing desire to care for and love Rory, has got the poor wolf exhausted. Unfortunately for both of these men, something will happen at the hospital that will place Beau in a situation that could turn nasty and dangerous for both him and Rory.

There is much to be said about how the book chooses to narrow in on the prejudices that lycanthropes face when dealing with a supposedly enlightened humanity. Unlike most alpha/omega storylines, this story offered up safeguards to help the omega create a life where they can actually be independent if pursuing a mate is not what they desire. It was these elements that I found refreshing in a genre that almost always paints the omega in a weak, “baby factory” light, with little to no backbone. I grant you that no real new ground was broken here, and there were times when Rory was just too immobilized from fear to even consider standing on his own, but he gets there in the end and that is what makes this novel stand out.

I also enjoyed the gradual awareness the two men had for each other. The desire on Beau’s part not to push Rory beyond what he could handle, both emotionally and physically, made the novel slow down enough that we can focus on their relationship and the growing problems Beau was facing at work. There was an easy wrap-up to a major plot point that left me a bit unsatisfied, but overall, I felt for Beau as he struggled to find his place in a human world. I thoroughly enjoyed the sweet romance that took place in the story, particularly when the two men began to date one another. But the winning factor in this book had to be that we stayed away from making Rory just another wolf that lived to make babies for his alpha. Don’t get me wrong, this theme was definitely present and important, but the author chose to focus on healing the omega she created rather than strict adherence to mpreg norms.

Omega Required may not have offered any new earth shattering plot surprises, but it had romance and compassion in spades, making it a lovely paranormal novel that many who follow this genre will enjoy.

You can buy Omega Required here:
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