I leant in, kissed his cheek, and grabbed my bag, readying to get out.
“Let’s get together, talk strategy about where to go and who to see in the secret season.”
“Good plan,” he replied, “but let’s make it a late meeting. Brunch at the earliest. I can’t party all night and plan all day like I used to. I’m getting old.”
“Pfft…” I snorted at that and then got out of the car.
The night wasn’t so comforting this time as I walked back to the house. There was something empty and lonely about all that quiet, especially when I heard George’s car pull away, but I wasn’t lonely. The light in the lounge room was on when I walked in the door, and Mum was sitting up, reading.
“Mum, you—”
“How did it go?” she asked, a tight smile on her face. “The social columns make it all sound terribly debauched, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
I sank down on the couch feeling flat as a tack. This is why I hated the season with all its hothouse drama bullshit. I leaned back into the plush cushions and let out a long sigh.
“I met Orion’s friends… His mates.”
“Yes, that’s what they’re calling them here too. It’s caused quite the fuss over the years, though I know polyamory is
becoming more popular with the chattering classes. Calls to legalise the relationships are getting increasingly strident, with support coming from the universities.”
Mum peered at me from over the top of her tablet, the light making a mask of her glasses.
“Is this what you want? What your nature requires? From everything I’ve read, omegas get terribly jealous, wanting all of the attention in a relationship focussed on them. I’ve searched extensively for any sort of reference to omegas and polyamory and not come up with anything at all.”
“Mum, everything’s up in the air. No one’s formalising anything. You know the drill, I smell their scents, see how they respond under stress—”
“And gauge whether they’ll be a good fit for you outside the impulses of biology.” Mum smiled, then moved over to stroke my hair. “That’s my sensible girl. I’m sorry. The stories, which I know are probably exaggerated, they just sounded…”
“George has like a million invites to this secret season thing. I’m going to meet hundreds of alphas, Mum. All the kinds of men you like.”
“It’s not who I like that matters, it’s—”
“Mum. I’m tired, and I need to get to bed. Nothing happened, but I will probably go out with Orion and his poly-whatever again some time. I like them. They looked after me tonight, kept me safe, wouldn’t let anyone else talk down to me or boss me around. But I don’t think anything will come of it. They don’t want or need an omega, but they can help me meet alphas who do.”
“Well, yes, Orion’s connections are impeccable. Very well, sleep tight, sweetheart. I’ve got to finalise these figures, and then I’m for bed too.”
“Mum, it’s three in the morning.”
“I know, I know. Soon. Now go.”
And what omega could resist a direct order?
I tumbled into bed after washing off the stink of the club, sniffing my skin until I knew I was clean. But I stopped when I got a whiff of mint, then a nose full of amber in my hair. They’d scent marked me, Marcus and Rhys, no doubt not intending to, but that close contact? I paused under the watery stream, my hand hovering over the shampoo before grabbing it and pouring a handful onto my head. I scrubbed it all away, the feel of their bodies, the smell of them, but even when I emerged out, a panda eyed waif, my mascara now down half my face, my lips still tingled.
Probably because you haven’t been kissed in fucking years, I thought as I swiped a makeup remover pad over my face angrily. I pared back the mask I’d created until there was only me—thin faced, big eyed, looking like a drowned rat rather than some highly desired omega. I shook my head at my reflection, then towelled my hair dry for bed.
Best not to think about that, about the night, about Orion’s steely grip and the prickle of Rhys’ stubble and the bite of Marcus’—
I banged my head against my pillow, as if that would dislodge everything teeming in my head, using my therapist’s strategies to block thoughts like a pro tennis player, until finally, unconsciousness came.
Of course, that was when my boundaries were at their lowest, and there they emerged, from the darkness, four feline creatures, so tall, so big, and all centred on me.
“Are you ready, little omega?”
I didn’t baulk at the name now, dream me breathless and nodding in anticipation as they all closed in, surrounding the old beaten up car. They gleamed in the sunlight like golden gods, and I was their only penitent.
“You want us, omega? You have to say.”