Page 4 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

I squeezed.

I couldn’t stop.

I’d probably ruin the severance check if I continued to brutalize the envelope. I wasn’t strong enough to refuse the money. I had to use my other hand to forcibly remove the envelope from my fist. As I pulled it sharply from my tightly gripping fingers, the edge of the envelope sliced into my palm. The sting was nothing compared to the hollow ache spreading through my body. I felt cold, bone-chilled, andexhausted. Two surgeries. Weeks of basic surgical recovery, followed by seven months of brutal physical therapy. Countless hours of stretching until my muscles screamed. Trying my best to stay limber and slim.

Every. Day. Working. Towards. Being.

The dancer I was before the accident.

All for nothing.

"Nelly?"

I flinched at the sound of my name, turning to see Madame Belova striding quickly toward me.

Her silver hair was freshly cut, a blunt pixie that made her hawkish features even sharper. She was my first instructor here, had watched me rise from ensemble to soloist to principal. She was a firm, guiding force, rarely showing emotion. I hadn’t known when I first met her that she knew me before Imperial. She’d seen me dance in California during a pre-professional showcase. I’d been fourteen at the time. The Madame had seen me as a young dancer, one who still needed to build core strength and had a slight pronation problem, yet she knew I’d have a prodigious career. She always claimed she had a sixth sense for these things, one that went beyond sight and conventional dancer assessment.

I wish I could rewind time and tell her how wrong she was to think that, save us both the heartache.

That’s why the hug she’d given me after my first solo dance at the end-of-season Imperial showcase meant so much to me. The petite, stoic woman had embraced me so tightly it was hard to breathe. That career high marked the end of my second year under her guidance. I’d been on top of the world.

When I’d been tapped for first female principal a year later, she’d warned me that flying too close to the sun can burn. She’d quoted a line about Icarus; I can’t recall it now. I suppose, in hindsight, she was my Daedalus. I should have heeded her warning. I’d gotten comfortable and complacent. I hadn’t checked my pointe shoes well. I looked back on that grande jeté now as the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn. A loose ribbon can unravel a life. I still didn’t know how it had happened. I’d always been so very diligent. Checking for frays. Sewing precisely.

Fate.

Cruel fate.

Waiting for negligence with opportunistic tenacity.

She stopped a foot away, her comforting scent of freesia and vanilla clouding into the air as her glands reacted to my own brittle emotions. Motherly. Caring. One inhalation of it threatened to break my tenuous façade. But it was also a reminder of how I’d sacrificed so much for this career. A real social life. A deep relationship that might turn to marriage. My Omega health.

Because I was so lean, body constantly pushed to its limits—even more so these days, since I've been killing myself trying to recover—my heats were either weak or nonexistent. This made my natural smell only a shimmer around me. Whereas I wore the lightest of rose and leather Eau de Toilettes that could be written off as a conventional Beta body spray, Madame smelled as an Omega should, her body alive with its own brand of Eau de Parfum. Once upon a time, in her dancing prime, she probably didn’t smell so wonderful. She was probably more like me, pushing her body to the limit, lean muscle dominating everything else. No heat. No natural mating call reaching out into the world. No different than Beta athletes who stop menstruating.

"I know," she said, her accent thickened with emotion, “what they have done. This is wrong. I spoke for you, chérie. I tried, though it did little good.”

I couldn't speak. If I opened my mouth, I'd scream or sob, and I refused to do either. I wouldn’t give anyone here that satisfaction. Geoff would love to hear that I broke down. How had I not realized what an asshole he’d become?No, not become. He’d always been that way.I’d just ignored every red flag because he was a skilled dance partner. And dating other dancers was just easier. They understood not only the pressure and the dedication it took, but what the strain did to our bodies. Dating a dancer meant I didn’t have to explain why I was aperfect prima, yet an imperfect Omega. He never questioned my lack of heat, bring up truly mating or pups. I thought, someday, he’d leave me for an Omega that could give him things I couldn’t. It was insult to injury that he chose just another dancer. A younger one. A prettier one.

I would have retired eventually.

My body would have recovered.

How well though? Would I be able to easily catch? Could I give anyone children?

Yet, these were always things left up in the air when I chose this life path. I was allowed to push aside my Omega-hood to becoming an artist. Society didn’t frown on it. I never thought I’d have regrets later, should I not marry or pup. Because, behind me would be a prolific career. I’d be remembered.

Now, that wasn’t the case.

Now, I was facing a laundry list of ‘what ifs’ that changed everything.

Now…

Now…

Now…

The word began to be a metronome in my head.

Now, the madame was still speaking.