Page 11

IRIAN

The year passed fast enough, I guess.

I was absorbed in my studies, occasionally helping out my mother with Council projects - fund-raisers and the like. I saw my school friends, ran a few cross-countries, and also spent a lot of my time alone. As usual.

My parents were always so busy with their careers, they weren't around a lot. We didn’t speak about what had happened at Christmas, maybe because of my age, which kind of made it irrelevant for now, and maybe because they just assumed because I was an omega I’d meekly go along with their plans.

I’d never really stood up to them, but then again, I’d never had a reason to. Until now.

The reality was, they didn’t actually spend enough time with me to know the kind of omega I was. My parents might be liberal in some respects but they were quite traditional in others – easy enough to be that way if you’re an alpha - but traditional I certainly was not.

And I refused to be anyone's strategic chess piece.

But I was prepared to bide my time. There was no need to rock the boat yet. Ultimately, though, I would do exactly what I wanted, whether my parents approved or not.

Lying in my bed at night, I wrapped myself in the comforting warmth of certainty. I knew what I wanted, though I didn’t quite understand it. But that was okay. I was where I was meant to be right now. I also knew where I was supposed to be in the future and had absolute faith that things would all fall out as they were supposed to. I didn’t need to worry about a thing. The Goddess had everything in hand, and if not, well, I was perfectly capable of organizing my own future.

◆◆◆

As the months passed, and the Christmas holidays grew closer, a sense of anticipation started to rule my days. I was waiting.

School finished for the year, and my parents still hadn’t mentioned holiday plans. I grew impatient. Finally, I took matters into my own hands. I couldn’t wait any more.

“What are we doing for the holidays?” I asked over dinner one night.

“We’ll be staying with Alpha Moray again,” replied my mother, helping herself to more steak. “Same as last year.”

“Good. That was fun. I liked having all those shifters around.”

“Thought you might,” inserted my dad, gruffly. “Seeing as you go to that human school. It’s good to spend time with our own kind.”

I shrugged. I had human friends, and for sure it wasn’t the same thing. For one thing, they’d think it was really weird if I sniffed them, right? But we could still hang out, still have fun.

“I like my friends.”

“You’ll like the shifters more. You just need to spend more time with them.”

To tell the truth, I was a little shocked at my dad’s attitude. Had something changed, or was it just that I hadn’t spent enough time around him to catch on to some of his prejudices? The Goddess knew, he didn’t spend a lot of time getting to know me.

Or maybe it was about knowing and appreciating where I’d come from. Or maybe it was about knowing what – in their minds – I was supposed to do.

Hmm.

“You’ll be staying in the main house with us this year,” my mother announced.

“What? No!” I exclaimed, rising from my seat, already seeing the problems this would cause.

“Don’t argue with me!” snapped my mother. “It’s not up for discussion. It’s already been arranged.”

“But I…”

“Know your place, omega!”

I slumped into my seat, stunned. My mother was an alpha, and I still hadn’t forgiven her for embarrassing me with a compulsion in front of Tal and his friends last Christmas, but she’d never verbally acknowledged the alpha/omega hierarchy with me before. As an omega, I was expected to be submissive. For all the fact I’d had unusual independence for an omega, I realized now that was simply because it had suited my parents to leave me to my own devices. It had meant they could follow their own interests. But now that they had an interest in my future benefit to them – presumably through a union with Alpha Moray’s son – they wanted me to behave like a traditional omega.

This was so unlikely to happen, that I didn’t even bother correcting them. I glowered silently through the entire meal, and as soon as dessert was over, retreated to my room.

I was an omega, but I was no pushover. If they didn’t know their own son better, that was on them, not me.

◆◆◆

Finally, finally, we got to the day before Christmas. At last!

It seemed like I’d been waiting forever and as the kilometers passed beneath our wheels, and the sprawling estates gave way to tall eucalypts blurring past the windscreen, tension filled my gut. I couldn’t wait to see my friend, Tal, again and yet, I was having mixed feelings. A year was a long time. Would he even remember me? He was several years older… maybe this year, he’d see me as the kid I actually still was.

Fuck . Anticipation warred with trepidation. Now I wasn’t so eager to go and find him… what if he brushed me off? What if we had been friends, but we weren’t anymore? That would be worse than never having been friends at all.

By the time the car pulled into the driveway at the Moray compound, my gut had tied itself in knots. I cast an uncertain look towards Tal’s house at the far end of the yard, my incisors abrading the soft tissue of my bottom lip, then I began hauling bags out of the trunk.

The Alpha and his mate were greeting my parents enthusiastically. Mar was nowhere in sight, thank the Goddess.

“Irian,” Alpha Moray nodded at me.

“Alpha.”

“Hello Irian, it’s good to see you again,” the Alpha Mate’s smile was gentle and kind. “Just put those inside the door and Mar will take everything to the bedrooms later.”

I stepped over the threshold, subtly sniffing. Each family had its own distinct scent. Their house always had a strong alpha aspect to it. The Alpha Mate was speaking again, “I’m sorry but my daughter, Elicia, has a friend staying these holidays. She’s an alpha too, so we’ve given her our extra guest room. I’m afraid that means you’ll either have to sleep out here on the couch, or share Mar’s room, Irian.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll sleep in the dorm with the young wolves like I did last year,” I could barely believe my good luck. Staying in the Morays’ house would be as restrictive as fuck. I’d be under the watchful eye of my parents the whole time, and I didn’t think I could stand being under the same roof as Mar for very long either.

The Alpha Mate patted the couch. The fabric was plush and the cushions appeared plump and firm.

“You’re welcome to sleep on the couch, I’m told it’s very comfortable to sleep on.”

“No, it’s fine, really. Sometimes I sleep at odd times during the day,” I lied, “and I won’t want to be in the way. The dorm was fine last year. Thanks anyway.”

Mar entered the room scowling, “You could sleep in my room, y’know, instead. Hanging out with all the pups is hardly appropriate. And boring.”

This guy! I wanted to roll my eyes, but I couldn’t with the Alpha and Alpha Mate standing nearby. Instead, I forced a smile and said, “I had a lot of fun with them last year. They seemed to appreciate having one of the older guys hanging out with them.” And no, that was totally not a dig at Mar, Mr. Future Alpha of the pack. Not much, anyway.

“I don’t know why you’d want to do that,” he scoffed, a disapproving expression on his face. I fumed silently. Like I don’t know my own mind.

I shrugged. “I guess I’m closer in age to them.” Delivered with a smile and deliberately looking oblivious, I got away with it. Then before anyone could try to dissuade me further, I turned back to the Alpha Mate.

“Do I need to take blankets down there or are there already some on the beds?”

“Mar will help you take some down,” the Alpha Mate replied, leveling a stern look towards her disgruntled son. Mar’s scowl deepened but he didn’t say anything. It was only later, as we were carrying the blankets down to the dormitory that he started on the topic again.

“I don’t see why you want to do this. You could sleep in my room. On a spare mattress. On the floor,” he was practically whining. His voice was really starting to grate on my nerves. I had the feeling he was used to getting his own way. Maybe that was the privilege of being the Pack Alpha’s son.

Or maybe he meant well, but I had a feeling I’d be relegated to the floor because I was an omega, while he enjoyed the comfort of the bed. Unlike when I stayed overnight at Tal’s house, where we had always ended up falling asleep on the same mattress – either his or mine - after hours of talking. But then again, I was also quite certain I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a bed with Mar, even lying on top of the covers like I did with Tal.

We hadn’t made it to the dorm, when one of the young shifters spotted me.

“Hey! Guys! Irian’s back,” she shouted as she rushed up to us. Next thing I knew, a pair of surprisingly strong arms wrapped around my middle. The stack of blankets I was carrying wobbled alarmingly, and despite my best efforts to prevent it, toppled.

Whoomp! But they didn’t fall to the floor, landing instead in a squirming, wriggling pile. A tiny hand flailed from beneath the pile of moving blankets, and I grasped it and pulled the tiny pup out. This time the blankets hit the ground, but a pair of pretty green eyes shone up at me, a beaming smile across the young face. It didn’t seem to matter that I hadn’t seen them for nearly a year, these guys were really pleased to see me!

What had I been missing living without a pack all these years?

A low growl beside me reminded me Mar was waiting. He glared at the little shifter getting up from the ground, as if it was his fault the blankets had fallen. The pup totally ignored him. A few other young shifters had gathered by now, all chattering and excited.

I blinked away the blurriness in my vision. They remembered me. And they were happy to see me. It was like… like we were pack. This pack, these shifters, had claimed me as one of their own.

“Hey,” I said. “Let me get myself settled and I’ll come out and play with you guys, okay?”

Excited chattering bombarded us as more shifters gathered, and someone ran off, either to tell the others or maybe to fetch a ball or something. I stepped inside the cool, dark building and tossed the blankets onto the closest free bunk. Mar was a dour presence at my side and I couldn’t help but notice none of the shifters paid him any notice. As Alpha’s son, he would be expected to take over leadership of the pack, when the time came, but if he couldn’t command respect now…

That just made me think of Tal, and I bit my lip uncertainly.

Would he be pleased to see me? I didn’t think I could bear it if he wasn’t, though if he wasn’t, I told myself, I’d just use all my tricks to get him to like me. That was one advantage of the life I’d led so far… I was adaptable and I knew how to get along with people.

Despite my little mental pep talk, however, I was nervous. What if he’d outgrown me? Last Christmas when we’d met, he’d still had one foot half in childhood… this year would be different.

“Are you really going to play with the kids?” Mar grumbled, his voice low and sulky.

“Um…yeah? We had a lot of fun last year.”

“Yeah, but you’re older now… surely, you don’t want to run around playing kids’ games,” he scoffed, derisively. “Why don’t you come back up to the house with me?”

“Well, I promised them. I don’t want to disappoint them,” I pointed out, diplomatically. I briefly considered Tal’s suspicion about Mar’s interest in me, and I shuddered. He didn’t seem to love his pack the way a future Pack Alpha should. I was pretty sure I would hate to be partnered with him.

I reminded myself I was nobody’s pawn. This undesired mating wasn’t going to happen.

“Well, I’ll see you at dinner, I guess,” Mar said grudgingly as we walked out together.

“Sure. Thanks for the help.”

“Welcome.” As he walked off, I noticed how the young shifters scattered around him, trying to get out of his way. I couldn’t help feeling a slither of sympathy. Maybe it was just lonely being the future leader, maybe people treated you differently. I didn’t know him well enough to know.

I didn’t have time to think about it because a moment later a searing pain exploded in my thigh with a loud thwack!

“Yeow!” I yelled, as a grinning youngster raced away, then stooped to scoop up the ball spinning at my feet.

I spent the next hour playing with the young ones, chasing, hiding, pelting balls at each other, though I was careful not to throw them too hard. I might have missed accidentally-on-purpose more times than I actually made contact. And I might have sometimes ‘not seen’ the little shifter creeping up on me out of the corner of my eye. But that was all fine. I was there to have fun, not to win.

The game I wanted to win was an entirely different one.

Excitement levels were high and it wasn’t just my arrival; there was a definite electricity in the air, a sharpness, a sort of magic. It was, after all, Christmas Eve.

As we played, I cast furtive glances down towards Tal’s house. The door was shut, and I hadn’t seen anyone come in or out. Maybe he wasn’t home, but he would be home for Christmas, right?

After an hour or so, I was exhausted, and it was dinner time anyway. The younger shifters I’d been playing with were called in one by one, until it was just me and a couple of the older young ones hanging around under the big tree. None of the older adolescents were out here. In fact, I hadn’t seen any of them since we’d arrived.

Tal’s door still hadn’t opened, or if it had, I’d missed seeing it.

With a sigh, and a leaden feeling in my chest, I got to my feet, brushing off the dirt and leaves. A couple of pairs of eyes tracked mine.

“I guess I better go in for dinner.”

The two shifters looked at each other.

“Are you staying with Alpha and his family?”

They mustn’t have seen me move my things into the dormitory.

I screwed up my nose. “Sort of? My family is, but I’m sleeping in the dorm.” Well, hopefully not all the time, but I didn’t tell them that.

The two shifters exchanged glances again.

“What?” I said.

One of them, the younger one, a shifter with red hair and freckles scattered across his nose, repositioned himself, his shorts scratching noisily on the tree roots.

Finally, he blurted out, “Um… we heard some of the guys talking last year about… something happened at the Christmas lunch you came to… and, you’re back again this year, and um, we were wondering if, um, maybe Mar was, ah, sort of planning ahead…” he finished in a rush. His freckles all but disappeared under the wash of pink that rushed across his face.

Wow! It didn’t take much to start rumors circulating in a wolf-pack. Just a strip of venison.

I needed to shut this down, and fast.

“Nothing’s happening,” I told them, a smile on my face though inside I was raging. “There might have been a bit of a misunderstanding, but there’s definitely nothing…” my hand flapped around in a weird vague sort of gesture, “like that going on.”

“Oh, cool,” the ginger-haired guy nodded, looking relieved. “Pity though. You’re fun. Might liven things up a bit around here.”

“Oh? What? It’s boring here? I can’t imagine that.” I hoped I kept the wistfulness out of my voice. I kind of wished I lived in a pack, now that I’d experienced some time in one. Besides, Tal was in this pack.

“But hey, don’t the ados hang out with you guys sometimes? When I left, you were all playing together.”

“Yeah, sometimes,” the other shifter, a skinny guy with blond hair, joined the conversation. “But Mar keeps telling them not to, and it just gets awkward.” He shrugged.

“Tal got into a fight with Mar over it,” added the ginger guy.

“Yeah, like a real one. Fists and all. Thought they were gonna shift and take it to the next level, but then Alpha came and shut it down. But now, they only play with us when Alpha’s not here to back Mar up.”

“Where’s Tal now?” I asked, bending down and flicking some imaginary dirt off my shorts. I held my breath, pulse thrumming in my neck. My hair, longer this year, brushed over my face.

“He and his friends have been out all day,” one of the boys said.

“They went shopping.”

“No, they didn’t. Alpha sent them off to do something this morning. I think they had to go into the next town.”

“All of them?” My eyebrows displayed my surprise. It would be odd to send all the older boys on an errand the day before Christmas, but it would explain why I hadn’t seen any of Tal’s friends hanging about. They used to spend an awful lot of time loitering under this very tree, but not one of them had been around since I arrived.

“Yeah, think so. Except for Mar. He was the one that came and told them to go.”

Interesting.

“Okay guys, well I’m supposed to be at dinner right now, so I‘m outta here.”

“ ‘Kay, Irian. Catch you later, maybe?”

“For sure,” I threw the words over my shoulder as I headed up to the main pack house, dragging my toes as I went.