Page 61 of Luna Trials

“Come on,” she said. “We can work as a team.”

*

“I love it,” the human woman gushed as the cameraman leaned into the front of the van, showing her the feed on his screen. “This is gold. Look at those babies smile.”

I grinned to myself, knowing exactly what she was talking about and still riding the high of the afternoon. There were so many giggles, so many little hands clinging to my wolf’s fur, and tons of sweet kisses given.

“It was fun,” Fallon admitted.

Yeah it was.My wolf settled down with a tired sigh.

“I’m excited to see the footage.” Edith was smiling.

“Molly might freak out, but this is a cinematic masterpiece,” the assistant kept talking. “I wish all of you would have shifted. Could you imagine the shot with five wolves stalking down the hall?”

“I know why Opal didn’t shift, but why didn’t you?” Fallon asked Cindy.

I glanced at Opal, wondering what else I was missing here.

Cindy’s bright smile contrasted with the scowl still in her eyes. “I didn’t want our dear little Omega to feel alone.”

Omega?

I choked on my own spit.

Those didn’t actually exist… Did they?

“Shut up.” Fallon growled. “She’s obviously trying to keep it off camera.”

“They’re not filming now,” Cindy pointed out.

I was still trying to wrap my head around a real-life Omega as Opal sank further into the seat. They were unheard of, almost mythical in our culture.

A lot of what humans thought they knew about shifters–especially wolf shifters–came from outdated information in the mid to late 1900’s that was based on actual wolf packs mixed in with some folklore. Shifters had been around since the dawn of time, just look at the ancient hieroglyphs, but when magic started to get you burned at the stake, most shifters went into hiding.

Now it was a constant struggle to rewrite the history of our species since shifters started to integrate into modern society over the past few decades.

True, we had Alphas and Lunas leading packs, but that was due to larger pack size and smaller locations we’d been forced into as the population expanded and we struggled to stay in hiding.

Back in the day, when we were closer to our roots, mating season was a time of dispersing where young wolf shifters headed out to find mates and establish their own packs.

But the more we grew over the past two hundred years or so, the harder it became to find territory for new packs. We’d fallen into a hierarchyof government much like the human government systems with the most dominant males and their offspring taking up Alpha positions.

There were other higher ranking wolves, but technically you could change your status. It wasn’t set in the stars. If you had money and strength…

My inner history buff was showing and I drew myself back from the internal lecture.

But one of the things historians got way wrong was calling all lower ranking wolves Omegas. It might have been because of their smaller size and soft demeaners, but Omegas were anything but weak.

They were peacekeepers, blessed with an almost magical ability to soothe the tension in any situation. And it was magic.

My eyes widened, recalling the way Opal’s touch brought a sense of calm to my whole being.

This was the stuff of legends. Omegas were treated like royalty. Revered for their passion and calm. There were rumors of their sexual appetites too which helped to bring fighting packs together, but those could have just been rumors.

“Can you stop staring at me like that?” Opal whispered.

“I’m sorry.” I scooted closer to her. “I didn’t know.”