Page 91 of The Omega's Alpha
Belinda brought the laughter to a comfortable halt and waved her hand in my direction. “But this is quite a first, for you, and for the fashion industry.”
I nodded. “Yes. The first shifter model.” I’d been surprised, and then not surprised, to discover that. “But everyone’s been so very kind. Martin Boari designed this shirt, and Anton Madoni made this necklace.
“I would never have guess you were so new to it—you’re such a natural.”
I chuckled. “Not to hear Martin talk about. He thinks I walk like a duck.”
“Oh, those designers,” Belinda replied, and waved them out of consideration. “So, tell me, because I’ve never met a shifter before—what is it like to be one?”
That was a dumb question, but I’d agreed to it, so, “I don’t know. What’s it like to be human?”
She laughed again and winked at the audience, then turned back to me. “Well, I don’t have a built in fur coat, for one.”
I guessed that I’d asked for that one. “It does keep you warm when running. But it’s hard to explain what it’s like, because I don’t know what being human is like. I do know that our idea of family is different—I have cousins and aunts and uncles all over and we all keep in touch. If I needed something, I would only have to say, and my pack would come. It’s close, I understand, to your idea of an extended family.” I’d deliberately misunderstood her, keeping my own agenda in mind. “We look out for each other.”
She nodded, accepting the answer and moving on to her next question. “So, I understand that the modeling is more than a job for you, but actually ties into your pack.”
Here was the question that I’d insisted on. “Yes, it is. You see, back in November, there was a fire in one of the enclaves, Green Moon. They lost most of their houses, something like eighty percent of them. All their food stores. Pack members. It was horrible.” I stopped and took a breath. “We took in nearly twenty-five hundred of them at Mercy Hills—adults, children, the elderly. The money I earn from this goes into the coffers of Mercy Hills to support them. To replace what they’ve lost, to pay for their medical care. A lot of them were burned, the ones who survived.”
“And I understand that the packs were left to take care of these people mostly on their own.” Belinda’s tone was still light, but there was something darker and more serious underneath her words.
“I didn’t pay much attention to the finances, but yes. There was some money from different foundations, but only the main pack buildings were insured and Green Moon is still fighting to get the insurance companies to make good on their policies.”
“And no government help?”
“Some. Not much. We’re stretched to the limits, for food, for clothing. For housing in particular—we have families crammed into every corner.” I grinned. “The pups are happy to have so many new friends to play with, but pups could sleep on a bed of nails if that’s all they had. Our older pack members need something a little more comfortable.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my crossed legs and lacing my fingers together. “As a pack, everything we earn goes into pack coffers, and every member of the pack is guaranteed a roof over their head, food in their bellies, and safety. The pack pays for everything, and the packmembers work at jobs necessary to run the enclave in exchange.”
“Very communist,” she said, but I’d been expecting that response too.
I shrugged casually and leaned back in my chair. “Pack is family and more than. We do not leave family to starve, or live without shelter. It is the way we are.”
“An admirable sentiment. So, everything you make from the shows and the ad campaign, that all goes to the pack and you get…nothing?”
“Oh, not nothing.” I smiled. “The pack doesn’t keep everything, for certain. It’s rather complicated, and I really couldn’t explain it. I suppose the best explanation is that the money the pack would normally credit to me for my daily expenses isn’t needed anymore, so it stays with the pack to be used for other things. It goes into books for the school and library, computers for the pack to use, the pack vehicles. A lot of things. Similar to your taxes.”
“So you aren’t taxed?”
We’d agreed to this question too. “Oh, yes we are. We pay all the taxes that any other person would, but we also look after each other. Having to live inside walls makes it hard to bring in that money, so we make sure that no one wants, even if it means that some of us have to give up our extra.”
“And everyone gets the same amount?”
“It depends on how many pups you have.”
“You call them pups?”
“Yes. There’s a couple of years when they’re small where they’re hardly ever out of wolf form—I think that’s where it came from.” I fished in my pocket and pulled out my phone. “Here are mine. And my cousin’s.” I brought up a picture of Agatha dressed as a knight, with a stuffed dragon under her arm and wide grin on her face and passed the phone over to her.
“Oh, she’s adorable,” Belinda cooed, then glanced off stage. “Can we show them?” She turned back to me. “Do you mind?”
“I’m always up for showing off my pups,” I told her and waited while they did their magic behind the scenes so the audience could see the pictures I’d emailed them yesterday. As well as the picture of Agatha, I’d picked out one of Dorian playing with his toy cars on the floor of Quin’s office, Fan in human form carrying Noah in wolf form awkwardly around the yard in summer, Teca and Beatrice wide eyed playing in the snow that had fallen so surprisingly last December. Taden, messy-faced on Bax’s lap and happy as could be. And with each picture, a short story to make them real to the people watching, to make us something other than the monsters they feared we were.
We talked a bit about my upcoming mating and our plans for the night, and invited a few audience members up to the stage, where I talked them through the first rounds of one of the simpler pack dances, and we laughed and thanked them. And then, before my time was up, I offered Belinda an invitation to my mating, pre-arranged as everything had been.
As I walked off while they reset the stage for her next interview, Troy caught up with me. “You went over time, but it was great. We might just need to cut a little, is all. I’ll have someone contact you about bringing in the cameras, and you say we’ll need paperwork to come inside the pack?”
I nodded. “They track everything going in and out.”
He grinned. “Belinda is going to love that,” he said, but then refused to explain what he meant, so I caught up with Laine and we left with that enigmatic question still hanging over us.
