Page 95 of The Omega's Alpha
“What?” I asked. I was feeling restless and cranky, unable to focus, and I didn’t need the high-strung designer bugging me when I’d only just gotten back from another photo shoot for his commercial line of clothing.
“This,” he said in a tone of great reveal, and unzipped the bag. “Come try this on so it can be adjusted.”
“What? Oh, Martin.” It was a mating suit. A pack mating suit, in a stained-glass array of blues that drew the eye like art. Carefully, as if it were actually made of the glass it resembled, I pulled it out of the bag. “It’s beautiful,” I said in a low, stunned voice. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes I did. I have a new contract to supply a line of men’s and women’s dressy casual and outwear to the Meryn Anders chain. Because of you. Besides, everyone’s going to see this.” He grinned at me. “Never pass up a chance for free advertising.”
I squashed an irritated urge to tell him to take it back—he was very obviously pleased with himself, and I knew him well enough by now to be aware that most of it was because of the genius of the outfit. And it wasn’t his fault that I was cranky and wanted to snarl and nip at everyone today. “Thank you. How did you know what to make?”
“Ah, that husband of yours, he put me in touch with your cousin. He’s a lovely one too, though a little more everyday pretty than you are. He’d never stand out among the other models like you. But he told me what the basic style had to be and sent me pictures of your pack patterns and things. Try it on.”
I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on the mating suit. It fit perfectly, and even Martin, that perfectionist, had to be satisfied. We stood in front of the window so I could see myself in the reflection while he tucked and fussed with the butter-soft suede. It was longer than the suits usually were, but it flowed around my thighs like water and looked like something an Alpha’s Mate would have worn in old days, before the walls had been built. He’d covered it in the same symbols that would later be painted on my body, only on the tunic they were formed of shell and stone and wood and feather, until the whole thing glimmered and swayed with every movement. The collar stood up high behind my neck and flared out as it crossed over my shoulders; the sleeves were long, trailing things, with the tiniest edging of snow white fur around the cuff.
Beneath the tunic, the pants were fashioned in the traditional plain drawstring style, made of more of the soft suede in a color that I thought might have been blue, but could have been black too, it was so dark. And boots. He’d brought me boots as well, picked out with the same beading, with the symbols for Mercy Hills in the toes.
It was stunning.
Martin moved around me and made a few more adjustments, then stepped back. “It’s better than I’d hoped for. Your cousin says you don’t wear anything on your heads and your husband will have his own outfit, or I would have made those for you too.” He stepped back and looked me over critically. “Keep that tucked away safe. I’ll make some for your bridal party as well. Are they around? I need measurements.”
“They’ll all be working,” I told him. “I can get you the measurements, but are you sure you want to do this? We’re only a month away from the ceremony.”
“I’m not making them anything like this, but we can’t have them showing up in homemade clothing while you’re in a designer outfit.” He waved his hands, every inch the fashion snob, though I knew his heart was in the right place. “Trust me.”
“All right. But you’ll have to let me make it up to you. At least pay for the material.”
He snorted and waved at me to take the suit off. “Like I’m not going to make it all back and more after this. You wait and see how this all affects the trends for next year. And I’m in on the bottom floor,” he said in a gloating tone. “I’ll be the first.”
I sure hoped it all went the way he thought it would.
We hung the suit up and he loaned me the garment bag until my mating, promising to collect it when he left after the party. And then he disappeared with the same speed with which he’d appeared in my living room, and I was home, alone, with my crankiness again.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Iputthe mating suit away after Martin left, hiding it well at the back of the closet so that Quin didn’t stumble upon it accidentally and spoil the surprise. Not that I’d be wearing it long, but I wanted our first meeting that night to be special.
But with Martin gone and the pups gone to pre-school, I had nothing left to do but roam the apartment and keep myself from wandering out to the office to bug Bax…Hey, that sounds like a good idea.I scooted out the front door of the apartment, because I was certain, in my current mood, that I’d jump Quin just for something to do. And I didn’t want to distract him from his first ‘good news’ day in ages—we were sending a hundred of the Green Moon shifters home next week. Which meant that some of the Mercy Hills shifters could get the homes they’d been slated for, and some of the resentment might die down.
“Hey, Bax. Got anything I can help with?” Louise’s desk was empty—lunch? Regardless, I perched on the corner of Bax’s desk, swinging one leg and tapping my foot against the side of the desk. “I can’t focus on any of the mating stuff today—I think I’m burnt out on it.”
Bax gave me an odd look. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were, but I don’t think that’s your problem.”
“No?” I asked and picked a sticky note off Bax’s little cube. I began folding it, and folding it, and folding it again. “In your infinite and much older wisdom, what do you think is the problem?”
“I’m only two years older than you, and you’d stop and think for a moment, you’d realize that you’re in heat,” Bax said dryly. “Go molest your mate and get your hormones out of my office.”
“In heat?” I dropped the little square of paper on the floor and jumped to my feet. “This is in heat?” I’d never had a real one before, not like… I thought about Quin and immediately everything around me became entirely unimportant. “Oh, Lysoonka.”
“Yeah.” Bax eyed me with amusement, and maybe a little sympathy. “If you don’t want a baby, I know that someone around here will have something to keep the baby from catching. But one way or another, you’re in for a very distracted few days.”
“No,” I said, and he was right about the distraction. Now that I knew what this was, I recognized it. Like my old heats, only times a thousand. “Bax, can Abel cover for him? Or, no, is his schedule that full today?”
“I can loan him to you for the afternoon,” Bax said in that cool even tone of his, though as his cousin, I heard that bit of the devil in the words.
“Then I’m taking him,” I said. “Thank you.” I swooped in to kiss him quickly on the cheek and whirled away.
“Quin, let’s go,” I announced as I blew through the door into his office. He wasn’t on the phone, thankfully, and I closed the door firmly behind me.
“What’s going on?” he said, and then his nostrils flared and his pupils grew until his eyes looked almost entirely black. He took two steps around the side of the desk, then opened his mouth and scented me. “It worked,” he breathed in awe. “It really did.”
