Page 2 of Sanctuary
Ma stopped in the middle of wiping down the table. "Now, don't you go getting any ideas, there, Patton Perseguir. You're a beta and there's nothing wrong with that, but what you're doing is reaching for the moon. That Ori's a sweet child, but you can put any notion of keeping him out of your mind. And you'd be doing him a favor if you didn't encourage him to run off and ignore his proper duties."
Patton kicked the chair again, then bolted for the door. He ran down the path, ignoring his mother's worried and exasperated cry behind him, and ran straight to the head of the creek to climb his and Ori's favorite tree, an old apple that gave buckets and buckets of apples for pies and eating every fall. It was covered in flowers right now, and he settled himself on his branch, intensely aware of the empty limb just above his head, and started to cry.
He didn't know why he was crying, except he felt like Ori was being taken away from him.
C H A P T E R T W O
T he morning of the Birth Moon celebration, in the year that Ori turned thirteen, started out pretty much like any other morning. He got up, dressed quietly so he didn't wake up his little sisters in their bunkbeds on the other side of the room, and slipped out into the main part of their trailer to help make breakfast.
"You go sit down," his Maw said, which was a surprise. He never got to sit down while everyone else worked.
And then it got stranger.
His Maw put a plate in front of him with a sausage and an egg on one side, a square of cheese and a small pile of salsa on the other, with a freshly buttered roll on the side. He stared at it in surprise. "Maw?"
"Eat your breakfast," she said from the counter by the stove. A moment later, she came back with a mug of tea to set beside his plate. Real tea, black tea bought from outside walls. He'd tried it once, sweetened with a little honey--it seemed to be a very grown-up thing. Cautiously, he took a sip from the mug, one eye on his mother as he wondered what this strange behavior was all about. But she simply puttered around the kitchen, putting together food for the rest of the family and humming under her breath the entire time.
Ori turned his attention back to his breakfast. The sausage glittered with grease in the florescent lights above him, incredible decadence, and it smelled amazing. He picked it up in his fingers and bit the end off, the juices running savory over his tongue, and closed his eyes while he chewed so he could make the moment last.
The chair across from him creaked and he opened his eyes to see his Maw sitting down across from him with her own cup of tea. "Enjoying it?" she asked.
His mouth was full so all he could do was nod enthusiastically and she laughed. "It's a special day."
Ori swallowed his food and wiped his mouth on his hand. "Why?" Though he thought he knew. Today would be his first time not running on full moon with the pups. Tonight, he would run with the teenagers.
"Now, Ori, you know better than that." His Maw handed him a rag to wipe his hand and his mouth with. Once he'd finished, she picked up her tea again. "There's something special about being thirteen, especially for an omega. Things are going to be different now."
Oh. He didn't like the sound of that. It was almost like his Maw was trying to prepare him for something bad. "How different?" he asked, his appetite disappearing.
"Don't get that look on your face. Different, I said. Not bad. But you're startin' to be a grown-up now. It means there's things you get to do different than before, and there's things we need to talk to you about."
"Like what?" Ori sat back in his chair and watched her closely, hunting for clues.
"Well, first of all, there's changes going to be happenin' to your body," she said. She shifted her weight on the chair, making it creak, and Ori had to stifle a snicker that his Maw was all uncomfortable about something. It was funny mostly because it almost never happened, and he could tell she was going to talk about bodies, which were their own kind of funny. His own had started doing strange things lately, like growing hair in places it never had before, and some of his dreams were downright astonishing. And he was finding his friend Patton interesting in ways that had nothing to do with their long-standing game of pirates.
He decided to take pity on her. "It's okay, Maw. I know about heats and stuff." They'd talked about it a little in the omega classes and, even though they'd been told not to tell about it with anyone except other omegas, he figured his Maw was okay to talk to. "I know that that's how an omega gets babies."
She let out a relieved breath and Ori hid his grin behind his mug. Grown-ups were weird.
"Well, yes, there's that. But there's other things too. You're too young yet for serious courting, but now that you're going to run with the teenagers, there's going to be alphas who will be interested in you."
Ori shrugged. There wasn't an alpha in the place that he found half as interesting as Patton. For that matter, he didn't find them as interesting as his breakfast at the moment. He picked up his fork and cut a corner off his egg, stuffing it greedily into his mouth. "So?"
"So, you have to watch out for them tryin' things. Like getting you off by yourself and doin' things to you."
This sounded a lot like some of the stuff the older omegas talked about, giggling together in corners during lunch hours or after class was over but before everyone had scattered to their homes. "You mean they'll want to kiss me?" He made a face and picked up his sausage again. "Ugh." Although, if Patton wanted to kiss him...
Yeah, maybe holding hands was enough. He still couldn't quite see the attraction with kissing.
"Not just kissing," his Maw said in quiet voice. "Omegas are special, Ori, you have to remember that. You're different from betas and gammas and deltas. It doesn't matter with them if they run off for a tumble with a nice boy or girl who catches their eye, so long as they don't do it during their heat. But omegas are different. You have to promise me that you'll make sure to always keep a responsible grown-up with you, or someone from the family, when you go around from now on. If your Paw or me can't go with you, you need to find Christian or Sierra and ask them to take you."
Ori paused with his bite of sausage half-chewed and stared at her. "But... That's not fair!" He could see it now. Christian would hate having to shepherd his little brother around instead of hanging out with his beta buddies. The same with Sierra, who had a boyfriend now and sure didn't want Ori around to get in between them. "I can look after myself."
His maw shook her head. "I know you're a tough, capable boy, but you're also an omega and you have to think about your reputation now. Word gets out that you've been spending time with someone all by yourself, you'll be ruined. You'll never have a mate, or a family or a home of your own, and when your Paw and I pass on, you'll have to go live with Christian and be grateful that he takes you in." She gave him a hard stare, like she knew she'd played a trump card.
"Why..." Ori started, then swallowed his question. He knew why omegas were different. He'd spent his whole life being told how it made him special, how he didn't have to worry about finding a career or getting good marks in school because he'd always have someone to take care of him. Thing was, he'd figured out a while ago that being omega wasn't the big special wonderful thing everyone tried to tell him it was. That was just the bullshit they used to settle him down when he got upset about something he wasn't allowed to do because of that stupid line on his stomach. But then the thought of Patton drifted into his mind and he wondered idly what Patton thought about mating and having a household. He came back to himself after a moment when his mother said, "...mate an alpha. And you need to keep yourself ready for that. No alpha is going to want you if he thinks he's not your first."
"Wait, what?" Where had this alpha thing come from? "What do you mean, mate an alpha? What if I decide on a nice gamma?" Or a beta. He couldn't stop his mind from going there.
