Page 5 of Lone Wolf
Ah.The landing page for Silver popped up with three elegant monogram-style images—a stylized M, an equally fancy F, and then the letter O, with a spray of roses in front of a mountain range decorating its base.
M for male, F for female… He stared at the screen in growing horror. The O could only stand for omega. He didn’t want to believe it even though he’d heard the rumors his whole life, but when he clicked on the O, every shifter listed on the page had the word omega in their description.
It was a sales page. Like they were up for auction. They weresellingtheiromegas.
Who did that?
His stomach heaved—Damian slammed the laptop shut and ran for the bathroom, where he hung over the toilet and tried his best to wipe the memory of that page from his brain.
He ended up drinking far more than he usually did before he could fall asleep that night. And his dreams were troubled ones, filled with mountains and roses.
CHAPTER FIVE
The first week of October the email went out asking anyone interested in working their heats to sign up. I hit the YES button so fast my finger almost went through the screen of my phone.Please, please, please, please.
It was something of a lottery system. Limiting the supply kept November special and made the word of mouth travel that much farther. If we could have set up hotels outside the enclave, we’d have been rolling in money as tourists came from all over to sample the ‘insatiable shifters’. But we were bound by the Segregation Laws that made it a federal felony to be outside the enclave during the curfew hours, so the hotel money rolled into the city over an hour away, while we did all the work for it.
By the third week of October, I was going lunar waiting to hear back, checking my email twenty times a day and moaning to Ma when there wasn’t an answer yet. Which she dealt with the way all mothers did, by either giving me an errand to do or sending me off to find some friends I could send lunar instead with my whining. Which, I knew, was exactly the kind of treatment I deserved.
It was probably asking too much to get picked for this year. I’d only just graduated to the blue, I’d only been working the front of house since last May. The slots usually went to the older, more experienced shifters, because working when your heat was on you meant you might take chances you shouldn’t just to get your own itches scratched. Older workers could think through their heats—not all of us younger ones were able to do that yet.
“You’ll be fine,” Ma told me while we made pierogis to freeze against what we both hoped would be a busy November. “You’re my son and an omega. But if they do give you a slot, you and I will be having a few talks beforehand.”
“I know. But what if they think I’m too young?” I folded the dough around the filling and pinched the edges together. “Remember what happened with Rafaella two years ago?” I set the finished pierogi aside and reached for another thumb-full of filling.
“Rafaella was very pretty and very dedicated and absolutely not level-headed enough to deal with it when her heat came in stronger than she’d expected,” Ma said firmly. “You are not like that.”
I protested some more, mostly because I just wanted the reassurance, but I thought maybe Ma was right. I’d never had the crazy heats that some of my friends had, with the moaning and pacing and never-ending self-pleasuring that sometimes went so far as to end up with them in medical. I’d be fine.
If they picked me.
“Let’s get these finished,” Ma said. “I want to go down to the community complex and see a movie with that reprobate father of yours, if I can pry him away from his office. Did you want to come?”
I shook my head. “I might have an early night. Can I borrow some of that oil-conditioner for my hair? It’s feeling a little dry.”
“Sure. You can borrow the blue face mask too, if you want. Xino texted earlier to say he wouldn’t be back until late, and I imagine your Da and I can pawn your little sister off on your aunt for the night.
Svetlana would love that—she had a terrible crush on our cousin. And if my brother had texted to say he was going to be late, it probably meant he wouldn’t be home at all. “Thanks, Ma.”
She smiled, but it was that mother kind of smile, a sort of world-weary, some-day-you’ll-understand type of smile. “You need to relax, Salem. They’ll send the notifications out soon.”
“Yeah.” I dropped another finished pierogi in the bowl. “How many more of these darn things do we have to make?”
Ma laughed. “You’ll be glad of them when you’re staggering home in November, exhausted and starving.”
“Yeah,” I agreed and reached for another pinch of dough.Please, please, please, please.
I was naked in the bathtub, my face covered in blue goop, my hair soaked in oil, and in the middle of a joking text argument over alpha ‘attributes’ with my only omega friend Galen, when the email came in. I nearly dropped the phone in the water.
Please.
I hesitated with my finger over the notification, then closed my eyes and opened it.
We are pleased to offer you one of the November positions for this year. Should you have changed your mind since your application, please let us know as soon as possible, as there is a long waiting list. If you are still interested, please click the button below accepting this offer. Be advised that there are two mandatory meetings that you must attend before the end of October….
I didn’t read any more, just whooped and texted Galen back that I’d gotten accepted. Then I scrambled back into the email, because in my excitement I’d forgotten to click Accept below the whole long list of things that I was going to read later, I promised myself.
Then I leaned back in the water and gazed up at the ceiling while I dreamed about having my own place. And if some shadowy alpha sometimes intruded on those dreams—well, it wasn’t like I was planning to stay single all my life, was it?
