My feet already ache in my heels.
I adjust my platinum hair, which is carefully pulled back with a purple ribbon as per the rules in my six hundred and sixty-six page longRules for Staff Handbook.
666 is about right for this hell beneath the heaven of the luxury rooms, which the guests don’t even take a moment between sipping champagne and enjoying their spa treatments to think about.
“We’ll always be the Frost siblings,” I reply, boldly. “Hatton, you, and me were the pretty Omega siblings with different dads, who Maya used in her PR. She’s an Omega obsessive who flaunts that she’s bonded three Omegas and only birthed Omegas. But she threw you and me out like trash the moment that we weren’t good for that PR. So, fuck those elite packs. Fuck the guests. And fuck Maya.”
Bird’s eyes widen in shock. “That’s a lot of fucking.”
I grin. “What can I say? This Omega has needs.”
Bird splutters a laugh. “Kinky.”
Then he drags me around in a twirling dance to the music.
There are deep shadows under his eyes. He always looks tired.
But then, he isn’t staff like me. He’s wearing the violet tailored shirt and black trousers of a Hotel Omega.
The lettersHOare embroidered over his pocket.
My stomach gnaws with worry. Of course, that could be the hunger. I only had a slice of dry toast for breakfast.
My stepbrother is one of the Omegas who make these hotels unique in America. They are also a dark secret that the Traditional elite hold. Because Hotel Omegas are a commodity, product,servicethat can be chosen like an extra pillow, room service, or any other extravagant desire for the wealthy.
They pick the Omega that they want, then have them delivered to their room because they’re traveling alone, need one to help balance their pheromones, or to support them through their rut.
It’s wearing Bird out.
“As kids we swore that we’d be outlaw Omegas.” I let Bird twirl me around the dusty tunnel, which is divided by a single wall from the opulent lobby on the other side. “We’d steal all those Alphaholes’ shit and give it to the Omegas in the staff quarters who have earned it.”
“Steal from the rich and give to the poor.” Bird’s hair swirls around him in a wave of curls. “I was going to be the Robin Hood Omega.”
“Hey,Iwas the Omega in tights,” I reply, outraged. “You were Little John.”
“Hatton made a frighteningly good Sheriff of Nottingham. He should have been born an Alpha.”
“What if he secretly has a knot, and Maya has hidden it to keep up her perfect score of Omega babies?” I mean it as a joke, but it falls flat.
Actually, it’s the type of thing that she would do.
Bird stumbles to a stop.
My chest is tight at the thought of my brother, Hatton, who was born to the First and most cherished of the Omegas in the Frost nest, Ellington.
Ellington is beautiful but cruel. He rules every Omega in the hotel.
Hatton should be safe because Ellington loves his son more fiercely than anything.
Yetlovehas made Ellington separate his precious son from us.Lovehas made Ellington terrified that his own son won’t be favored, until he’s pushed him to always be perfect.Lovehas broken our family.
I pull away from Bird, wrapping my arms around myself. The memory of a freezing Christmas, playing Robin Hood in an outfit that Dad had sewn for me himself, floods back.
Dad and Jelani, Papa, were sitting together on the couch with their arms casually around each other. They were relaxed and comfortable, drinking mulled wine.
I remember feeling happy seeing them like that.
Jelani is Bird’s pretty but anxious Papa who rarely speaks.
