2
Gabriel
The moon wasa tiny white claw scratch in the sky. Tomorrow night, it would be completely gone, leaving the sky empty and black, and leaving me with a heavy decisiontomake.
I needed to clear my head. I walked down the street to the outer path that circled along the wall’sperimeter.
I had two choices: mate,ordie.
Not really the bestchoices.
On one hand, I could pick an alpha and mate with him, bear his kids, be stuck with him for the rest of my life, all that fun stuff. I knew all the alphas in the pack already. It wasn’t like I hated any of them. Of course there were a couple douchebags, but the majority seemed like nice guys, like Dustin. But that was the problem. Theyseemedlike nice guys. They were practically strangerstome,
Here in Stoneheart, alpha and omega did not interact unless they were mated. It wasn’t forbidden or anything, it just… didn’t happen. There was nothing to bring us together. Before mating, we lived separate lives. Omegas hung out with omegas, alphas with alphas. Just more ridiculous Stoneheart packculture.
I’d heard things were different in other packs. Not from books or TV - no, that would have been heresy. But word of mouth travels fast in this pack. There were rumours of packs that did things differently than us. Alphas and omegas living together as equals... Ibelievedit.
I’d also heard bad things. Packs where omegas were property, breeding tools only. The name Scarlet-something stuck out in my mind. I wasn’t sure where I’d heard that rumour, but it stuck with me. At least things weren’tthatbad,here.
There were many rumours. Strangest of all was the one about fatedmates.
At first take, it sounded like a joke. Two souls destined for each other, fated to overcome all obstacles, no matter what. That just wasn’t realistic. I thought about every couple I ever knew in this pack. I thought about Otis andDustin.
They weren’t fated to be together. They were stuck with each other, and had to make the best of it whether they liked itornot.
Fated mates was nothing than a myth, a whisper on the lips of shifters who yearned for somethinggreater.
Maybe it was just another way for themtocope.
In any case, it wasn’t real. Maybe in some far-off fairy tale land, fated mates existed. But that wasn’t here, not in the real world. Not in Stoneheart pack’s concretewalls.
I stopped in front of the wall. It was massive, thick concrete and stone, standing forty-feet high. Too high for a human to safely scale. That was what keptussafe.
It was pathetic. Wolf shifters hiding from humans, like mice cornered in alittlecage.
To me, it wasn’t a way to live. But to the elders, and apparently to Otis and every other omega, it was necessary forsurvival.
As if on cue, I heard slow shuffling footsteps behind me. I turned to find one of the pack elders, Marlowe, standing behind me. He wore a cautious but kindsmile.
“Good evening, omega Gabriel,”hesaid.
“Goodevening.”
“The new moon grows ever closer,” Marlowemurmured.
Don’t I know it,I thought with a mental roll ofmyeyes.
Marlowe drew closer to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “My child, I’m concernedforyou.”
I wasn’t literally his child, but he might have been related to me. He was an omega, too - obviously past the point of breeding. But in his prime, he must have sired many children. There were records in the library of everyone’s ancestry that could be freely accessed by any new couple to make sure they avoided inbreeding. I’d never bothered checking since I hadn’t mated, and my parents died when I was young, so I didn’t have any information or stories from them. For all I knew, this guy could’ve been my great-grandpa orsomething.
“I know,” was all I could say. I wasn’t keen on having this same conversation again, but at least it was a nice old omega instead of Dustin alphasplaining ittome.
Marlowe hummed, then squeezed my shoulder. “The way we do things here… it might not seem fair to a young puplikeyou.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’tdenythat.
“But the rules keep us safe,” Marlowecontinued.
