My gaze drifts—again—to Florence. Small. Quiet. Standing at the fringe of the group like she’s not quite sure she belongs with the other omegas. Like she's not quite sure she belongs here at all.
She probably doesn’t.
It's clear she’s above all this bullshit. Too bloody good for it.
Her eyes aren’t on us, but on the course, like she’s mentally overcoming each of the obstacles we can see from our gathering point.
I’m still watching her when Cleo explains the rules of today’s challenge, collect the puzzle pieces at each obstacle and then complete the puzzle at the end. There’s a pause and then she calls Forsythe’s name to start the selection process.
To no one's surprise he calls, “Isadora.” Our once childhood friend preens as she saunters forward in her designer workout gear, hips swaying, lips curled into a smug smirk at being called first. Even though she had to know it was coming.
We have very strict instructions that she should always be picked first. Always.
“Thayer?” Cleo prompts.
In accordance with our well-worn plan, he should pick one of the other noble omegas in front of us. Which is what I expect him to do, what everyone expects him to do.
“Florence,” Thayer’s rough grumble sounds across the distance. The cute little blond, my pixie, steps forward looking… confused? I’m confused too. Anddisappointed. It's only at this moment, I realize I had hoped to go off book and pick her first for my team. But Thayer beat me to it.
We all watch as she moves forward, none of the hip swinging Isadora gave us. There’s a slight hitch in her step, one so faint I doubt anyone else notices. A limp? Or did her meditation and yoga moment leave her with some pain, some stiffness?
I have the strange urge to lay her down and run my hands over her until her sore muscles are eased. Until she can walk without pain.
She stops next to Thayer, looking up at him with a quizzical brow. I wonder if she thought she wasn’t going to be picked until last. Maybe it has something to do with her being lower class, she just assumed we wouldn’t be interested.
She’s not wrong. We aren’t interested. But not because we don’t want to be, because wecan’tbe.
Still the last thing I want is for her to think we’d keep our distance from her because of something like class. We don’t give a shit about that… Well, most of us don’t give a shit about that. Forsythe does, but only because of his grandmother. After all, Grieves is in our pack, and he was born the son of a brick layer and a primary school teacher.
I watch as Thayer leans down and says something in her ear. Her smile becomes more genuine, and again I have this feeling of… magic. Like she’s sprinkled a little bit of pixie dust with that smile and I could fly, so long as she keeps doing it.
Goddammit. This is so… bad.
But then why does it feel so damn good?
Episode 7: The Omega Gauntlet
Why do people find this shit fun?
I’m huddled around Thayer with the other omegas on his team. He’s staring hard at the course, like he’ll be able to crack open the best way to do it. He won’t. It's all straightforward as hell. At least the part we can see. Once we get to the other side of the gate on the far side of the course, there might be some kind of trick, but here the only way through is… through.
And I’m going to hate every second of it.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time I would have relished running an obstacle course, competing, proving that omegas are just as physically capable as everyone else. But now my knee aches just looking at the expanse of sand we have to run across to start. One wrong step and I could really damage myself.
So just be extra careful, Florence. Do not give anyone any more reason to look down on you.
Ha, too late.
I’m still embarrassed by the reaction I had to Grieves last night.
The soft, almost gentle bark he’d used to ask me to tell him if I need anything slipped like silk over my skin, not constricting, not binding, just a brush of it before it was gone, and I’d still frozen up.
Thank god they’d called for an end to the mixer, because I’m not sure how I was going to come back from that. Instead I got to retreat to the relative safety of my room, where I burrowed under a mound of blankets and talked myself out of leaving, mostly so I don’t make a fool of myself again.
The only reason I managed is because before the bark I really enjoyed speaking to Grieves. It was nice and comforting and easy… a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was only when he used that soft command on me, that it got weird. That I got weird.
And it wasn’t even a full bark.
