Gumbo hauled himself onto the bank as I tied off the pirogue, settling into his usual spot at the water's edge. Guardian, even here. Even now.
"Hey, Tante." I said softly, settling onto the roots of the oak, my back against the rough bark, my legs stretched out toward the flowers. "Sorry it's been a few weeks. Things have been... complicated." I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh, tipping my head back to stare up through the canopy of leaves.
The moss swayed in a breeze I couldn't feel, and I could almost hear her voice in the rustle of it.Complicated how, cher? You finally let those Alphas catch you?
"Something like that." I murmured, pulling my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. "Three of them, Tante. Three. What am I supposed to do with three?"
The memory hit me without warning—sixteen years old, standing in this exact spot, crying so hard I could barely breathe. Marguerite's arms around me, her voice low and fierce in my ear.
"Your parents are fools, cher. Throwing away a gift like you because it came in the wrong package."
I'd presented as Omega two weeks before. My parents—both Alphas, both from old Louisiana families with expectations as heavy as the summer heat—had looked at me like I'd betrayed them on purpose. Like presenting as Omega was something I'd chosen just to spite them.
"We can't have an Omega daughter." My mother's voice, cold and flat. "What will people think? The Delacroix line has been Alpha for six generations."
"You'll go stay with your aunt." My father, not even looking at me. "Until we figure out what to do with you."
What to do with me. Like I was a problem to be solved. A mess to be cleaned up.
Marguerite had taken one look at me—red-eyed, hollow, dragging a suitcase up her porch steps—and pulled me into a hug that smelled like sage and honeysuckle and home.
"Welcome, wild child." She'd said, her voice warm with something that might have been tears. "I've been waiting for you."
She'd never sent me back. My parents had never asked for me. And slowly, painfully, I'd learned that being unwanted by them didn't mean I was unwanted by everyone.
"You taught me that." I said now, to the flowers and the tree and whatever part of her still lingered here. "That I was worth wanting. That being Omega wasn't a curse—it was just who I was." I picked at a loose thread on my shorts, my throat tight. "I just wish you were here to tell me what to do now."
The breeze picked up, rustling through the leaves, and I closed my eyes, letting myself drift back again.
Seventeen. Sitting at Marguerite's kitchen table, a worn deck of tarot cards spread between us, the smell of coffee and beignets thick in the air.
"The cards don't tell the future, cher." Marguerite had said, her dark eyes sharp despite the wrinkles around them. "They tell the truth. The truth you already know but won't let yourself see."
She'd taught me to read the pictures first—the symbols, the colors, the way the figures faced toward or away from each other. Then the meanings, traditional and intuitive both. Then the spreads, the patterns, the way cards changed their message depending on what fell beside them.
"Trust your gut." She'd said, over and over. "The cards are just mirrors. Your gift is knowing what you see in the reflection."
My gift. She'd never let me call it anything else. Not a trick, not a talent, not a skill I'd learned. A gift. Something precious. Something to be honored.
I opened my eyes, staring up at the canopy of green and gray. "I've been reading for myself all week." I admitted to the tree, to her memory, to the bayou itself. "Kept pulling the same cards. The Lovers. The Three of Cups. The Empress." I laughed, a little desperately. "You'd probably tell me I already know what they mean."
The Lovers—not just romance, but choice. The sacred joining of opposites. The leap of faith required to truly commit.
The Three of Cups—celebration, friendship, community. Three figures dancing together, cups raised in joy. Connection. Belonging. More than two.
The Empress—abundance, fertility, nurturing. The feminine in its fullness. Creation. Life.
"I want them all." I whispered it like a confession, like something shameful, even though there was no one to hear but Gumbo and the ghosts. "All three of them. Is that crazy? Is that greedy?" I pressed my palms against my eyes, feeling the sting of tears I refused to let fall. "Marguerite, what do I do?"
The wind shifted, bringing with it the thick green smell of the bayou and something else—something floral and sharp that made me think of her perfume, the one she'd worn every day of her life.
You already know, cher. You've always known.
I did know. That was the hell of it.
I'd spent my whole life being told I was too much. Too wild, too stubborn, too Omega, too strange. My parents had tried to stuff me into a box I'd never fit, and when I'd failed to shrink myself small enough, they'd thrown me away.
Marguerite had never asked me to be less. She'd looked at all my too-much-ness and called it a gift. She'd taken my wildnessand given it a home. Now three Alphas—three impossibly different, impossibly stubborn, impossibly wonderful men—were looking at me the same way. Not asking me to choose between them. Not demanding I pick a box and stay in it. Just... wanting me. All of me. However I came.
