I wasn’t quiet enough. “Love has nothing to do with anything,” Dad said, raising his voice.
“As you and Mom prove every day,” I snapped in reply.
I really shouldn’t have said that.
“Your mother understands her place,” Dad said.
That was the sum total of his argument. Good omegas knew their places. They obeyed and they produced an alpha heir. It surprised no one, least of all me, that once I’d been born, neither of my parents wanted to try for a spare. I’d spent my whole life watching the two of them hate each other.
I’d spent a few nights as a child crying over that and wishing Mom and Dad would suddenly discover they were in love, too. But that dream died before I turned ten, just like my belief in Santa.
We were more or less silent the rest of the way to Kincade Slopes, which was painful, since it was nearly a two-hour drive. The laughable thing was that Dad considered dragging his semi-reluctant son to a dark kink event to be a bonding experience.
Well, maybe not bonding in the way most fathers and sons did. I would have been happy for a fishing trip, or even an afternoon playing golf, which I hated. The real purpose of Dad enrolling me in the omega auction event was because he was trying to make a “real alpha” out of me. In his world, real alphas were ruthless, aggressive, and sadistic.
Maybe someday I’d become those things if Dad worked hard enough on me.
I probably would turn into that kind of alpha someday. I could already feel the bars of that cage closing in around me. I could feel my choices being plucked away from me one by one. Dad already chose all my clothes for me. Tomorrow I’d be forbidden to listen to show tunes. Next week I’d be assigned a new hobby. By Christmas, I’d be engaged to an omega I didn’t know and didn’t like. In a few years, I’d be father to a few children that I couldn’t connect with any more than I connected with my dad.
Not exactly anyone’s dream life, despite the money.
“This will be good for you,” Dad said once we’d arrived at Kincade Slopes and carried our weekend bags into the gorgeous ski lodge. “Make sure you order your assigned omega to take a Heat Lightning pill, if he isn’t already in heat. Any alpha worth his salt should feel his rut on a regular basis. You need to empty your balls more, Junior.”
I couldn’t think of a more humiliating sentence to hear my sire say as we walked through a small number of other alphas and over to the check-in desk.
The worst part was that I would have loved to have an omega in my bed on a more regular basis. One I cared about andcould talk and laugh with. Dad’s definition of emptying my balls more was to spend more time brutalizing semi-willing omegas. He used the Dark Fantasies Club for more than just the omega auction event. And I suspected he was part of a network of alphas who sought out desperate omegas who sold their heats to survive.
Dad loved those kinds of desperate, predatory dynamics.
“Mr. Salisbury, Mr. Salisbury,” the volunteer sitting behind the check-in table in Kincade Slopes’ lobby greeted us with a smile that would be more at home at a flower show than a sex event. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Hello,” I greeted the man with an uneasy smile and a nod.
Dad just grunted and held his hand out for the dossier the volunteer handed over. He nodded for me to take mine as well.
“I think you’ll be pleased with the omegas we’ve matched you with,” the volunteer said. “Mr. Kuhl and Mr. Farrow are particularly excited for you to meet your omega match, Mr. Salisbury.”
He looked at me as he said that, which made me smile. “Thanks,” I said, like the volunteer had been responsible for the match and not Caden Kuhl and Hamish Farrow, the founders and organizers of the Dark Fantasies Club.”
I wanted to open the envelope with my omega’s information right away, but we had to check in to the hotel and have our bags taken up to our suites first.
Once in my room, I took a moment to look around at the BDSM equipment my dad had insisted my suite be stocked with. It was all standard stuff and I knew how to use it, but inspecting the floggers, rope, and St. Andrew’s Cross didn’t spark so much as a glimmer of interest in me.
What did interest me was the picture of the omega I’d been paired with that I found in my dossier. Quincy. That was his name. He had pink and purple spiked hair and a lip ring.
I swallowed hard and glanced quickly around the room, like my dad was lurking in the shadows, waiting to express his disapproval and insist I be given a different, more suitable omega.
He wasn’t there to say anything, though. I smiled through a quick shower and a change into the designer power suit my dad had insisted I wear for the auction part of the weekend. Maybe the DFC knew what they were doing when they paired people after all.
I met up again with Dad in the conference room which had been transformed into a seedy venue for trafficking right before the auction was supposed to start.
“Where have you been?” Dad scolded me. “They’re starting now.”
“I took a shower,” I said, peeking around me at the restless, horny alphas who had come for the event.
There was something so tasteless about a gang of already hard alphas standing around, waiting to pretend they were going to purchase an omega to fuck them. I guess everyone had their different reasons for being there, but the obviousness of it was kinda gross to me. I would have preferred to meet an omega for lunch at some nice restaurant, maybe one near Barrington’s central park so we could go for a walk after.
“Gentlemen, if I could have your attention,” Caden Kuhl called across the room from the dais at the front.
