Ugh.
Three days later and he was still avoiding me. In addition to that, Brandt had taken to glowering darkly at me any time we crossed paths, which was an odd development. Even when I first came to Shifters Sanctuary, I was under the impression that Sage hadn’t ever told his brothers what had caused our falling out. But now…well, if Brandt’s death-stares were any indication, I suspected Sage might have said something about my less-than-stellar behavior.
“There’s an Unlocking party tomorrow,” Eric told me, making the same scrunched up, unimpressed face (which I liked to call his ‘constipated face’) he always did when the Unlocking events came up. “Are you and Sage still planning on observing for us?”
I was sitting in his little office in his original fertility clinic, mostly ignoring the conversation he and Sergio had been having over the new books Serge had brought to the pack. I didn’t even know why I was there, to be honest, only that I had been going stir-crazy alone in the tiny house I shared with Sage.
“Hmm?” I asked, having barely processed the question.
Eric frowned, then rolled his eyes and repeated, “Are you and Sage still planning on observing an Unlocking party for our research notes?”
I shrugged. I had no idea what Sage wanted to do, and I wasn’t exactly at the top of the list of people he was talking to. “I’m still game,” I drawled, “whether Sage joins me or not.”
Eric’s gaze narrowed for a moment before he seemed to accept the answer as all the information he was going to get. “Okay. Well, I think it’s best if you guys stock up on condoms to be safe. And make sure you’re taking your birth control like clockwork. I know you’re not planning on partaking in the, uh,party, but…”
“Such a boy scout,” I teased gently, but before he could react, added, “Yes, Doctor Weldman, I will make sure we are as prepared as possible. Not that I imagine any dragon alphas might suddenly appear.”
“Unicorns are compatible mates for dragons,” he reminded me seriously, gesturing vaguely towards Serge, “and we’ve foundtwoin such a short amount of time, anything is possible right now.”
He made a valid point. By way of acknowledgement, I smirked, “The Magic does seem to be having a field day in this little town of yours, doesn’t it?”
“Joke all you like,” Eric was at the end of his patience as he leaned back against his desk and folded his arms across his broad, muscular chest. He was the least omega omega I’d ever seen. “But I’m just saying, with how unpredictable things have been —and with no way to know who, if anyone, attending the party is an alpha— if you don’t want to wind up accidentally bonded and pregnant, you’d be better off taking all the precautions possible.” He licked his lips, then appeared chagrined. “Unless youdowant that. At which point, go nuts. Just…take notes on everything you see. We’re trying to streamline this whole process, remember?”
“I remember,” I answered dutifully. “And no, my omega isn’t…” I rolled my wrist, searching for the right words to describe howbrokenI felt inside, “as activeas others. I am not desperate to find an alpha and settle down.”
In fact, I didn’t want an alpha at all. I wanted another omega.
“That could be because you haven’t met a compatible mate yet, though,” Sergio smoothly interjected, making my gaze slide from Sage’s younger brother and across to him.
My stomach gave a funny little flip as he said the words ‘compatible mate’, and my traitorous brain recalled how good it had felt to be wrapped in his arms the other night.
Okay, so maybe I wanted another omegaanda beta. Still no drive for an alpha at all.
“That’s always a possibility,” Eric agreed with Sergio while I fought to get my thoughts back under control.
Sage was jealous of us both, my traitorous brain reminded me.What if I could have both?
I wanted to smack myself upside the head.
I had ruined my chances with Sage the moment I had told him that I could never love him the way he needed me to. That I was an omega and so was he. That we were not meant to be together. And now I wanted to be with himandwith a beta who was old enough to have fathered us both several times over? What in the actual fuck was wrong with me?
Eric segued into the list of things he wanted Sage and I to try and observe at the party —such as scents, behaviors, and interactions with known shifters: basically anything which might give hints on which people had hidden or locked alpha sides, as well as post-Unlocking behaviors— and I nodded at what I hoped were appropriate intervals. But I wasn’t focusing on Eric’s lecture, and not only because I believed it was a lost cause.
No; I was too busy thinking about Sage, and Sergio, and my defective omega side. I hadn’t heard a peep from my inner dragon in so long, I wondered if he even still existed. He had gone into hibernation in a fit of rage against my choice to reject Sage’s advances, heartbroken and pissed off with me. Now, I desperately wished he would wake up and guide me, because I was feeling both stuck and torn in two very different directions.
Please,I begged him silently,I need your help.
As always, my dragon remained mute.
I had no idea what I could do to wake him at that point, but I was becoming desperate…and I was known to do very stupid things when I was desperate.
I just hoped that whatever stupid choices I made next, I wouldn’t completely destroy my chances to fix my friendship with Sage. Even if I couldn’t have him as a lover, I didn’t want to lose my best friend permanently. A century of silence hadbeen hard enough to survive. I didn’t think I could withstand a lifetime.
The Unlocking party was…interesting. The people who lived in Frat House, the large farmstead on the opposite side of the town from the Alpha’s house, were just as eclectic as the rest of the pack, even if they were human. Or, rather, assumed human until proven otherwise. But for these parties, they certainly seemed to live up to the house’s nickname.
The main living area was filled with people —humans and betas— dancing in darkness, all wearing masks and, if I wasn’t mistaken, scent blockers.Thatwas an interesting choice.
“It’s almost as though they’re using these parties for anonymous orgies after all,” I murmured into Sage’s ear from where I stood at his side on the second story landing overlooking the main living area. He shivered and I frowned. “I know we joked about it, but in practice it seems like a flawed plan.”
