Sage’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he nodded, sharp eyes scanning the milling crowd below. “Especially with scent blockers being a controlled substance.” He turned to me, “How do you think they all managed to get their hands on it?”
“No idea,” I shrugged. “Perhaps there’s an enterprising amateur chemist in the pack?”
“That is a terrifying thought.”
“But less terrifying than the notion that our adversaries are supplying our pack with scent blockers.”
Sage’s eyes went wide. “You think the Moonmusicpeople would do that? Why?”
Moonmusic was the shifter organized religion which seemed more like a cult than anything genuinely spiritual. Their leader, a weasel beta by the name of Joe Morstein, was threatened by the reemergence of alphas and had already staged two attacks on Shifters Sanctuary.
Long story short, we assumed he was unhappy with the inherent power alphas had —both societally and magically— and he was also scrambling to keep droves of shifters nationwide in check so he could, via his religious sect, continue to collect monthly tithes from all the packs under his leadership.
After his second loss a couple of years earlier, he had changed tact. Instead of launching physical attacks, he had amped up the anti-neo-shifter (as he referred to Shifters Sanctuary’s people) rhetoric and resorted to fear-mongering in his sermons and online rants. He was fostering distrust and anger among those that followed him without question, and I suspected it was only a matter of time before the rising tension came to a head.
The idea that he —or a nearby pack who supported him— might be supplying our people with an elicit substance worried me terribly. After all, it wouldn’t be difficult to supply a few good batches to lull our people into a false sense of security and then supply them with something harmful instead.
I shuddered to think it. “History has proven that brainwashed people do a lot of terrible things when they are convinced it is for the right cause,” I mused, my own gaze drifting out over the people drinking and dancing below us.
More than half of them were human at this point; complete innocents in Morstein’s bid for control of shifterkind. Of those humans, only a small percentage might turn out to be alphas, and the betas had never warranted a sniff of his attention prior to Beckett’s unexpected emergence as an alpha. I didn’t want to think that he or his followers would be so cruel as to unleash biological warfare over people who might not even be a threat to him at all…but I knew that was idealistic, wishful thinking on my part.
I bit back a snort at those thoughts.
Me? Idealistic? Since when?
Something inside me stirred, and I froze, the feeling almost foreign after a century of his silence. I waited to feel the familiar warmth of my dragon, but nothing else inside me changed. He was still muted, but hope was welling up inside my chest.
If idealistic was what he wanted, I would work on it.
“So, we’ve learned that these really are giant orgies,” Sage grimaced as another couple of masked men bumbled past us into a previously vacant bedroom stocked with condoms and eye masks which, we had realized, added to the anonymity thing. “And that everyone here is an idiot.”
I laughed and fanned myself, the warmth of the house having increased with the number of writhing bodies spread out through it. It seemed to get worse after the spell castingwhich Sergio had performed over the room after spraying a wave of synthetic pheromones while Sage and I watched from a safe distance away. Even in the darkness, it was something to behold.
The lust which had coursed through me at watching the shaman in his element, interacting with The Magic, seeing him powerful and brooding with concentration had almost knocked me off my feet. That probably contributed to the warmth I was feeling, too, to be honest.
He was a powerful silver fox (unicorn?) and Iwantedhim.
I couldn’t even muster guilt at also wanting the lean, fiery (no pun intended) dragon omega at my side, though that feeling had existed for a lot longer; I had just been too stubborn to acknowledge it when I’d had the chance.
Chuckling at Sage’s blunt, though astute, assessment, I added, “We also learned about the scent blockers. That is certainly something to bring up at the next town meeting.” I blew a huff of air out, aiming to channel it upwards by pouting out my bottom lip. There was a lock of hair stubbornly plastered to my forehead which I was attempting to dislodge. I scowled when it didn’t budge. “I understand the thrill of anonymity, but the risks are too great.”
“Especially if an omega uses them to slip in,” Sage agreed just as the moans and grunts of the couple in the bedroom behind us began, seemingly to punctuate his statement. He scrunched up his nose and raised his voice even higher above the music and the sounds of very enthusiastic sex. “Like, what if they get swept up with an unlocked alpha in synthetic rut? Yeah, there are condoms in the rooms, but everyone is also drinking and possibly high, so…”
I shuddered. The idea of becoming accidentally pregnant at one of these parties and not knowing which alpha I had mated with was a disturbing one.
Even as I had the thought, my omega stirred again, this time much more noticeably. Gasping, my hand flew to my sternum and tears sprung to my eyes.
I couldn’t even bring myself to be frustrated that he was reacting with yearning to the idea of mating in general, though. To the idea of being bred by a compatible alpha. It was never something that I thought I had wanted, but then, I had been in denial about many things in my lifetime.
“What’s wrong?” Sage demanded, suddenly in my personal bubble, his eyes full of concern as they gazed into mine. “Dex?”
Now I wanted to cry for an entirely new reason. I couldn’t recall the last time he had looked at me that way.
My omega made himself known again, internally roaring with delight.
Mate, the word rumbled through my head in an inner-voice that sounded like comfort and home.Mate,it repeated.
Unlike a century before, I didn’t refute the voice this time. I didn’t argue that two omegas couldn’t mate and breed. I was too surprised and elated to be feeling close to whole again, despite my instincts telling me that my omega wasn’t completely across the line yet.
