A young woman with thick brown hair lifts her hand and waves.
“This is my son’s alpha. He brought Cordie, their omega, to shop for her first heat.”
The transformation on the shop owner's face is startling. She smiles widely.
“Nice to see you again. Welcome, Alpha. Cordie, if you need any help at all, just shout out, I’ll come straight over. I haven’t forgotten the help you and your mum gave my gran when she was sick. So, anything I can do to make this easier, let me know.”
Cordie smiles. “It’s really good to see you, Wendy, and it was our pleasure.”
“Wendy mostly makes a profit on her online orders, but people come from everywhere to buy her nesting materials when she has pop-up stores in the cities. If you want it, she either has it or can source it,” Lorelei says proudly.
Cordelia has that lost look on her face, it’s returned with a vengeance.
“All right, we’re going to do this with a game plan.” I say with confidence, stealing a page out of Katsu’s playbook. “We’re goingto walk around until you figure out what calls to you. If it feels good, grab it.”
She glances up at me and bites her bottom lip. “I didn’t think I would get my heat. It hadn’t come before, and there was no real sign it was going to suddenly appear.”
The lost little voice tells me so much about her mood right now and how I can fix this. I need to empower this omega.
“Luckily, we showed up at the right time,” I murmur and drop my arm over her shoulders.
She shakes her head. “I wonder if I’m going into heat because you are here. It’s like my body and mind decided that once the criteria were met, it would do it. I don’t know, it’s just a thought. A stupid thought. You should kiss me to make it stop.”
My mind goes blank, but I’m not going to sleep on that offer. I bend down and brush my lips against hers. She makes a startled noise but just as I start to pull back, she presses into me. Yeah, her lips are as soft as I imagined.
I reluctantly pull away from her and cup her cheeks. “Perhaps you have never felt safe enough to enter a heat,” I suggest.
She looks at me with relief, and I realise she fully expected me to brush her musings aside.
“It could be that, too. I am a little bit…”
“Needing control?”
She bobs her head but reaches out and grabs a blanket, her fingers linger and stroke over it. I want to jump and fist pump the air, but I don't. I just let my scent swell in the air, happy, approving.
“Do you like this one?”
“Very much. It reminds me of one I used to have when I was a kid. This feels safe. It reminds me of winter.”
I grab it, and before I can speak, Lorelei appears, drops a shopping trolley beside me, and speed-walks away. We both watch her.
“Very subtle,” Cordie mutters.
I put the blanket in the trolley.
“Was it really so bad, having everyone know you? As Wolf, I mean?”
“Oh, yes,” I say before I can think better of it. “I don’t have a nice family. I have expectations, and those expectations were to do certain things by certain times. We didn’t do affection, and suffering is an art form in my parents’ house.”
“It wasn’t home?”
“No, it was never home. My brother split when I was twelve. I don’t know where he is, but I overheard from someone once that he was doing well. My sister is very happy to be my parents’ point of success. I’m just happy they have let me go, but then they have always disapproved of Katsu.”
She grabs some massive pillows and chucks them in, and another couple of blankets, all in dark blues and greys. The more I talk about myself, the easier shopping is for her.
“You’ll really like Katsu’s family. They are nothing like mine, and as rich as they are, they are just about the most affectionate people you will ever meet.”
Despite my assurances, she still hesitates until we get to the electrical section. Her eyes light up, and she goes from one to the other, back and forth, humming and agonizing.
