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Damian and I met each other’s gaze.

He let out a little laugh, grinning at me. “Hey. Nice to meet you.”

I couldn’t help but grin, too. “Uh, yeah, nice to meet you.” Because I knew enough about it to know sort of what it meant. Scent match meant that he and I were supposed to be together, that he and I were supposed to fall in love.

I had not given the idea of love a lot of thought. I had watched my share of Disney movies, with the various Prince Charmings, and I knew that it happened to other people, but I wasn’t one of those girls who had really considered it happening to me. I could not say why this was.

Everything about that day, about Damian, it was like waking up to possibilities that I had not really considered. I was becoming a woman, and it was happening all at once.

But anyway, if I was going to fall in love with someone, he seemed like a good someone to fall in love with. I hoped he wasn’t too disappointed in me.

The cyning sat us both down, and he talked to me and Damian for a while. He told us that his daughter Opal had just recently presented as an omega. “Do you know what an omega is?” he asked us.

“Yeah,” said Damian.

“Yeah,” I said. A pause. “Sort of.”

“Explain it, Damian,” said the cyning.

Damian turned bright red. “Uh, omegas are… werewolves that you want to—that alphas want to—that make alphas…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what an omega is, actually.”

The cyning chuckled softly. “All wolves begin as betas. We grow up in submission to our parents. This is the natural way of things. Most wolves become alphas when they mate or when their parents die.” The cyning nodded at Damian and Vincent. “Like the two of you.”

That was how I found out their parents were dead.

“But some wolves present earlier, as omegas,” said the cyning. “Omegas are often female, but not always. They are deeply in touch with certain elements of their wolves. They are caregivers of the pack. They keep the home. They are sensitive and soft and they get joy from giving to others. They are also very fertile. They go into heat more like wild animal wolves and less like humans. Do you know what heat is?”

Damian’s blush deepened.

I was embarrassed, too. “Sort of?”

“It’s a fertility cycle,” said the cyning. “It’s nothing dangerous or strange. It’s natural. But it can be very intense, and it can be quite overwhelming, both for the omegas themselves and for any alphas who are near to the omegas and can scent their heat. This is because omegas are very precious, very prized, very desirable. Everyone wants an omega, even if it isn’t in a romantic way. People want omegas as friends, as acquaintances, as lab partners.” He paused to laugh a little. “People want omegas, but the way your scent-match alpha wants you, Leona, is like nothing you’ve ever experienced in your life.”

Damian swallowed. Hard.

The cyning turned to Damian. “It’s a big responsibility.”

“Everything’s a responsibility.” Damian looked up at Vincent, who was glaring at the cyning, not looking at his brother, and then Damian looked back to the cyning, who was looking at me, I realized. “That’s all you say to me.”

“Because it’s true,” said the cyning to Damian. “When the shaman identified you as the next cyning of the pack, we knew that you’d have this entire town on your shoulders. You’re young, Damian, and you’ve already been through a lot in your young life. But all of it has made you stronger. And one thing we know is that the ancestors do not give any of us more than we can handle. If you have been given all of this—a cyning-to-be of this pack, an omega, a scent match, all of it—then you can handle all of it. You will rise to the challenge, Damian.”

Damian looked up at his brother again.

Vincent nodded at him. “It’s your destiny, man.”

Damian swallowed again. He looked at me. He looked afraid and overwhelmed and young.

I wanted to make him feel better. It welled up in me, and I reached out and took his hand and squeezed it, and a current went through me.

His breath caught in his throat, and he started out of his chair at me, but then he stopped himself, taking shaky breaths. He squeezed my hand really tight, painfully tight, but that was all.

“It’s a responsibility,” said the cyning in a low voice, “and it’s doubly difficult, because it usually would not be this way. A scent match might present itself, and an omega might present when both parties are as young as you are, but typically speaking the alpha would not be an alpha. He—or she—would still be under the control of his parents, who could hold him back to a degree. No one is holding you in check, Damian, so you have to keep yourself in check.”

Damian nodded. “We’re too young for, uh, fertility.”

“Exactly,” said the cyning.

Damian let go of my hand.