Page 27 of Excess

“Wait here,” Freya instructed, depositing me outside a door with a bunch of parents. “I’m not allowed to wear my ballet shoes outside, or my teacher will get mad.”

She darted into what appeared to be a changing room, and I turned to Blake to do damage control.

“It’s fine,” he said before I could start. “I mean, I can get you out of it—”

“No, no, don’t do that. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

Blake didn’t quite smile, but I could have sworn he thought about it. “I don’t want to put you in an awkward spot, but Freya has already had a rough morning, and it’s not shaping up to be a great week...”

“I don’t want to add to that. And I’m not in a rush. I can make time for cake,” I assured him.

“That’s good of you,” Blake grunted, hesitating for a moment before continuing. “Freya doesn’t really get to spend much time around omegas. Her mum died when she was three.”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my heart aching at the thought. As my omega traits presented themselves, I’d clung tightly to Mama, relying on her experience to reassure me that each new development was normal. Even though our relationship was complicated, I couldn’t fathom how much harder it would have been without her.

Blake shrugged uncomfortably. “She lives with me now, along with my brother and my dad. It’s a lot of alphas in one house.”

I suspected he was underselling how intense that was, but Freya appeared at that moment with a tracksuit pulled over her leotard, and sparkly purple trainers with the laces undone.

Blake knelt down to help her fix them before carefully tucking the rest of her ballet clothes into her unicorn duffel bag, gruffly telling her how nicely she’d danced today. For reasons that I was choosing to believe were unrelated, there was a weird fluttery feeling around my ribcage.

I shot Lúcás a quick message as we made our way out of the building, letting him know that I’d be a little longer. There was no awkward silence on the short walk because Freya maintained a steady stream of ballet-related chatter as we made our way down the road to a small, old-fashioned cafe.

We placed our orders—Blake insisted on paying—before taking a seat at a table by the window. I half expected Blake to object to Freya’s choice of location, given that his gaze kept falling to me before glancing around the room, and this table was particularly on display.

Was I embarrassing him, perhaps? I didn’t think I’d been a source of embarrassment to an alpha before. Other than my father. What a novelty.

“So,” Freya began, looking at me seriously. She seemed so much older than her years, except for the fact that she was using her fork like a hacksaw to cut into a piece of chocolate mud cake. “What’s it like being a grown-up omega?”

Blake choked on his tea, giving me a wide-eyed look as though I was going to discuss heat management theory with a five-year-old.

“It’s… fine. There are good things and tricky things about every designation,” I replied diplomatically, breaking off a small corner of the very generous slice of carrot cake I’d ordered.

This place was nothing like the kinds of venues I went to for tea and cake. The chairs were wipeable, rather than soft upholstery, and the overhead lighting was probably doing terrible things to the dark circles under my eyes, but the ambience was nice. Relaxed. No one was silently judging me out of the corner of their eye.

Well, maybe they were, but it was for a different reason. My linen set, which I thought had been so casual, did somehow seem too dressy compared to everyone else’s summer outfits.

“What are the tricky things?” Freya asked before shoving an impressively large piece of cake in her mouth.

Blake still looked genuinely stressed, and under any other circumstances, I’d mess with him, but not when Freya was looking at me so expectantly for an answer. It was wise—and brave—of her to take advantage of the opportunity to grill a “grown-up omega” in person, and I wasn’t going to let her down.

“The thing that I find the trickiest about being an omega is that sometimes people think they don’t have to listen to me. They think omegas can’t have good ideas—which is so silly, isn’t it? Anyone can have good ideas. But sometimes, people have to be reminded of that.”

Freya nodded solemnly. “They think we just care about cushions and stuff. Sierra, in my class, calls me a snail.”

My eye twitched at the clearly learned insult. It was a jab not only at an omega’s desire not to leave the house, but at the trails of slick we left in our wake, and no kid would say it if they hadn’t heard it from somewhere else.

“Tell Sierra to shove her opinions—”

I cleared my throat, cutting Blake off. Not that I knew anything about children, but that didn’t seem like great advice.

“But I don’t listen to Sierra anyway,” Freya continued, tipping her chocolate-covered chin up. “Because she says a lot of things that she should keep to herself.”

Blake grunted approvingly. “You’re a good kid, Freya.”

He said it like it baffled him. Like he couldn’t possibly understand where that goodness came from.

I wondered if Blake realised it had to be at least a little from him? My uncles sent me limited edition dolls a couple of times a year when I was five. They certainly didn’t take me to Saturday morning ballet class, followed by tea and cake.

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