Page 2 of Fallen Omega

“I didn’t start it. I don’t want—I’m not looking for a mate.” The word leaves bitterness coating my tongue.

“We can look the other way a lot, but not if it brings our business down, or worse, the police or Council poking around. You’re pretty, you can get another job. Or find your alpha and pack. If you were mated, it wouldn’t be so bad. You could come back.”

I swallow and stand. Pride wants me to stalk out without the envelope and into the night.

Common sense makes me take it, so I shove it into my jeans pocket, and head for the door.

“Lizette, your coat and bag are outside in the hall. Take the emergency exit.”

I don’t look back. Shame burns deep as I bundle into the coat and grab my bag. I stalk out the door and into the storm.

The money isn’t much, I already know that. It’s probably half of what I usually earn. But I need it. Every damn penny.

The rain pelts me as I race into the night.

What I want is to go home, burrow into the nest Dad set up for me so I could get through this hell with more comfort: my third heat.

Some celebration

To me, it’s something to be as shunned as we omegas were.

Dad never told me why he chose the life he did, and then he died, stopping me from finding out anything more. Why we were shunned by the Council and the nice packs. He didn’t like that life, and me…I don’t even remember anything but it being me and him against the world, living on the edges of society, making our life… Just me and him.

Since I was small, he taught me that I’m more than breeding stock, more than animal instinct.

“I miss you, Dad,” I whisper, as the sky lights up bright and thunder rumbles. The rain makes it hard to see, and it’s really pelting down now.

I duck into a covered doorway for a business that’s been closed for years. Instead of heading to the home I’m probably going to lose, I’m journeying into the seedy and dangerous part of town called The Hollows, where anything can be bought on the black market. For a price.

Like the drugs I need, and finally have the lump of money to buy.

“Things are going to be okay.” It’s a lie I like to tell myself.

I crouch down and pretend to get something from my bag as I count the cash Jessa gave me. I slide the amount for the drugs in my left shoe, and the money that’ll make up my rent in the right. Then I straighten and wait for the rain to stop, or at least lessen.

That dull ache inside starts to edge toward pain and an emptiness creeps into my stomach.

Shit. This stupid biological thing in me cost me my job and now it’s going to leach sanity if I don’t get those drugs.

At least, that’s how it felt the previous two times, and now Dad’s not here to care for me, and I know this one is going to be so much worse. There’s the grief, being alone, the now precarious situation with the roof over my head.

None of it helps. It just weighs me down further.

But I can’t stand here feeling sorry for myself. This is the manageable part of heat, where my pheromones might go crazy,Imight go crazy, but it hasn’t yet started, not really.

So, I need to find those drugs before all hell breaks loose.

All I can do is go to the Hollows, the part of the city Dad took me to the last time so I’d know…just in case I had to get there on my own.

My heart hurts.

He was always overly careful like that.

I miss him. It still feels like a part of me has been carved out from my chest.

I start walking, out into the rain, head low, the hood from my sweater up from under my coat, and I keep to the shadows.

The cops love this part of town, and it’s been etched into me that I need to always be alert, to always stay as invisible as I can.

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