Page 3 of The Omega Trials: Part One

“Now that all that unpleasantness is over.” I recognize his voice as the man who spoke in the hall. “Shall we get on with it, then?” He steps aside with a heartless smile and outstretched arm toward the door as if politely saying,After you.

So thrown by all this, I can’t help but tilt my head in confusion to the side and ask, “Are you daft? I’m not going anywhere with you—”

I almost feel the sting before I see the slap. My cheek throbs, burning from his palm.

My ears are ringing, but I hear my grandmother yell at them to stop and my heart immediately jumps into my throat as I wait for the sound of someone’s palm against her cheek. I exhale heartedly when it doesn’t come.

The man runs a hand over his perfectly-styled hair as if making sure the effort of hitting me didn’t mess it up. He must finally realize I have no idea what’s going on and explains, “You are required by law to fulfill your mother’s unpaid debt.”

I scoff. “I haven’t seen that woman in ten years. Go find her and make her pay it.”

“She can’t. She’s dead.” It’s my grandmother who speaks, lowering herself back into her seat, her gaze unseeing as somber realization dawns on her face.

Before I have time to question her, the man says, “Correct.Now.”He huffs. “Shall we?” he asks, but we all know it’s not a request.

“Wait—” She springs up, and my stomach drops at the sickening sound of a gun cocking. “Take me instead.”

All four of the men laugh, and my grandma lifts her chin defiantly. The man in the suit sighs as if recovering from a laughing fit and says haughtily, “Sorry, granny, but no one’s going to pay to hump your old bones.”

It’s at this comment that everything begins to click. Bits and pieces of information and suspicions I’ve gathered over the years fall likeTetrisinto place.

I swallow past the barbs in my throat and will the tears that are forming back down. A heavy knot of defeat settles in my chest. “I’ll go. Just let me say goodbye first.”

The Morning After

Ecker

Icautiously crack an eye open and quickly resituate myself in someone else’s room.1 The pillow below my head smells so strongly of rose and jasmine, I don’t know how I fell asleep.

I guess a good rut and fuck will do that. I shrug to myself.

Out of curiosity, I tip up the face down frame next to the stack of cash on the nightstand. There’s a young boy in a purple sports uniform, his foot on a soccer ball and fresh gaps in his toothy smile. A middle-aged man dressed in loafers no reasonable person would wear to a muddy field stands next to him. And his arm is wrapped around the shoulders of the woman asleep two feet from me.

I laugh silently to myself at her brazenness for bringing a trick to the home she shares with her husband and kid. Now that I think about it, she liked it rough—I bet she gets off on the extra risk of getting caught.

Slowly, I begin to extricate myself from the limbs coiled around me, doing my best to not wake her. Ireallyhate meaningless, morning-after chitchat. Sliding out of her bed, I pick my jeans off the floor. As I step into my pants, I grab the cash, counting it in a quick flash.

I hear a rustling of sheets and freeze where I am, bent over picking up my shirt. She moans softly, and I rise an inch, looking over the edge of the bed to see if she’s awake. Her brown eyes land on mine and a sleepy smile begins to spread on her face.

I stand up and shrug with a shallow apology. “Sorry, babes, gotta run.”

She sits up, ruffling her hair. “I’ll call you next time Eric has a soccer tournament. His dad loves taking him to those things.”

“Yeah, you do that.” I offer her a wink on my way out.

I race down the stairs, hopping over the picture frames that fell when I fucked her against the wall.

I didn’t check the time when I stuffed my phone in my pocket along with my money, but apparently, it’s lawn-care o’clock because as soon as I step outside, three heads swivel in my direction. The older woman next door pauses her hedge trimming to glare at me from under her pastel, floppy hat with “Too Blessed to be Stressed” embroidered across the large rim. I wave, my shirt still in my fist, swinging in the air like a hooker’s white flag of surrender.

The man on a riding mower across the street tilts his head and squints into the early morning sun like it must be playing tricks on him.Surely, that’s not a shirtless man in the driveway of the PTA president who’s twice his age.

I continue to the car parked along the curb with extra pep in my step, saluting another man watering his windowsill flower bed underneath aMarine Corps Alpha Veteranflag across the street.

“What about this weather, huh?” I holler, holding my arms out appreciatively, nodding to the sky. I hop in my truck and roll down the window, shouting as I drive away, “Keep those edges tight, gentlemen!”

Driving away, I pluck out my colored contacts and toss them out the window. My eyes feel dry and scratchy from sleeping in them but it’s worth it. I can’t risk my clients seeing my eyes turn solid gold when in rut, rather than mere streaks and flecks, something that only happens to unsuppressed noble-blooded alphas and omegas.

On my way home, I stop by my regular coffee shop. There’s nothing particularly special about Bailey’s Beans except for the fact that I come here enough that they know mine and the boys’ orders by heart. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and sweet omegas meets me as soon as I step inside.

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