Page 15 of Violet

Getting a good mate is one thing; being deemed this year’s Luxe is another. And that’s not the kind of pressure I think I can handle right now.

The world spins, and my skin’s about a thousand degrees hot and hypersensitive. The smooth silk is like rough sandpaper on my skin.

The room is very grand, with paintings on all the walls, and a few sculptures on pedestals, including a Degas ballerina. I focus on that beautiful sculpture, studying the little girl in a frozen pose, and it centers me. At least enough so that I can function.

I’m meeting the Councilwoman Sophine Adams, the highest Alpha in our society. Monarch, as she likes to be called.

She’s standing on a raised section of the vast room, where a dapper male Omega stands in powder-blue velvet to her right, near a rich red high-backed armchair withgolden legs. There’s a delicate marble coffee table near her, and on my side of the sitting area is a smaller pale-rose seat, like a rounded pouf ottoman, with no back.

In my head, I can hear Rue sayingwhoa.

All the other Omegas who’d been on the Monarch’s list already came and went. I am the last in the line. Some were in here for half an hour, others over an hour. The shortest time was twenty-three minutes. I timed it.

It’s only been three minutes since I walked in, and it already feels like an eternity.

Somehow, I stop myself from clenching my hands nervously.

“You should look at me, since we’ll be talking,” the Monarch says.

Her voice is like thick smoke, and I look up. I’m covered in blocker, which blocks my scent. Not the Councilwoman, though. She smells like rich linen and sunlight. Effortlessly cool, effortlessly luxe.

It makes sense. I didn’t really get the wordLuxebefore, apart from being Sophine’s catchword for the Season. But now I do. “Something you’re born with.”

A single penciled brow rises. “What was that?”

Startled to realize I had spoken aloud, I lift my gaze to her again. She’s heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Timeless beauty.

“I…I’m sorry, Monarch.” I do a small curtsy, and the male Omega snickers, only to stop when she cuts him one brief glance. “I’m Vi?—”

“I know who you are.” She sits. Her long frame is in a cream-colored suit, like she’s off to set order to the world.But her dark-blue eyes are on me, intensely intelligent, intensely interested. “What did you say?”

“Something you’re born with. Luxe, I mean. I get it now. I just…I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.”

Her eyes narrow, and I know I’ve screwed up. I made her sound vain, simpering, and I want the floor to eat me or the ceiling to fall.

“Do you thinkyou’rethat?” she asks, head tilting.

I gasp. “No, Monarch, not at all.”

“Sit. Tell me about you.”

“You’re more interesting.”

“I’m not here to be flattered.”

Misery rocks me. “I’m not attempting to flatter.” That’s worse. “I just…I’m not interesting. In a house full of five Omega sisters, it’s not easy to stand out.” Out of desperation I lock onto the ballerina sculpture again. And I make myself breathe slowly because I refuse to have a panic attack here. Minutes, hours, seconds pass, and finally I say, “Is that an Edgar Degas?—”

“What about movies?”

I blink at the sudden change in subject matter, but I answer her. “They’re all right. I don’t go much. I’ve always been the one at home helping our mother with my family… Should I go now?”

“Sit.”

This time, I do.

Sophine looks me over. Slowly. Decisively. “So you’re not into entertainment? Celebrities? Gossip?”

“Not really.”

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