being where I was supposed to be for another twenty minutes, I could send a courier with a note telling my host I had been, unfortunately and quite thoroughly, detained, so I had left my office early and gone home. Now I just had to hope that Kat, my personal assistant and bodyguard, was not as tenacious as she typically was about making sure I didn’t miss an opportunity to offer for an omega who caught my eye. Of course, to do that I had to show up at excruciatingly uncomfortable social gatherings where I felt more like a sacrificial lamb than the alpha I was.
Every three months, all across the country, one of the rich and powerful lupine families in every city hosted what was called a gathering, but everyone knew it to be an omega party, where omegas were presented. It had to be as insufferable for them as it was for me, and I could state, unequivocally, that the practice was untenable. They were complete and utter horror shows of vapid conversation where, somehow, the champagne was always warm and time moved at a glacial speed. I’d never been to one where I didn’t pause as the overly-coiffed, perfumed, and swaddled-in-couture creatures were paraded up to me and wonder why they all looked malnourished and in need of sustenance.
“That’s because they’re all looking for a bonding,” my sister-in-law, Georgiana—Gigi—had apprised me with a knowing nod and a smirk over dinner the night before. Being an alpha herself, she’d been through it as well. “Believe me, I remember when I had to stand in front of all those preening peacocks myself. All omegas give me hives.”
Her husband, my brother, Stone, snorted out a laugh.
“Come on,” she snapped at him, one of her gorgeous copper color brows lifting, “don’t you remember what’s his name, Dabney—what was it?”
“Gilroy,” my brother and I said at the same time.
“Yes, Dabney Gilroy,” she echoed with a shudder, “with the handkerchief and the mascara and that perfume that used to make me sneeze.”
“You like mascara,” Stone reminded her with a salacious grin. “You’ve had me in lip gloss and mascara and some very scary eyeliner many times.”
I heard her breath catch as she responded to a memory combined with his pheromones and the smile that made his eyes glint. “Yes,” she murmured, swallowing hard, “I have.”
The things they did in their bedroom were not, I was certain, for the faint of heart, and I didn’t need to know. I gagged at my end of the table. Loudly.
She cleared her throat, sat up straight, and scowled. “You look stunning when I make you up, and of course I like it on me, but Stone, there are roses in the garden with more fortitude than that man ever thought of having.”
He shrugged in agreement.
“And when you dress up and let me take things off you––”
“I will vomit,” I threatened her, and my brother, the ass, snickered.
She grunted. “You know, someone told me once that the omegas don’t eat the entire day before those stupid parties. The grayish pallor is supposed to be attractive.”
“Why?” Stone asked her.
“From what I gathered, the alpha is supposed to feel like if they claimed that certain omega, then they could provide for them so they’d never go hungry again.”
“How very Gone with the Wind,” he groaned. “That’s practically primeval. What kind of thinking is that?”
“It’s how they’re raised,” she reminded him. “From the time they’re very young, they’re made to feel small and helpless. They’re groomed to be on the hunt for an alpha to make them whole.”
Stone shivered, returning to his meal. “Just watching that debacle always gave me the creeps.”
I put up my hands in a gesture of agreement.
Gigi gasped suddenly, startling both me and my brother. “Oh dear God, I’m so sorry.”
I glanced at Stone, who shrugged, clearly just as confused as I was by her outburst.
“I…I spoke out of turn, when your dear, departed mother was an omega herself,” she rushed out, her silverware clattering noisily to her plate as she shoved her chair back and leapt to her feet, turning toward my brother. “Stone, I––”
“Stop,” he urged her gently, holding out his hand, which she grasped quickly. “My mother being an omega has absolutely no bearing on this conversation at all.”
She grimaced as she lifted her welling blue eyes to me. “Graeme, I never meant to insinuate that she was less than or––”
“Yes, dear, I know,” I soothed her. “It didn’t even cross my mind to