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But behind the spark of fear are embers of respect.
“I’ll do everything I can, Willa. But I might take you up on your offer.”
“My offer?”
“To rearrange things,” she says with a smile.
“So,the packs with more omegas treat them worse? Is that it?” Emilia asks as she pours herself another cup of herbal tea.
After we’d come to an understanding, she offered to forage for herbs and came back ten minutes later with a bundle of sweet-smelling leaves I didn’t concern myself with identifying.
I’m cuddled in my corner of the sofa, cradling my mug of tea, while she’s perched next to me, her tea balanced elegantly in her lap.
“That’s usually how it goes, though not always. Some packs are just shitty to omegas, treating them much the same way Belle treats mages.” I didn’t add that I knew it was a more common practice among her people than a single aggressor. I’d let her tell me that on her own if she saw fit.
She sips her tea and I do the same. The herbs she chose burst with flavor on my tongue. I’d have to remember to get the recipe from her. “So, in packs where the omegas are few, how are they usually treated?”
I smile at her. “There are only five omegas in my pack, and we are cherished. Our mates dote on us and give us every comfort. We know how valuable we are to the community, not simply for the purpose we serve, which, make no mistake, is valuable, but that doesn’t supersede our value as people. Everyone in our pack matters—alpha, beta, delta, omega, and sigma. All of us matter.”
Emilia taps her chin a few times, deep in thought. “And how would you suggest we treat our mages?”
“Well, first, I’d say you should give them their choices back.”
She winces. “When you say it like that…”
I offer a sympathetic nod. Emilia didn’t seem like an evil person. She was trapped in a system she had no say in making. But she could definitely do something about it now. “It’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame, Emilia. Even more difficult to realize that the way you and everyone you know were raised to operate is a problem.”
Emilia nods, staring deep into her teacup as if it held the answers for her. “If we aren’t stringent with how many true witches are born each generation, our coven will die off. There won’t be anyone to hold our ancestral knowledge anymore. It’s very important that we keep the birthrate—”
I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Find ways around it, Emilia. If every mage declines being bred, figure out another way.”
“What other way is there to make more witches than by giving birth to more witches?”
I met her frustrated gaze. “You’ll find it, Emilia. I know you will.”
The tiny witch just shakes her head, posture deflating as my front door clamors open.
“Hey, you. I missed you.” Jonah stands in the threshold, backlit by the midday sun, smiling the smile he saves just for me.
I hop off the sofa and dash across the living room to him, jumping into his arms. He wraps his warmth around me and I snuggle into him, relishing that delicious, woodsy scent of his.
“I missed you too,” I say, buried in his neck.
“Well, I suppose that’s my cue to leave.” Emilia sets her mug on the wooden tray sitting on the ottoman and excuses herself as she shimmies past us. “I’ll be in touch, Willa.”
“Mmmkay.” I don’t look up. I keep huffing Jonah’s scent until I’m teetering on the edge of zooting myself.
He smells better than I remember.
Better than he ever has.
Jonah enters the house the rest of the way, kicking the door shut behind him while I’m still clinging to his front like an overgrown spider monkey. “I have some good news,” he says with that unmistakable smile in his voice.
“Yeah?” I ask as he sits on the sofa, so I’m now straddling his lap with my legs around his waist.
“I spoke with my pack yesterday and officially gave up my position as Pack Alpha.”
It’s like a punch in the gut.
