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No.
It might work for some omegas, but not this one.
And thenhecame calling, sniffing around new academy grads in the unbonded omega compound, disguised as a potential suitor—offering us paradise and freedom in the Equinox Isles. Largest islands in the world, once a continent that shattered into societies ruled by the seasons, omegas there were still seen as deeply connected to Sabina, the life goddess, just like we were in ancient times. On Yule, Samhain, Mabon, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lammas, the eight major islands and the hundreds scattered around them, including Mistletoe, omegas were said to be revered.
But Jackson and his pack of douchebags lied.
They sold us a fantasy. They pretended tocareabout our plight.
They took our money, what little we had, to pay for some of the big dramatic escape in the dead of night.
But now we owed them for the rest.
Every meal we ate at the Misery chalet. Every new outfit we needed at the club. Every retreat we took for our heat—the debt grew.
At this point, in less than a year, I owed Pack Misery more than I owed the Bog government, and that was saying something. Mistletoe was supposed to be my starting over, an island off the south coast of Yule covered in beautiful forests and cute snowy villages.
But the cozy veneer was just another lie, Mistletoe Isle yet another shitty place to serve the alpha elite, the club named after it just a microcosm of what went on out there in the snow and the pines.
Once again, I was subhuman. Me and the other omegas—less than. Weak. Soft. Malleable, a token for trade and barter.
“Yes, mistress,” I gritted out. Sir, mistress—words not in my vocabulary until Jackson got me a spot in the club, but given the theme, bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, a world of power exchanges just beyond the big red doors off Main Street…Thatwas the proper vernacular. “I understand.”
“Good.” Adeline smooshed my lips into a pouty pucker, then let go and spun me around by the shoulder, a sharp swat on the butt my dismissal. “Go on, then. Make your mistress proud.”
Disgust scalded the back of my throat, and for a beat, I just stood there, stiff and silent and seething, until Adeline and her faint creamy orange scent came close again to smooth my hair over my shoulder.
“If you make those alphasveryhappy,” she whispered in my ear, “you can spend your shift tomorrow night in your nest.Paid.” The thought made my heart soar—and I hated it. “Would you like that? I know they’re filthy vamps, omega, but they’re alphas—and Aldo paid a small fortune to secure you. Take it for the compliment it is.”
I closed my eyes, torn between fighting for that glorious ten-hour shift in a nest and finding a vent to climb inside so I could disappear forever. Clearing my throat, I nodded again and went for the door.
“Doesn’t that sound nice—spending the night in your cozy widdlenest?”
Saying that word, dangling the offer—she knew what she was doing. Instinctively, my tummy fluttered and my expression softened, nests the onlyrealsanctuary for an omega. Adeline’s assistants sniggered at my visceral response to her patronizing baby talk, and I hurried out of the dressing room, feeling smaller and more pathetic by the second.
Head down, I slipped into the main floor omega retreat. Accessed by a rotating numerical punch code, off-limits to patrons, it was a haven for all the uncaged Mistletoe omegas roaming the club. Allotted two fifteens and a half-hour break each night, men and women just like me could sneak into this dimly lit space and curl up in one of the somewhat clinical nests lining three of the four walls. With a huge table in the middle of the room, then massive double-wide fridges stocked with sugary treats, it wasn’tterrible.
Caged omegas, however, had their breaksinthe cages.
I’d been nibbling chocolates and sipping juices in front of creeps for almost six months straight.
I could only imagine what tonight had in store for me with monsters who drank human blood.
Still, being in here had a somewhat calming effect on me, even if I knew, like always, Jackson Misery would be waiting at dawn in his massive all-terrain behemoth, my alpha captor dragging me and his other swindled omegas to the Misery clubhouse on the island interior. We’d sleep the day away, exhausted from a night of alpha bullshit, and then it was straight back here by the late-afternoon sunset.
Keen as I was to join the other two omegas surrounded by cushy pillows and blankets, little wireless pods in their ears to listen to whatever soothed them, that wasn’t an option. As I paused at the huge door, hand hovering by the handle, I realized I wasn’t nervous… until now.
Before, I’d focused all my emotions on Adeline and her assistants and this fucking bow stuck to my neck with tape that itched.
Now…
Now, stomach in knots, I couldn’t move, my perfume spritzing all over the place, biology on overdrive. Snowdrop had been my defining scent signature since I awakened, light and creamy, honeyed and soft. At the moment, it was tainted by the sharp, bitter acidity it had whenever I was genuinely terrified.
I took a deep breath, then another, willing my nervous system to settle, begging the omega in my soul to reel in the fear—because going out there like this, my scent drenched in dread, was like throwing chum into shark-infested waters.
Besides, I couldn’t put it off forever. These vampire pets of Aldo Graves had a start time, and a quick glance at the clock hanging over the fridges told me I verged on being late if I dragged it out any longer. So, scent mostly under control, the acidity dampened, the honey sweetness surging, I ducked out into the club itself, bracing for all thealpha.
Ah. My nose scrunched. There it was: the assault.
