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1
SYLVIE
“Hi, Sylvie! Come in and have a seat on the couch. Whoopsie! I think we have the wrong year for your birthdate.” The bubbly blonde hadn’t actually looked up from my file yet.
Shit. A new one to break in.
She would make it eight. Eight case managers in as many years, all of them so damn young. High turnover.
Not many omegas wanted to keep working after they found packs and started having babies. But here at the Omega Matching Network, the only people who were allowed to be case managers were bonded omegas. They were “experienced” in a way betas never could be, with invaluable advice to pass along to the recently designated.
Which was great. It made sense. Just not for me.
“Please, call me Sylvie. The year is correct. I’m really twenty-eight.”
Blondie’s eyes darted up in shock. I sat back and waited as the woman’s stare raked over me from head to toe, searching for flaws. Something that would explain how an omega could be unbonded at such a ripe old age. I wanted to laugh as much as I wanted to cry. My beta friends thought it was crazy that anyone younger than me would evenbebonded.
Maybe I was a record holder? Oldest Unbonded Omega Ever. A plaque and a ceremony might be a nice consolation prize since I’d given up hope of finding a pack.
Tears pricked my eyes at the thought. Making light of it wasn’t helping me feel better today, here, in this office. When it came down to it, I ached, both physically and emotionally. I wanted a pack. As the years passed without one, I was dying inside.
I breathed out slowly, reining in my very omega-like reaction. My biology made me an emotional mess on a good day, and this whole situation was so fucked up. It was time to get it over with.
“Nice to meet you, ah…?”
“Tiffany,” the woman muttered, frowning.
“Hi, Tiffany. I can see you haven’t really read my file. Go ahead and check my scent card. I’ll wait.”
New girl wasn’t going to find out anything by looking at my face or my body. I was as pretty and curvy as any other omega, with long brown hair and green eyes I’d been told were “enchanting.” That wasn’t the problem.
Tiffany nodded and flipped the file to the back, where the scent card was tucked in. It had my name on the label, plus a helpful “CONFIRMED” written in block letters, in case anyone doubted that it was real.
I had to give it to her, Tiffany was thorough. First, she sniffed a few inches from the card. Then she pulled it out of the holder and held it closer to her nose. Finally, she huffed the thing right under her nostrils. When her eyes came back to mine, they contained pity and not a little bit of horror.
Fuck my life.
“There’s nothing. No scent.” She almost sounded angry.
“No, there isn’t.”
“But you’re an omega.”
“Yep.”
This was the moment. Would Tiffany dismiss me as a freak of nature or take me on as a personal mission? I’d had case managers go either way, and neither option was pleasant. It would be more humane to put on a fake smile, check the boxes, and get on with it. Especially considering I had to come to these meetings twice a year for the foreseeable future.
The Network wasn’t too intrusive in my life, but I was legally compelled to show my face here for check-ins until I was bonded. It was for my “welfare,” according to the higher-ups.
Tiffany leaned back in her chair, her brow furrowed. “Let me get this straight. You don’t have a scent? Even during your heats?”
No beating around the bush with her. I could feel my cheeks flush.
“I do have a faint scent when I perfume. At least,Ican smell it. And yes, during heats, it’s stronger. But I seem to be the only person who can detect it on a regular basis, and I can’t exactly invite random alphas over to my heats just to see if they can pick it up. Not when they won’t even look my direction.”
I knew my own scent, even if no one else did. It was tart, like berries, mixed with a vanilla-y sweetness. But it was easy to miss, barely there except during heats, when it was just at the level most omegas would consider “normal.” God, I hated that word.
Now Tiffany had a fierce look I recognized. I was to be her personal project, then. Fine, whatever. It didn’t really matter.
