“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.” I turn around and find a table to clear. I quickly load the cups and plates on my tray and make my way back to the counter.
As I’m putting everything away in the dishwasher, Audrey steps close again. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you or aren’t you wearing shorts? Or at least big undies?” Big undies? What the...?
“Aud,” I whisper loudly, trying to not make the sweet ladies look our way or overhear us. “Don’t even dare to check, or whatever you’re coming up with in that brain of yours. No. I’m not wearing shorts. Why do you think I’m trying not to bend down?” I roll my eyes at her. Now she knows, she’s going to use that knowledge against me, purposefully get me in situations where I’ll have to bend down, because she’s mean like that.
“Risky.” Audrey laughs, her eyes shining with glee. “You trying to impress someone?” But before I can answer she walks off to greet a new family who just walked in. Oh! Her! It’s that I like her and she’s a good friend, or I would not have put up with her as long as I have...
I’m not trying to impress anyone. Impressing people is the furthest from my mind as can be. I don’t want anyone to look at me with interest. Though, try to get Audrey to understand that, she loves the attention from the boys... I don’t. I’d prefer to get no attention from any boys, at all, ever.
If I could stay single for the rest of my life, I’d be happy with that. No matter if people think it’s weird, it’s much better than the alternative.
I’m an Omega phoenix shifter, which is not just rare, it’s almost legendary in how few of us exist in the world. But, here I am, phoenix shifter and Omega at the same time. That’s not just one reason but two reasons for people to want to control me.
It doesn’t matter if I’m pretty or ugly, or how smart I am. Just those two things alone are enough to make certain people lose their mind over the thought that I’m still alone, unmated, and not popping out babies every year for the last six years at the age of twenty-five. And my parents are definitely part of that group of people.
It’s only because I’m too stubborn to give up that I’m still free of an Alpha. I graduated high school with really good grades and I was able to persuade my parents that getting mated at eighteen would be a bad idea; too young, much too young, and too inexperienced to make a good mum.
So they let me go to college, which I purposefully chose to be as far away from home as I could manage. Living away from them, living a life I chose for myself, has been such a good experience that I don’t ever want to go back, no matter what. Before I went to college, I had an idea of what freedom could be like, but it has turned out to be even better than I could imagine. If this is what Alphas, Betas and humans get to live like, why would I ever go back to a life where my every second of every day is dictated by an Alpha, just because I’m an Omega?
Of course, it’s not all easy. I have to take medication to make sure that other shifters won’t be able to recognise me as a shifter, and the yearly heat suppressants I have to take during mating season are always hell, but it’s better than the alternative. It’s not easy to hide myself and I always have to be really careful that I don’t get close to people. The medication works both ways, shifters can’t find me, but I can’t sense them either, so I can’t get close to anyone in case they’re an Alpha or a Beta and they might claim me for themselves. If that happens, then all of this is over, and I don’t want it to be over.
I knew an Omega in college, she got abducted right off the campus grounds. She was also using medication to suppress her shifter side, but she’d forgotten to take it one morning. It was late fall, right before the mating season started and she got found out. She was also some rare shifter type, a dragon, I think, and someone took her. Someone found out and they took her, right off the street, in broad daylight.
It was a big deal, the whole campus was in chaos for a couple of days. The Omega’s parents came to the college, trying to find her, and the cops got involved, both shifter and human, but they couldn’t find her. In the end, it turned out that a local shifter family had her and that their Alpha son had already mated her. Just like that.
She was taken from the street and before the end of the day she’d been mated by a total stranger, forever bound to him. Last I heard, she’s had two kids in two years time, and she never leaves the house with either her Alpha or an Alpha or Beta from his family with her.
I’m not letting that happen to me. Never. I want my own life. I don’t want to be some baby machine for some random family. I like my freedom and to be able to keep it, I need to make sure nobody finds out what I am.
Humans are aware that shifters exist, and most shifters try to appear as normal and human as possible when they’re out and about, because lots of humans still fear shifters. Which isn’t unfound, not exactly. Some shifters, especially some of the Alphas... They tend to have a habit of showing off in dangerous ways. Ways which can be deadly to humans who are standing around when they show off.
