She might not understand the real implications, but I don’t think any girl would want to go on a ‘date’ with someone who’s thinking of someone else all night. Yep. Nope. The scent is already gone, nothing of it lingering in the air anymore, so I’ll figure it out after the party is over.
“You gonna dawdle much longer?” Max calls out to us and that finally brings me back to the here and now.
This area is full of all sorts of humans and shifters alike, so while the minute chance exists that my Omega mate lives here, the scent is gone and I’ve got other things to do. Since it was just a wisp and nothing really substantial, it could even be that my Omega mate crossed the street on the other end of the block and that just that small fragment of their scent floated all the way over here, like the effects of a too heavy perfume.
I smile at Cyra, trying not to scare the poor girl even more. “Are you ready to party?”
She nods carefully, then looks over to the limo. “You really do go all-out when you can, don’t you?”
“Hey.” I grin, glad that her playfulness has returned some. “If you can, why not do it?”
She lets out a short sigh, but then straightens her back, like she’s bracing herself for what’s to come. “I guess it’s time to go, then?”
By now, we’ve reached the limo and Max is holding the door open for her. He smiles, his eyes sparkling with joy when he looks at her. “Well, we could just go somewhere else... Just have a fun night without all the fanfare and everything.”
“Hey! Both of you.” I pretend-glare at them. “We’re going to the party first, show our faces. If we’ve been there for an hour and everything is still boring, we’ll leave and find something more fun to do.”
“Deal. One hour.” Max grins and Cyra smiles too.
“I guess that sounds like a plan. Try the drinks and food and then sneak back out.” She lets Max help her into the car, even with this dress, which doesn’t have twenty layers on the skirt, it’s still not easy to get into the limo.
When she’s close to him, he stills, his eyes darkening over, his skin flashing with the colour of his cerberus’ fur, his shoulders starting to bulge under the suit, before he pulls himself together. Luckily Cyra doesn’t see it, as she’s trying to get comfortable with her dress all around her. It would probably have scared the crap out of her if she’d seen it.
What happened there? I’m about to ask Max, already reaching out, but after shaking his head a moment, like he’s clearing it, he climbs in after Cyra and I follow them. I’ll have to ask him later, when Cyra can’t overhear us.
She might be aware of shifters, and willing to be a ‘date’ for a party, but she doesn’t need to hear us talk about the parts that most humans find a bit more... uncomfortable, when it comes to shifters. Like mates and being able to scent people and things like that... It makes a lot of humans very uncomfortable.
As we drive off, I know one thing for sure. Cyra will be one of the most stunning women at the whole gala. She might not be a shifter, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t have the eyes of the whole room on her. It’s not just the dress, or her hair or her makeup, it’s also in the way she carries herself, her strength, the way she knows what she wants. That surety, that confidence, there’s nothing as sexy as that.
And we’ll be with her the whole night, we’ll have the pleasure of being at her side. We’ve definitely lucked out tonight, and that alone makes me not dread the party as much.
13 Cyra
I tried to hide my scent as well as I could, but I might not have been able to get it all out of the dress... I couldn’t spray the thing with deodorant or something, that would be much more questionable, but also, I didn’t dare to do that with the expensive fabric.
It’s a stunning dress and I’m sure it costs three or four times what I make in a month’s time. But I have to put that out of my mind, I can’t keep thinking of that, no matter how uncomfortable it feels to wear such an expensive dress...
It’s not like I’ve not worn expensive dresses before. My parents aren’t exactly poor. They’re not as rich as Max and Liam probably are, but they’re not poor either, and they’ve put expensive dresses on me before, usually for parties just like these...
This event might just be for people of mating age, but many Omegas, especially from better-off families, get dragged to ‘parties’, aka mating arrangement events, from the time they’re quite young. I remember going to one when I can’t have been older than five or six years old, around Daisy’s age. Kids at that age should be playing, not basically going to some ‘Omega show’ to be paraded around in front of potential families.
At least I’m not one of the main events this time, and that makes me a little less nervous. Usually, all the unmated Omegas from all around are sent to these parties, so that the Alphas and Betas can ‘get to know’ them, though that sounds much too kind for the negotiations and bartering going on at these events. They’re more like meat markets than a real ‘party’...
But today, I’m just a human, ‘just’ here to be the date for two handsome Alphas, so I’ll mostly be ignored, luckily. Hopefully.
I’m way too impressed with the house —no, correction, castle— that we arrive at, that I have a hard time to pay much attention
