Archive of Our Own

She’d only packed two bags of clothing, her jewelry, medicines, and a couple of photo albums. She’s planning to go back for more, but she couldn’t stand to stay another minute in a home where everything reminded her of Jason. He’d reassured her that her affair with her dad had nothing to do with him leaving her and told her that she could change her mind and join the Williams pack whenever she wanted for as long as he was part of the pack. During the car ride here she’d managed to work up an ounce of anger. She vowed to throw out everything he’d bought her to make the place wholly hers. The determination dies when she set foot in the new apartment.

The first thing she sees is a painting hanging on the wall opposite the entrance. It’s a Larsen, one of her favorite painters. Jason hates his art. The entrance has an old-school phone bench. One of those combining a seat and a little table. She’d once lamented that stationary phones went out of style because she missed having a phone bench. On top of that, she wanted a seat in the entrance at home where she could sit and put on or remove her shoes when she was tired, sick, or in pain. Jason liked his entrance free of clutter. There’s even an empty painting rack in the hall since she so often carried paintings when she came and went.

She leaves her bags by the entrance and goes in to explore, only to discover that the whole apartment is a love letter to her in its own way. Every piece of furniture, utility, and color scheme is adapted to her needs and preferences. It’s all her with him removed. He loves luxury with gold, marble, and the colors of the ocean. There’s nothing of that. Instead, he’s filled the apartment with proof of how much attention he’s always paid her. Fifty-three years of mateship and he’s never said, ‘I forgot,’ about anything important to her. There aren’t many decorative objects or paintings. Mostly, it’s left for her to fill. But there’s an art studio, fully equipped and ready for her to get going. There’s a smaller hobby room with things related to creativity for when she gets her ideas to venture into things like scrapbooking, pottery, knitting, and other fads. There’s a nice speaker system so she can listen to music wherever she is, a large TV, a home office.

In the living room, she breaks down and cries for a few minutes because in a bookcase, aside from a few favorite books, there’s an old toy. She has no idea how he knows about it, presumably because she mentioned it to him. How could he even remember? It’s so long ago she probably said it back when they just got to know each other. It’s a wooden toy soldier with movable joints, popular back when she was a kit. She had always wanted one of these, but her dad wouldn’t let her have it because it was a toy for boys. She hugs it to her chest and cries.

When she has cried herself out, she’s desperate for a hint of something purely Jason. There has to be something. She goes to explore further. The apartment has two floors, but on the second floor, the rooms are impersonal and utilitarian, obviously devoted to servant quarters. Usually, it’s the other way around, and the servants live below, but he knows how hard stairs can be for her when she’s unwell.

Unable to find something, anything, that’s just Jason, desperation grows in her chest. Then it hits her. She hurries back down and goes to the kitchen. She opens the cupboards, the fridge, the pantry, and the freezer. There it is. All of them are so full of food half will go to waste. She, as well as the cooks, had often chided him for buying too much food. ‘I grew up never knowing how many days would pass between my meals. Never again,’ he’d answered and kept buying food like a squirrel preparing for a long winter.

She breaks down and cries again.

Days pass. She’s barely getting by. It feels like she doesn’t do anything but cry. Jason texts her a few times, but she doesn’t answer. She gets mad and throws a couple of plates so they smash against the wall. She cries when she cleans up the mess, remembering how Jason had taught their daughters how to cook, clean, mend their own clothes, do simple maintenance, change the oil and the tires of a car, to fight, and given them a sense of inherent value and independence few aristocratic Os have. He’d been such a proud and loving father.

Her days are spent in emotional turmoil, often with conflicting emotions. Her father’s death, for instance. She mourns him and feels relief. The shame and guilt had been crushing her since it started over a year ago, but part of her, even when she tried denying him, had wanted it. Jason was the better lover, but Dad didn’t hurt to take. His knot felt good inside of her. Anytime she caved into his pressure, it felt great. After he left, guilt, regret, disgust, and self-loathing crashed over her. Also anger at her father for not listening to her repeated no. She never wanted to cheat. But it was still her fault. She could've done more to resist. Not answering her phone when he called, not opening the door. Now he's dead, and in certain moments, she feels like it should be her. She's the one who betrayed her mate. In other moments, she's enraged at her dad for putting her in that position. Os wander for a reason, and she belonged to another Alpha. He should’ve stayed away.

She wakes up with nightmares about her dad's decapitated body, about seeing Jason kill him. It's not the first time she'd seen that side of Jason. In fact, it's the first thing she saw of him. A savior with a gorgeous ocelot pelt, sharp fangs and claws, and a beautiful lemon flare. Blood drenched and fierce. Morphing into a fairytale gorgeous man with auburn hair and a friendly, reassuring smile. Any time they watched documentaries on wolfcats and direwolves and he'd get turned on, she'd think of that moment when he saved her, fighting like a fiend, looking like a wolfcat in clothes. He was never raised - his designation as a Primal was innate.

Dick Roman causes her a lot of grief. She's only met him a few times but she genuinely liked him from the very first meeting. She thinks about the time they'd met up for lunch and he'd given her the painting after reading one of her articles. Knowing now that he'd already been having an affair with Jason makes her feel so duped. She hates him for it. The next second, she feels guilty because it's hypocritical of her. She was the first to stray.

She'd been dumb enough to press Jason for details about his and Dick's relationship. In hindsight, she shouldn't have. Now she's stuck with mental imagery of the two making love, and it’s killing her. In her worst moments, she imagines Jason telling Dick how awful she’s in bed, deriding her for not being good enough. Deep inside, she knows it isn’t true. He’d never do that. It’s insane to her that someone, anyone, would take pleasure from a knot as big as Jason’s inside of them.

The silence gets oppressive so she puts on the radio. The first song that plays rips at her heart and makes her break down crying again.

A young, male voice sings, “Baby, don’t go. If you need me, I’ll be there. I’ll support you, and I’ll cheer, all I ask, that you just staaay!” The lyrics are all about the heartbreak of being discarded.

“That, folks, was the debut single of Kyle Bailey,” one of the radio hosts says.

“He wrote it when he was only sixteen,” his co-host says, “and today he’s making a comeback with a song called, ‘My Way to Say I Love You’ that we will be playing after the break. The song actually leaked as a bootleg but didn’t gain traction until the QuickSpeak phenomenon Antoine Bolton went viral with a response to it. Kyle reached out to him to collaborate…”

She isn’t listening to the hosts. Instead, she wonders how a 16-year-old can capture the feeling of desperate longing and sadness, feeling connected with the artist. The ad break comes and goes, and the newest single starts playing. The voice is recognizable as the boy who had sung before but has now matured into a man. She’s broken out of her crying to listen. The new song is about being scared to love, feeling inadequate for not being Primal, and fear of getting old and discarded. His voice conducts such vulnerability it’s heart rendering. Then a second singer comes in, with a much deeper, grittier voice, and a hopeful tone, encouraging him to be brave. That song, too, makes her cry. She identifies with the young man’s fear. She’s heard of Kyle Bailey. He was part of Project Red P, which had her dad so enraged that he’d forbidden her to watch it. Not that he could’ve stopped her, but since Jason hadn’t expressed an opinion on the matter, she hadn’t seen it. She also knew there had been an assassination attempt on Bailey which started the civil war. Even though she rarely watched the news, some things were so big they didn’t pass her by. Her heart goes out to the young man.

The next time a song catches her attention, it’s a song about cheating. A woman sings about her man being out cheating and her keying his car in retribution so he’ll think twice before he cheats again. It makes Maddy’s anger flare. How could Jason do this to her after 53 years together? She, too, should destroy his most loved belongings so he, too, could suffer. But then she starts thinking about what belongings he’s attached to and realizes that he has nothing. In his home office, he kept his most valued things. Paintings she’d made for him. Art projects the kits had made, photos of the family. He wouldn’t care if she bulldozed the estate. If she wanted to destroy what he cared for, she’d have to ruin their daughters and herself. All the expensive items he hoarded were just an extension of why he overfilled the fridge. He didn’t actually care for them. That hurls her right back into grief.

Jason never denied her anything. When he said no to studying art at college, he’d still given her the knowledge she would’ve obtained there. The only time he’d flat-out refused her was when she’d asked for them to buy a boat. It happened after they’d been invited to go on a trip on a yacht with a couple of friends. It was the first time she’d seen him truly thrilled. He’d stood at the bow, looking out at the waves, body swaying perfectly to keep him balanced as the waves hit, smelling as excited as she was at the Louvre. Afterward, she’d asked for them to buy a yacht and he’d said no. ‘Absolutely not. Honey, you were green, and so seasick you couldn’t eat for two days!’ ‘Yes, but you loved it!’ she’d argued. ‘You could go on trips without me.’ He’d shook his head. ‘Then what’s the point if you’re not by my side?’ He wanted the sea. He wanted more kits. But he’d given it all up for her, and still, he somehow thought he was a lousy mate.

They’d been among the lucky few to have a perfect mateship, like the Rosenthals. Then Dick Roman came and ruined it all.

Day four, the doorbell rings. She opens in a vain hope it’ll be Jason coming to say he’s changed his mind. It isn’t. It’s Jocarta, one of Jason’s lawyers. She smiles at Maddy. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you. I need a couple of signatures to facilitate the division of assets.”

Maddy lets her in. They sit down by the dining room table, and Jocarta explains that she needs to sign papers related to her bank accounts to remove Jason as the trustee. Maddy frowns at the documents. “I don’t understand. Aren’t these joint accounts? When did he change that?”

“They’ve never been joint accounts, Miss Greenburg. They’ve always been in your name. He made himself the trustee when he opened these accounts for you. Don’t you remember signing the paperwork?”

“I’ve never read anything he put in front of me to sign,” Maddy admits. “He’s my Alpha. I trusted him to take care of me.”

Jocarta sucks in air through her teeth. “Oooh. A piece of advice: Always read through everything, and never sign anything without a second opinion from someone you trust if you’re being pressured to sign. Especially if they claim there’s a time limit. Right now, you’re in a vulnerable position, and people might try to take advantage of that. Oh, and here are the copies of your property ownership deeds. The originals are stored in a bank vault in your name at Emerson’s Bank on Wall Street…” she hands Maddy more documents. The apartment, the gallery, her two favorite cars, a large storage unit, all in her name so nobody can take it from her. Several bank accounts. A couple of expensive artworks, also in her name. They’d already agreed that she would go to the estate and take anything she wanted before he had his pick. The only room that’s off-limits is his home office.

She signs everything Jocarta asks her to sign and waives the offer of going through the documents first. When Jocarta leaves, she breaks down and cries again. It feels so final. She looks at her phone and opens the unread text messages from Jason. It’s a wall of text. He’s trying to convince her to join him as a Packrunner when he takes the steps to convert. He talks about making it a slow process, dictating all the things he thinks she’ll like about that type of living. He also writes about his regrets in how he handled breaking it to her, and apologizes heartfelt for breaking her heart. He begs her to let him call, to meet up with him, to talk to him. She doesn’t read all his texts. She’s too drained.

She puts all the documents in her bedside drawer. She can’t sleep, and late at night, she ends up looking through the documents. The oldest bank account is fifty-three years old, and he put her name in it when he opened it. ‘So nobody can take it from you if something happens to me.’ He’d told her those words many times over the course of their mateship.

She lies thinking about him having her uterus removed without telling her. She’s not mad about him making the decision. After her first pregnancy, getting pregnant turned into her greatest fear. Still it had been she who convinced Jason to do it again after a lot of pressure from her dad. She’s furious that he didn’t tell her. For all his ‘If something happens to me’ she could’ve ended up dying just because he kept it secret. (Nevermind that the hard fade might very well have accomplished that.) She texts him accusingly. It’s 4 AM yet he responds within minutes. “My lawyers would’ve informed you within hours of my death.”

Of course, he would’ve thought of that too. Her anger at him dies, and she pets her stomach. She, too, would’ve wanted more kits if both her pregnancies hadn’t been a struggle to survive from the second month of expectancy to a year after, two, if you counted the year of rehabilitation when she came out of her comas. Jason had been by her side, steady as a rock.

She thinks about her dad talking about them having more kits mere days after she woke from her coma. She was still too weak to sit up by herself.

Her mom died of pregnancy complications when Maddy was two. Her brother hadn’t even been born, her mom only 7 months gone when the pregnancy claimed both their lives and devastated her dad. He’d been so loving towards her as a kit, and gotten stricter the older she became. When she entered her Juvies he drilled her mercilessly in how to interact with Alphas, to know her place, and to follow the will of the Star. She was a good girl, appropriately demure and soft-spoken.

Jason was different than anyone she'd ever met. Strong, fierce, caring. He was much older than her but had a playfulness about him that few Alphas his age ever displayed. In the middle of a war torn country, he'd made her feel so safe. He frequently asked for the opposite of what she'd been taught. ‘Please, look me in the eyes when you talk to me.’ He made friends with everyone, no matter their designation or social status. They'd been forced to live at her dad’s estate for three years due to the war. Already back then, the compulsion to be with her dad had hammered at her, but thankfully, he’d avoided being in the same room as her if Jason wasn’t there.

Growing up, she’d been taught that the pull an O feels to be intimate with her Alpha relatives is a sign from the Star that Os were lesser, and meant to submit. Jason called bullshit. ‘Whether basic biology or intelligent design, the Os’ wanderlust when they Present is the damned sign that Alpha relatives should not interfere with anything after the Os have wandered. The compulsive attraction is a glitch that nature never bothered fixing because wandering is the fix.’

They'd argued about it. Her religious beliefs had always been a point of contention between them. He could parrot them flawlessly as his own in public, but in private, he challenged most of them even when they aligned. He strongly believed a mated pair should take care of each other, for instance, but he didn’t see how the aristocratic model applied that. Her continued affection for her father, exacerbated by the time the war forced them to live with him after the aversion period was over, was one of those things they’d argued about a lot. Most of the aristocratic Os at that time didn’t see much of their mates, who were fighting in the war or away in private meetings Jason was excluded from.

The move to Albany came about when Cloverfield came to visit her father. Unlike most of her dad’s friends, he’d been nice and welcoming towards Jason. He told them Albany was mostly untouched by the war and that there were lots of properties belonging to aristocrats who had died in the field being sold cheaply. She was 19 when they bought an estate in Albany, Jason was 33. Jason got a lot more relaxed after they got away from the South, and although her dad would frequently write them both, a letter from him was easier to dismiss than a meeting eye-to-eye. Cloverfield was very welcoming, inviting them to dinners with other aristocrats, allowing Maddy to make friends and Jason to get his feet under him.

That’s also when Maddy became aware a secret coup of some sort was going on. Her relationship with Jason got stronger, but they also had a lot of fights centered around Cloverfield since he was preaching things Jason didn’t like and Maddy was eating right out of Cloverfield’s hand. One day when Jason was trying to teach her to cook and she refused, it came to a tipping point. ‘Those are servant chores! Why should I have to do them?’

‘Because life is unpredictable, and this is a basic survival skill.’

‘I’m an aristocrat. The Light himself chose us, and we shouldn’t have to debase ourselves like commoners,’ she’d answered with her nose in the air.

He’d gone still and smelled of rage. ‘So that’s your opinion of me?’

‘Of course not, you’re an exception.’

He’d abandoned his cooking and grabbed her by the wrist, hauling her to their car. He took her to New York, not speaking a word during the whole, bumpy ride. Once in New York, he parked the car in a guarded garage and made her walk all the way to the slums. There, he turned to her and said, ‘Tell them.’ He’d snatched up a starving kit walking by and given him a chocolate bar to make him stop cheeping. Then, he said, ‘Tell him, Maddy.’ When she numbly shook her head, he let the kit go and pointed at a beggar in a ragged military uniform. The man was missing both his legs below the knee. ‘Tell him.’ She didn't respond. ‘No?’ He pointed at a woman of Maddy's age carrying a nursing kit with one arm and a heavy bundle in the other. Both she and her kit smelled of fatigue and starvation. ‘Tell them why only you deserve a comfortable life because your dad knocked up his cousin.’

She'd started crying then. An older O with short hair, lots of scars, and a prosperous scent stepped between them with her back protectively to Maddy, flaring strongly. ‘What seems to be the problem here?’

Jason was out of patience with bullshit. ‘The problem is that someone has been filling my mate with mind poison, and I won't let her sit on a high horse unless she brushes it down and tacks it up herself first. Reality is harsh and she has to see it if she's to be mated to someone who grew up here.’

‘You're from around here? Where from?’ the O asked skeptically, eyeing his expensive clothes.

‘Edgewater.’

The woman turned to look at Maddy's downcast eyes. She touched Maddy's bejeweled Star pendant, then turned back to Jason. ‘Fair enough. Good luck with that,’ she said and moved on.

Jason had been harsh that day, determined to let her see the people Cloverfield and her dad spoke so disparagingly about. He'd done more than that. He'd shown her his past. ‘This was my first home,’ he'd said and crouched down by a small, collapsed concrete shed where three kits were hissing fiercely at him from the tight opening. ‘It's great because it's defensible even for a small kit.’ He'd shown her his first apartment, giving the current residents a big wad of cash to let them come inside to look. It was smaller than a servant's quarter and had no indoor plumbing, yet several people lived there. He showed her his favorite soup kitchen where you could reliably get food once a week as long as you were early and had a scent. He showed her the apartment he lived in during college. He painted a spotty picture of what it was growing up on the streets. At one point, he stopped by a nondescript building and looked up at a second story window. ‘I lived at this orphanage for two and a half years.’

‘Are we going in?’

‘No,’ he'd said, smelling of sudden dread.

They'd gone back to the car and he'd turned to her. ‘The Star didn't bless you, the oligarchy did. Money makes the world go around and the only difference between you and them is that you have it, and they don't. You want to think you're better than a simple commoner, you need to have spine enough to say it to their face.’

To her, it had been a turning point. She didn't argue against her peers anymore than Jason did because she could see the dangers in that, but her thoughts started shifting. Jason was teaching their daughter Sandy how to cook when Maddy decided to join them, grabbing a knife and a carrot, looking uncertainly at Jason. He gave her the softest smile and came to show her what she needed to do. She's often reflected on how that was the true start of their relationship, when she went from an Omega belonging to an Alpha, to a partner.

Just like all her friends, her mate was away weeks at a time. It was nothing odd about it, even if he was never invited to the same meetings as her dad and his peers. When she asked where he went, he just said he had to work. Then came the frightening years. Jason came home one day, upset and frightened. A law had changed, dictating that a pack could be judged for the crimes of one member. He said it was a catastrophe and would lead to horrible things. He warned the other aristocrats not to go through with some plan of theirs, but they rebuffed him mockingly and told him to know his place. He wasn't born one of them, and they were not about to let him forget that.

He decided to pack up the family and servants and move out to a farm in the middle of the forest. It was hard living for Maddy, and frequently terrifying. The civil war broke out in full, and news often reached them of all the terrible things the Red Ps did. Yet Jason kept saying, “They're playing nice. Why the hell are they still playing nice?”

Small squads of American soldiers would come by occasionally. Depending on their behavior, Jason would invite them in for a meal or attack them. The first squad threatening them was overtaken by Jason and the servants, beheaded, and their heads mounted on stakes in all corners of the little farmstead. But as long as the soldiers let them be, Jason was friendly no matter what side they fought for.

He tended the servants as diligently as he tended Maddy, and this was when he won them over. They’d come with Maddy in the move, and until these years, they were still loyal to her father. News got through that they were winning, but Jason still refused to go home. ‘The Packrunners are still playing nice. We won’t know if we’ll win until they stop playing nice.’

He’d leave a week now and then and come back with news and necessities. One day he came back whistling. He was in a good mood. ‘The Red Ps stopped playing nice. The war is over, they won, and we can go home,’ he’d chirped as if it was a lovely joke. Red Ps had wiped out most of the aristocracy, mates and kits included. Depending on who you asked, one third or one tenth of the most powerful families in the country remained. The power structure shifted drastically. The youngest sons of big families found themselves head of the households with duties they weren’t trained for. Mates and kits were left to move in with relatives they’d never met. Small, insignificant families were suddenly among the most influential. Groups that didn't use to get along scrambled to find common ground.

In all this, Jason thrived. The aristocracy were still mostly ignoring him while letting Maddy be part of their circles, but it didn’t cause quite as much annoyance for Jason. He bought up businesses and property from estate sales, and his personal wealth grew exponentially. He did business with everyone who asked, no matter their designation. He got derided for it by their peers, and often callous accusations of treason. He’d wave them off with, ‘Money makes the world turn. They have money, I’d rather it’d be me who had it.’ It was an excuse their peers bought. They also mocked him behind his back for his tactic of buying any type of property or business whether profitable or not, then keeping it.

He became the aristocratic version of a hoarder, and any time bad luck befell someone, he swooped in and bought their businesses. Some nicknamed him ‘the crow’ for it.

He hired new servants. They looked at him as if he was their savior. Most needed to be taught the proper conduct of servants and even literacy. They were of any designation, but they were the most die-hard loyal people Maddy had ever met. One of her friends once mockingly said, ‘Ugh, I don’t know where he finds these people.’ But Maddy knew, even without asking. Every time he brought home a new servant, Maddy remembered the time he brought her to the slums and said, ‘Tell them why only you deserve a comfortable life because your dad knocked up his cousin.’ He was saving people. Not by handing out stray meals from a soup kitchen once a week, but permanently. The people he employed didn’t get rich, but they came out fed, clothed, educated, cared for when they were sick, and if they left him, they had an advantageous starting point. All he asked for in return was loyalty. Remembering the staked heads around their farm during the civil war, Maddy never asked what happened to the few who didn’t give him that.

It always saddened Maddy that their peers didn’t accept her mate, but she remembers very well when the shift came. They still wouldn’t accept him as an aristocrat, but it was the moment they started to curry favor with him. It was at a dinner party. One of the Montgomeries was complaining that he needed a warehouse in Shokan, NY but there were none to rent or buy. Jason spoke up. ‘I’ll let you rent one,’ he said and named a price that was outrageous judging by the general reaction. Montgomery answered, ‘No offense, but I’ll rather buy land and build one myself.’ Jason smiled and said, ‘Sure, we can do that. Come to me when you’ve decided what plot you want to buy, and we’ll discuss the price.’ It turned out that Jason’s economic strategy was pointillism, as he jokingly called it. He’d buy the 300 sq feet copse of trees in the middle of a field, and then when they were buying up the farms to build a highway or a factory or something like that, they were forced to pay more for the copse of trees than the rest of the surrounding. If they used political influence to force him to sell cheaply, they ended up in trouble one way or another. It was cheaper and easier to just cooperate with him.

He also started offering contractual IOUs to aristocrats who needed money but didn’t want to sell their estates and properties. They could pay him off promptly and be cleared of the debt, but if they didn’t, the debt with interest would be collected when they died. Some mocked him for being a sucker who paid for their endeavors without getting anything in return, acting as if they were scamming him. But then others would fall quiet and side-eye their disdainful peers. Maddy only had a basic understanding of economics so she’d voiced her concerns with Jason in private. He’d said, ‘Your peers are rich because their parents were rich, and in turn, their parents, going back a long way. If they don’t pay me back in life, their descendants will find themselves back in the middle class or lower.’ In her youth, she might’ve been upset with him, but she thought of the collapsed concrete shed he’d referred to as his first home and thought better of it. The oligarchy chose her privilege, and this was the oligarchy choosing to take it back for other people.

In all this, he was the most loving and present mate and father, not caring one bit for what was appropriate to teach his daughter. He taught her to fake aristocratic behavior, like he himself was faking it, but gave her the keys to a future she could choose. When it was time for her to wander, he sent her to college abroad. It outraged a lot of people, but there was nothing they could do about it.

Their sex life was a problem. They often tried to have sex. It tended to sour when he entered her because it hurt. He'd promised he wouldn't knot her, and he never did, but he was girthy. He'd be the one to pull out as soon as he smelt pain. Oh, it did happen that they had full intercourse, but it was rare. He became a master with hands and tongue, knowing exactly what he needed to do to pleasure her. She too learned to touch his mandom the right way, but too often, sex left both of them feeling like failures; she because she couldn't fulfill her duty as a mate, he because he was hurting her. She made the mistake of expressing it as a duty once. Jason reacted with abject horror. ‘Is that how you think of our lovemaking?’ Of course, it wasn't, but the thought that it might be had him refraining from touching her in any capacity for a week until she broke down and begged him to.

They didn’t have a lot of other problems. If he wasn’t working, he spent time with her. They socialized with friends together, went on trips, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Despite their sex life dwindling to nothing more than heated makeout and cuddling, they were fine. Until her dad moved from Arkansas to Massachusetts and started frequenting the same social gatherings. When he did, both he and she would be constantly titillated so anyone could smell their excitement. In aristocratic circles, it was a relatively normal problem that was exacerbated after the end of the Civil War, and people pretended that they couldn’t smell that people in their midst were ready to mount each other on the spot. But Jason didn’t ignore it. Maddy’s dad had re-mated and lost another mate to pregnancy complications so he was once again stuck in a 30-year mourning period. Jason had no sympathy to offer. ‘He did it to himself when he knocked up a freshly Presented O,’ he said disdainfully.

Anytime they met her dad, he’d be on them to have more kits. He didn’t just bring it up in private, and their peers agreed with him. Jason didn’t care about the pressure, but Maddy caved and begged Jason. She parroted what she heard, that it’s safer now that she’s older, that it’s the will of the Star, that they need to continue the family line. He still said no. Her friends mistook their lack of pregnancy for infertility issues and told her about the experimental medicine called boosters. To one of them, she confessed that sex was painful for her and was told that boosters took the pain away. She brought it up with Jason and he finally caved. It led to the best sex of her life. She was aware of pain, but so engulfed in ecstasy that it didn’t register to her that it was her pain.

The second pregnancy was worse than the first and the post-birth coma lasted a year. She woke up from it with Jason sleeping curled around her on the hospital bed and Sunny, a few days short of a year old, sleeping on her chest. After that, Jason said never again, and she was relieved.

Sunny was ten the first time her dad came on to her as a man, not a father. It happened at a big party when she was taking a stroll in the garden. It was night, and he came to join her. They went to sit and talk in one of the greenery hideaways called lovers’ nooks. There, he kissed her neck and touched her bosom, inflaming a fire of lust. Her body was ready to take him on the spot, but her mind said no. ‘Dad, no. I belong to another Alpha and you’re in your mourning period. What will the Star say? And what if someone sees us?’ He’d pulled back then, but after that, she always got anxious if she knew that he’d be at the same event as them. He kept giving her a certain type of smile that was not meant for a daughter when they saw each other. Still, it took until last year for him to do it again.

He’d come by unannounced when Jason wasn’t at home and claimed he needed to speak in private with her, asking her to send the servants away. She’d always said no, but it was a feeble attempt to save her from a guilty conscience. Once he touched her, all her defenses fell. She knew she was in the wrong and told her to pack three changes of clothes and tell Jason and the servants that she was going on a little girls’ trip with one of her Omega friends while Jason was in Kentucky. She knew she was in the wrong then, because she’d done what she was told, packed a bag, and driven to the little cabin in the woods where her dad, in full Rut, met her. She said, ‘Dad, please, I don’t want to do this,’ yet she was the one who wasn’t wearing underwear because she knew what was going to happen. It was inevitable. She’d always been an obedient daughter and couldn’t say no to him.

The worst part was that she enjoyed it. Once she gave in, she gave up, and settled her mind on the here and now, just like her pregnancies, just like when they lived on a farm, fighting the inevitable makes it worse, so in the moment she’d let herself be overtaken by ecstasy. Afterward, the self-hate, regret, and anxiety ate at her. She became depressed. Jason called it rape, but she had been part of it, so it couldn’t be. Could it?

So many times over the years, she’d said to Jason, ‘Don’t talk about my dad like that, I love him!’ The strange thing is, she reflects, lying wide awake in her lonely bedroom, is that the more times she slept with her dad, the less it rang true. Even back when it happened, dad had said things that made her uncomfortable. ‘You’re just like your mother, but better. The best daughter a man can ask for. You’ve been promised to me, you know? When the king has taken his throne, I’ll never let you out of my bed. …Oh, don’t worry about it, pookie, Omegas aren’t made to think big thoughts.’

She mourns the father who raised her and taught her to swim and tie her shoes, but she’s relieved the father who ordered her to his bed is dead.

She cries again. She doesn’t love her father anymore, she hates him.

She's not sure how many days have passed when she gets another visitor. It's Jerome Starborne, her dad's lawyer. “I'm handling the inheritance, and I need a couple of signatures.” Jerome is in his mid-thirties and Starborne Sr’s third son. ‘A good man, very devout,’ her dad used to say. She lets him in, and once again, she finds herself at a table with a lawyer. “I need you to sign here, here, and here,” he says, pushing over a big stack of documents. “I also need you to procure any paperwork of properties and accounts in your name so we can have them transferred to your new guardian.”

“What do you mean?”

“Andrew Greenburg. He’ll prepare a room for you at his estate as soon as the paperwork is in order. He’s unmated so he’s agreed to mate you despite your unsuitable foray on the wild side. You’ll be cared for and treated as an O should. And you’re still of fertile age so he’ll make sure to give you a son and correct the hiccup in the family lines.”

“Andrew? My cousin in Idaho?”

“That’s correct, Miss Greenburg.”

“I’ve only met him five times,” Maddy answers numbly.

“He has nothing but good intentions for you.”

She flips through one of the documents, noting Jerome’s annoyance as she does. “This would sign over my inheritance to Andrew. By custom, it should go to my mate,” she points out.

“What mate? Your bond is fading. You’ll have it for a day more, a week maximum. The moment it’s gone, you’ll be in danger of a lethal bond-loss depression, Miss Greenburg. Andrew will take care of that. He’ll save your life. You just need to sign the documents so we can start preparing for the move, selling that gallery of yours. I’m sure there’s some value to be had in its content. There’s no need to keep any of it. There are enough galleries in Boise already. But you don’t have to worry. You’ll be allowed to keep having hobbies. Perhaps a charity of some sort? It’s suitable for a lady of your status.”

‘If it’s in your name, they can’t legally take it from you,’ Jason had explained a lifetime ago, and kept repeating through the years. He’d also explained the laws of inheritance often enough since he was so angry at her dad for it. Dad didn’t want Jason to inherit. But he didn’t want Maddy to inherit either since according to custom, an Alpha should be the one to do so. Jason told her that legally, she, as Dad’s only kit, was the sole heir. He could leave no more than 40% of what he owned to someone else if he wrote it down in a will, but by birth, she was entitled to 60% at least. If she died, her daughters would be the legal heirs even if they weren’t living in the US.

They can’t take it from her, but they can pressure her to give it to someone else. “I’m the lawful heir,” she points out.

Jerome snorts, then his face turns sympathetic. It’s a mask. “Technically. But you don’t even have a college education. The Light never intended for Omegas to run businesses. You simply don’t have a capacity for it. Your father was a great businessman. What do you know about running businesses? Have you got use for factories and rice farms? You don’t know any of these things, and it takes time to learn. So even if you should be an exception among Os and do learn, the businesses would go bankrupt before you found your footing. It’s better this way. Andrew knows how to chop up the companies and to whom to sell to to make the most profit.”

“What will happen to the employees?”

Jerome looks perplexed. “That’s unimportant.”

“Did Dad have a will?” Maddy asks, flipping through another pile of papers. It seems to be a listing of everything her dad owned.

“Unfortunately, no. That’s why time is of essence here. So if you could just sign―”

“Thank you for your counsel, Jerome. I’ll have my lawyers take a look at it and get back to you when the paperwork is done.”

“There’s no need for that. All you have to do is sign he―” Jerome says and points at the documents, but Maddy interrupts him with a racing heart.

“It’s wholly inappropriate for an Alpha to visit an Omega alone. I’m afraid recent events have left me fatigued, and I’ve reached my limit for now. I would like for you to leave. But if you insist on staying, I’ll lock myself in my bedroom and call for appropriate chaperones for the occasion so rumors of licentious conduct will besmirch neither of our reputations.”

Jerome opens his mouth to speak, draws breath, then thinks better of it. “No need, Miss Greenburg. I’ll see myself out with one last reminder that if you don’t make haste with the documents, we may lose it all.”

When he has left, Maddy stands looking at the offending documents with a hand pressed over her mouth and her heart racing in frightened panic. ‘We may lose it all.’ He meant the aristocracy, she knows that much. To her peers, her daughters don’t count. If they inherit, they’re not likely to come back and settle here, so they’ll sell everything and take their gains to France and Portugal, where they live. But Jerome is right; time is of the essence, and she knows nothing about running her dad’s businesses.

She sniffs herself. She’s still mated. The bond is much weaker than it was and so is her general scent. If she doesn’t act now, choices will be taken from her hands.

“No, no, I need to speak with a judge today. Please, tomorrow might be too late,” Maddy pleads with a clerk at the Courthall.

“I’m sorry, Miss Greenburg, the earliest time available is in three weeks.”

“Don’t you smell that I’m fading? I might not have three weeks.”

“I’m sorry. The judges are very busy. It’s above my pay grade,” the clerk says, both looking and smelling genuinely sorry.

“Okay. Thank you anyway. I’ll think of something.” Maddy steps away from the booth and looks around, trying to remain calm. She looks up at the screen that shows the rooms where courts are in session. It doesn’t help her. She looks around at the people in the reception area, some sitting on benches waiting, some are by the booths to register, and others come in escorted by police. There are posh men in fancy suits coming and going, often with their heads leaned together with less well-dressed people she presumes are their clients. There are security guards standing around in strategic places.

What would Jason do? He’s not the type to wait around for three weeks. Money. Bribes. But who to bribe? She thinks about all the things she’s learned from Jason over the years. She can pick out a Packrunner, Prog, or Beta from a crowd. Most people in here are either Conservatives or Primals, but not everyone. Who would be the most likely to help her out? Progs are known to advocate for Omega rights, so maybe they’re her best bet.

She turns around sniffing. She can only find one female Prog but by her clothes and scent, she’s more likely to be here to stand trial for shoplifting bread than she is to be able to help.

There’s a security guard who smells like a Prog, maybe even a Beta. His clothes have been washed with scented detergent and he doesn’t smell of secretion at all. According to Jason, Betas are something of a designational wildcard. They might be born amongst Progs but can still be Conservatives.

She removes a couple of hundred dollar bills from her wallet and hides them in the palm of her hand, then approaches the security guard. “Excuse me, Sir? Hi. I’m Madeleine Greenburg,” she says and holds out her hand to shake. He takes it, shakes, and retrieves his hand with the money in it, briefly throwing a look at the palm of his hand. His eyes widen in surprise before he gets his face under control.

“John Dwight. What can I do for you?”

“I need to see a judge today because…” Maddy briefly summarizes her problem. “...and if I don’t do it soon, they’ll pressure me out of both the inheritance and all my personal property and assets.”

John’s brows are knitted in concern. “You know they can’t take anything from you?”

“I’m an aristocrat, Mr. Dwight. The pressure will come from both my family and friends, and I’m currently going through a hard fade. I can barely bring myself to eat or get out of bed. Standing up to them will get harder with every day. Please, help me.”

John takes a deep breath with an inwardly thoughtful look on his face. “I’ll tell you what. I can’t do anything while on duty, but I get off at noon. If you meet me outside at 12:15, I’ll figure something out.”

It’s roughly an hour of waiting so she agrees. She goes outside to wait, clutching the messenger bag with the documents to her chest. It’s a beautiful day but time ticks by slowly. Her energy is waning and she fears she’s been duped. It would be so easy for John to just take the money, leave through another exit, and disappear. She reminds herself most people are good.

Good and punctual, it turns out. 12:15 John walks out of the main entrance dressed in civilian clothes. He smiles at her. “Miss Greenburg. I can’t get you an official time slot, but I can give you the chance to meet a judge and plead your case. Follow me.” He leads her a couple of blocks to a nice restaurant. As soon as they step inside, she knows it’s a Progressive establishment. Aside from the usual scents in a restaurant, she can smell a lot of scented oils, but barely any secretion. John looks around, then motions for her to follow. He walks up to a small table where two men in their sixties are sitting. “Judge Harlan? I’m sorry to bother you, but if you could take a minute of your time to hear out my friend, Miss Greenburg, I’d be grateful.”

Judge Harlan is a stern-looking man with silvery hair, pale blue eyes, and a forehead carved by frowns. He looks up at them from his food, face and scent neutral.

“I’m sorry to bother you while you’re eating, Judge Harlan, but I don’t know what to do. My name is Madeleine Greenburg of the Albany Greenburgs. If I don’t get this paperwork registered today, they’re going to steal my inheritance, make me sign over all my property, and since I’m still at a fertile age, they’ll force me to mate my cousin. Naturally, I’ll pay for your meal and make donations or contributions to anything you want if you help me, but I’m desperate,” Maddy says.

It’s the other man at the table who answers. “Pardon me, but did you say they’re force mate you to your cousin because you’re of a fertile age?” he asks.

“Yes, Mister. I’ve only had daughters, and where I come from, only Alphas are meant to inherit. They don’t want my dad’s holdings to leave the family. Both my pregnancies almost killed me, so my mate has refused their pressure to try for a son. He’s a Primal and loves his daughters very much. Recently, my Dad decided to attempt to do what my mate refused to, using the compulsion between us to facilitate it. That’s not what’s important here. The important thing is that I need my choice to be registered before my mating bond has faded too much for me to be able to rebel against them.”

“I’d say it’s damned important,” the second man says. He has a more sympathetic look and his brown hair bears traces of coloring agent in its scent. “Rob Sweeney, IRS,” he says and holds out his hand to shake. “You can call me Rob.”

“Maddy,” Maddy answers and shakes it.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Albany Greenburgs, that’s Jason ‘money makes the world turn’ Greenburg?” Rob asks.

Maddy smiles. “That’s him. Do you know him?”

Rob looks concerned and shakes his head. “Is he leaving you because your dad tried to―, I don’t want to spell it out, but―”

“Oh, no. He’s leaving me because he fell in love with someone else.”

Rob looks at judge Harlan. “Maurice, if you don’t help her, I’m telling Andrea,” he says, making the judge chuckle.

A waiter comes to usher Maddy and John away but Judge Harlan stops him, claiming Maddy is an old friend, asking him to bring her a chair and a glass of white wine instead. John pats Maddy on the back and wishes her good luck, then leaves. She sits down to explain in details what is happening to her, and why. She learns that Rob is Harlan’s brother-in-law and that Rob worked on auditing Jason a few years ago after the IRS got an anonymous tip, but Jason’s paperwork was perfectly in order. The men finish their meal and remain seated with her, Harlan listening while Rob looks through the paperwork she’d brought.

“...so I want to sign over my inheritance to Jason,” she ends her explanation with.

“You’re aware that you’re under no obligation to do that. All this is rightfully yours. Mr. Greenburg is a rich man who doesn’t need to get richer, and with this inheritance, you won’t have to worry about anything for the rest of your life. If Mr. Greenburg is leaving you he doesn’t deserve any of this,” Rob says.

“I know. But…” Maddy bites her lip and searches for the right words to make them understand. “When I’m not crying my eyes out, I’m mad at him for leaving me after 53 years of mateship. I’ve been in love with that man since the day I Presented, and it hurts. I heard a song about infidelity where the woman sang about keying her mate’s car to punish him. For a moment, I wanted to do the same, but then I realized that the only way I could hurt him, was by hurting people. Me. Our daughters. He grew up as a homeless orphan on the streets of this city. He often had to abandon everything he owned to survive as a kit, and he’s still in the same mindset. I can’t key his favorite car because he has none. I can’t wreck anything material he loves, because the only things he got attached to, are the things our daughters made for him.”

“I don’t see how keeping everything yourself is a punishment for him,” Rob says. He’s the more talkative of the two. Judge Harlan asks questions now and then, but his opinion remains unclear.

“It’s not that. I have two reasons. Firstly, it’s my family’s religious belief that an O should pass any inheritance over to her mate. If I get the paperwork done today, my scentmark on papers would be those of a mated O, and I’d be complying with the beliefs of my relatives who are currently trying to steal from me. But there’s a much more important reason. Jerome Starborne pointed out that I know nothing about running my father’s businesses, and the longer they remain ungoverned, the more likely they are to stop being profitable. Jerome said the companies would be split up and sold after I signed them over to my cousin. I asked what would happen to the employees and Jerome just shrugged it off as unimportant.”

Maddy takes a deep breath, tucks an errant lock of hair behind her ear, and goes on. “I used to go with my father to inspect his factories or farms in my Juvies. What I remember most about it was the scent of anxiety hanging in the air whenever he appeared. If he asked if there was something wrong, they’d deny it vehemently. When I’ve accompanied Jason on inspections, his employees are happy to see him. There are no downcast eyes or fear of talking to him. Even the most menial worker dares tell him if they’re having problems. When he buys companies, he keeps them running. People can keep putting food on their tables. A bad owner can make or break a company, and I would be a bad owner. People would lose their jobs. I wouldn’t be punishing Jason by keeping my inherited fortune, I’d be punishing poor rice farmers, factory workers, people who are already living hand to mouth. It’s for them I want to do this.”

Both men look at her thoughtfully for a moment, then Bob takes up one paper from the pile she’d presented them with and holds it up so Harlan can see. “This is fraudulent.”

Harlan looks at it and hums forbiddingly.

“It is? How?” Maddy asks.

Harlan takes the paper and shows it to her. “See here? It’s dated ten days into the future. I’ll make an educated guess and say that they’re expecting you to have lost your mating bond by then. And these two witness signatures over here? The thing they claim to have witnessed by signing the document, is you signing it ten days into the future. Normally, these things are handled by lawyers, and only come in front of a judge if a will is contended. But in your case, you did the right thing to bring it directly to me. Since you’re leaving everything to your mate, the ownership transfer can be fully registered today. Then I recommend you get yourself a fade-freeze insurance.”

“What’s that?”

“Bond-loss depression makes people vulnerable to fraud, just like you were worried they’d do to you. We see people getting scammed out of everything from their money to their homes, being tricked into selling cherished valuables when they’re in a state where they’re not really cognizant of what they’re doing. A fade-freeze insurance is a legal document that lists assets that can’t be sold for the duration of the contract, like your apartment and that gallery you were talking about. It can also include high-value objects like jewelry and art pieces. Commonly, it also puts restrictions on things like bank accounts. You predetermine a maximum sum you’re allowed to withdraw each day while the freeze is in place, which prevents someone to from tricking you to give them all of your money. Two people are appointed to be overseers. It can either be very close friends you trust or someone else. They’ll have limited control over your accounts during the duration of the contract.

Unlike a regular trustee, they’re only allowed to use their clearance to your account or accounts to do things like pay your rent and electric bills. If you want to buy something suspiciously expensive, you need to contact them and motivate why. They have the right to say no. But if they say yes, any expensive purchase will automatically be included in the freeze. You can’t sign contracts promising ownership transfers after the freeze while the freeze is active. You can’t take loans without the permission of your overseers. If you go into scentless hibernation, they make sure all basic bills are paid, and have the authority to use your accounts for hospital care for you, should it be deemed medically necessary. Should you still be in hibernation when the contract runs out, it will be automatically prolonged six months at a time up to a maximum of three years. You can’t change your will during the duration of the contract either. The goal is to protect your interests while you can’t.”

“I can be one of your overseers if you want,” Rob offers.

“This isn’t an Omega specific issue,” Harlan says. “Fade-freezes are mostly used by Primals. But since you are an O, I can give Mona Bloomberg a call and ask her to be your second overseer. She’s an Omega rights activist and cases such as yours is her lifeblood. An Overseer is also obligated to meet up with you regularly, usually once a week or bi-weekly to keep track of your physical heath.”

It sounds perfect and terrifying at the same time. She doesn’t consider for very long before she decides that she’d rather risk two strangers conning her than her family.

The next day, her doorbell rings. It’s Margery, one of her friends. Maddy invites her in to sit down in the kitchen. Marge chitchats for a bit while Maddy makes coffee and sandwiches for them. “Have you signed the paperwork to hand over to Andrew yet?” Marge asks.

“No. They want me to mate him and give him a son.”

“He’s quite a catch. Better than your last one. We might’ve kept straight faces, but we all knew he wasn’t a real aristocrat.”

“Madge, Andrew is my cousin!”

“So? He wants you, which is the important part. You’re in shambles, Maddy. Just look at you, you’re… cooking,” Madge says with an expression of distaste, gesturing at Maddy.

How anyone can call making sandwiches ‘cooking’ is astounding. “I cook, clean, and often as not, mend my own clothing,” Maddy says, turning around to glare at Marge defiantly.

Marge sucks in a scandalized breath. “Jason had a bad influence on you.”

Maddy hums, brings the sandwiches to the table and sits down. “During the Civil War, we lived on a farm. I chopped wood. I helped him mount the severed heads of soldiers on stakes around the perimeter to warn off others,” she says, taking a bite of her sandwich.

Marge looks green and smells nauseous. “I… I just remembered something I have to do. I apologize, I have to leave.”

Maddy chuckles humorlessly. “The thought of a severed head nauseates you more than a forced mating to a relative? Pathetic. You’d starve without your servants.”

Marge leaves in a huff. Maddy understands Jason’s persistent contempt for the aristocracy now. Deep down, she’s understood it for a long time, but still defended her friends and family. But nobody who comes here to convince her to mate her cousin is a friend of hers. She supposes she’s about to become a pariah in the aristocracy. She should’ve played along and agreed with Marge. Lied, and said she just needed time to recuperate from her dad’s death, something they could understand. It would’ve been easier.

She gets several visits by Os sent by their Alphas to convince her to sign the papers. People she thought of as her friends, but aren’t, or they’d have taken her side. She’s out of patience to care, and drops one shocking truth after another. Tells them about her father forcing her to sleep with her. Tells them about the misconduct of their mates. ‘Pennington fucks Jasmine Rourke behind your back every Thursday, Penelope, so why should I let you give me relationship advice?’ Some leave crying or in an angry huff.

Lillian Rothschild surprises her.

“Jerome told me they’re going to force me to mate my cousin Andrew,” Maddy says, serving the bundt cake she took out of the oven a few minutes ago. She keeps cooking in front of her guests just to gauge their reaction.

“I hope that you told that toddler to go away and come back when he’s properly potty trained,” Lillian says contemptuously and sips her tea daintily.

“I wish. I told him I’d think about it and let my lawyers look over the paperwork. I’m not keen on the thought of mating Andrew, especially not since the reason given was that I’m of fertile age.”

Lillian shudders with visible disgust. “Full offense to your clan, but you Southerners have a decrepit idea of ‘keep it in the family.’ I assume it’s because inbreeding has made the lot of you dimwitted.”

Maddy giggles. “Or allergic, with a lot of health problems.”

Lillian gives her a warm smile and reaches out to squeeze her forearm briefly. “Southerner or not, there’s nothing wrong with your mental faculties, Madeleine. Aside from whatever temporary damage the fade is causing you. A word of warning. A lot of people are badmouthing you behind your back now for your walk on the wild side.”

“I was mated to Jason for 53 years, Lillian,” Maddy points out dryly.

“So it was a long walk,” Lillian deadpans, making Maddy laugh again. “Archie has declared that you’re not welcome in our home until you’ve come to your senses. I can see there’s nothing wrong with your senses, and that it’s he who is suffering brain rot. Don’t let them get to you. These young Alphas who are throwing their knot around as if it were a magic wand have no understanding of the real world. But you and I have survived a war, we know better.”

Lillian is determined to keep her friendship with Maddy, but she wants to keep it under lids. At least she’s an ally. When she leaves, she hands Maddy a card with Sam Winchester’s phone number in case she wants another walk on the wild side. But Sam is part of the Williams pack and Maddy can’t deal with it right now. The card lies forgotten in a drawer in the kitchen.

Her mating bond is gone and the fade starts taking its toll. Aside from crying a lot and being randomly angry, she starts losing time. She can stop and stare at nothing, then when she becomes aware again, hours have passed. It’s hard to tell what day it is. She tries taking her medicine regularly, but sometimes she forgets, and one day when she starts feeling very good and horny, she counts the pills, looks at the date on her phone, and realizes she took three boosters that day, thinking she had forgotten.

She misses calls and doesn’t hear the doorbell when she gets stuck in the void, but she doesn’t care. Mona Bloomberg and Rob Sweeney come by to check on her, and she gives them a spare key just in case.

Lexiana comes to visit. She’s expecting to be pressured yet again, but Lexiana proves to be a firm ally who doesn’t give a shit if she gets the pariah treatment for associating with Maddy. “I remember who was there for me when everyone else turned their backs. Jason lent me money when I needed it, he provided seamstresses when I started getting more customers than I could sew for myself, and you both often invited me for dinner. I never forget a slight nor a favor. Today I run a worldwide empire and out-rich most of our peers. How are you doing, Mads? You don’t look alright.”

Maddy makes food and serves them both lunch. She has no appetite and only eats what she nibbles while guests come over. When they've finished their meal, Lexiana surprises her by taking the dishes to the sink and washing up. “I think you should come live with me for a while. Just until you're out of danger from the fade. Let my servants take care of you while I'm away on business. I'll kick my mate out of the bedroom so you and I can sleep cuddled until you're feeling better. I heard that they wanted you to sign over your gallery so they can sell it. It makes my blood boil. They tried to do the same to me back in the day. They don’t understand passion and they don’t care.”

Maddy chooses to remain living at home, but is deeply touched. She'd considered Lexiana more of a glancing acquaintance before this. They sit talking for a long while, drinking sherry. Lexiana thinks Maddy should put a companion or two on retainer, handing her Sam Winchester’s card, and suggests that they do a collaboration in a couple of months. She wants Maddy to do a couple of paintings that she'll either use for a fabric print or as inspiration for a line of clothing.

Time starts to get very muddled in the upcoming days. Maddy zones out more often, sometimes coming back to herself sitting on the floor, stiff and cold to the bone. She's stopped crying. She's just empty. One day Jason calls and texts her repeatedly. She ignores him, but when the doorbell rings, she's had enough and goes to tell him to stop hounding her. But it's not Jason.

Outside of her door, three handsome Alphas in their late twenties, mid-thirties stand waiting with backpacks on. They smile brightly when they see her, but they smell of grief. Not the acute kind, but the draining, persistent version signified by hopelessness and acceptance.

“Madeleine Greenburg?”

“Yes?”

“Hi. My name is Sawyer Durham, and this is Kane Anderson, and Boone Baltimore. We were hired by Mr. Jason Foster Greenburg as your servants. He paid upfront for a year,” the tallest of the three says. He’s got kind, blue eyes. All three of them are fairly tall and broad shouldered, but with different body types.

“Durham and Baltimore sound like fake names,” Maddy answers flatly while trying to process.

“We’re named after the cities we were found in as kits, Mistress,” Sawyer answers.

Of course, Jason would’ve hired people with a similar background as himself. That was his trademark, after all. She still has the urge to slam the door in their faces. She hadn’t brought any of the servants from home since ultimately, they were Jason’s, heart and souls. “How long have you worked for Jason?”

“We haven’t. He contacted our organization with a list of specific requirements and it has taken a while to weed out whom of us would be a good fit and willing. These were our requirements,” Sawyer says and hands over a paper.

She needs servants. She knows that. She also knows that she’s not in a state where she can put in the kind of effort it takes to search for, interview, and hire any. She lives opposite her gallery and hasn’t been down there once. It runs itself thanks to her competent employees, but her new projects have stalled, like the art classes for the underprivileged kits. She scans the paper Sawyer handed her. The top of the list is pretty standard. They need to be able to cook, clean, do basic home repairs, know how to book appointments and handle money. Then it starts veering off from regular requirements. Martial arts, college level education, massage, understanding of aristocratic customs and faith, how to pleasure a female O―

Maddy’s brain stalls for a beat. “How do you even test for that?” she asks rhetorically.

“Test for what, Mistress?”

Maddy waves him off with cheeks heating up, and continues reading. They need to be openminded and devout believers in the Star, be good listeners, open and honest, be interested in art, not have or want to have pets, be experienced with bondloss depression. The list goes on, and even includes a maximum knot size. She looks up at the three young men. “You tick off all of these?”

“Yes, Mistress. Not all in the same way. I, for instance, enjoy creating art most of all. I spend all my free time drawing, painting, and writing poems. Kane and Boone also draw, but Boone loves art history, and Kane used to evaluate art to try to predict its future value for his previous employer. His special interest is how art changes and affects the people based on the cultural climate it’s created in.”

Part of her wants to shout at them to get lost. Jason isn’t supposed to rule her life now that he’s left her. But who would she be punishing? Not him. Herself, and the hopeful young men outside. She sighs. “I suppose it’s for the best if I invite you in then. Come, let me show you to your rooms.”

The men dutifully take off their shoes in the hallway and follow her upstairs. “You can choose any of the rooms. This will be your home for as long as you serve, so feel free to decorate it however you want. When you’ve unpacked, you can come downstairs to the kitchen. Do you drink coffee or tea?”

It’s sad to think they’ll be staying a year and all they’ve got is a backpack each. She goes to the kitchen and prepares coffee. They come to join her and she bids them to sit down while she serves them. Once all of them, her included, are seated, she says, “I can’t be your mistress. I’m in the midst of a hard fade and it’s getting to me. If you want to work, you’ll have to figure out when and doing what yourselves. The only things I can come up with is I need to be reminded to take my medicine by 11 AM every day. Maybe bully me into taking a shower once a week. It would be nice if you could vet any visitors. I’ve got people coming over to convince me to mate my cousin regularly. Tell them to go away. Rob Sweeney and Mona Bloomberg must be allowed in no matter what condition I’m in. I suppose Lexiana is welcome too. The rest of them are not to be let in if I’m not in a condition to have visitors, or you come tell me who they are and what they want. I’ll give you my key so you can make copies of it for yourselves. And please call me Maddy or Madeleine, not Mistress. The thing I need the most is humanity and allies.”

Maddy doesn’t think having people living with her will do that much of a difference, but she’s wrong. Her home is regularly aired out and filled with the smell of freshly cooked food. When she zones out, someone is there to jar her out of it.

After three days of peacefully coexisting, she walks into the kitchen to find Kane and Boone by the table while Sawyer is making dinner. She walks up to the kitchen counter, picks up a knife, and starts cutting vegetables. She smells a shift before the stifled giggles from the table gives it away.

“Cut it out,” Sawyer snaps to the other two. “It's not like that, and you know it,” he grumps. He's blushing so hard the tips of his ears are red.

“Is this about an aristocratic Omega cooking?” Maddy hedges.

“What? Oh no. Not at all,” Sawyer flusters. “It's about our mating customs. When we get cleared to be mated, we're matched up with a suitable O. If he likes us, he'll let us cook for him as a token of acceptance. If he really likes us, he'll help. We all know you're not proposing a mateship, and cooking for you is literally part of the job description. But mentally, it's still a big deal for us to cook together with an O,” he says and gives her a smile as he takes the cut vegetables from her, puts them in a pan, and hands her a couple of bell peppers for her to cut.

“I see. It seems like a very nice custom.”

“No, it's stupid. I think it's designed for us to look stupid if we try to court anyone outside of the organization.” Sawyer looks at Maddy. “One of our customs is a mating bite. You're only supposed to grip your partner's neck with your mouth if you're getting mated or are mated. The instinct to bite is always there when you knot someone. Everyone but us do it unless they can't stand the pain. But I didn't know that. I was a recruiter. It was my job to pull people into the organization. As a result, I spent a lot of time with the misguided. The first time I slept with a misguided Alpha, he bit me, and I freaked out, rambling about not wanting to mate him. He thought I was insane since Alphas can't mate Alphas.”

“Betas can,” Maddy says. “Since they don't smell their genders, and can't form scent bonds, they have mating ceremonies where they exchange rings or necklaces, and promise each other fidelity and love. Without knowledge of their genders, they fall in love and get mated to whoever. I think it's beautiful.”

All three Alphas touch their necklaces and look thoughtful.

She looks at their necklaces―stars in silver or brass―and gets a suspicion. “So why are you mourning? You smile but smell as if someone died.”

“Crisis of faith. We still believe in the Light, but we were lied to, our loyalty and faith abused, and we were tricked into doing crimes that go against our core beliefs. So our hearts are breaking, and we don't exactly know what to believe anymore.”

That confirms it for her. “You’re Brightstars.”

The men share a look, and Kane answers, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“My father was a Grandmaster,” Maddy says.

“We know.”

“They tried to recruit Jason, but he refused.”

“We know.”

Maddy stays silent. She finishes cutting the remainder of the vegetables, then excuses herself and leaves the room. She doesn’t know a lot about the Brightstars, aside from some things she’s heard from her father, Jason expressing his disgust for the organization, and the things said on the news before Jason left her. It’s enough for her to get an idea. She goes to her bedroom and rummages through her jewelry box, then returns to the kitchen.

“Boys? I don’t know a lot about your customs or what you’ve been taught and told. Dad didn’t want me to use my brain much and claimed I, as an O, would get fatigued if I did, so he didn’t talk to me much about you. What little I do know about your brotherhood, I’ve overheard with little to no context. Therefore, I don’t know if this gesture is meaningless because it’s coming from an O, or from the daughter of one of the Grandmasters that betrayed you. Or maybe the gesture is insulting because I lack context for why it was important to you, in that case I apologize in advance. But…”

She walks up to the table where Kane and Boone are sitting. “I don’t know you well enough to make educated guesses to your preferences yet, so I’m afraid it’s surface level. Boone, would you hold out your hand?”

Boone does, with a bemused look on his face.

She takes the first golden star pendant necklace from her hand and lowers it into his. It’s decorated with yellow and golden gemstones. “Yellow, for the discoloring of old paint and sun-damaged paper that makes up art history. Kane?”

Kane holds out his hand. She lowers a bejeweled necklace into his palm. “Blue, for the spines of the books I’ve had to read to get an understanding of the impact art has on culture and politics.” She turns around to face Sawyer. All three men smell like they’re having a lot of complex emotions, but Sawyer looks close to tears. “And lastly,” Maddy holds out the last necklace to him. “Red, for the passion that drives us to create.”

Sawyer blinks rapidly to keep the tears from flowing over. His lips are compressed into a determined line. “Thank you, Madelaine. I accept. Would you honor me by putting it on me?” he asks and removes his silver necklace.

She smiles at him and reaches up to put the golden chain over his head. “Thank you. All three of you, for being here for me when I need it. Paid or not,” she says. “It means a lot to me.”

Something changes after that. All three of them are less subservient, more open, and don’t smell so much of grief anymore. They start caring for her in a way no servant would ever dare. They come get her for every meal instead of just informing her there’s food to be had. Or like the day when she can’t make herself get out of bed, and Sawyer digs his arms in under her and carries her, still clinging to the comforter, to the bathroom. “Sorry, Maddy, it’s laundry day. That means the bedsheets too so you go ahead and take a shower while I change them. Now give me the comforter and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll put clean clothes for you to dress in on the bed.”

She’s part incensed, part amused, and finds herself giggling to herself in the shower.

One day she smell that all three of them are upset and afraid, and follows her nose to find them in her bedroom, huddled over her bedside. “What’s going on?”

All three turn towards her. “Why have you got boosters?” Kane demands sternly. He smells mostly of fear.

“It’s my medicine. I’ll die without them,” Maddy answers confusedly.

“Nonono, you won’t. I’m sure it feels like it but it’s not true. You don’t need them to be free,” Boone babbles nonsensically in distress.

“Shut up, Boone,” Sawyer says, and then to Maddy, “Why do you think you’ll die without them?”

“Due to complications during my latest pregnancy, I’ve had my reproductive parts removed. I can no longer produce some hormones myself. If I stop taking the boosters, it’ll be as if I’ve lost my Heats due to age and I’ll start aging rapidly.”

The three men share concerned looks. Sawyer looks back at her. “Have you seen proof of this? Like, I don’t know, an ultrasound or X-rays? Or is it something an Alpha has told you?”

“I… My father tried to impregnate me for a year, failing miserably, if that counts as proof? But no. I’ve just been told since I was a coma for a year.”

“Would you agree to go to the hospital and get it confirmed for us? It’s very important.”

“I suppose, if you book the appointment. I’ll have to call my overseers too, since it’s a big expense.”

Maddy is so confused.

Mona is busy, but Rob says he’ll call off work to drive them so he can sign the paperwork that’ll let her pay for the hospital visit.

The doctor tries to chase the men out of the examination room, but the three Brightstars won’t budge. When he threatens to call security, Maddy says, “Oh, let them all stay. I’m sure I don’t have anything they haven’t seen before.” Begrudgingly, the doctor agrees.

Rob holds her hand while the ultrasound is done, keeping his gaze on her face, while the other three look intently on the ultrasound screen.

“It seems that you’re right, Miss Greenburg. You weren’t lied to. It’s all gone. And see here? In a normal Omega, there’s a gland big as a quail egg here that produces hormones that determine Heat cycles. As we age, it shrinks and the Heats start coming less frequently, until it’s too small to produce the hormones at all. You don’t have it.” The doctor smiles reassuringly at her. “The good news is that we have a way of countering the effect. It’s originally a fertility medicine, but helps with hormone deficiencies such as these too. They’re called Omega boosters, and as long as you take them, you won’t see any ill effects of the missing gland. I’ll write you a prescription.”

“What happens if she stops taking them?” Sawyer asks.

“She’ll start aging as if she’d lost her Heats rapidly, and die sooner than if she took her meds.”

Rob looks at the doctor then. “How rapidly?”

“It’s notoriously hard to tell with us shifters. The normal aging process is that we die 5-10 years after we lose our Heats or Ruts, but it’s not uncommon to stick around for up to 15 years. Then there are outliers that range between 1 to 30 years.”

“She’s losing her scent. If she goes into hibernation, does she need injections?” Kane asks.

The doctor shakes his head. “No. A scentless hibernation shuts down a lot of bodily functions, this gland is one of the first to cease its production.” He looks at Maddy. “In fact, if you lose your scent completely, it’s my recommendation that you stop taking them for the whole duration of your scentlessness. Once you start regaining your scent, you should start taking them again.”

The car-ride home is almost oppressive in the concerned silence of the three young men in the backseat.

“But this is a good thing, isn’t it?” Rob asks. He might not smell their anxiety, but he reads the room well enough.

“Yes. I’d hedge a guess that it saved my life when my father―” Maddy says without finishing the sentence.

“It’s not a good thing,” Kane says. “Boosters will soon be very hard to come by.”

“Why do you think that?” Rob asks.

Through the rearview mirror, Maddy sees the boys share a look. Sawyer speaks up. “Because they have been used to kidnap, force-Present, mindcontrol, and rape Os on a grand scale. That’s why we were so upset when we found them in Maddy’s drawer. They’re about to stop producing them.”

“How do you know that?” Rob asks, eyes wide in horror.

“I’m not permitted to tell you. But this is the first time we’ve come across the boosters used for a benign purpose, and I believe the doctor when he say it doesn’t have mind altering effects on Maddy.”

Maddy looks out the side-window and reaches out to take Rob’s hand for comfort, thinking of her father forcing her to take boosters instead of what she thought was suppressants. It terrifies her to think of how it could’ve affected her if she was still intact.

The boys are worried about her and even with their presence, her fade is taking its toll. She loses more time. She’ll suddenly stop in the middle of the floor, staring into nothing, and then come to again hours later on the couch, being held of one of the young men while he marks her up, purring soothingly at her. She’s deathly cold without freezing and her joints are stiff when it happens. She no longer has a scent.

They still have moments that are nice too, when they bully her to have dinner with them, or to go into the studio to paint. She has no inspiration for painting so she usually ends up sitting on an armchair, sketching pictures of Jason, while the boys occupy the easels, talking amongst themselves.

One of those days, Kane says, “Hey, Sawyer, you’re an FF, right?”

“Yup.”

“What’s an FF?” Boone asks.

“First five. He predates Haven and Colby’s gang,” Kane explains. “That’s why he’s a couple of years older than most of us.”

“No shit? That’s insane. How old are you?” Boone asks Sawyer.

“36.”

Maddy had overheard of Haven in passing, a long, long time ago. Her dad and Cloverfield had discussed the success with ‘the first ones’ and decided to go through with the Haven project. She didn’t know it was related to the Brightstars.

“Yes, so that got me wondering,” Kane says, “Why did you only reach silver?”

“They took away what motivated me,” Sawyer answers, focused on his colorful, impressionistic painting. The boys love the art studio and Maddy would be ecstatic to share the joy with them if she didn’t feel so empty and numb all the time.

“By all means, tell us that, but not what it was,” Kane mutters.

Sawyer sniggers. He’s quiet for a bit, then solemnly recites, “I saw you today, exuberant and overjoyed at your new unity. I smiled and told you a lie of shared rejoice, as my heart faded to gray. The truth will remain inscribed on my heart, that you made a prison of my fate, when you became another’s mate.”

Maddy’s heart aches. She’d cry if she wasn’t so numb. Sawyer lost the love of his life to someone else too.

Maddy doesn’t remember when the fade takes her for real. Sometimes she becomes aware. It’s like floating in an extended void and the awareness is like floating up from under water but never breaching the surface. It’s enough to hear people talking and see them, but not to participate herself before she drifts down again. She knows she’s in bed and that she’s never alone. She knows she’s cocooned in the boys’ scents. Sometimes she hears a male stranger, Lexiana, Mona, or Rob speaking. At one point, there’s arguing going on.

“I can’t do that! It’s absurd!” Rob protests.

“If you don’t want to use your armpit sweat, you can rub your hands around your balls and penis instead. It works just as well,” Kane says.

Rob sputters and Maddy hears the boys laughing at him.

“Are you sure she won’t be disgusted? It’s armpit sweat. I don’t want to insult her,” Rob asks after a moment of silence.

“She won’t. Since you don’t have glands, sweat will do. What you’re telling her is that she’s loved and cared for, and that there are people who want her to come back.”

“Okay. Okay.” Another breat of silence, then Rob’s fingers caresses Maddy’s cheeks gently, smearing his scent on her. “I’m sorry if you think this is gross, Maddy. I just want you to come back to us. Please forgive me.”

She doesn’t open her eyes, but deep, deep, deep inside of her, there’s a spark of what would’ve been a smile in the real world.

When she wakes up for real with her scent returning, months have passed and it’s late spring. She’s still heartbroken and depressed, but it’s different now. There’s an acceptance that wasn’t there before the fade. She’s still mourning her lost life, but all her thoughts aren’t centered around wanting Jason back. She shares a bond with her Brightstar boys. They call it a special bond, but thanks to Jason, she knows it’s a pack bond. He might’ve paid for a year of their service, but they’re no longer servants, they’re her family. With their help, she reclaims her life little by little. First by going to the estate and getting what she wants to keep, then by starting to spend time at her gallery again. Her gallery becomes a common project for them. She gets going with her art classes again. Now, thanks to her boys’ contacts, her underprivileged kits no longer come from the literate lower middle-class, but instead from the poorest parts of the slums. Sometimes it causes her horror, like when one of the 10-year-olds asks if it’s okay that he comes an hour late because he doesn’t get off from work before 6 PM and it takes him an hour to walk to her gallery.

Moments like that, she thinks of Jason. She thinks of his dislike of the huge, overarching charity efforts. She remembers a fundraiser they’d been to where the money was meant to go to ‘one laptop for every African kit,’ where they showed a prototype of a plastic laptop that you used a hand-crank to charge. Jason had been so pissed off. Not only for targeting Africa instead of the US, which was Maddy’s reservation, but due to sustainability. They didn’t plan to provide IT support and hardware repairmen. And they hadn’t planned to train teachers in the use of the computers, and instead claimed that kits are curious and wired to learn so they would figure it out by themselves. Jason was livid. ‘Kits are fucking morons. The villages they want to deliver these laptops to don’t even have electricity. There’s no cultural pretext for them to intuit the correct use. They’ll end up using them to wack balls around around or something. You know the mark of intelligent species is the ability to learn from older generations? Kits are wired to learn from us. If you hand a kit a book they won’t magically figure out how to read. Those who do are one in a million.’

She thinks of how he scaled down during the civil war, moving them to a farm instead of living in their mansion. He did it due to defensability and sustainability. He wasn’t out there fighting for everyone unprivileged, but he’d hire one at a time and get them settled into a life that was sustainable.

So Maddy arranges for the kits to be picked up by car, for a meal to be served before the art class, and then the kits are driven home afterward. It’s not much, but that way she can guarantee that they can partake in something creative and fun without having to go hungry or lose sleep. She sets up one place in the gallery where one of her students’ painting is displayed each month, with a donation box underneath and an explanation of the project. 100% of the donations go straight to the project.

Once the fade-freeze contract has run its course, Rob asks her on a dinner date. She doesn’t feel ready to think about dating at first, and discusses the matter with her boys who point out that there might be a cultural difference to dating among aristocrats and Progs. She decides to say yes, and while she’s at dinner with Rob, she brings up the question.

“I don’t know if I’m ready either, to be honest. My mate left me for a younger man seven years ago. I found out they’d been having an affair for years before that. It hit me hard, especially since I’m poly-leaning and she was mono. We’d been together since high school and I didn’t see it coming. I think that’s why your story when you came to us asking for help resounded so strongly in me. But I really like you, Maddy. If all that comes from this is a friendship, I’ll be content with that too.”

Dating without the stated intention to get mated is new to her, but she likes it, and allows herself to just enjoy his company and see where it leads.

At home, things start changing the less depressed she gets. Sawyer’s smiles and touches start causing heartflutters and goosebumps, and one night while they’re home alone, making dinner, he turns to face her, then bends down to kiss her softly on her lips. One thing leads to another, and they end up in her bed. Jason was once again right when he said sex is important, and that she only said it wasn’t because she hadn’t experienced coercion-free, pain-free lovemaking before. She’s falling in love with Sawyer, and it’s reciprocated. His penis is averagely sized, but his knot is small. He tells her that it’s one of the things that was most embarrassing to admit when applying for the opportunity to work for her. She tells him about her low pain-tolerance and the problems it had caused in bed.

They lie talking for hours about intimate things like their respective heartbreaks, redefining their faith, and adapting to their new lives. One thing that always was a point of contention between her and Jason was gender roles. It’s something Sawyer believes strongly in, just like her, but unlike her dad, Sawyer’s views aren’t controlling or belittling; he believes it’s the Alpha’s role to care for and protect the O because Os are so rare in the general population, and they’re too valuable to put at risk. He has no problem with her being the one with the money, making the decisions. When she realizes that the boys’ pre-paid year has passed and they’ve been living with her unpaid for a few months, she frets. Sawyer touches his necklace and smiles softly at her. “You provide us with everything we need. We’re still here because there’s nowhere else we’d rather be.”

She asks him if he thinks she should stop seeing Rob, since she’s growing very fond of him.

“It’s up to you. I’m raised to freely share love with others. I don’t see sexual relations as a threat. I’m… I don’t think I’m able to love more than one person as a mate, spiritually. When I’ve shared in another relationship, it’s been physical and platonic. I’ve only ever felt like I do with you with one other person, and I don’t think I would’ve been able to develop these feelings for you if I my heart was still lost to him. Many people can love several as mates, and if you’re one of them, I don’t see why you shouldn’t nurture your relationship with Rob. He’s a kind-hearted man, who did more than duty bid while you were lost in your fade. He sat by your bedside for hours, holding your hand, telling you about his day, or of people in his life. I like him. His personality and views clash a bit with Kane, but not enough for them to resent each other, and not more than proper communication could resolve.” Sawyer also says that he’s perfectly at ease with her serving the Light with Kane and Boone, should she want to. He calls lovemaking ‘serving the Light’ and Maddy thinks it’s beautiful.

She keeps seeing Rob. They go on dates, and she accompanies him to dinner parties at his friends and family, finally meeting Judge Harlan again so she can thank him properly. They’re all Progs or Betas, but many of Rob’s friends start stopping by at the gallery, building their own friendships with her and her boys. Inevitably, Rob and her end up sleeping together. In the morning, she’s beset by angst. Rob might not smell it, but he reads the room just fine. He asks her about it and she confesses her relationship with Sawyer, and that she’s slept with Kane too a couple of times. She tells him about the conversation she had with Sawyer about him. It turns out that when he was talking about ‘mono’ and ‘poly,’ he was using Beta expressions for monogamy and polyamory. He’s not mono, and as long as honesty is involved, he’s willing to give it a try.

It’s not without bumps in the road to fit people from three vastly different cultures together, but the will is there, and they make do. Boone meets a girl and falls in love. He moves out to be with her, but keeps working in the gallery part-time. The rest of them form an unconventional family.

One day on her way to do some shopping, she passes a store window and stops in her tracks to stare. The window display holds posters, books, keychains, and a life-sized cutout with Jason on them. Maddy stares in shock. She doesn’t know how to feel. Jason looks as handsome as he’s always done. Her heart aches, but not like before. It’s more of a nostalgic feeling. She wouldn’t want to trade her new life for anything, but looking at the pictures, she mourns the beautiful moments, the laughs, and the tenderness they’d had. She walks away thinking about it. She finds that she’s no longer angry at him. As life-ending as it had felt when he left her, now it’s just bitter-sweet. She talks it over with her family when she gets home and they decide to invite Jason and Dick over for dinner.

The dinner is a bit tense at first, but turns out alright. Dick still has the ‘love me or hate me, I’ll still be me’ attitude she found so charming when they first met, and she still does, despite how betrayed she’d felt when she found out he was having an affair with her mate. And Jason? He's changed. It's subtle. Small changes in his scent, and facial muscles that used to constantly be strained are now relaxed. Together they tell her how much more he likes his life living as a Primal amongst Primals.

“Was it hard for you to convert to a Packrunning lifestyle?” Dick asks.

“I've never thought of it as converting. Jason taught me not to discriminate others based on anything but how they act, and by the time Sawyer, Kane, and Boone came to serve me, I'd already made myself unwelcome among most of my former friends. When I woke up from my fade, I already had a pack bond from their diligent markings. It's been more a matter of honesty and communication. Biologically, we're a pack, but spiritually, we're a family. That's how I think of us.”

They part as friends, and Jason keeps in touch now that he's allowed.

Then comes the day the boosters run out. It would’ve been terrifying, but it isn't. Not to her, even if the boys are tense and anxious. Her countdown begins. She realizes she's happy. Happier than she's ever been. She's got two strong mating bonds and a golden ring with its twin around Rob's finger. She's got friends with the same mindset as her, and a business that might not be the most profitable but isn't losing money. Her home is far from the luxury mansions she's grown up in or lived in for most her life, but she finds she prefers it this way. Death comes to everyone and she makes her peace with that. Rob is younger than her, but stopping her booster treatment puts them at the same physical age. She doesn’t belong in the outlier group of people who die withing a few short years, so when she starts aging ‘rapidly’ it simply means that she ages like her Beta mate.

As the years pass, her skin turns paper thin and wrinkly, her hair gray and lusterless, her joints achey.

Sometimes when she stands looking at her reflection in the mirror and Sawyer, now entering his best years, wraps his strong arms around her from behind, looking at her through the mirror with a soft smile and adoring gaze, she thinks of the Kyle Bailey song where he sings about his fear of growing old while dating a Primal, and Antoine Bolton sings a response about sticking by him, love holding firm until the day Kyle dies, and not being afraid to face loss. To this day, it's one of her favorite songs.

But she counts herself lucky, because she never has to have those doubts. When the day comes, she'll die knowing that she's loved through and through.