Episode 11 Once Upon a Dream #2
I wait, cheeks pink with their compliments, expecting him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Ooo-kay. What does it mean?”
Forsythe merely smiles and changes the subject like a pro at dodging things he doesn’t want to talk about. “What do you do in the states, Florence?”
My brows crunch down. Part of me wants to push the issue.
But I have the feeling that cor mea doesn’t mean anything bad.
But it probably doesn’t mean anything good, either.
The equivalent of a man calling a woman he doesn’t know sweetheart in the states, or how Bravonnians use the word ‘love’ casually.
It doesn’t mean anything, and so I let it go.
“I’m a teller at a credit union and I teach yoga a few nights a week to omegas. And all day Saturday.”
“Two jobs?” The prince asks. And I can’t tell if he thinks it's admirable or a shame I have to work so much. Little does he know, I don’t.
Not really. Haven wouldn’t charge me rent if she had anything to say about it.
Her bonded pack are billionaires. They don’t need the pittance I pay them every month.
But I do help my mom with Ginny’s private school fees. She wouldn’t be able to attend if I didn’t. And my little sister deserves to receive the best education she can.
Not to mention my hospital bills.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be paying those off until I’m eighty. Unless I find a pack wealthy enough to take on my debt.
“Yoga classes don’t pay all that well.” They can, but I don’t charge my students as much as other yoga studios do.
I want to be a place that’s accessible to all omegas, not just the rich ones.
So I basically charge them enough to pay for the room and maybe a little extra on top.
“I mostly teach them because I-” I used to be a dancer.
I used to be a helluva lot more physically active and it helps my muscles stay loose after compensating for the pain in my knee.
I bite back those words though. They don’t deserve my truth. They haven’t earned it.
I swallow and start again. “I mostly teach because I think it's important for omegas to have a safe place to practice, to gather and let everything else go. There’s a lot of…
pressure on us, you know? Be demure and submissive.
Be pleasant to talk to. Find the right pack.
Or find any pack really. It's nice for there to be a place where they don’t have to think about it.
In fact, it's intended for them to only focus on the practice.”
“And how often do you teach these classes?”
“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in the evenings, and all day Saturday. Well, like three quarters of the day Saturday.”
Forsythe stares at me a little harder. There’s a tension in his shoulders that I don’t understand in the slightest. “And what’s your schedule like at the bank? Do you only work there part time?”
I glance at Courtland, hoping to get some guidance on why the prince now sounds like he’s trying to keep some emotion—frustration maybe—under control, but Courtland is looking at me the same way as his prime.
“No, it's full time. The early shift. So I start when the bank opens at seven. Off at four. Head to the studio, prep the room for the class, man the desk if I’m needed. My classes start at 5:30, so I'm usually done by eight.”
“Thirteen hour days?” Court breaks in. “Pixie! You can’t work thirteen hour days! You’re an omega.”
Oh, now I understand where that weird emotion is coming from.
Alphas have this notion that omegas are weaker, less robust. That we’re fragile and we need to be coddled and taken care of.
And don’t get me wrong, most omegas do need that.
We crave it, in fact. It's instinctual. The desire to be taken care of by a pack.
And I’m sure that their experience with the omegas in their social circles, in their orbit, are just that. Pampered princesses just waiting for a pack to sweep them off their feet and to a life of luxury and status.
I am not that.
I never have been.
I started dancing before I presented as an omega.
Every chance I got, every class I could talk my mom into paying for, I danced in.
Every local production of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake and I was there, trying my damndest to get a part.
I’d solidified working hard in my bones long before my omega came in and pushed the need to be taken care of onto me.
It's still there—will always be there—but it's not what drives me.
So I give Courtland a brittle smile, one that tells him I’m not the least bit pleased with his assessment of my abilities.
“I’m well aware I’m an omega, my lord. As I have been one for the last seven years.
However, most omegas, likely not the ones you encounter on a regular basis, don’t have the luxury of simply sitting around letting someone else take care of them, not until they find a pack.
We have to work to support ourselves just like betas.
Just like alphas. It's absurd to pretend otherwise.”
Forsythe’s eyes narrow. “You attended AOA, did you not?”
I grit my teeth because I know where he’s going with this. “On a partial scholarship, yes.” A scholarship earned with dancing. It's not lost on me that Grieves and I are similar in that respect.
“Throughout your time at the academy, you met many packs looking for an omega, did you not?”
Another nod from me, though Forsythe doesn’t realize he’s just answered what he’s going to ask next. “Indeed.”
“If you had matched with one of them, allowed them to court you, would you be working now? Would you ever have worked? Or would you be tucked up in your nest, letting your pack take care of you?”
I can tell he thinks he’s won. And to a point he has. I could have allowed one of the many packs who came to the academy to court me, bond me. And he’s right that they wouldn’t have forced me to work, or more likely wouldn’t have ‘let’ me work.
I shrug. “It’s likely, Your Highness. However you said it yourself. They were looking for ‘an’ omega, not ‘their’ omega. Any one of us would do. Not me specifically. And I want more than that. I deserve more than that.”
His brows lower even further. “You're one of those omegas who believes in scent matching, aren’t you? In fated mates.”
His tone makes it clear how he feels on the subject. “You make it sound like it's a fairytale.”
“Because it is-”
“No,” I cut him off sharply, and he blinks at me in surprise.
“No, it's not. It’s very likely that in the circles you run in haven’t witnessed it, that you’re all bound by duty and so fucking limited in your interactions with anyone outside of you immediate social circles, that you wouldn’t see it.
Arranged marriages and contracts. That’s what you think of mating.
But I have seen it, with my own two eyes.
My best friend and her pack are scent matched fated mates.
They exist. And the type of bond they have, the type of love they have, is worth waiting for, is worth striving for.
If that means that I have to work two jobs to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly in the meantime, I’ll happily do it. ”
I leave off that at that current moment, I’m not waiting for my pack so much as avoiding all alphas thanks to trauma. They don’t need to know that, and I have the feeling if I do come across my pack they’ll be the only ones I’m completely comfortable with.
“But a pack would do it for you,” Court insists. “Florence, pixie, you have to understand that it's an honor for an alpha to take care of an omega. It's just about the only thing we want to do.”
“It’s clear,” I say softly, diplomatically, “that we have different opinions on an omega’s place.
You think they—we—should be kept separate and safe and hidden away, nestled in the heart of a pack, our only purpose is to be fucked and knotted and bred.
” If my filthy words make their eyes darken the slightest bit, if Court licks his lips like he’s suddenly ravenous, if Forsythe leans forward just the slightest bit, I ignore it.
“But there are plenty of omegas who don’t share that backward way of thinking.
Hollis Grailess. Cecily Blake. Liam Cordova. To name a few.”
“Liam has a pack,” the prince growls at me.
“Yes, but he’s still working, still making movies. Thirteen hour days,” I say with a fake little gasp. “However does he manage that while being an omega? Shouldn’t he be tucked up in his nest waiting for his alphas?”
Court’s lips twitch, amusement dancing in his eyes, and thank god he’s finding the humor in this, because it's clear that Forsythe doesn’t think any of this is the least bit entertaining.
“My point is,” I continue before the prince can let his displeasure be shown.
“That the right pack, the right mates, the right bond, is tailored to everyone’s needs.
There are omegas who want to work, who have a passion that they deserve to be able to pursue, who want to be a partner in their relationship, an equal.
. And there are the ones who I’m sure you are more interested in, that only want to be a pretty bauble on the arm of their prime. ”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to make assumptions about the type of omega I want, Florence."
“No?” I slide my gaze pointedly toward Isadora. “It seems that’s the type of omega that was given to casting for them to look for.”
“Some of us,” Forsythe murmurs, a low growl that shivers over my skin. “Don’t have the luxury of waiting to find our scent matched mate. Some of us have responsibilities, duties that we must fulfill. We can’t all live in a fairytale world where true love exists.”
As I am apparently doing, never mind that I’ve seen it.
He hasn’t.
He hasn’t seen the intense ‘burn the world for you love’ between Haven and her pack.
I hum, feeling unaccountably sad for this alpha, for this pack.
They deserve more than to mate with someone who only sees them as a status boost. “Yes, that has been made abundantly clear, many times over. Thank god, I’m not one of them and I can find my pack.
My mates.” I give them both a tight smile.
“I’m sure based on this conversation alone, I’ll be heading home next.
So let me just take the moment to say, Your Highness, my lord, that it’s been…
” What? Not a pleasure. Not an honor, I don’t want to give them that much credit. “It’s been interesting. Educational.”
I tip my head in acknowledgment and push to my feet, intending to leave both these alphas behind, even as Court chuckles. “Educational?”
I smooth my hands down the front of my yoga pants, and they both follow the motion, heat flaring in their eyes.
A natural alpha response to an omega unconsciously drawing attention to her hips.
“Indeed. Very educational. I’ve met a lot of packs in my time, spent time with them, got to know their values, what they expect of an omega. But I’ve never met one like yours.”
Forsythe bristles and pushes to his feet, towering over me in a way that I should find intimidating, but… don’t. Which is a wonder all in itself given my normal reaction to alphas these days.
“What does that mean?” He bites out.
If this were any other alpha, any other situation, I might bite my tongue and say something polite. I might sugar coat what I think about his pack. Being told I’m not going to be their omega, that I will be going home, is all the permission I need.
I hold Forsythe’s gaze, unflinching. “It means,” I say softly, “That I know exactly what not accept in a pack. I would hate to be a duty rather than a choice to the people who are supposed to love me most in the world. It means that one day you’re going to wake up surrounded by everything you were supposed to want,” I pause, hesitating here, but then pushing forward, “and realize you never chose any of it. Duty did.”
I skirt between the two loungers and move away from them, eager to have the sun on my skin.
I pause still in the shade of the cabana and glance over my shoulder at the two over them.
“Good luck,” I add, sincerity bleeding into the words.
I mean it. The thought of anyone resigning themselves to a loveless existence is heartbreaking, disappointing in a way I didn’t foresee.
They might think they’re doing the right thing, following duty over love. But one day they’re going to wake up and realize their omega, picked because it was expected by them and not because they love her, isn’t keeping their pack together.
It’ll fracture, if it isn’t already fracturing, and Isadora won’t know how to fix it. She won’t be capable of fixing it. I kind of doubt she’ll want to. A bond is for life. She’ll still be a princess even if her pack is broken and loveless.
That will never be me, I tell myself.
I might not have that love now, but I will.
I just have to be patient.