by James Wolfe
“You do not like pumpkin pie?” he asked.
“I do very much,” I admitted.
And it wasn’t a lie. Of all the seasons, fall was my favorite. I loved the cool air, the overcast sky, apples and pumpkins that were ripe for the picking. The season soothed my soul.
I especially liked Halloween. It was the only holiday that we celebrated that was the same as the humans, though we celebrated for different reasons and in different ways.
“Then why aren’t you eating?” he asked.
I didn’t have a real answer. Why hadn’t I gotten a slice?
“I wasn’t really thinking of my own needs,” I told him. “I was thinking about you.”
He’d like that. It was a little kiss-ass but it was also true. I was just stressing about him, about how to make a good impression. I hated it but that was how it had to be if we were to get from him what we needed.
He gave a quick half smile; it flashed away in a second but I caught it for just a moment.
“Go get yourself a slice,” he said as he set down his fork. “I’ll wait.”
Okay, that was even weirder. For all the lack of respect he’d shown I certainly wouldn’t have expected him to want to wait for me to eat this way. I wouldn’t even expect him to care whether or not I had a piece of pie! Why would he? Why would anything I was doing affect him in any way?
But I did as he asked. This was one request I didn’t mind fulfilling. October had barely begun and I hadn’t had an opportunity to get a slice yet.
When I sat back down, he resumed eating as I began.
“It’s very good,” he commented.
“Yes, it is,” I responded. “I’m glad you are finding some usefulness in our bakery.”
Again, this was a comment I simply shouldn’t have made. It was passive aggressive, my way of proving him wrong, my way of defending Jameson.
To my surprise, though, it didn’t seem to bother him. He, again, let a blip of a smile cross his face.
“Yes, maybe it’s something I can consider adding to my regimen.”
That surprised me even more. So he was admitting he was wrong? That seemed pretty counterintuitive to his usual personality.
I was stunned silent but he continued to speak.
“You haven’t asked me anything about my deal with Jameson,” he said.
“No…” I responded softly. “It would not be my place.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were the one who he asked to take me on this tour. You are clearly a higher up in the village.”
“I am not an alpha leader,” I responded. “I don’t consider myself privvy to the decisions that Jameson makes.”
“But are you curious?” he asked.
It didn’t seem prudent to lie. “Yes,” I admitted.
He nodded. “He has nothing to trade with me and the provisions he is asking for are quite expansive.”
My heart sunk. I couldn’t think of much Jameson would be able to trade but I still had hoped he had something up his sleeve. It must have been humiliating for him to ask for something with nothing to offer. And with Cole’s attitude I doubt he made that easier.
“He offered a future favor?” I asked.
“Yes. But I am not one to accept favors I may never need.”
I looked down at my pie, which was almost halfway done. Why was he saying that? Why was he letting me know any of this?
Was this all just a power play? He was clearly saying that he had no intention of helping us. Yet, here he was, on a tour and eating our pie. And he wanted me to know that he wasn’t going to help us and still kiss his ass?
Yeah, that seemed like something he’d do. For a moment, I thought I saw a fraction of kindness in him when he told me to get some pie but clearly he just wanted me to let my guard down before he destroyed all my hopes about us getting help from his tribe.
And the worst part was he told me this so blatantly but I still had to show him around, still had to kiss his ass, because he was an alpha leader and it was my job to be respectful even though he offered no respect in return.
But no, you know what? Screw that. Why should I respect this man in any way? He clearly did not respect me. And he wasn’t going to offer anything for my tribe. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be humiliated by him after he already humiliated Jameson.
I stood up from my seat, leaving my half eaten pie on the table.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m leaving,” I said bluntly. “I take it you can find your way on your own.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That is not what your leader told you to do.”
“It’s not,” I acknowledged. “But I think if my leader knew that there was no chance in hell we were getting any help from your tribe he wouldn’t have asked me to show you around in the first place.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Please, don’t play simple with me now. You made it very clear we have nothing to offer and that you do not give without receiving. Which, honestly, I should have known from the beginning. And you seem to take pride in your rigidity but let me be the first to say, you don’t need a strong hand to lead if you have the respect of your followers. And respect is earned by being given. Jameson knows that, and it doesn’t make him less of a leader. It makes him more of one.”
He looked at me seriously. “Are you sure Jameson leads so well? Because none of my tribe members would ever dare to mouth off to me in the way that you currently are.”
“And I would never mouth off like this to him either!” I snapped. “Only you!”
“Is this any way to talk to an alpha leader?” he asked me.
“I don’t know, I’ll ask one when I see one,” I said before turning around.
My heart was pounding because this was the ultimate insult. Regardless of how mad I was, I never should have questioned his authority. He was an alpha leader, I was nothing. To say he wasn’t a leader was one of the worst things I could say.
Which was exactly why I turned around immediately to leave. This was bad. I shouldn’t have done that, and I wasn’t sure what his reaction was going to be. I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to leave before he gave it to me.
But as soon as I stepped out the door, I was stopped by Joshua. I had forgotten he was even there, standing behind the counter. He must have seen all of that… Which was even more embarrassing.
“What the hell did you just do?!” he snapped at me. “We needed him!”
He was angry, and he had a right to be. What I had done was not only totally out of line, but from his eyes it threatened the viability of our tribe.
But I really hadn’t because Cole had no intention to give us any provisions. Still, he may have not heard that part.
“He isn’t give us anything, Josh,” I told him. “He doesn’t care, we have nothing to offer.”
“Then why is he still here?” he asked. “You can’t be sure of that!”
“He’s just here to make a scene!” I argued. “He wants to show off what a bad ass alpha he is by making us kiss his ass before he leaves us out in the cold. Trust me, he wasn’t going to do shit for us.”
He shook his head. “You still can’t say that! These kind of decisions aren’t yours to make! They’re Jameson’s. He gave you a job to do and you should have done it unquestioningly.”
That was true, I couldn’t deny that. I should have finished giving him the tour in a respectful manner not for his sake, but for Jameson’s.
“Jameson will understand when I tell him—”
He cut me off. “I don’t think he will, Taylor! Regardless of whether or not he’s going to help us, he is an alpha leader of another tribe! And we need to keep good relations with them! You’re an omega assistant to your leader who just disrespected the Turanu alpha! This is no casual thing!”
My heart was beating faster with every word he said. He was right, he was completely right. I had acted impulsively. Shit, why had I done that? And what were the ramifications going to be?
“You need to go to Jameson now to tell him what happened,” Joshua told me.
I nodded. “Okay… Yes, I’ll go now.”
He nodded back, but did not smile or give me any assurances. He was pissed, I could see that. And he had a right to be. But it only made me more nervous. If he was this mad, how mad was Jameson going to be?
Going to Jameson was the last thing I wanted to do right now, but I had no other choice. I fucked this up badly and Jameson needed to know that so he could do damage control if need be.
God, why had I reacted this way?
3
I took the long way back to Jameson, for obvious reasons. I was avoiding this as long as possible.
I had never done anything to upset Jameson, I had never made a mistake. I’d seen him berate other people for their mistakes and I was always glad that it wasn’t me. Now it finally would be and it was for a mistake that was downright egregious.
What would my punishment be here? Was he going to reassign me to another position in the village? Would I no longer be his assistant?
That was the worst possible outcome for me. I loved my job. Cole was right, I was a higher up in my village even if I wasn’t on the same footing as an alpha leader. And because I had no mate and no family, all I had was my job. I took great pride in it because of this.
But what would I do if I didn’t have my job any longer? What would give me purpose in my life then?
I already knew the answer, nothing. My life would have no purpose. My heart would be empty as would my soul.
When I finally arrived at Jameson’s home, I knocked on the door and he answered with the iciest glare I had ever seen him give.
He already knew.
I shouldn’t have taken the long way.
“Jameson, I’m—”
“What the hell were you thinking?” he snapped. “Why the hell would you ever dare to speak to another alpha leader like that?”
“I know, I’m so—”
But he wouldn’t let me get out an apology.
“You are an omega, Taylor! An omega of my village! And even if you weren’t, I would never allow an alpha to treat a leader like this either. Nobody is allowed to question the authority of an alpha leader, even if that leader is not your own!”
“I know that,” I told him.
“Then what the hell were you thinking?!” he asked.
“I was thinking that he continued to disrespect you the entire time that I was with him and it was starting to get to me and—”
“So?” He cut me off again. “You think I care if arrogant Cole wants to disrespect me? You think I cannot rise above petty insults in order to get the provisions my tribe needs?! I do not need you to defend me, Taylor! And that’s something I would expect you to know.”
“But that’s exactly it!” I argued. “He isn’t even going to give us the provisions! He was disrespecting you, making me kiss his ass, and all the while he had no intention of helping us!”
He got very solemn. “What makes you say that?”
It was the first question he asked that wasn’t yelling at me. Maybe I’d get out of this yet. Maybe once he knew that Cole had no intention of helping us he’d understand my reaction.
“He told me himself.”
“What did he say, exactly?” Jameson asked.
“He said that you didn’t have anything to offer as a trade and offered him a future favor, but that he doesn’t work on future favors. That it wasn’t enough for him. So, clearly, he isn’t going to give us anything.”
Jameson slammed his forehead with his hand in exasperation, like he was frustrated with me. Okay, maybe I wasn’t getting out of this after all.
“He told me that too, Taylor!”
“He did?” I asked, surprised. “But then, if you knew he wasn’t going to help us, why would you have me take him on a tour?”
“That’s not what I said. He was going to help us. He just wasn’t going to do it on the promise of a future favor.”
“Then… then why would he do it?”
“Because he’s looking for a mate.”
Now he had totally lost me.
“What… What do you mean?”
“The whole point of you showing him around on a tour wasn’t so he got a good look at the village, it was so he could look at the men of the village. He hasn’t been able to find an omega suited to him in his own tribe, so he agreed to help us if he could find an omega in our tribe.”
My jaw dropped. So, none of this was a power play. He wasn’t telling me he wasn’t going to help us. And everything I did… It could have messed up everything! If we didn’t get these provisions now, it would be all my fault.
Holy shit, what had I done?
“Jameson, I’m so so sorry.”
He put his hand up, as if asking me to stop speaking. “This was a giant mistake. When I give you a task, fulfill it. That is what I expect of everyone in this tribe. Not only have you disgraced yourself, you have disgraced me for looking like a leader who cannot control the members of his tribe. I expect better from this point forward, much better. I hope you never put me in a situation like this ever again.”
“I won’t,” I told him. “I promise, I won’t.”
He nodded slowly. “Luckily for you, I may have fixed your mistake.”
My eyes widened. “You… you did?”
I couldn’t see how that was possible. What I’d done was the ultimate offense. I expected Cole to have high tailed it out of here by now, cursing our tribe and not offering up any help any longer.
He must be really desperate for a mate.
“Yes. I have organized a feast that will required mandatory attendance for everyone in the tribe. He will get to walk around, meet potential mates, while the tribe is none the wiser.”
That was probably for the best. Mating between tribes happened, but it was taboo. And nobody ever wanted to do it.
The tribes were all so drastically different, people appreciated the way of life of their own tribe, the way they grew up. Rarely did people acclimate well to another tribe.
I understood completely. I loved my village, I loved the way we operated. I would never want to mate out of my own tribe which was why I hadn’t traveled to any other villages to find a mate even though I clearly hadn’t found one in my own village. I’d honestly rather live alone here, single, than to mate into a different tribe.
Occasionally you could mate with someone from another tribe and stay within your own tribe, of course, but that obviously was not going to be the case with anyone who mated with Cole. He was an alpha leader, of course he wouldn’t be coming to live here. Anyone who mated with him would have to live in his village.
Which frankly sounded terrible. I couldn’t imagine living under Cole’s rules let alone as his mate.
Thankfully, that wouldn’t be much of an option for me considering how I’d obviously pissed him off already. If my outburst had done anything, it had obviously cleared me as a potential mate.
“What if he doesn’t find someone?” I asked Jameson.
“Then I don’t predict we’ll get our provisions,” he said.
“And… what if he does find someone but they don’t want to mate with him?”
He looked at me like this was such a foolish question. “Taylor, do you think I would force someone of my tribe to mate with someone they’d be unhappy with? Does that sound like something I would do?”
“No…” I said. “But we really need those provisions…”
“So, hopefully, whoever he finds himself compatible with will also find him compatible as well. But I won’t force anyone into a life of misery, regardless of the cost.”
This was exactly why I respected Jameson so much. He truly cared. He was a good leader.
“I really am sorry,” I told him. “For my mistakes.”
“It’s fine,” he said, though his tone said it wasn’t. And he probably would have reacted much worse if he wasn’t able to pull this feast together in order to plac
ate Cole. “But you will be fully responsible for organizing this feast and getting the message out to everyone that they must attend in Cole’s honor. I expect that you’ll be making up for your mistakes beautifully.”
I nodded. “I will, of course. It will be the most perfect feast we’ve ever had,” I assured him.
I was going to have to order a lot of pumpkin pie.
4
I didn’t mind having to throw together the feast, not at all. In fact, I really enjoyed tasks like this generally. I was good with them. I had great organizational skills.
It was tasks like this that reminded me that I’d make a great father… and also disappointed me that I currently wasn’t one.
We held the feast outside in the town square, as we always did. I had wooden tables set up all across the square, all of them beautifully decorated with crunchy fall leaves and miniature pumpkins. Each table had its own large turkey as a center piece, surrounded by other fall food items. Mashed potatoes, green bean casseroles, yams, corn on the cob. And for dessert of course there were pumpkin and apple pies as well as apples dipped in caramel and chocolate drizzles.
It was honestly too extravagant for our current food concerns, but this was important. We wouldn’t have to worry about any food concerns as long as this all went well. I wanted to impress Cole and put him in a good mood, yes, but I always wanted everyone else in a good mood.
The happier everyone was, the more pleasant they’d come off. I wanted everyone to be their best selves tonight and up the chances that Cole might find an omega that he liked and could see himself mating with.
And although the possibility might arise that whoever he chose did not want to mate with him back, I found it unlikely. Usually, when one person found their mate, the other person felt the same. Rejection was rare in our species. We were highly tuned to finding people who fit well with us, which was also why there were so many single alpha and omegas. Because if we didn’t find ourselves highly compatible with someone else, we did not enter into a relationship.
So I was more concerned that Cole would find nobody rather than he’d find somebody who didn’t want him in return. And despite the difficulty of changing tribes, he was still an alpha leader. The omegas of the alpha leaders were highly respected. It was a great position to be in as an omega mate.