MALCOLM
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"I want to see my mum."
The little voice has me dragging my near frantic attention away from the papers sprawled all over my desk. I look at the boy a few feet away and wonder, not for the first time, what to tell him. Noticing something else, I ask, "Where is your omega?"
He continues to look at me, the set of his jaw so painfully familiar I find myself looking away.
"I don't want an omega," he says. "All she does is sleep. And the other children think I smell funny."
A surge of protectiveness has me scowling. "Did they say something to you?"
"No. Just that I don't smell like a wolf."
I relax. Just then the door comes open and a portly woman rushes in, frantic. "Alpha, I don't know w--oh, goodness! There you are."
She bows, face apologetic. "I'm sorry. I closed my e
