The Omega Sacrifice

Ghian

Ghian

“Ghian?” his brother said.

He swallowed. A male omega. He’d given up on the idea of a mate years ago, when he’d finally told his family that he could not mate a woman. And now... Male omegas were blessings from the Moon, of course, but it seemed like this was a blessing for Ghian in particular. He could finally fulfil his duty to his pack and have children that one day would take over when he was gone. And he could be with someone, really be with them and not just sneak around like...

He shook his head. “And the leopards don’t want him?”

Telez’s mouth turned down. “The leopards are probably thanking the Gods for what they can get for him. You know they lost a lot in that fire the humans started. I don’t think... Well, they need other things a lot more than an omega.”

“What do they want?”

“Food,” his brother said, and Ghian felt the bitter twist of his mouth in his own stomach. Food. To think a pack could be doing so badly they’d need to bargain with one of their own to survive.

And here he was, with crops that gave them more than they needed in the north and fruit trees on the mountainside that not only fed them but attracted prey. Food was the one thing no Jaguar had had to think about in a long time.

It was no accident. Nine years ago, when he’d become their Alpha, Ghian had insisted they start planting cassava. Back then, the elders of his tribe hadn’t seen the need for the sturdy and highly nutritional root vegetable, but once Ghian had been strong enough to take over from his late Father, they’d relented. He couldn’t take all the credit, it had been his sister Erea who’d suggested it, but he was proud of having listened. In truth, he couldn’t say with any certainty that the cassava cultivation had saved them from anything, but now the Jaguars were thriving even while other packs were struggling to keep up with the rapidly diminishing animal and fish populations. When the humans didn’t eat them, they took them away for who knew what, sometimes they simply destroyed their habitats to the point where the animals couldn’t sustain large litters.

Maybe Erea’s prescience hadn’t saved them, but it’d certainly made them safer.

All he had to do was say yes. It was perhaps all Ghian could do, but he was still Alpha, and he asked, “How many?”

“There are about fifty of the Ysiatl,” his brother informed him neutrally.

“We can send them twenty sacks of cassava,” he decided, rapidly calculating. “Every New Moon for the next three months.”

Telez inhaled sharply. It was a lot of food, Ghian knew, more than half of their monthly production if everything went to plan.

“Are you sure?” his brother asked after a long moment.

Strangely, he was; his vacillation all gone. That’s how he knew it was his Goddess’ doing. The Moon was giving him a chance to get what he needed. What his pack needed. And he could not take such a gift without giving in turn. He didn’t know the Ysiatl’s exact circumstances, but he would send them plenty of food for them to eat well for at least three months—longer if they were smart about it. It didn’t feel like enough, even as it would mean his tribe would need to do more hunting and fishing to compensate for the loss of cassava for themselves.

But of course, he was only a man and he could never hope to match the Moon in her greatness.

“I am,” he told Telez. “Can you arrange it?”

***

ONCE UPON A TIME, GHIAN had been a child. The Alpha’s third child, at that. Everyone had looked after him, of course, just like they looked after every other cub.

And then, at the tender age of eleven, he’d presented alpha himself.

He hadn’t even known who he was, but suddenly everyone else had known. Every kid he’d grown up playing with, every adult he’d tricked into giving him sweets or startled by jumping out from behind a bush while they were busy. Every single person he knew.

They had known and he hadn’t, so why shouldn’t he believe them? Being an alpha meant being like his father, the person he admired most in the world. It meant his father would train him and him alone and he wouldn’t have to wait for his turn to be heard until his older siblings got their say.

It had meant he was special.

He’d felt it too. His dad and he would trek to the top of Mount Lajika to talk to the god of the mountain, just sat there in silence and listened to the rock talk to them. The rock hadn’t been very communicative to Ghian at first, but he’d sat gladly after the hard climb and afterwards his father would smile at him—just with his eyes—and say, “You are doing a good job, son.”

Ghian had been so proud back then, right until he’d had a bad day—some sort of plant had brushed against his leg, irritating it and making it itch so he hadn’t been able to sit still—and received the same kind words.

“A good job? I was s**t today!” He’d been twelve, full of energy and spite and very low on sympathy, even for himself.

His dad had looked at him for a long moment, not reprimanding him for his tone. “What do you think the job is, son?”

Ghian had frowned at him. “To— To listen to Apu.”

“Yes, and were you listening?”

“I tried.” He was sulking and he knew it, but even then he was struggling not to scratch his leg. He knew his dad was disappointed and that only made his own disappointment sting all the more.

His father was nodding. “But you couldn’t do it?”

He shook his head, biting his tongue, too close to tears for words.

“Because your body was distracting you,” his father suggested.

Ghian managed a nod, eyes still on the ground, shame hot in his stomach.

“Apu has a body, too, you know?”

“What?” Ghian had glanced up, too thrown to be upset.

His father’s hand had patted the rocky side of the mountain. “This is his body, the part of him we can touch. That’s how he can talk to us, with the wind going through his cracks and crevices, the little pieces of rock eroding away under our feet, and the water dripping from where it gets trapped inside.” He’d reached out to take Ghian’s small hand in his and turned the palm up, tapping it with his fingers. “This is you too, son, and you need to listen to your own body before you listen to anyone else’s, even a god’s.”

Ghian had frowned up at him. “So...”

“So if your body tells you that you are in pain and it cannot wait, you attend to it first.”

“But I’m an alpha, I’m—”

“You are a boy,” his father had cut in. “And even alphas need time to heal, Ghian. We are strong, the Moon blessed us so, but we are not gods.” He had waited for Ghian to nod before turning. “Come now, there’s a grotto this way where we can wash that off.”