The Omega Sacrifice

Aalyan

Aalyan

Heart racing, and digging his nails into the wood with a silent apology, Aalyan scrambled up after the Alpha. Ghian, he mentally corrected himself. He settled on a branch opposite, with plenty of space between them. It wasn’t like anyone had told him what he was supposed to do when he came, what his new alpha would expect. Other than... He pushed the thought away; maybe he was afraid but that didn’t mean he had to make it completely obvious.

“This... this is quite strange, isn’t it?” the alpha asked him, and his hesitation made Aalyan forget to keep his eyes respectfully down.

“Yes,” he agreed, which seemed safe enough. He didn’t think the alpha was talking about Aalyan himself, though he’d seen plenty of evidence of how strange he was to those who could perceive his presentation.

In the silence, he heard the alpha swallow, but he hardly knew what else he could add. “You’re— I know you can’t be happy about this,” the Jaguar told him.

“What?” He straightened, heart speeding up. From the moment he’d presented, all he’d heard was how lucky he was, even his own mother had said so. Aalyan hadn’t been able to believe it, not when he knew what he’d have to do as an omega, but for the man who’d paid sixty sacks of cassava for him to suggest...

“I’m sorry,” the alpha told him. As far as Aalyan could judge, he meant it. “I mean that I know this must be difficult for you.”

Aalyan blinked, scrambling for words. “It is strange,” he echoed, though the sympathy was even stranger. “But, I mean...” He shrugged. Back in his pack, the others’ incomprehension had seemed terrible, but if the alternative was pity, he’d take their congratulations any day. He couldn’t change what he was, or what he had to do, what was the point of dwelling on it?

“Did they ask you?”

“Ask me...?” Aalyan repeated. The Jaguars’ dialect was only slightly different to his own, but he could make little sense of what their leader was telling him.

“If you wanted to come here,” the alpha said slowly, like the words were hard to get out. “To be my mate.”

It was true that omegas did get a saying in who their mate was—females did, that was. He was different. He was different because he would... He exhaled slowly, there was no disguising his nerves, but he didn’t want to freak out, or worse yet, cry.

“They couldn’t ask me,” he bit out, surprising himself with the anger in his own voice.

He’d thought it was all settled, at least. It was bad enough he had to go through with it, without needing to discuss it.

“Why not?” The question was soft, but the words cut like claws through his guts.

“Because I couldn’t stay!” Aalyan spat. And if he couldn’t stay, what did it matter to him where he went? What was so different about one strange alpha or another when it really came down to it? They all wanted him for the same thing, didn’t they? The only thing he was good for now.

“They could still have asked,” the alpha insisted, and Aalyan gritted his teeth. No, they couldn’t have, they needed food and they couldn’t let Aalyan stay and get knocked up when he went into heat and add half a dozen mouths they wouldn’t be able to feed.

“If I would rather starve?” he asked bitterly, the words spilling out of him like vomit. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but neither was Aalyan’s life, and he didn’t like the way the Jaguar was implying he should blame his pack for it. They had seized the chance, of course, and they had called what had happened a blessing, but they hadn’t asked the Moon to do this to him.

And the Alpha was benefiting just as much as they were, wasn’t he?

“No,” the Jaguar said, firm but never raising his voice. The calmer he was, the more Aalyan wanted to scream. “If you wanted to do this, if you agreed to... to help your pack like this.”

Aalyan bit his lip, forcing himself to breathe slowly until he could be sure his voice was civil. It was too late to go back now, to ask if anyone else would take him—no alpha would want him after he’d been alone with this one, even if nothing had happened. “I don’t care, I would have said yes.”

And he would have too, he realised. There had been no point in asking him if he wanted to come except to pretend he had a choice. Just as there had been no point in offering him sympathy when they could offer him no relief—maybe they’d just wanted to give him the one thing he could keep; his dignity.

“Okay,” his future mate said softly. “That’s good then.”

Aalyan had nothing to say to that.