The Omega Sacrifice

Aalyan

Aalyan

Even the jungle was strange here, the vegetation subtly different, the paths unknown to his well-trained hunter eyes. In human form, the jaguars didn’t look particularly different to anyone he’d ever met, their skin was the pale brown of young wood, and though their clothes were richer than Aalyan was used to, they were not any taller than the average leopard. From across the river, their sinuous dark forms had seemed larger, a warning against getting too close to their side.

Even now, they were keeping their distance from him and his guide, but he could still feel their attention upon him as they crossed the clearing. It could have just been the normal curiosity any stranger elicited, but it was hard for Aalyan to forget the way his own packmates had stared. He kept his eyes low, fighting the instinctive need to hide.

He wasn’t used to being around strangers. As a beta, he’d learned to hunt for his pack from early puberty and he’d spent most of his day with a couple other betas finding food. Trade—and they didn’t often have much to trade—was the purview of the elders or at least of adults, not younglings who were only good for their speed and strength. Some of the other boys had claimed they knew they’d be alphas and be given the privileges of the position—Aalyan had thought himself above such fantasies, right until they’d been shattered.

Now he was surrounded by shifters he’d never seen in his life, face upon face he could not place. Now that he was more vulnerable than ever before, he had no one he could truly trust.

The one who’d collected him, Telez, had been quite nice. He was a beta maybe a couple years older than Aalyan himself, but he seemed settled somehow, like he’d figured out where he belonged. But that didn’t mean anything, he’d come to get Aalyan for his alpha brother and he’d deliver him, any kindness he’d extended couldn’t be counted as anything more than good manners.

The Jaguar Alpha had offered his pack a generous portion of cassava for the next three months, and while everyone rejoiced about the feasts they’d have, his mother had drawn him aside to offer some insight. “A man like that will really value you,” she’d said, smiling all the wider as if to make up for Aalyan’s blank expression.

He'd nodded, but it wasn’t much of a relief to know the alpha who’d bought him wanted him so badly that he’d feed his pack for three months to get him. The only thing it truly told him was that the Jaguars had a lot of food. And it even if the guy was really all that, it still didn’t change the fact that he was an alpha and he’d want from Aalyan what alphas wanted from omegas.

The words stayed firmly in his head; he was tired of hearing it was as the Moon intended. You couldn’t question the Goddess, of course, but how was he supposed to silence himself?

He didn’t mind the... that they’d got food for him. It was the only thing about this that made any sense to him, that his parents and siblings and cousins and friends wouldn’t have to lay around in the sun and try to sleep to pretend their stomachs weren’t rumbling because the stew had been more water than substance.

It wasn’t like he could have stayed anyway, not when he would soon... He caught the scent first, only a moment later realising it was coming from the side and turning towards it.

The alpha walking towards him didn’t need introductions, even without the beautiful lapis lazuli pendant around his neck, he emanated a breath-taking power and grace.

“My brother,” Telez said next to him, just as the man came close enough to meet Aalyan’s startled eyes. His own were deep and penetrating, the yellow colour startlingly light and his strong factions softened by incongruently long eyelashes and parted lips, plump and the colour of fresh clay. “Ghian. This is Aalyan.”

He didn’t look that much older than Aalyan at all. And yet, he was obviously the Alpha.

It was only then that Aalyan realised he’d been staring an alpha right in the eye for the last minute or so. He jerked his gaze down in a hurry, bowing his head. He’d always assumed submission came naturally to omegas, but if it was meant to, something hadn’t quite worked for him. The very small part of him that still hoped stood to attention at the misstep, but Aalyan kept his mouth firmly shut. He was acutely aware that the rest of the Jaguars could hear him, even if they were giving them space.

“It’s nice to meet you,” the alpha told him. His voice was deep, but not loud.

Aalyan risked a glance, then focused his eyes on the man’s chin—he was tall enough that it was no hardship—and nodded. “Thank you for... Thank you for helping my pack,” he said, because that much was true. He’d never had to think much about whether he was being truthful before, no one had ever cared enough about his opinion for it to matter. He wasn’t sure it mattered now; he didn’t think they’d send him back if he was rude.

And yet, when he caught the grimace on the alpha’s mouth, his heart jumped in alarm. Had that been the wrong thing to say? The Alpha’s next words shocked even his rushing mind into silence. “Did you actually agree to—?”

“We should go somewhere more private,” Telez cut in.

Aalyan turned to look at him, torn between gratitude and shock. He’d never seen a beta interrupt an alpha before, much less the pack’s leader. The Jaguars were proving themselves stranger and stranger by the minute.

The Awá leader just huffed. “Fine, come this way, Aalyan. Telez is going to get us some food, you must be hungry after your journey.”

He was hungry and, for the first time in longer than he could remember, it wasn’t a problem.

It should have been little consolation in the face of never seeing his family and friends again, of living in this strange land, fairly similar but subtly wrong. But he didn’t live in a world where he could afford the luxury of not caring about what his body needed.