The Skunk, the Tibetan Fox and Their Wolf Omega by Lorelei M. Hart

The Omegas of Animals Series

 

Papa Bear for Darius

A Mate for Hudson

A Family for Cooper

Wood You be Mine

Chapter One

Edric

 

The ceremony was scheduled for eight p.m. at the home of Sur Lawrence DePolo. The name sounded like something for a knight, with “sir” spelled wrong, but he wasn’t a knight. He was the alpha leader of our surfeit with the term “sur” meaning “over and above.”

A surfeit is a group of skunk shifters. We were a community, only tighter knit, with customs and rituals we kept to ourselves.

Our surfeit pretty much ran the town of Chosenville, a little place up in the mountains of Southern California where most of our revenue was brought in by tourism.

A few hours before the ceremony, my alpha father, Lex, called me on his cell, which was rare. He usually liked to keep his distance with texts only.

“Edric. Are you ready for tonight?”

“No. I mean, yes, I am. But I’m not feeling it.”

“I know you aren’t overly fond of Sur DePolo’s omega son, but he’s from a wealthy family. Issa can give you strong, healthy kits. This marriage will forge a good bond between our families, and the surfeit will benefit.”

Issa was an okay guy. But I wasn’t attracted to him. I barely knew him. And my skunk couldn’t properly scent him at the times we were in the same vicinity. Everyone assured me when he went into heat, I’d have no troubles. Everything would be fine, and we’d bond and settle down together to raise a family.

But I was a romantic. I wanted more than an arranged marriage and pre-planned family.

“Did you learn your dance?” Lex asked.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound very excited about it. How do you feel? Do you feel like you’re ready? Do your scent glands show any swelling? Do you notice a change in scent?”

“Dad! That’s so personal! Why are you asking me these things?” I was twenty-five. The scent and marriage ritual was bad enough, but I’d agreed to those. But prying into my personal space was mortifying. I’d been dreading this since I was old enough to learn I’d be married off on my twenty-fifth birthday.

“We all have the glands. It’s not anything to be embarrassed about. Where do you get your weird notions, Son?”

“I’m not embarrassed. I just don’t like prying busybodies.”

Skunks were solitary. Mostly. And I was one of those who liked to keep to myself. But we did socialize within the surfeit, and, within that, we formed dens. As skunk shifters, we liked to hole up in family groups during the winter even in human form. We were prone to lethargy during those months, and families had nap gatherings where we’d plan big meals and sleepovers that lasted up to weeks at a time.

“I’m your father, not a busybody. And I just want my son to be happy and healthy. So?”

I pouted at the phone. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” It was only a half-truth though. I didn’t feel any different. My scent glands, which were located in the rectum in both human and skunk form, didn’t feel any different to me when I touched them. There was no change. No swelling. No urge to spray even when startled.

I’d told no one, though I knew it was odd.

“All right, then. Is your tuxedo pressed and ready?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got your gift for Issa?”

“Yes.”

“Your papa and I will see you at Sur DePolo’s, then.”

“Yeah. Right. I’ll see you there. Bye.”

The phone went silent. I stared at it then set it on my coffee table and burrowed into the pillows on my couch. I didn’t want this. Everything felt so wrong about it. Plus, after I completed the dance, which was, along with the special tea I was to drink, supposed to set off my gland, I was then required to marry someone I hadn’t even spent more than five minutes with.

I knew the ritual. I understood how everything worked. But, inside, I didn’t feel a single thing.

I wanted to forget about Issa and my scent glands. I wanted to be left alone.

 

***

 

I stood before the surfeit in the DePolo’s huge fancy ballroom in their big, ostentatious mansion. We had ninety-two active members in our surfeit, and at least forty more outliers who wished to be left alone and never came to any surfeit events.

My fathers sat in the front row of pristine white chairs set up for the ceremonial dance, the emerge of my scent, and the marriage. They were all dressed up, Lex in a white tux, and my omega dad, Ati, all in black with a white scarf around his shoulders. Lex had a dark mustache and looked far younger than his fifty-five years. Ati was always beautiful, his hair graying perfectly with a white stripe straight through the center which he kept neatly short-spiked.

I had been the only one of my fathers’ litter. Most skunk shifters had litters of twins or triplets. Usually, scent ceremonies had all the siblings participate. But, tonight, it was only me. In the spotlight.

I had practiced my dance well and knew it by heart, but when I went onto the makeshift stage before all the rows of seats, I felt nothing but a strange shyness. When the music began, I drank the ritual tea from a clear crystal cup. It went down hot and spicy, and I waited to see if it made me feel a little drunk. Nothing changed.

I started the dance slowly, formal and correct. I did everything right. The graceful moves, the proper motions of my arms over my head. I had a lean, tall body, so I could only hope it looked all right and I wasn’t making a total fool of myself.

After it was over, applause came. I bowed. When I looked up, Lex was motioning to me to smile. I turned away, pretending I hadn’t seen him. I didn’t feel like smiling.

For the next part of the ritual, I was grateful for privacy. It wasn’t like the surfeit expected me to disrobe, shift, show them my butthole, and spray. Which was a great relief. Some in the larger shifter communities gossiped about skunk habits and called us kinky for our rituals, but they didn’t know. Everything was handled with decorum and a somewhat-formal prissiness.

I was allowed to go into a private scent room where everything was set up for me to shift and prove my scent. The room had a white tile floor and one window, curtains closed. A white bench lined a wall. Facing the bench, along another wall, was a six-by-four cotton sheet on a frame, like a blank canvas waiting to be painted. The frame touched the floor. Everything was so white.

I was to disrobe, shift, and spray that sheet then present it to Sur DePolo in a special velvet bag as proof of my full maturity. As alpha of the surfeit, he would file it away in the scent archives as my adult identity.

I was careful with the tux as I draped it on the bench. It was a wool blend with satin lapels of the finest brand.

When I was naked, I shifted and turned toward the sheet. The dance in the ballroom had been a ritual, yes, but it was also meant to get the blood warm and flowing, the adrenaline pumping. Still, I felt nothing.

In skunk form, I began the dance again. I raised my tail, wiggling it all the way to the tip and pressed down as I’d been taught. Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing. I simply didn’t feel it. It was as if I had no glands at all. Their little nipples didn’t itch or move or open or anything.

Frustrated, I tried again. No result. As I tried a few more times to spray, I realized something was wrong, and I should have been paying more attention to my body and its lack of scent gland maturity pre-symptoms.

I shifted back to human and sat on the bench with my hands on my thighs, head bowed, defeated. Now what?

I didn’t want to face the crowd. Nor Issa. I sat for a long time, unsure what to do. Finally, a soft knock came at the door.

I quickly pulled on my pants and went to open it.

Lex stood in the doorway. “Edric?”

I glanced away and let him come in. He glanced around, taking in the unmarked sheet then turning to me. “What’s wrong, Son?”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I tried. There’s no activity. Nothing. No scent. No spray. No response from my scent glands to the dance.”

“Did you do the dance while shifted in front of the sheet?”

“Yes. I did.”

He scratched his head. He matched the scent room perfectly, all dressed up in his white tux. He was the perfect alpha, and I knew right then and there I could never be like him.

He put his arm around me and led me back to the bench. “Get dressed. I’ll handle things.” He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss to the side of my head.

My eyes blurred. I didn’t want Issa, so I wasn’t sad over him. It was more about letting down my fathers and the surfeit. About being broken, a failure.

Lex left, closing the door quietly. I took my time getting dressed. When I emerged from the room, I heard only silence. Slowly, I made my way back to the ballroom.

The chairs were all still there, but the room was empty, except for Sur DePolo and my fathers. They all looked up as I entered. My fathers came up, one on either side of me.

Sur DePolo, who stood at least six three and was as wide as two of me put together, said, “Edric. I’m sorry for this outcome. Truly. Do you understand what comes next?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t ever really looked to the future, as romantic as I was. I had never thought about leaving the surfeit or my job at the ski resort.

“We can have him see the healer first before any firm decisions are made,” Ati suggested. He reached down and clutched my hand in his. I was grateful for the support but remained numb.

“It’s usually not something that is fixable,” DePolo said. “If a skunk doesn’t get his scent by age twenty-five, that’s it. It’s not going to magically grow in. Not past that age.” DePolo faced me. “Issa is going to be matched to another alpha. There will be no argument.”

I nodded, blinking away more blurry warmth from my eyes.

“Do you understand you cannot bond to an omega skunk without your scent?” he asked me.

Lex gave a little gasp.

“Yes.” I gulped. “Does this mean I have to leave?”

“Of course not.” DePolo smiled, but it was patronizing, even pitying.

Something inside me churned, and bile formed in the back of my throat. “But I’ll never marry if I stay here.”

“Not to another skunk, no.”

Ati’s hand clutched mine tighter.

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. In my mind, everything had frozen. I couldn’t think. I could barely breathe.

DePolo showed us all out. My fathers had come in their own car. Mine sat parked next to theirs.

“Come home with us for the night,” Ati said, leaning in to hug me. When he pulled away, he had tears in his eyes.

“No. I’ll be all right.”

Lex hugged me and said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

When I drove home, a nearly full moon hung over the forest and the hills. I drove past the resort. No snow. It wasn’t quite fall yet. As I looked at the chalet-style lodges, the restaurant that was open twenty-four seven, the ticket building, the chair lift going all the way up to the top of the mountain, I realized I wasn’t married to this place. I didn’t have to stay. I had options.

I’d never wanted Issa. Maybe this was not a failure on my part but an opportunity.

That was the moment I knew my mind had already been made up. I wasn’t going to stay in Chosenville. There was a whole other world out there, and I was going to experience it.