Page 11 of The Sad Omega

"Um, I need to have a reason to come over. Let's see..." Hewas silent for a bit. Then his eyes brightened. "We've got an axe that needs sharpening and I don't know how to do that, so could you help me with that?"

"Absolutely! And you know you're always welcome, don't even need an excuse to come over."

"Um, thanks. I need the excuse at my end though." Isca's cheeks flushed and he wouldn't look me in the eyes. "You know how Zarbius keeps tabs on me, and he expects the betas to report back to him on what I've been doing."

"Oh well," I said pretending like this was a normal state of affairs - which it totally wasn't, and if Talius had tried this shit with me there would have been hell to pay. "We'll just have to come up with lots of good reasons for you to visit."

"So, tomorrow. Come over early with the axe. We'll ask one of the betas to take care of it and we can spend the day gaming if you like - unless you're into cooking?" I asked hopefully. Either was good with me but I loved baking and there was no-one else in my pack who shared the same passion, meaning it ended up being a solitary activity. And I was gregarious by nature.

"I'm good for either," Isca assured me. "What sort of things do you like to cook?"

"Um, well, all sorts of stuff, but my favorite thing is baking... biscuits, slices especially, desserts... that sort of thing. What about you?"

"All the sweet stuff," laughed Isca, his cheeks plumping up and glowing as he did so. "I love baking. It's not much fun at home though, Zarbius never likes what I cook." His voice dropped. "Maybe I'm not that good at it anyway... he always tells me it's crap."

"I'm sure it's not!" I defended Isca, indignantly. "Let's cook tomorrow. Or maybe we can fit both in."

"Sure. If you're really sure it's okay."

"Absolutely!" I bounced about on the balls of my feet, just barely stopping myself from breaking out into a little happy dance. Having a friend come over was unusual for me, and I really liked and got along with Isca. It was going to be awesome.

???

Over the next few weeks, we managed to find lots of ways to get together, even when Isca's Alpha was at home.

In addition to our forays into town, we’d also found there were plenty of valid reasons for Isca to visit our farm. Mostly it was something like fixing things that required a special tool that his pack didn’t have but we did. Occasionally he told me Zarbius had agreed to him making a social visit because ‘it wouldn't hurt to stay on good terms with the neighbors’. At times like that I wondered if maybe Zarbius wasn’t as bad as I had believed. I knew they didn’t have the same loving relationship that Talius and I shared, but I guessed that what we had might have been unusual. We'd started our relationship pretty young.

Regardless of the specified reason for the visit, there was always a lot of gaming, and sitting around talking and eating.

And baking, we did lots of baking. And it turned out that his Alpha was quite wrong about one thing - Isca was an amazing cook. Why did that not surprise me?

And since Talius was often working in his office or around the farm, Isca got to know him quite well.

Talius was kind and gentle with him and it wasn’t long before he lost his fear of my handsome mate. We took samples of what we had baked to him when he was in his office, and Talius was always effusive with his praise. Talius also took the time to show him how to fix the things he brought and Isca seemed to develop a bit of hero-worship. His eyes often followed him around and he blushed anytime Talius spoke directly to him.

He was still sad some days, but mostly he shook it off when he was with us, laughing and playful with us as though he hadn’t a care in the world. I could see, though, that it was a temporary thing. When it was time to say goodbye and for him to return to his pack, his expression would turn more somber. I was becoming very fond of Isca, and I was happy that Talius and he had also grown close.

For a while, everything seemed to be going along fine and I forgot about my initial worries for Isca. That is, until one Tuesday when we met for our usual shopping day.

Isca was terrified. There was no other way to describe it. The haunted look in his eyes, the way his hands shook when he lifted things off the shelves. He kept dropping things.

“What is it?” I asked him, deeply worried, when a packet of flour hit the floor, the white powder splattering everywhere as the flimsy paper tore open. He’d arrived at the supermarket in a terrible state, head down, shoulders slumped. He’d barely said a word to me and was making virtually no progress on his shopping list. This was the third thing he'd dropped. “What’s wrong?”

His head was bowed, the few short curls on the top of his head shimmering under the fluorescent lights. A fat, wet droplet splattered on the canvas of his shoe. Another landed with a silent plop in the scattered flour. His shoulders shook. I moved closer to him and began rubbing his back.

“What is it Isca? Tell me. Can I help you?”

He looked up at me then, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, his lips trembling as he told me, “I’m coming into heat.”

The anguish in his eyes was devastating. I was suddenly afraid for him. Much as he always seemed sad and it didn’t sound like his life was fun at all, this seemed… so much worse. He looked like he was out of his mind with fear. He grabbed my shirt, the fabric grazing my shoulders as he fisted the fabric in both hands.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he whimpered, gulping air.

“What happens, Isca?” I asked, my heart pounding. I was afraid for him. I didn’t understand his terror. I mean, sure, if you didn’t have someone to help you through it, a heat could be excruciating, but it wasn’t so bad as to engender the sort of fear that Isca was displaying, and anyway, his mate would take care of it.

“I.. I.. I can’t talk about it.” Isca burst into tears.

I wrapped my arms around him and tried to console him, but if he wouldn't confide in me, there was nothing I could do. Maybe there was nothing I could do anyway. For a rare moment I felt the helplessness of being an omega. It was unsettling - I never felt that way. I loved being an omega.