Page 2 of Griffin Food

Violet

Ifind my mother in her quarters alone, busy with her needlework. To see this once vital Queen alone thus breaks my heart.

“Violet,” she says, her smile bright as she sets the needlework aside.

“I’m leaving for a research trip.”

Her face falls. “This is very sudden.”

My practiced words elude me. I love my mother. I miss my late father every day, along with my younger sisters. It was the happiest of times when we were all children, and mates and husbands were distant considerations.

The silence grows pronounced.

She knows.

My mother’s expression shifts to one of dread. “You too?” she whispers.

I nod, swift. The stinging at the back of my eyes surprises me—I am not one for undue sentimentality.

“Please don’t go, Violet,” she says. “I can find you a match quietly. Your sister does not need to know.”

“It won’t work,” I say. “We both know Elisa and how her life has twisted her up. Suspicious of everyone and everything, any correspondence of this nature would be a risk.”

My reasoning is sound, although there is more to this that I choose to keep from my mother. Namely, I do not want an alpha. Despite my three younger sisters finding their happily ever afters, I have spent too long living in a home with one of the worst alphas.

It has left scars.

What if my alpha turns out like Elijah?

What if he doesn’t like my dedication to research?

What if he tries to change me?

I am too old and set in my ways.

And besides all of this, my omega markers are off, the scent is easy to disguise, and there is no hint that I might experience a heat.

In my soul, I already know that an ordinary life and mating are not for me.

“I understand,” she says, although her eyes are clouded with shadows.

“You should leave too,” I say. “Stay with Clarissa or Rosalind. Both would welcome you…” I am not sure my mother, a former Queen, would ever find happiness in a rustic centaur village where Rebecca lives with her mate, but who am I to judge?

“I have been thinking about it,” she admits, her eyes growing distant. “And I fear what Elisa might do without any steadying influence.” Her gaze returns to me. “An omega needs a mate. I’ve heard it can make them unwell if they do not have one.”

“I am not yet at that stage,” I say. “Not yet ready for a mate. If the signs change, then I will take action.” Only what stage am I at? “My research suggests I’m an omega caught on the cusp of awakening. Maybe I will never show the full signs. Maybe this is normal; maybe some omegas never fully reveal…” My voice drops to a whisper. “Maybe what happened to my sisters has broken me.”

“Oh, my sweet daughter.” She enfolds me in a tight hug. “There was a time when being an omega was celebrated. How your late father would weep to see the changes in our once prosperous land. I wish I could bring her to her senses…”

She leans back and places her hand on my shoulder. She is a tall woman with gray at the temples of her dark hair. A beauty in her younger years, she is a different kind of beauty as she ages gracefully.

“It is too late to try. She will not heed you. Her mind has grown bitter and twisted. Her mate is not a good man. I always thought he changed her, but with hindsight, she was always this way, and time and circumstance have merely revealed what was there.”

My mother nods, her expression forlorn. “Where will you go?”

I smile, a genuine one this time. “Where I go is a secret.”

“Oh, child. You cannot give a mother so little and then disappear.”