“Oh hell no,” he muttered, grabbing his mug and darting away, trying to disappear into the nearby crowd of people.

The sun had barely dipped below the horizon, and he’d managed to keep true to his promise to Lily, so far. For the better part of the past couple hours, he’d been as sociable as he could manage. He knew damn well he was normally a grumpy person, and being friendly never came easy to him. As expected Lily had pretty much disappeared after the first ten minutes of the opening ceremony, but he felt he’d done a good job of making sure he’d put on a friendly face.

However, that did not extend to allowing himself to be caught in conversation with Rudolph. Not only did the alpha have a name that conjured up visions of some middle-aged tax accountant, but he had the looks and body to go with it. The alpha never tried to choose Kyle for his pack, but he had no scruples at all about trying to get into his pants. Kyle knew he’d be doomed if the alpha ever got it into his head to pick Kyle at a Showing, even if it was just to become part of his harem. Thankfully, the elders couldn’t dictate that he had to sleep with the pervert whether Kyle was an omega or not.

He almost barreled into Mags as he emerged from the crowd of sept members. The older werewolf was sitting alone on a stump at the edge of the celebration. She looked out of place. She was a tiny wisp of a woman sitting cross-legged on the stump, barefoot and clad in robes laden with various types of fur, strings of beads, and shell necklaces. She was sucking on what looked like the stem of a sunflower, watching the Showing without a glance toward Kyle as he stumbled in his attempt to avoid knocking her over.

“Mags!” he gasped once he’d managed to stop his forward momentum without dumping himself or her on the ground.

She still didn’t look at him. “Good evening, Kyle. Enjoying your little party?”

“You know damn well I hate these things, and have done so for years,” he bit back at her.

His suddenly surly attitude did nothing to alter the thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t know that at all, even as they have always continued to happen around me without anyone so much as giving me a glance. Even now, they don’t pay attention to the mad old woman sitting on her own, even if she stands out like a tulip in a rose bush.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t stand out so much if you weren’t sitting out in the open where there isn’t anyone else around,” he suggested, knowing full well just how far the suggestion would carry.

“Well, how could I watch properly if I’m not obvious and yet still hidden?” she asked innocently.

He wasn’t even going to try to ask for clarification; it would just make his head hurt. “Why do you even want to watch this? Do you get some sort of perverse pleasure from watching a bunch of alphas size up every omega that comes their way? Is this like, a hidden fantasy of yours or something?”

“When you learn to separate yourself from your sight, you will be amazed at what you can actually see. Long ago, I released myself from the shackles that come from desiring a place dictated by the will of others. It was like being released from the waters, while still being capable of seeing the ebb and flow of the currents, all while seeing what the currents affect,” she told him, her voice a distant whisper.

“Is this another lesson? Because I’m really not in the mood for being eyed up by horny alphas and trying to figure out one of your puzzles,” he said, hoping it didn’t come across as too whiny.

She shook her head lightly. “I don’t expect you to understand, Kyle. You’re not who I am, or even who I was. You still seek to be a part of the waters.”

“Yeah, I think you’re actually confusing me with Lily. I told you, she’s not me. She’s taller for one thing, and she’s a woman,” he said with an exasperated sigh.

“Just because you fight the currents doesn’t mean you do not wish to be a part of the waters. It just means you have yet to find the current that will carry you where you wish to go. It’s what makes you so unhappy, and it will continue to do so,” she said bluntly.

“Uh huh, and what’s going to make me happy then?” he asked as he took a drink, hoping to humor her until she found an interesting thought and zoned out again.

“You will either find the current that carries you to the waters you can call home, or you will find a truth that, like me, releases you from them. Or you will drown in the waters. Those are the three options you have laid out before you,” she stated.

“Thanks, Mags. You really know how to inspire hope for the future,” he told her in a dry tone.

She looked at him, amused in her own distant way. “If you wanted reassurance and soothing words, you should seek out your friend Lily. She has a way about her, to brighten the waters even on a moonless night. You don’t come to me to find happiness; no one does. You speak to me now to pass the time so you may avoid the flow of events outside this conversation because deep down, you rely on the honest truth I bring to you. For now, it serves to feed your desire to pretend to be bitter and angry with the world, but one day you will use it to make yourself grow.”

He blinked, holding her gaze before she finally looked away, returning to her contemplation of the Showing. He was used to her speaking in such cryptic metaphors, as if she were trying to make a point but didn’t quite know a normal and direct way of doing it. What he wasn’t used to was her addressing something about his personality or his life. If anything, one of his favorite things about the time he spent with the crazy shaman was that they rarely talked about themselves. It was always about the spirits, the needs of the sept, or the more mundane aspects of her job gathering herbs and creating medicines. It had never been this personal.

“What is it with everyone being a little more crazy than usual when this damn event is going on?” he asked, gesturing to the Showing but not expecting an answer from her.

Mags smiled again. “Return to your party.”

“It’s not my party,” he told her in annoyance.

“The night is still young,” was her only reply, and one he instantly recognized as a dismissal.

Rolling his eyes he stalked away before he was tempted to ask her something else. It was one of the few nights in the year that she wasn’t required to be in attendance to someone, and if Kyle were in her shoes, he would have hidden away from everyone else. A shaman had to deal with both the spiritual and physical ailments of the sept and its members, so having a night off should have been a cause for celebration. He couldn’t imagine spending the night around the same people who pestered him day and night for the rest of the year.

A familiar arm snaked around his neck and yanked him back. “There you are! You said you weren’t going to wear that grumpy face!”

Wriggling out of Lily’s slightly sloppy grip, he turned to face her. “Sorry, was talking to Mags. She’s feeling…philosophical tonight.”

Lily grinned, her mug held in a death grip. “And how is that different from any other night? She’s always going on about something, isn’t she? Hell, the only reason I call her crazy is because you do it twelve times a day, half of which is to her face.”

Kyle laughed. “She knows she’s crazy, so why would she care if I tell the truth?”

“What’d she say that bothered you so much?” Lily asked.

Kyle shook his head. “She was just getting a little personal, which is never a good thing since the old bat doesn’t know how to pull her punches. Doesn’t matter, you’re right, I promised you I’d be a good boy. Anyway, you’re looking like the fox that got in the henhouse. What’s got you so much happier than usual?”

She cocked her hip, going for coy and looking mischievous instead. “I might have found out something interesting about some of the new alphas coming tonight.”

He glanced around in confusion. “Coming? The Showing has been going on for a couple of hours already. What new alphas are you talking about?”

“Well, apparently, there are some alphas who were going to be late showing up. I guess they were a long way away and had some last-minute alpha business to deal with before they could head out this way. They should be showing up anytime now,” she said, her grin growing wider.

“Okay, so you’re really happy that you have someone else to chat up?” He guessed.

The size of her grin was growing to unnerving proportions. “Try again.”

Kyle sighed. “I hate your guessing games Lily, so how about you save me the frustration and just tell me what’s got you so damn happy?”

Her disappointment at his refusal to play was short-lived as she almost hopped in place. “Apparently, one of the alphas lived here with his original pack a while back.”

He wasn’t following her. “Okay? It’s not really that weird, alphas come back to the heart of the sept’s territory all the time, sometimes for Showings.”

Lily’s eyes lit up. “Do you remember an alpha named Aidan?”

It took a split second for the name to register in his brain before he fully understood, and then he froze. “Aidan. An alpha from here.”

Lily blinked. “That is what I said, yeah. He’s a few years older than you.”

“Five years older,” he told her curtly.

“Yeah, he’s almost thirty or he is thirty, one of those. Anyway, he hasn’t been around here in like forever. I remember him growing up,” she told him excitedly.

He fought to keep his voice even. “Why would you remember him? He’s a full decade older than you.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “I have three older sisters Kyle, who were absolutely obsessed with guys. It rubbed off a little on me, even at a young age. Aidan was my first crush, and now he’s coming back here, for the first time in years. This could be our chance…why do you have that odd look on your face?”

Immediately, he tried to straighten out his features. “Look? There’s no look.”

She stared at him suspiciously. “You’ve got that look on your face that says you’re thinking a really nasty thought.”

“I don’t have a look for that,” he protested.

“You do too. Just what’s wrong with Aidan?” she demanded.

A list of flaws began to run through Kyle’s mind as he watched her features tighten. He knew damn well who Aidan was, and could remember the smug bastard’s face as clearly as if he had seen him only yesterday. His memories of the alpha were that of a bully and an all-around asshole. Aidan had been a young alpha who had grown up believing himself to be utterly superior to everyone around him, and that went double for omegas. He’d made it his life’s mission to terrorize any omega he came across, and since his pack had shared boundaries with Kyle’s, that meant Kyle had been a frequent target.

He’d promised Lily he would play nice and be good during this year’s Showing, and he didn’t want to risk that by getting stuck thinking about the past. Lily was by no means stupid, but he felt she was often blinded by her own optimism and hopeless romantic tendencies. To her, this was news of her first crush returning to the sept in search of an omega. He wasn’t about to ruin her mood by trying to explain that for him, it was the return of his childhood nightmare. His nemesis.

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with him. I’m just saying, don’t get too excited,” he said, trying to evade the topic.

She put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah? What happened to saying I had a chance this year because there were going to be new alphas?”

He winced. “And I meant it. I still mean it.”

“So, either you were lying about that, or there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said, somehow managing to see through him even with a haze from the alcohol in her system.

Kyle glanced around, not wanting to be overheard. “Look, there’s… there’s not a lot of good memories tied to him. Can I just leave it at that? If I explain it, it’s gonna do nothing but put us both in a bad mood, and I’m trying to keep my promise here.”

At his admittance, she looked mollified. “What, was he a jerk to you before or something?”

“Or something,” he said, trying to shrug and look like it wasn’t a big deal.

Just the idea that her first crush could have been anything but good already had a familiar pinched expression appearing on her face. The one her face got in those rare moments when she was upset. He’d wanted desperately to avoid that expression, and definitely didn’t want to see what came next. She wasn’t normally this easily upset, but between having high hopes and drinking, she was more touchy than usual. He would no sooner spill the truth to her now than he would throw his arms around Aidan, whenever he showed his face.

“Look, it’s fine. I mean, what high status alpha isn’t a bit of a dick when they’re younger? And I told you time and time again, I was a super-sensitive kid. I’m sure he was just your normal cocky alpha who originally came from a good family, and I’m just remembering it from the perspective of being a whiny omega brat, okay?” he said, trying to successfully head off the emotional outburst that would surely come.

She pouted. “I didn’t think you were whiny.”

He snorted. “You’re also about five years younger than me, so let’s not bank on your memory being all that good, eh?”

The dangerous, emotional look that had been on her face shifted to one of annoyance. “You’re such a brat, you know that? I’m not that much younger than you, you know. Not enough that I can’t remember things clearly.”

“I don’t think you can even see clearly right now, Lily my dear,” he told her with a small smile.

She looked down at her mug, which was still half-full of liquid. “I haven’t had that much to drink.”

“It never takes much with you,” he said, relieved she was already slipping back into her easy rhythm of playful banter.

Lily looked at him doubtfully. “Are you sure it’s okay? I really don’t want to be fawning over some alpha who was a jerk-off to my best friend.”

He shook his head. “It was years ago, and I’m sure my memory is just being overly dramatic. I’ll be fine, and you’ll have a great time trying to impress him. Fun times all around.”

As if his words were an incantation he hadn’t realized he was chanting, there came a faint stir of activity from behind him. He didn’t even have to turn around to know what was going on, and his grip tightened on his mug. To his relief, Lily wasn’t paying the smallest bit of attention to him. She was suddenly alert and looking past him to see what was going on. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, since he knew his luck and timing well enough to know just what was causing that faint stir of excitement in the crowd.

Her eyes widened. “Holy shit. Wow!”

Knowing he had no choice, he turned around, taking note of where he was in relation to the table strewn with stronger drinks than the one he’d been nursing so far. Even if it wasn’t for the reaction of the circle of people crowding around him, he would have recognized Aidan in a heartbeat. Here was a man who, as a boy, had made it his mission to torment and harass Kyle for as long as they had remained territorial neighbors. He’d severely downplayed to Lily the terrorizing effect Aidan had on him as a kid. He knew the truth was far worse, and he’d know that man’s face anywhere. Even after all these years.

Their eyes met across the sea of people and Kyle’s stomach dropped when he realized that Aidan immediately recognized him as well.