I laid out a couple of outfits on my bed and stood back to look critically at them. Maybe the yellow dress shirt... I could pair it with the black pants--they were easy to get into and out of and didn't attract dirt or lint. Fridays were the busiest day of the week--I'd be in and out of these pants a lot.

The sunlight coming in my bedroom window caught on the bracelet on my left wrist. I still couldn’t believe they’d given me a blue one—I hadn’t been working in the client-facing parts of the public houses much more than a year. My mother had congratulated me and said I must have gotten good reviews from the clients—a blue one meant that my time would be billed in the highest price range.

"Salem," Ma called up the stairs. "Can you run to the store for me?"

"I'm heading to work in a few minutes," I called back. "Can Xino go?"

"He can," she said dryly and I heard her feet on the stairs before she poked her head around the edge of the door. "But then who knows what would be in the soup pot tomorrow for supper."

I laughed. "I'm sorry, Ma, but it's Friday, you know?"

"It's okay. I'll run down myself. It's just that I wanted to take the curtains down and give them a good beating out in the sun before I have to go to work."

"I'll help you out with that tomorrow," I promised.

"No, you won't. You'll be sleeping. But it's okay, work has to come first." She stepped into my room and gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek. "Wear the blue pinstripe, it makes you look like a college student." She tapped the blue bracelet. “It goes with this too.”

"Gotcha." I put the yellow shirt away—Ma always knew what she was talking about when it came to appearances. She'd been a pretty famous worker in the public houses herself in her day, then had moved up to management when she got mated and had pups.

She was still beautiful. People said I looked like her, but I didn't see it. My hair was too dark to be called a true honey blond, my smile was crooked, and my nose just a little too large for her kind of beauty.

I did have her eyes, smoke blue with a ring of gray around the outside. They were, undeniably, my best feature. Well, outside an appropriately muscled chest and a nicely rounded ass. But those were job requirements, not things she gave me, and I worked damn hard for them.

I packed my work clothes into my bag, threw in a tie and a clean pair of the underwear I kept for work only, and then thundered downstairs into the front hallway. “I’m leaving,” I shouted over my shoulder.

“Have a good night at work,” she called back. “I’ll see you at seven.”

“See you!” The heat hit me like it always did as soon as I was out the door. Thank the Lady Medeina for air-conditioning. I couldn’t image how people had lived here without it. Luckily, we weren’t too terribly far from the public houses and it was a work requirement that we shower before our shift started anyway, so it didn’t matter if I got sweaty.

The first half hour of every shift was spent in making ourselves presentable and getting the rundown from the shift supervisor on what the day’s bookings looked like, how full the bar was, and any incidents that had happened since our last shift. That was what Ma did—scheduling, supervising, making sure we had enough of us scheduled for each shift. I’d probably do that too, whenever the earnings slowed down. But I was a few years away from that yet.

I saw Asphodel walking down her sidestreet and stopped to wait for her. “How’s the planning going?” I asked. She was getting mated this fall, about halfway between Harvest Moon and Midwinter.

“I am out of my mind,” she said dramatically and flung one hand up in the air. “The fabric I bought for the mating outfits turned out to be an entirely different color green than it looked like online and now I’m scrambling to find a way to dye it to the color I want, Caia was just betrothed and can’t be in my pradya anymore so I’m looking for a replacement… Hey, I don’t suppose you’d want to be in it?”

“I’m covering your shifts for your mating moon, remember?” Some of them anyway. No one could work a full moon of doubles, but I’d be on at least an extra twelve hours per week until she came back. If she came back. If she didn’t we’d have to work out a new schedule until the newest crop of twenty-one-year-olds came along in the spring. This was why most of our matings happened after Birth Moon, when there was staff to cover the mating moons and retirements from the business. “Are you going to put your name in to work your heats?”

She nodded and pushed her dark hair out of her face. “Probably my last time, but we could use the money.”

“Yeah.” We were both saving up for our own places, her with her future mate, me with…me. I was happy for her, truly I was. She was only a couple of years older than me but ready to settle down, take on the responsibilities of a mate and, eventually, a family.

I…was not.

We got to the back door of the Moonflower Garden where Asphodel worked and she passed through into blessed air-conditioning with a cheery wave. I kept going—I usually worked in the third one down the row, the newest of the four public houses that brought in most of Nevada Ashes’ money. Silver catered to those looking for male or female companionship in any combination, and we were pretty flexible in what we’d do, as long as it paid and didn’t damage the staff.

One of the kitchen staff was hanging out in the back door when I got there, smoking a cigarette.

“You’re going to smoke yourself into an early grave,” I told him, laughing.

He grinned. “Just like you’re gonna fuck yourself into an early grave.”

“But what a way to go,” I said as I slipped past him, running my bracelet over the sensor to check in. “Busy tonight?”

“’Bout the usual. Might be a bit busier for you, it’s that kind of night.”

“Thanks for the head’s up,” I called over my shoulder as I headed for the changing room and the showers.

So the guys were getting called on more than the girls tonight. Well, that was okay. The extra money would go in my house fund. I figured if I kept working weekends and took on as many Mating Moon covering shifts as I could get, I might have enough to petition the pack for an apartment of my own by next fall.

There weren’t many opportunities outside the public houses for an omega in Nevada Ashes. I’d made up my mind a long time ago that I didn’t want to just be someone’s trophy and I’d worked hard to make sure I could pick and choose when a suitable alpha came calling. If I was going to give up my freedom to one, I wanted it to be one I wanted, not the first one to cast a glance my way.

And if I was going to give myself away to someone, I for damn sure wanted the pick of the litter.

Fifteen minutes later I was showered and neatly dressed in the clothes I’d brought. Ma was right—the outfit did make me look like a college student heading off to his first real job interview. I could work with that, easy.

Half an hour after that I’d gotten the lowdown on what was happening in the house tonight, found out my room assignment—a nicely decorated space on the third floor with a pretty view over the walls—and headed off to the bar to see if I could pick up a quickie before my first booked date of the night.

The bar was busy. I stopped and got a sparkling water with a lime wedge, then strolled in the direction of the fake fireplace crackling merrily in the far wall.

An older gentleman stood nervously to one side of the fireplace, sipping at whatever was in the rocks glass in his hand. A little round, a little bald, and very uncertain that this was the place for him. I walked past him, watching his reaction out of the corner of my eye.

Yep. Interested. So I turned on my heel and came around to lean against the wall near him. “Never been to Nevada Ashes before?” I asked.

He shook his head and took a larger drink, clearing his throat after. “Seems like a nice place,” he offered.

“We pride ourselves on looking after our guests,” I said promptly. “Can I assist you in choosing someone to help you enjoy your night? I know everyone here.” We were discreet in Nevada Ashes. Nothing was said out loud, not until we were behind closed doors. Then, well, it was down to the individual shifter what they were willing to do. “Tell me what you like.”

“Uh…” His eyes turned to me and I watched his pupils expand and smelled the first real scent of arousal from him.

Curious? Or closeted? “We are very good at keeping secrets here,” I whispered and smiled at him reassuringly. “Let’s see, who’s working tonight?” I glanced around the room—like I didn’t have the entire roster memorized—and put a finger to my lips as if thinking very hard. “There’s Chantelle, the ash blond in the blue dress over by the climbing rose. She’s very new, but very enthusiastic. Or if you want someone older and a little more relaxed,” I craned my neck as if searching, but I already had the entire patter planned out in my head. “There he is. Richmond, with the light brown hair over by the rain wall? Little bit of gray at the temples? He’s very good and has an unending curiosity about new things.”

My companion barely glanced at Richmond and I had a moment’s worry that I’d judged him wrong, but then his tongue darted out to nervously lick his lips while his eyes flickered quickly over my body, and I knew he was mine. “What about you?” he whispered and I could smell the anxiety, the fear of rebuff, in his scent.

“I’m whatever you want me to be,” I whispered, leaning in to him. “Tell me what you’ve always dreamed of doing and what you’ve always been afraid to ask for.” I didn’t use this line on everyone, but there was no smell of danger about him; it was most likely safe. I raised my glass to my mouth, making sure the bright blue of my bracelet was visible so he’d know what price range he was dealing with, and let him make his decision.

He stared off into nowhere for a few moments, then downed the rest of his drink and put the glass down on a nearby table with perhaps a little more force than was necessary. “I…” he stuttered, then took a calming breath and restarted. “Would you show me your room?”

“I would be delighted,” I told him in a voice rich with promise. I abandoned my drink on the little table, then reached out to twine my fingers through his and accepted the little metal tag he passed me. My bracelet would pick up the tag’s signature, and accounts receivable would then know which credit card to bill my time to. It was a pretty slick system. “My name is Salem. What’s yours?”

“Uh… Greg?”

Greg, huh? Probably not, but it would do. And most of our time together wouldn’t need names anyway. “Follow me, Greg, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.”