My first heat hit right on schedule, the second week of November. Just like clockwork.

I waited until the end of it to check my credit balance, hoping for the best, prepared for the worst. I’d kept rough track of what I’d thought I’d earned, but we were paid for our time with clients while they were in our rooms, which meant that badging in and out with our bracelets was what determined exactly how many minutes we were charging, and getting paid for.

Ma was finishing her coffee and reading her emails before going into work. I was on the first of my days off and lounging in the chair opposite her in my robe, phone in one hand, toast in the other.

“Just check it. You know you’re dying to know,” she said without looking up from her tablet.

“But what if I was wrong?” I demanded. My thumb still hovered over the login button on the screen. One tap, and I’d know how close I was to my goal.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Salem,” she finally said in an exasperated tone and reached across the table to press my thumb to the screen.

I squeezed my eyes shut like a little pup while my account loaded and then, oh so carefully, peeked. “Barrens,” I shouted, then winced when Ma cuffed my ear.

“Your brother and sister are still asleep,” she scolded. “How did you do?”

I turned the phone around so she could see and her eyes widened. “Oh, that’s so wonderful!” She abandoned her chair to swoop around the table and pull me into a huge hug. “My baby’s growing up. It feels like just yesterday your Da and I were wrapping you up to take you to be blessed by the moon.”

“Ma!” I protested. She just laughed and kissed the top of my head, but I eventually convinced her that a man of twenty-two didn’t really need their mother mauling them over the breakfast table. Well, maybe a little mauling was in order—I was at least six months ahead of schedule on my savings. I could be in my own home by Midwinter, if things went well in my second heat. Birth Moon for sure.

“When did you want to go talk to them at the Housing Commission?” she asked once she’d sat down again.

“Not yet, I don’t think.” I chewed my lip and did a few mental calculations. “I was thinking about one of the new apartments, in the building right behind work. Where that little grove of peach trees is?”

She nodded and frowned. “Those are going to be expensive.”

“Not as bad as the ones going up in west end.” I really would have preferred to live there—the apartments were going to be larger and it was closer to the swimming pool that the pack had put in back when I’d still been a pup. But it was a pricier neighborhood, with more trees and less concrete. Not something a single omega could afford, even if he earned as well as I did when I really put my mind to it. Maybe someday, if I found an alpha I thought I could live with for the rest of my life, someone I’d be willing to have get a pup on me, then the two of us together could afford a place out there.

But I did try to be realistic and no one knew what the future would bring, so I was only looking at places within my means. Or, in the case of this new apartment building, just barely within them. If I earned well in my second heat.

Please let it be a long one. I crossed my fingers and directed a prayer to the Lady of Wolves to send just a little more luck my way. This was my first season since I’d graduated to a blue bracelet and the higher prices I could charge—I had no idea what my earning potential could be. But it did look promising.

“What are you planning to do today?” Ma asked.

“Sleep,” I told her, with feeling.

She laughed. “Are you booked to work any days in between your heats?”

“No. Just the usual government medical exam on Thursday.” But looking at the total in my account, so close to what I needed, maybe I should see if I could pick up a shift before my second heat hit.

She leaned across the table to shake a finger in my face. “Don’t do it. No more than one day, anyway. You look exhausted already.”

“Nothing a day’s rest won’t fix,” I promised her. “I swear.”

She nodded and let it drop. After all, I’d been working this job for a year and a half now—I knew what I was doing.

Probably hard to stop being a mom though. And management.

“You want to book a car to go into the city some day?” I asked her.

She looked up from her tablet in surprise. “Thought you were saving money?”

“Not all of it. I need some new clothes.”

“Nothing suits in the enclave store?”

“Not really.” Not that I’d had much time to look for the past week. Fourteen hour days to ride the wave of my hormones meant little time to spare for anything else. Of course, a shifter in heat didn’t have much interest in anything other than a nice cock, so it was just as well to have something to do with all that energy. “You’re probably right. I can get by with what I have until I have enough to get the apartment.”

Ma turned off her tablet and stood up. “You know you can always come to your Da and me for help. If you’re a little short, we can loan you some credits. And you do need good clothes for work.”

I ate another bite of toast and contemplated the numbers on my phone’s screen. “Maybe after my next heat. Then I’ll see where I am.” Once the three pups left at home moved out, Ma and Da could sell this place and get one of the nicer ones up by the artificial lake. This was a good home for a young family with lots of pups, but once you were down to two adults, it was really too big and the property tithe for occupying an apartment with two empty bedrooms would be high.

“Well, let me know,” Ma said. “Guinivere owes me a favor, but I’ll need a bit of warning if I’m going to change my shifts.”

“Okay.” I ate the rest of my toast in three bites and drank the last of my orange juice. “I’ll wash up, then I’m going back to bed.”

“Make sure you get your post-heat physical,” Ma reminded me. “That’s not an option.”

“Can’t I do it on Thursday when I do the swabs for the government?” Aside from the monthly check-up to make sure we weren’t passing on one of the two sexually transmitted diseases common to both humans and shifters, anyone who worked through their heats had to have a physical to make sure they hadn’t damaged themselves while their hormones were surging. Such a pain in the ass. Literally, on occasion.

“Today,” Ma said in that tone that told me she was speaking as management, not my mother. “If you don’t have that clearance slip by the time I’m home this evening, I’ll take you off the schedule.”

“Ma!” I protested, for all the world like I was still twelve. “I’m an adult. I think I’d know if I’d hurt myself.”

“Rules of business,” she said firmly. “Paperwork, or no work. Your choice.”

I sagged in my chair, defeated. “Fine. But I’m having a nap first.”

She bent down to kiss my cheek—I made a face—and ruffle my hair. “That’s fine. I’ll let them know you’ll be by later.”

“All right,” I said grumpily. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She sounded almost smug, but then again, she was right, and she had won.

“Love you, Ma,” I said before she got out the door and tilted my head so she could see my grin.

“Love you too, sweetie. Get some sleep.”

“I will.” I gathered up the dirty dishes as the door closed behind her and smiled as I took them to the kitchen.