“You’re a mess, Reed,” he whispered, pushing back the white-blonde hair that stuck to his forehead. There was no denying how good the stylish undercut looked. He’d have to let Nancy perform emergency haircuts on him more often. Despite that, his face was uncharacteristically drawn, making the smattering of freckles across his cheeks stand out even more. An unfortunate byproduct of sleepless nights combined with a diet of coffee and toast.
Sighing, he slid the phone from his pocket and pressed ‘call back’ on the home screen. Nancy picked up after one ring.
“Well?” she barked.
“Full house.”
A collective cheer rang out, and Oliver had to hold the phone away from his ear lest he be deafened. He couldn’t help but smile as he listened to his team celebrate.
“Good fucking job, soldier!” Nancy shouted. “Now get your arse back here. Tea and medals all round.”
“And pick up some custard creams on your way back.” Another voice called. Matteus, his omega twin brother.
“Yeah, yeah, see you in thirty,” Oliver drawled, slipping the phone back into his pocket.
He and Matteus were something of an anomaly in the sociosexual structure of their society. An omega and a sigma born to an alpha mother and father. Two sandy haired wolf cubs folded together in their mother’s belly. There was no rhyme or reason to it, despite their parents insisting it had been because they’d copulated under a half blood moon. It was a load of bollocks as far as Oliver was concerned, but Matteus bought into it.
His brother had mated young to an alpha named Julian, took the bite at only eighteen—despite Oliver’s outrage. Still, he couldn’t deny that Julian was a good man, and a good fit for Matteus—even encouraging him to pursue his career beforestarting a family. Oliver had no such luxury. There was no one waiting for him at home, because there was no hiding what he was as soon as his clothes came off. His unusual pheromones made sure of that.
No omega wanted him—not long-term, anyway—and most alphas held a ‘fuck you till you cry’ attitude towards sigmas. Sex made the world go round, and unfortunately for Oliver, he had what very few wanted in a life partner. Barely fertile, but with all the rage of an alpha, and the heat cycles of an omega. Though those cycles only came once per year, which was a small blessing.
Every May, he dreaded the rising heat in his deep-buried womb, and knew that he was about to endure another week of absolute hell. It was why he masked as a beta, to avoid all the shit that came with being a social pariah. It was a damned good job he preferred his own company, anyway. Though, best not to delve too deeply intothatpit of depression.
The plastic bagrustled in his hand as he entered West Newton Police Station, and he quickly brushed away the crumbs from the lapel of his trench coat. He’d accidentally devoured half a pack of custard creams on his way back from the shop, but… he deserved it.
An array of smells wafted through the station as he plodded along the twisting corridor back to his office. Someone must have cooked fish in the microwave again because it smelled absolutely fucking satanic, and he couldn’t decide which was worse—the fish or the musty stench of the brown carpet-tile flooring. However,neithercould out-do the peeling wood-chip wallpaper in making the police station look as dated as possible.The building was an unfortunate product of the early nineteen seventies.
Grumbling, he glanced up at the frosted glass door, which should have read‘West Newton Constabulary, Child Protection Unit’in bold white letters. However, in its place was an un-ironic picture of Helen Lovejoy concernedly shouting,‘Won’t someone please think of the children?!’That’d been Nancy’s doing, and Oliver remembered how she cackled when it came juddering out of the printer.
More cheers erupted as he stepped through the door. Nancy and Matteus ran towards him, their arms outstretched as Martin, a happy-go-lucky beta, slapped him across the back. Kevin—their grumpy administrator—just gave him a small nod and carried on typing
“Top fucking work, mate!” Martin jostled his shoulder.
“Glad to see the fucker finally sent down,” Nancy shouted, her dyed-red plait almost whipping Kevin across the face.
“Tea or coffee?” Matteus asked, shaking a mug that had ‘I LOVE BACON’ scrawled across it in porky lettering.
“Earl Grey, please.” He tipped his head towards the kettle.
They chatted back and forth for a while, their laughter going some way to relieving the tension coiled in the base of Oliver’s skull. Greer had been a nasty piece of work, and it was nice to finally feel he had made a difference in his almost ten year career as a police officer.
“…And then, Greer got his cock out and started slapping it up against the perspex,” Oliver finished, watching with amusement at the growing horror on his colleagues’ faces.
“No he fucking didn’t,” Nancy said, her eyes wide as she bit into a chocolate digestive.
“I’m telling you, he did. Genital warts and all.”
Matteus only grinned and shook his head, knowing full well Oliver was being a dick. But it was good to see them laugh,especially given the torrents of shit they dealt with on a day-to-day basis. Child protection was, for all intents and purposes, a depressing place to be. But they had each other, which kept Oliver’s head above water in the five and a half years he’d been in the department. All of them knew about his sigma status, and he trusted each of them implicitly.
They’d just got to the crumbs of the chocolate digestives when a shout came from the sergeant’s office. “Reed! The boss wants to see you,” DS Blake Smith called from behind a stack of paperwork. Oliver sighed and got to his feet.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Nancy said, slapping his arse as he sloped to the Inspector’s office. If she were in any other office, she’d have been reported for sexual assault at least fifty times.
Reaching the end of the corridor, he knocked the partially open door “Boss…” he said, tentatively sliding his head around the door.
His eyes immediately snapped to the enormous man standing to the left of the three by three metre office. It was the Detective Sergeant from the court, and Oliver was perturbed to find that he looked even more devastatingly handsome in the artificial office lighting.
“Ah, DC Reed,” Inspector Callahan began, “Cracking results today. Well done.”
