I wasn’t exactly a morning person- especially after a midnight prowl during the full moon. My alarm must have gone off several times; it always did, and when I was tired I would snooze it without ever waking up. Noise didn’t bother me when I was dead to the world.

It did, however, bother my family. My father probably slammed the door open, but I couldn’t be sure. The first thing I knew was the pain of hitting the hardwood floor on my ass, my blankets following right behind me to puddle over my head. I gave a soft groan as I flopped right over to lay on the floor.

“Oh no you don’t,” my father hissed, and I was unceremoniously dumped out of my blanket fort a moment later.

The sunlight burned my eyes, and I threw my arms up over my face with another irritated groan. “Dad,” I whined the word, rolling over onto my stomach in the hopes that he would give up.

“Tsuki, get your ass up. Now.” His voice rang with the otherworldly resonance I knew came with an alpha. Unfortunately for him, I’d never really been bothered by that kind of command. A fact which never ceased to irritate him. “Only damned omega who doesn’t fucking listen to me. Really, kid, get the hell up. You know how pissed off your alpha will be if you’re late to school.”

I cringed at his words, but there was no lie to them. If I was late, I would catch hell from my alpha- and probably his fists as well. “My life would be so much easier if I was part of your pack. You’re a thousand times better than the son of a bitch who’s in control of mine.” It wasn’t the first time I’d made that grumbled complaint, and my father responded with his usual defeated sigh.

“I know, kid. If I had any choice in the matter, you would have been part of my pack. But you know how it works.”

“Right. Children with parents from different packs go to their mother’s pack. It’s still bullshit. Mom’s not even here to decide what pack I go to. She might have made a different decision if she had been given the chance to join your pack.”

“Yeah, she might have.” My father’s voice was sad, and guilt nibbled at me. He must have sensed my guilt, because he didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it, his voice growing sharper. “You’re twenty-two, Tsuki. About to graduate college. How many times are we going to have this conversation before you grow up and face the facts?”

I frowned at him as I got to my feet in an easy, rolling motion; it made my father roll his eyes at the show of athleticism. “I think I’ve already faced the facts. My pack is shit and full of assholes- I have a pretty good grasp on that.”

“You-” my father started in with a lecturing tone, but snorted and fell into laughter after the first word. “You’re so honest it hurts me. Yeah, your pack is trash. Just don’t say that in front of them. You’ll get yourself hurt. And you’ll probably hurt Neo’s feelings, too.”

I groaned while I was digging in my dresser for clean clothes. “Dad, not everything is about Neo. And I think Neo would agree with me. We don’t even know what pack he should belong to, he was an orphan and they were just the first ones to find him. Adding a precious child of the stars to their pack gave them a huge boost to their reputation, didn’t it?” My voice was dry and a little mocking; I couldn’t help it.

My father shook his head, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked so much like me, the same softly cast features and rangy leanness to his body. The only differences between us were that while we had the same soft, pin straight locks, his hair was red, and mine was black- and our eyes. My father had typical, jade green eyes. But mine were… a little less normal.

I’d never seen my particular brand of grey on another wolf, much less a human, and it made me stand out that much more. Like I wasn’t a freak already.

“Stop thinking about stupid shit and get your clothes on,” my father sniffed, breaking me out of that morbid train of thought. He was halfway out my door, and my jeans halway on, when he paused. “And by the way- don’t think you can fool me.”

“Huh?” I was precariously balanced on one leg, paused in the motion of getting dressed, while I gave him my best ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ look.

He grinned at me, a wicked glint in his eyes. “With you, it’s always about Neo.”

I’d finished with my pants, thank god, so I had the freedom to reach for a weapon when I shouted at him. “Dad! Shut the fuck up and get out!”

His laughter was muted by the door, which he closed just in time to avoid taking my thrown shoe to his face. I stared at the door for a moment, eyes narrowed, before I puffed out a frustrated sigh. Leave it to my father to always bring the subject back around to Neo. He was always far too amused by my attachment to my childhood friend, but I didn’t understand what made it so damned funny.

Maybe it was simply our difference in status. Neo was a child of the stars; a werewolf blessed by the moon, he was the strongest our kind had to offer, all but immortal. And me? I was not only an omega, the lowest of the low, but also a male who was incapable of becoming pregnant- which was, in our society, the only use for an omega. He was destined for great things, and I was meant to rot away as a whipping post for stressed wolves.

It was a wonder we’d become friends at all.

“Seriously, Tsuki! You have half an hour! Get your ass moving!” My father’s shout made me jump, nearly tipping over as I’d been in the midst of putting my shoes on in a slow crawl.

I tied my shoes as quickly as I could, grabbing my laptop bag from its resting spot by my closet on my way out the door. “I hear you! You better have breakfast ready!”

“Of course, you insatiable beast,” my father grumbled, handing me a mug of coffee and a perfectly toasted bagel slathered with strawberry cream cheese- because the plain flavor was for boring people.

“I’m a growing boy, what do you want me to do?”

“Growing? You’re twenty-two! Get your shit together and get out of my house!”

I was laughing as I left, because I knew he didn’t really mean it. Arguing like that was part of our domestic bliss, but didn’t change how much my father loved me, or how he had to fight simply to have me live with him during college. It was against every pack rule. I was pretty sure we only got away with it because of my drop bottom status in the pack; they were probably relieved they didn’t have to feed me anymore.

Of course, I had been terrified at first. In the first seventeen years of my life, all I had known of my father was rumors which filtered through my pack, most of them made up by the assholes who enjoyed tormenting me. I only found out he even wanted me the after I graduated high school. I was told during the summer that my father had petitioned to have me live with him during college because his home was closer and it would save them the cost of putting me up in a dorm. Suddenly, I was being asked to choose between my pack and a man I had never met. A choice which was blatantly clear.

I moved into my father’s house that summer. It had taken me an hour to pack what little I was allowed to own, which was mostly clothing, and I showed up on his doorstep. My father and I had stared at each other for a long moment, neither of us able to speak, and he’d probably been just as shocked by my strangely familiar face as I had by his. I’d opened my mouth only to be choked up by tears, and my father had immediately swept me inside. I could still remember his firm, soothing voice as he tried to seem strong for me- and the drip of his tears into my hair.

Good god. Start the morning off moping over things that happened four years ago. That’s a great idea. I rolled my eyes at my own idiocy, sticking my bagel in my mouth so I could search my bag for the keys to my car. Well, not my car- the pack would never let me own one. It was my father’s ‘spare’, a cute little Beetle with a drop-top which stuck down more often than not. I loved it to pieces, even if it wasn’t quite as flashy as the car the pack had given Neo.

My Beetle gave a cheerful chirp when I hit the button on the key fob, and I slid into the driver’s seat. A look at the clock on the dash just about froze my heart; I had twenty minutes to get to class, and the college was fifteen minutes away on a good day. I had to pray for no traffic, or I was going to be praying to my professor instead.

So I gunned it, as much as you can gun a Beetle, and hoped for the best.