Flat White

Chapter 2

Emily sat rather begrudgingly at lunch that Sunday afternoon, her thoughts on Kate and how easy it had been to talk to the alpha.

"Have any of you ever met a female alpha?" Emily asked the group. Her three friends sat around the table in the large charleston themed hall. Charlene looked up, her blonde locks framed her face, the fifties style never truly leaving their families.

"A what?" She asked, her voice incorporating her shock as she poked at her salad.

"A female alpha?" Emily asked.

"Are you sure you weren't mistaken, just a strong beta perhaps?" Harper asked curiously.

"No, she was definitely an alpha," Emily explained softly trying to force through the irritation of the belittling tone she was about to receive.

"Aren't they called, oh what is it?" Avery asked the group. "A hermadite?"

"You mean a hermaphrodite?" Charlene sniggered.

"No, she was an alpha, not a hermaphrodite," Emily argued.

"Are you sure?" Charlene asked clutching at the pearls around her neck.

"I thought they were incredibly rare," Harper whispered.

"Oh they are," Avery explained. "Rory's cousin is one, and she might as well be a man."

The three laughed loudly at the thought, Emily chose to frown into the salad she had been pressured to order.

"Why do you ask, Emily?" Harper asked, Emily simply shook her head realising she was going to get no helpful answers from her socialite friends.

"I met one at school last week," Emily admitted, her friends seemed to pause clearly as the joke was no longer funny.

"Alone?" Harper asked.

"I accidentally took her coffee, it's not a big deal," Emily shrugged.

"Emily, you have to be careful, what if she ended up following you into a bathroom or something?" Charlene asked with a gasp. Emily wanted to laugh at the mere notion of it.

"She wanted coffee, Charlene," Emily smirked.

"I can't believe they let you go to a mixed school," Avery sighed irritably. "I mean they're just asking for something to happen to you."

"Nothing is going to happen to me," Emily sighed, her friends had been very much against the notion of her going to college.

"I mean it's not even like you're studying something vital like medicine, it's art history."

"I enjoy it," Emily stated through gritted teeth. "And my family agreed to it."

"But still we all know an omega's place," Charlene smiled softly.

Emily gave a short nod, she wasn't in the mood to deal with her friends and they're patronising of her schooling. She had gone home to listen to her mother berate her on how thin she was, and how she should give Matt a bit longer to prove himself. She picked at the pastry her mother had set in front of her. Watching her mother it made her sick suddenly realising the life she had was far different to the one she had been raised on. Her family's life was filled with rules and social guidelines that you dare not stray from. Her mother's hair was always perfect, her make up applied perfectly to show the doting wife. She realised at that moment this wasn't her life. It wasn't the one she wanted.

Kate was a conundrum to Emily. They sat on Tuesday morning in the coffee house. The alpha had been sitting in the corner, a notepad on her knee as she scribbled down on the page. She had bought the coffee as agreed and sat down, startling the alpha from her thoughts.