Page 32 of The Omega's Alpha
“Garrick’s lawyer wants the other two to do a news story about the fire.”
Holland nodded. “Bax says he did good work for the pack.” He put a hand on Quin’s arm. “At least consider it. Abel says he’s smart.”
“I know. I said I’d support him, if he could get Gonzalo to agree.” He just didn’t like the idea of showing their underbelly to the humans.
“I’ll keep them here while you talk to Gonzalo.” Holland smiled, mischief glinting in his eyes. And a dark glimmer of anger as well. “They can help.”
That startled a laugh out of Quin, and he bent to drop a kiss on Holland’s cheek, making the pups stare in awe. “I’ll send them over to you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Iwasglad to hear Quin laugh. He’d been doing so well since I’d thrown myself at him, but watching him here was like a film in reverse as he went from the man who laughed when I tried to have kinky sex, to the man who’d thrown himself onto the floor because I’d dropped a pot and he’d thought someone was shooting at him. I was glad I could bring him some relief. His body was easy as he walked back to the small group of humans, and I fought down the urge to run after him and plaster myself against him. Not for sex, though if he offered, I’d findsomeplace. But I wanted to encourage the way he felt in those moments when the weight of the world and his memories wasn’t trying to crush him flat. Maybe tonight I’d ignore his ban on us sleeping in the same bed—it was foolish anyway. Not like our entire pack wasn’t aware by now that I was practically living with him, and the Green Moon shifters had bigger things to worry about than whether I was keeping myself pure in hopes of another mate.
Quin walked back to me, trailing his humans, and the tension was back in his shoulders.
“Holland will look after you while I speak to the Alpha. Holland, you’ve met Laine. These two are Thom Anderson, and Mark Sillavoy.”
“How do you do?” I said politely and held out a hand to shake theirs. “You can help feed the pups.” I think I was the only one who saw the spark of amusement in Quin’s eyes as he turned away to go looking for Gonzalo. Nobody missed the expressions of shock on the faces of the humans. “Don’t worry,” I told them, using the same tone I was using with the pups surrounding us. “They don’t bite. But they are small, and they’ll drop their food trying to carry it over to the picnic blankets, so you can all help them.” Okay, no one could miss Quin’s snort of laughter that time. I frowned after him, but he wasn’t looking in my direction, so my ire was wasted. It wasn’t really ire anyway—more the expectation that I should scold him like an omega was supposed to scold.Hmph.“I wouldn’t let the pups get hold of that,” I told the guy—Thom—with the camera. “It’ll get broken.”
“I wanted to take some pictures of the impact of the fire.”
“Impact, huh?” I turned back toward the line and watched carefully as the first of the pups received their bowls of soup and their biscuits. We couldn’t take time to bake bread, so everything was baking powder biscuits for now—the ovens in the houses that still stood were going from dawn until dusk and the generators never got a break. Hopefully we’d get away to buy food soon, but there was so much work to be done, and we weren’t starving, so it seemed to slip off the bottom of the list each day. “This is the impact. Homeless pups.” I picked up little Dorian and set him on my hip again. “Pups without parents. Pups without families.” I hugged Dorian and stared over his head at the humans. “This is what human fear does. I hope your people are proud of yourselves. All we ever wanted to do was live in peace, and this is what you give us in return. Fire and death and poverty.” I spoke to them coldly, pushing, angry and striking out. I’d read Quin’s distrust of their motives without needing a single word between us and I was determined to know the truth. They’d likely get to do their story anyway, but we didn’t have the resources left to us to handle a blow out of nowhere, emotionally or physically. And, really, I just wanted him to learn his lesson and leave so I could go back to cuddling my orphans.
“Holland—” Laine protested.
I frowned at him and opened my mouth to say something, but Garrick beat me to it. “He’s right, though. You live out there in your nice house, secure in your ability to walk down the street. You don’t have to wear these.” His finger flicked across the bright yellow tabs clipped to his collar. “You can stay out until midnight. You can count on the fire department to come when you call and you don’t have walls to keep them out. And no guards to keep you in while your family burns to death around you.” Garrick put a hand on Laine’s shoulder. “I’m not trying to be an ass, but what you think of as life, right down to things you never even question, is so different from mine that I sometimes wonder if we even come from the same world. And then I realize, really, we don’t.” His voice was gentle. “I brought you here to do good. But you have to understand that we don’t have any reason to trust you. Not because of who you are, but because of the world you inhabit. I know you mean well, but it’s not me you have to prove it to.”
The lawyer appeared non-plussed, his expression immobile. I watched to see what his response would be, feeling a certain amount of bitter satisfaction that Garrick had been able to hurt him like we’d been hurt.
I’d also been told that humans didn’t take direction from shifters well, that they were convinced they knew better than us beasts. But I’d never met one before, so while I was safe in the middle of two packs I was curious to see what our temerity would bring about.
It was kind of underwhelming when all was said and done. The lawyer sighed and glanced around the enclave. “I don’t think I do so bad.”
“You do really well,” Garrick said. “But there’s still a lot you don’t see. And these people are hurting.” The last words were spoken softly and I thought it was that sentence, more than anything else, that got to the human.
“All right. Tell us if we start going over the line.”
Garrick smiled and something in his expression made me realize there was more between them than just being lawyers.Oh, shit.Did I tell Quin? Hell, I didn’t want to be the bearer of that bad news.Nope. Nope, nope nope. Let him find out on his own.Wow, was that going to stir some shit with the packs.
Oh, for the love of…I needed to tell him. I gave Garrick a hard look and, to my great surprise, he tipped his head to one side and rolled his eyes up in a gesture admitting my dominance.That’s weird.I didn’t think my openly sleeping with the Alpha made any difference to my standing in the pack, but this could be useful. I wondered who else I could use it on. “Well, then, come help with lunch.” I shooed them toward the goggling line of pups, some of whom had obviously been told terrible stories about humans, because they started to cry. “It’s okay,” I soothed them. “I’m here and so is Garrick. And look—Alpha Mercy Hills and Alpha Green Moon are coming back. You are absolutely, perfectly safe.” The mention of the Alphas calmed some of their fear, but a few of them still sobbed and clung to me. I grabbed Quin as soon as he got to us. “They’re scared of the humans.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be pushing them on the pups,” he told me. “I’ll take them someplace else.”
It was tempting. The wailing of the pups grated on that part of me that was pure omega, the part that still resented my own lack of pups. I needed to protect them from what they feared.
And yet, while it wasn’t an unreasonable fear, it also wasn’t something that should be encouraged. We wanted to bring down the walls—but what was the point of that if our people were too frightened of humans to go out amongst them?
I was torn, and it hurt to force away my own emotional reaction and look at it with the pure logic we needed right now. “It’s your decision, you and Green Moon, but pups will get used to things if you give them a chance. And if we don’t act afraid, the pups might settle down. It would be a good chance for the humans to see they’re hurting babies with the things they do.” There was that aspect too.
He raised his eyebrows, but his expression was thoughtful. Then he turned to Gonzalo and said in a quiet voice, “He’s right. But it’s your pack, and I’ll be the first to admit I want to rub their noses in this tragedy, so my judgment in this situation is suspect.” He reached out to pry Dorian off my hip. “Hello, who are you?”
I waited a moment, but when Dorian didn’t respond, I answered. “His name is Dorian. His dad passed during the fire and his mother is in one of the lean-tos attached to the hospital.”
“Ah.” He looked Dorian in the eye and smiled. “You hungry? I’m hungry. Want to go get lunch?”
Dorian nodded and Quin looked over at Gonazalo. “What do you want to do, Alpha?”
Gonazalo looked around, and I suspected he needed the time to think. He looked a little lost, like all the Green Moon shifters did, and I didn’t blame him at all when he shook his head. “I can’t think this through—too much going on up here.” He tapped his temple. “Mercy Hills has always had better relations with the humans. Tell me what to do, Mercy Hills, and I’ll see it done.” He sounded exhausted, but so were we all.
