Page 34 of The Omega's Alpha
Except this didn’t feel like the right time to say them, so he held the words back, tucking them away for the right moment. “No extended family at all?”
“Not here. Not that anyone’s told me. We might find someone in another pack…” His voice trailed off. “I’m just delaying the inevitable.”
“Me too.”
His words made Holland chuckle softly. “Oh, Quin.”
“Yeah.” Quin held him another moment, then stepped back. “I’ll go tell Gonazalo. Would you… Would it be too hard on you, to stick around, be here for them after?”
“Less hard on me than them.” Holland closed his eyes briefly, then nodded. “Let’s go, before I lose my courage.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Istood backand watched as Quin pulled the Green Moon Alpha aside and told him about the death. Gonzalo’s expression never changed, but I supposed that one more death after so many just disappeared into the pool of pain. He looked around until he spotted the pups, then nodded to me to come closer.
“What’s going on?” said an unfamiliar voice at my elbow.
It was one of Laine’s humans. I shot Garrick a glance and he started toward us. “Come on, let them deal with it,” Garrick said.
“I can’t write the story if I don’t know what’s going on.” The human’s voice faded away as I approached the two Alphas and the two now-orphaned pups.
I knew the moment Green Moon told them. Agatha stared up at him, expressionless, as if she didn’t understand, but Dorian began to cry, huge throat-tearing wails.
Gonzalo nodded me forward, his entire body drooping with exhaustion. I dared a light pat on his shoulder as I crouched to open my arms to the pups. Dorian ran right to me, clinging like a vine, and burrowed into my embrace. I hugged him tightly and held out a hand to his sister.
Agatha stared at me, then looked at the Alpha. “Never?”
Gonzalo shook his head. “Go with Holland for now while we look for an uncle or a cousin of your Ma or Da.” She nodded and came to me, trembling, her eyes glassy with shock.
Quin grimaced and put a warm, comforting hand in the middle of my back. “Garrick!” And when Garrick loped up, his expression anxious, Quin nodded at the mass of pups. “Holland is going to take some time with these pups. You can take over here. Do whatever—”
Quin looked at me in inquiry and I answered, “Mattie. She’s head of the kitchen.”
“Do whatever Mattie tells you to,” he finished, with a hard look at the other shifter.
“What about the humans?” Garrick very obviously didn’t want to spend the rest of day making soup, serving soup, and cleaning up after.
“They can help too,” I snapped and his eyes widened, as if it had been Quin to speak instead of me. I didn’t care. He wasn’t the choice I would have made to replace me, but there weren’t any spare bodies around. I took a deep breath and pushed back my frustration and anger. There was no need to take it out on Garrick—that was mostly me looking for a target to take my emotions out on. I was so tired, and this situation felt like it was never going to end.Can’t stay here.I picked up the pups and headed off to the little grove of trees on the other side of the Mercy Hills encampment.
Dorian’s sobs slowed eventually to hiccups, but I was more worried about his sister, who hadn’t said a word since the Alpha had told her to go with me. I spread out my blankets and we sat down on top of one, then I pulled the other one over us. “You guys okay here? Or would you rather be with the other pups?” Dorian started to cry again and I pulled him into the crook of my arm and fought unsuccessfully against my own tears.
“Holland?” It was Agatha.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Why are you crying? Did your Ma and Da die too?”
Oh, dear Lysoonka.“No, sweetie. But I’m sad for all the people who did lose their parents, and their brothers and sisters and pups. It’s going to be very hard for the pack for a while.”
“Ma told us to run to the gate and I had to look after Dorian while she brought Tissa and Garrett. Only she never came. And then she was sick.”
“She was a brave woman.” She had been. Damn that fire. “She loved you all so very, very much. I’m sure she’s up above us in a field of wildflowers with a fat rabbit at her feet, watching you and blowing you kisses.” I didn’t bother fighting my tears any more, but let them fall in a steady stream without care. This deserved some more tears.
Finally and to my great relief, Agatha began to cry, and I held them and rocked them until they fell asleep, their bodies warm and limp and heavy from exhaustion.
I could have tucked them in, or carried them back to the general shelter and gone back to relieve Garrick, but I was tired. Tired, and worn to the bone after eighteen and twenty hour days looking after the pups, then taking shifts sorting the things that could be saved from the things that had been ruined in the blaze. I could feel the earth beneath us dragging at my bones, so I lay down with a pup on either shoulder, and closed my eyes. Just a few moments. Half hour, tops.
Chapter Thirty
