Page 41 of The Omega's Alpha
Finally, it was our turn. I handed Quin a lovely folded paper rabbit I’d found in a small shop. Dorian had a tea cup for his Ma, Agatha a carved leather necklace for her Da. I had a small stick of perfume, not expensive, but sweet and floral. It seemed like something a young girlpup would like.
Quin held Dorian out and helped him lay the tea cup on top of the sheet that covered his parents’ bodies. I lifted Agatha up to drop the necklace on top of her Da’s chest, then I held the perfume up for Agatha to smell. “For your little sister,” I told her.
“Pretty,” she said, though she was beginning to tremble and I knew the tears would soon follow. I wrapped my arms around her and started walking back to our place in the crowd, with Quin right behind us. Dorian was wide-eyed and confused looking, and Agatha’s soft sobbing made his mouth crumple.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I told him and rubbed his back briefly. “It’s okay to cry and miss them.” And he did, as did Agatha, and then, with a massive whoomf, the pile burst into flames from whatever it was the soldiers had used underneath it and the pups really started to cry. The heat drove us backward, and finally I’d had enough. “I’m going to take them back to the tent,” I told Quin. “They’re tired, they need some quiet.” I needed some quiet too. The advent of the flames and watching the tall pyre slowly shrink, becoming more dense as it contracted, made me want to cry as well. Better to leave and take some time to absorb everything that had happened, so I could be there for the pups when they needed me.
“I can’t go yet.” Quin’s brows furrowed and I reached out to smooth them.
“I know. Alpha stuff.” I tried a smile, which wobbled pitifully.
“Yeah, Alpha stuff.” He kissed my forehead and passed Dorian over to me. “I’ll come find you later.” Unspoken but clearly understood by myself were the words,I’ll need you. My heart warmed to his unspoken need and I kissed the corner of his mouth, omega to his alpha. My alpha.
I carried the pups back to the tent, washed their faces and let them change into some of the new clothing that had come yesterday—another gift from Quin’s old friends in the Marines. We’d spent the morning going through the bales of clothing, distributing this gift to the Green Moon shifters as we found items of use. And, I thought, attempting to ease the resentment our packs held toward the human race. They’d been good to us, in this situation anyway. It didn’t erase all the bad, but I wondered if this could be the seedling that would grow to a great oak.
Properly cared for, anyway.
But that was Quin’s worry to deal with. Mine was here, in cheap jeans and t-shirts, sleeping the sleep of the emotionally exhausted while I pondered the future, theirs and mine. I didn’t want to see them shoe-horned into someone else’s family, taken in for pity or money instead of love. I’d known them less than a week, but we’d bonded. I’d bleed for them, if it was needed. But for now, I curled myself around their bodies, as if I could protect them from the world with my own, and let the world drift away for a time.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Quin watchedHolland walk away with the sobbing pups clinging to him. The heat beat against his side and back, but he ignored it, until Alpha Salma Wood came looking for him.
“Quin,” Vidar said, and put a hand on his shoulder. “You should come. Green Moon got word about the cause of the fire.”
That caught Quin’s attention and he followed Vidar immediately, away from the crowd watching the flames dance and carry their loved ones to the Moonlands.
The Alphas met behind a house that had been left mostly unscathed, only a few scorch marks giving proof of its dance with destruction.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t an accident,” Roland Jackson-Jellystone said.
“No, though they tried to blame it on us until one of Mercy Hills’ Marines found signs that someone had climbed the wall from the outside.” Gonzalo looked furious, though his anger was blurred around the edges by his exhaustion. “I think we have you to thank for that, Sargent,” he added, looking at Quin. “One of your men did some poking around when he was off-duty.”
“They’re not my men anymore.”
“They’re still acting like it.”
Quin suppressed a snort of…he didn’t know what. “Who was it?”
“Don’t remember. Hayek, maybe? Started with an H.”
Harris, most likely. It would be too. The man couldn’t leave anything alone until he understood what had happened. “Harris. Sounds like him.” He’d take a run out to the gate and see if he could spot the fellow later. “So he noticed something?”
“Marks on the ground, looked like the feet of a ladder, smeared footprints around it. And we hadn’t noticed it before, but that section of wall, right down the inside, is scorched and there’s a smell of gas.”
“Who have you told?” Vidar asked.
“No one yet.” Gonzalo rubbed at the back of his neck and then let his head fall back and peered at the stars. “I called the insurance company about the warehouse and the community center. Nothing else was insured.” Unspoken went the statement that they couldn’t afford to insure the houses. “They’re coming out at the end of the week to have a look.”
The Alphas exchanged glances—they all knew the likelihood of Green Moon getting paid out was slim.
Salma Wood spoke up. “I called home this morning to have my accountant look at the books, see where we can trim some fat. Your people will have homes again, Green Moon.”
The other Alphas echoed the sentiment.
Their meeting broke up quickly after that—what else was there to say? Salma Wood left to spread the word about the arson to the packs that hadn’t been able to come, Jackson-Jellystone to call home and see what they could free up in terms of money or manpower.
Before he left, Quin pulled Gonzalo aside. “Do you think they’ll ever figure out who did it?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer.
