Page 46 of The Omega's Alpha
Dorian was asleep on my lap, having dozed off under the influence of the swaying of the bus and the monotonous hum of the tires before we were even an hour away from Green Moon. Across the aisle, Quin sat with Agatha, who was awake but didn’t seem all that interested in her new home. Well, I supposed we should have expected that. I’d been pretty uninterested in Mercy Hills when I’d arrived too.
The buses rolled up to the gates and we waited while the human security went through each bus and all the travel papers. I was tired and cursed them under my breath, because I wanted to get home and have a shower and put on clean clothes and get the lingering odor of death out of my nose. Quin looked ragged now that the adrenaline was fading, worn paper thin, and I hoped Abel would volunteer another day as substitute Alpha before Quin had to shoulder that responsibility again.
It took forty-five minutes and a lot of explanation on Mac’s part about where the missing Mercy Hills shifters were and then we were through. The buses rocked and bounced over the road, taking the long way because it was the smoothest and would take us right to Central Park and the big administration building without having to maneuver the clumsy vehicles through the neighborhoods where pups might be playing. I pressed my face to the glass and felt the stress of Green Moon slowly pinging away, like constricting threads snapping under the strain. On the other side of the bus, I could hear Quin pointing things out to Agatha and then we were pulling up in the space in front of the administration building. I counted three tables set out on the grass in front of it, Jason and Abel and my little brother Cale each standing beside one, some of the older pups, early and mid-teens, milling around behind them.
I shook Dorian awake and held him on my lap while he slowly climbed back up to full consciousness and Quin stood up to speak to the shifters on the bus.
“For those of you from Green Moon, welcome. Arrangements have been made for places to sleep—housing though, for longer term, may take a while. We’re working on it. In the meantime, we’ve converted a couple of floors in the building here into temporary barracks. The young adults will be moved into our young adult barracks, and as much as possible, we plan to move families into houses. I should warn you—they’re old houses, from just after the Enclosure, and they need a little work.” He smiled at them, friendly but also Alpha. “Sacrifices will have to be made, to space, to privacy, to personal autonomy, at least until we know how this will work. That being said, we are pack. And while some of us are from Mercy Hills and some from Green Moon, we are first and foremost a pack unified in the face of the humans surrounding us. We will work together, we will survive, we will thrive, and prove that we are not less, but more.” He picked Agatha up and moved toward the door. “We have pack members waiting to help you find your shelter. Please check at the tables.” He reached out to brush his hand against mine, then stepped down out of the bus and walked over to talk to Abel.
I waited for the bus to empty, holding Dorian up to the window to watch as the crowd milled around, searching for their belongings then making their way to the tables. It was extremely well organized—as I watched, a young family with their pup and what looked like their parents walked up to Cale’s table and moments later, Cale had assigned one of the teenagers to them and they disappeared off toward the old houses, trailing their bags behind them.
Then it was time for Dorian and me to get off the bus and collect our bags. Not that Dorian had much, but I’d fix that now that he was here. We stepped out into the chill of late November, the light changing color to that golden tone that warned the day would soon be over. Cale waved and I walked over to him.
“You guys sure are organized.” I leaned over the table to peek at the paperwork.
“We’ve been working on it for days. You wouldn’t believe the places we’ve crammed people into.” Cale grinned and looked at Dorian. “So, this is the little boy?”
“This is Dorian. Dorian, this is my brother Cale.”Your uncle, I almost said, but caught myself just in time. They’d already settled in my heart; I could only hope they’d want to stay there. “His sister is gone with Quin.”
“Well, we have your bedroom all set up for you,” Cale told Dorian. He turned and gestured one of the teenagers over. “Mariah, can you watch the table, just in case any stragglers come back. I think we’re almost done.”
“Sure,” she said, and watched him with huge worshipful eyes.
Cale smiled at her and grabbed my arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said urgently. Then, as soon as we were in the doors and headed for the elevator, he cocked me a grin I hadn’t seen nearly enough of on his face. “Ilikebeing an omega here. But sometimes I feel like the prize exhibit at the zoo.”
I snorted a laugh. “She has a crush?”
“Oh, yes. I’m not interested.” He sighed. “I like my life the way it is right now. Maybe I’ll go outside walls too and learn how to do something useful.”
I wanted to see that too. “Decided what you want to do yet?” I asked as the elevator opened, disgorging a crowd of shifters into the lobby.
He shook his head. “But I’ll figure it out. I have time, especially with no one pushing mates at me and telling me I’ll be on the shelf and too old if I don’t find one soon.” Bitterness seeped out of the words, but then he shook his head and his smile, which had dimmed while he talked about his life before, brightened again. “But, yeah, Abel said I don’t ever have to go back to Buffalo Gap, so maybe I’ll just spend my life here and never mate!” He grinned gleefully and I had to laugh. Someday, he’d change his mind. But I was happy that he had the option to wait.
We had the elevator to ourselves on the way up and the hallway was quiet when we got there. “Where’s the omega pack?”
“Jason has them out bringing supplies to the houses with the new shifters. He said it would keep them out of trouble.” By Cale’s tone, he didn’t quite agree with Jason.
“They’re not all idiots.” I opened the door to Quin’s apartment and we went inside.
“Noooo,” Cale said slowly. “But you’d never know it by some of the things they get up to.”
I set Dorian down on the floor. “This is where you’ll be living. Come on, let’s do the tour.” The three of us walked slowly around the living room, peeking out the window, looking at the row of movies—all of them completely inappropriate for children—and coming around the end of the living room to peek into the cupboards in the kitchen. I found a bag of cookies, dark chocolate with vanilla icing, and we were in the middle of helping ourselves when the door opened again.
“You guys eating my cookies?” Quin asked mildly. Agatha stood beside him, looking around with a perplexed expression on her face.
“Yes,” I told him, and brushed crumbs off my lips. “Want one?”
“Absolutely.” He passed the first one down to Agatha, then took one for himself. “Everything seems to be running smoothly. I thought I’d bring Agatha up to see her room. And if she wants, we can talk to Supplies and see what they have for paint and if she doesn’t like the color on the walls we can change it.”
“Then let’s go.” I took Dorian’s hand and led everyone down the hall, past the bathroom, which the pups ignored, to the first, smallest of the three bedrooms. “This will be yours, Dorian.” I opened the door and let him see. It was still painted a fairly neutral green from when Bax’s and Abel’s girls had lived in it. The bunkbeds were covered in freshly washed sheets and blankets, with a large knitted stuffed wolf lying on the pillow. Dorian’s eyes widened and he ran toward the bed and attempted to climb up. I gave him a boost, then handed him the wolf. “Yours. You’ll have to name him.” And I mouthed a silentthank youto Cale, who simply smiled and shrugged. Dorian squealed and hugged the wolf, and when we went to look at his sister’s room, he took “Wuff” with him.
Agatha stared around her room, larger, and with only one bed in it since Bax had taken the crib with him when he moved. There was a wolf on her bed too, this one silver white.
Quin chuckled. “That one looks like you.”
“It’s cleaner than me, though,” I said, leaned against him.
“Do you want to go grab a shower? I can watch the pups for a few minutes, but then I have to get back to work.”
