Page 65 of The Omega's Alpha
Mac’s voice broke into our conversation. “Everything all right here?” he asked coolly.
“Fine,” I snapped, and stormed off to look at chewie-books that Taden could use instead of doing his teething on the furniture or his parents.
I should have known that Bram wouldn’t give up that easy. Bax was right—he’d been raised more like a beta wolf than an omega, and he acted like it too. So it was no surprise when I heard his voice behind me again.
“There are blockages, scar tissue, stuff just forming wrong from the beginning. You won’t know what it is until you get someone to look, but I started doing some research and there’s a lot of stuff that’s fixable. Completely, totally,easilyfixable.” He put a hand on my arm and, against my will, I turned to look at him. “If you don’t want them, that’s one thing. If you do, I’m glad to help.”
My eyes were drawn to his hand on his belly, the t-shirt stretched tight over the curve, and I imagined what it would be like for my own body to shift and change that way. My hand went to my belly, then I snatched it away. “I doubt the humans would know enough about us to be able to solve my problems.”
“Maybe not. But are you still not going to try? How much worse off would you be?”
How much? He didn’t know about those black moments right after Gregoire had thrown me out, when Uncle Mitchell had thrown me through the door of the guest house like I wasn’t even family any more. How my parents had turned away to focus on their fertile pups. And how I’d stared at a length of the cord we used to hang the washing inside the house on the rare occasions that it rained, and wondered just how much it would hurt, if would hurt more or less than the pain I was feeling at that point. Until eventually Bax had come and dragged me out of my bleak despair. I’d be a bigger fool than most alphas thought omegas were by nature if I tempted that black depression again.
But then I thought about Quin’s hand on my belly, and how Agatha and Dorian ran to him when they came home from daycare. The way he’d kiss me as he passed, as if he couldn’t help it despite having important Alpha things to do. Quin reading stories to the pups on the couch while I cleaned up after supper, and helping to put them to bed before disappearing back into his office to do battle with more business of the pack.
Bram’s hand on my arm brought me back to the present. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. But, even if you don’t, I know how brave you are. And I think you’d make cute babies.” He waved the hand around insouciantly. “Not as cute as mine, but not everyone can bethatadorable.”
He startled a snort of laughter out of me before I could stop it and I looked away until I had my face somewhat under control.
“Oh, look at this,” Bram said, holding out a little baseball hat with pawprints on it. “It would be so cute with the diaper. I need to find a top now.” He was apparently dropping the topic, leaving it in my lap to either try or not. I appreciated that, because at the moment, there was no way I could even come close to making a decision. And truthfully, I wanted to talk to Quin. This didn’t just concern me, but him, and if it didn’t work, he’d be the one picking up the pieces.
“Let’s go look,” I said in a normal voice, then lower, “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
He beamed, and we wormed our way out between a couple of clothing racks and went in search of a top to go with the hat and diaper.
Chapter Fifty-Four
We camehome with probably more than we should have bought, but there was an amazing amount of stuff out there for pups, and I had a little extra money that Quin had slipped me from his military pension, so we weren’t hurting anyone. I picked up a few extra toys, Bax’s secret donations at the forefront of my thoughts, and tucked them in among the ones I’d picked up for the pups in our immediate families.
After a quick lunch—I was too nervous to eat much—Mac and Edmond took me downtown to the designer’s studio. It turned out to be a rough, narrow door in between two storefronts, leading up to a second floor landing. One of the doors had the name of an accounting firm lettered on it in gold, which meant the other door, the one to our left, was the one we wanted.
Mac knocked and door flew open almost instantly. “Oh, you’re the new model!” the young woman standing in the opening gushed. “We’re all so excited to meet you! Come on in, I’ll introduce you and we’ll get your measurements.” She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the room before Mac had time to do more than grab my other arm, so I was caught between them like the rope in a two pup tug-of-war.
“Easy, Mac. And watch Edmond,” I muttered, and before I could think about my actions, I twisted away from Mac and slapped Edmond’s hand. He was obviously planning something that I suspected would later on turn out to be stupid, but hooray for being Alpha’s Mate, because it stopped him like he was a bad pup and gave me just enough time that I could take control of the situation. “Quin wants this,” I hissed at the two of them, before turning back to the human. I had to be Alpha’s Mate here, because that’s what was needed. “Hello,” I said politely.
She giggled. “Oh, you are handsome. Come in, Martin’s in the back room drawing, but he had us pull out a bunch of samples to play with. I’ll take your coat.” She reached for my collar, but I stopped her. “I need to keep these on.” I touched each tab briefly.
“Oh.” She considered me for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “I know what to do. Don’t go anywhere!” She whirled away out of sight.
I took a deep breath and wondered if I’d followed the white rabbit on the way here and hadn’t even noticed it. Mac was no help—he was staring around the room as if he was trying to figure out where all the exits were and if there were any hiding spaces. Which I supposed was his job, but it left me with no one to share my bemusement with.
Edmond was even worse—I had to snap my fingers twice in his face to get his attention and I was worried he was going to forget his manners and start to growl. These humans had no boundaries, it seemed, and I began to wonder if bringing him on this trip had been a good idea, though I’d understood the logic at the time. “Edmond!” His eyes turned toward me. I lowered my voice and reached out with that omega part of me. “Donotfuck this up. The pack needs this.” Maybe. I wished I could see into the future, but that wasn’t something I’d managed all that well yet.
He blinked and stared at me, one hand coming up to his chest as if he felt something there, then he nodded. “It’s just hard not to…react, after hearing the stories. And they keep grabbing at you.”
“Things aren’t so bad any more. And they asked us here. We’re not going to get cans thrown at us.”
His eyes widened, then he nodded and, while his shoulders were still tight with anxiety, he looked less likely to do something we’d all regret. And really, that was all I could ask for.
The young woman came back with something shiny in her hands. “How are those fastened on?” she said, reaching for my tabs.
“They’re just pins,” I said, and pulled them off, showing her the little clasp at the back.
“Easy peasy,” she said, and before I knew it, I had a gold chain draped around my neck, the tabs sitting in the hollow of my throat looking decorative. “You know,” she added, tilting her head to one side. “You could get a little leading or beading put around those, add a pattern on top, and no one would ever notice them.”
“Don’t know what the Department would say, but I’ll mention it. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your name.”
“Oh, I’m Calice. I’m kind of in charge here, when Martin’s not around. I order the cloth and deal with suppliers. Come on in, he’ll want to know you’re here.” She led us toward the back and I was astounded at how bright the room was, but as we came around a sort of ad-hoc wall made of filing cabinets and shelving, I saw why.
