Page 7 of The Omega's Alpha
“But you could be.” He leered, or at least it looked like that to me. The shifter at the desk called out my name, but I was so focused on these two I didn’t quite hear him.
“Not on your life.” I tried to shove past him—we were about the same size—and he grabbed me.Oh, fuck that. “Keep your damn hands to yourself,” I snapped and kicked him in the knee, then rammed his face with my laundry bag. He fell over and I jumped over him, backhanding the other one in a sort of pre-emptive strike. I’d never been taught to fight, and we’d been well trained when we were young to always go around with someone we trusted—a rule that I’d been ignoring since I moved in with Bax, but that didn’t mean I’d never planned how to keep myself safe on my own. I heard the raised voice of the shifter at the counter as I slammed through the door, and then I hustled out of the building, racing around the corner toward Supplies so that, if they came out after me, they wouldn’t know where I went.
I made it around the corner and stopped a second to catch my breath in the alcove of the door to Supplies, leaning against the wall. No one came racing down the side of the building looking for revenge, so I straightened my t-shirt and tidied my hair with a quick finger-comb, then headed through the door to pick up the food. Yeah, even if I had to let the wet laundry sit for a few minutes, I was going to take it all home and hang it out to dry. The fewer trips out in public I made today, the better.
Chapter Seven
Quin pickedup the phone to take the call Bax had transferred in, but the line was dead. He hung up and tried again, but now he had a dial tone. “Damn.” It wasn’t the phone lines—it was Bax, trying to do two jobs with a growing family. He’d have to talk to Abel again about getting Bax to back off on the dutiful omega thing. In the meantime, though, he really needed to find a new secretary for the pack. He wondered if Holland would be willing to come back again, and whether that was a good idea, considering he became a slave to his hormones around the other man.
Maybe he’d bring it up in his therapy session this afternoon.
How had Abel managed before, when he only had the one person out there handling everything that went on? Quin shook his head and got up to peer out into the outer office. “The call dropped. Who was it, I’ll call them back.”
“It did?” Bax’s expression was appalled and embarrassed. His desk was a flurry of papers and brochures—he was getting ready for something called aHome Show, whatever that was. “It was the photographer. He wants to do another series.”
“Photographer?” What photographer?
“Oh, you weren’t here for all of that. Remember the human at our mating, running around with a camera? We probably still have a copy of the magazines with the articles in them around here somewhere. If not, I know I have them at home.”
“Bax? The whole story please.”
Bax turned slightly pink. “That human, Laine, that helped with the problems with Jason and Montana Border? He’s got a bit of a white knight syndrome, I think the humans call it? Wants to rescue people, make the world a better place. He convinced Abel that it would help humans not be so scared of us if they could see that we did a lot of the same things as they did. So he came up, took pictures, wrote a short article, got it into a magazine. About a year after, I think, he managed to do it again, with some of the pictures he hadn’t used. Anyway, he wants to talk to you about a book. He says he knows someone who would do a good job, and he could take pictures and that a book would probably, um…” Bax’s voice trailed off and he frowned. “He thought they could get on television shows and get a lot of attention.”
Ah, he remembered it now. “A book about what?”
Bax shrugged. “Our history? Us? He wasn’t sure, just that the guy would do a good job.”
“I’ll think about it.” And probably say no. Could he, as Alpha, trust a human to tell the story properly?
“You can come over for supper if you want, I’ll find the magazines for you.” Bax smiled and Quin could tell he’d drifted away from the here and now, back to the past. Bax’s lips curled in a smile, then he started and came back to himself. “We were going to make spaghetti and see how much of a mess Taden makes.”
It was tempting, and Holland was a good cook.Definitely going to talk to the therapist this afternoon.“How could I resist that?”
On the desk, Bax’s phone rang and he answered it. “Mercy Hills Shifter Enclave, Baxter speaking. How may I help you?” He paused, and listened for a moment. “Oh, good, I’m glad you called back. I hit the wrong button on the phone. Yes, I’ll transfer you over to him.” Bax pressed a button, then Quin’s phone started ringing. “That’s the photographer again.”
“All right. Thanks.” Quin retreated to his office and picked up the phone. “Tarquin Mercy Hills.”
“Tarquin. That’s an unusual name.” A pause followed, the empty air filled with the sound of a pencil scratching across paper. “I haven’t been keeping up much with werewolf politics, but Laine filled me in on some of the stuff that’s happened.”
Quin gritted his teeth anddid notsnap at the human for the werewolf reference. It wasn’t good form, and his skin should have been thicker than that by now, after all the doggy and mutt references in the navy. “What can we do for you?” He forced himself back to politeness.
“I got some mileage out of the magazines back when your brother got married, but magazines aren’t really where the money is, and I think there’s enough interest, if we collect some good stories, some histories, put it all together in a book, or in a couple of books, we can probably find a publisher. I hear you were in the army—we could get some use out of that, too. Might even get a movie deal.”
Right. “Navy, actually. And what wouldweget out of it?”
“Share of the royalties, share of any sales of television and movie rights. Whatever else we can market—werewolf shirts, mugs, hats. That’s not my end of things, we can hire someone for that. You’ll want an agent. And if we tell the story right, Laine’s little plan to ease the tensions between your people and mine might get a kick in the pants.”
Quin ignored the mention of Laine’s little plan. But royalties. Money that kept coming in, for just opening their hearts and bleeding in front of the humans. As tempting as it was, the price still felt too high. “I’m not comfortable with that. What makes you think I would be?”
“Why? I thought you guys were strapped for cash.”
They were. Even after the new housing was finished, there would be thirty-nine couples left on the waiting list for mated housing, still living with their parents, either separately or together. Too many shifters in too small a space—Mac had dropped some ‘incident statistics’ on his desk just yesterday that had made him wish he’d re-enlisted. Tension in the pack was showing in a sharp increase in fights and vandalism, getting worse the longer the uncertainty of who was going to get the houses lasted. He’d have to make a decision on that soon, though it was really no decision. The best solution would be to find the money to build the rest of the houses they’d planned, but for now, he’d put the couples who’d been waiting the longest in the new housing as it finished. “I don’t know if we’re strapped enough to show our bellies in public.”
“I see.” The photographer paused. “Can I at least bring him out so you can meet him? He might have some ideas.”
Fuck. Like he needed another thing on his plate. Maybe he could pawn this off on Abel. Or Cas—he was due back in a month, after Duke and Bram moved out to the city. With the added bonus that Cas was a lawyer, or would be if they’d let him take the bar. He’d be able to spot potential problems in a contract that Quin couldn’t. “September. I can’t do it before then.”
“Okay.” The photographer sounded dismayed, but he took it well. “I’ll call again at the beginning of the month to set up a date.”
