Page 89 of The Omega's Alpha
He let out a long breath through his nose. “You’re inside, in a room you’ve rented. You don’t need to wear them in your home, right? Then you don’t need to wear them here, either. There are certain aspects of law that stretch between the two places. You’re safe.” He set out the food in his bag and pulled the cover off the soup, sniffing at it. “The front desk weren’t kidding when they said this place was good.”
The steam curled up to my nose, meat and vegetables and spices, so good I didn’t even stop to think before I opened my mouth and huffed a breath in, tasting and smelling it through the sensitive organ in the roof of my mouth. It was amazing.
I looked up to find Laine watching me quizzically.
“I’ve seen Garrick do that a couple of times. He always turns red and tries to distract me.”
I glanced up at him, then looked down to pull the cover off my own soup. “We aren’t human. And when I do that, I’m scenting. Better than a nose, but overwhelming sometimes, if the scent is strong.” I sat down and pulled the sandwich out of the bag. Heavy slabs of beef, with a spicy-sweet sauce and shredded vegetables crammed on top. It was thick and looked like I could have made a meal out of it without the soup, but I wasn’t going to say no to it either. It had been a long day, and this simple choice was absolutely perfect.
“Ah,” Laine said, and turned his attention to his soup.
We ate quietly for a while, and I contemplated how different Laine was than what I’d worried he’d be. Abel had spoken highly of him, but always with that unmentioned caveat of his humanity. Quin was more reserved about him, less trusting, as if his greater experience with humans led him to see what Abel missed. I’d believed Quin to be right in his caution, because I had nothing to compare him to. But Laine seemed earnest, and after spending the day with him, I wondered if humans and shifters had truly drifted so far apart. Because I knew shifters that wouldn’t have been so helpful and willing to learn, and some that would have, and some that were in the middle between them. Were humans like us too in that way?
I decided to take a chance. “If you have questions, ask them. I can’t promise good answers though. Omegas don’t get the same education as other shifters and I haven’t finished high school yet.” The blood rushed into my cheeks with that admission, but I refused to feel shame for something that was not my choice.
He sat back and stared at me for a moment with those sharp eyes, then the corners of his mouth turned up in the tiniest of smiles. “I would appreciate it.”
I nodded and reached for one of the rolls that came with our soup. “Ask.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
After our meal, we both went back to our respective places—Laine to the table and his fan of papers, me to the bed with a notebook and my journal. Our conversation had started out hesitant, but once I discovered that his questions were fairly simple, and he had a strong and real desire to learn, my answers came easier. After the first few, I began to discover as much about him as he did from me. I found him perceptive and aware of his own faults and of those of his people and so I’d pumped him for information that might prove useful.
But now was time to go delve back again into the history of my own people. I set the notebook open on the bed beside me and began to read again. The journal was fascinating, though the information I was looking for didn’t come up often, and what there was seemed as if it expected the reader to know the person that was being spoken of. But I kept reading, noting any references to omegas and praying for some mention of a True Omega in the lines of crabbed handwriting.
Our evening passed in quiet companionship. I read and made notes and the only thing that broke the peace of that tiny room was the sudden thunk of the door lock sealing shut. It made Laine jump and he looked up, meeting my eyes.
“No getting out now, human,” I said mildly, and went back to my journal. The words were beginning to swim before my eyes—I was close to the time I was usually in bed. But I kept hoping that the next line, the next page would hold the secret to Bax’s and Jason’s existence.
And then I turned to a page that chilled me to the bone. Written in the old language, it took me a moment before I knew what I was seeing.
The Enclosure.
My fingers trembled as I turned the pages and the pen fell unheeded onto the bed.
I made it through four entries before I could take no more. Reading her words, it felt like I was living the past, and my own imagination carried me forward beyond the point where I had stopped, a rushing, blinding journey through death and despair and poverty. I set the journal aside and rummaged in the shopping bags at the end of the bed. My hands were shaking so hard now, my heart racing as if I would bound out of my chest. I knocked the bag onto the floor in my distracted awkwardness, candy and magazine and newspapers spilling out over the carpet and I just knelt at the foot of the bed staring at them and tried not to weep.
“Holland?”
I lifted my head and looked blindly in Laine’s direction for a moment before I clawed my way back to the present. “I’m fine,” I said through a throat so tight I croaked the words more than spoke them.
“You’re not, but if you’d rather I left you alone?”
Frustration got the better of me and I snorted in derision. “Have humans ever left us alone?” I picked out a bag of mints from the mess on the floor and went back to my nest of pillows. “Listen then, if you want to know why we don’t trust your people.” I picked up the journal and flipped back a few pages, took a deep breath, and began the slow process of translating the words on the page for my human companion.
“March 21
“Eidan Hlybok-Lyis got a message out to us through the farmer he worked for. The humans came to his pack with their guns and their swords and made them stay within doors on pain of death, but everyone needed to eat, and so some of the nearby farms brought food for the bearers and caretakers to make. They have not come for us yet, but Hyland says it is only a matter of time. He is worried, my Alpha mate, and there is so little I can do to ease his cares. He has declared that we must be ready. Some of the pack have come to my mate to ask him to take us north, out of the country, or south. I do my best to keep our people calm, but I am no omega and my abilities are limited to words and baked goods, because an alpha with a full stomach is less likely to growl.
“March 24
“Galan came to bed with us last night, for all our oldest is fourteen and half a man, but it is perhaps worse for he and his friends, old enough to understand the risks and potential for loss, too young to do anything about it. Poor boy. He doesn’t understand that even the adults have no power here, and all we can do is stay light on our feet as the trail shifts beneath us. The humans have put up fences around our village, so we are now free to move about and visit, but soldiers are everywhere, and too large a group is quickly broken up.
“I am so tired already, and this is only beginning. Magdalena went into labor and the midwife was almost too late, as she was questioned about the speed of her steps and her worried manner. But the babe is healthy and we are fortunate that he was born omega, because we may need all his calm and love in the days to come. We’ve been told to pack our belongings, but where we are to go, no one seems able to answer. The walled enclaves that we’d been threatened with do not exist. When the Alphas met at Midwinter, Bruno Winter Snow suggested they would send us all to Alaska, to freeze and die or go feral, as if we were truly the beasts they tried to name us. I wish I could find it in me to disbelieve his suggestion, but truly, they fear us so much, and fear makes any creature behave in ways they will later be ashamed of.
“April 1
“The humans called all the Alphas together yesterday. I saw Hyland off with a brave smile and nearly wept for fear and love as he kissed each of our pups with a promise to return, and conveyed upon them some portion of his responsibilities for the pack, appropriate for their ages. They are so brave, our offspring. All alphas, which is a fine thing to have, though I would have liked an omega to soften the relations between them. But it was not meant to be, and I fear that we will need our omegas sorely in the future.
