Page 3 of The Omega's Alpha
Despite living on the charity of my cousin’s mate.
With no other outlet for my emotions, I set about giving the house a cleaning like none other. If I finished everything this morning, perhaps I could get the walls painted in Bax’s and Abel’s living room. One wall, at least. I’d finished the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom, places that company would be likely to see and that could possibly be stained—or drawn upon by pups. My plan was to get the public rooms done first, then to start work on the puppies’ bedrooms upstairs. Bax’s and Abel’s room would be last, being the least likely one suffer the depredations of our wanna-be artists. I found it soothing, these final touches to this home. My home? I supposed. I tried not to think too much about it.
Once the dirty laundry had been collected, the floors swept and mopped, the dishes washed and dried, and all the surfaces cleared of the coating of dust that grew on them every night—residue of the house’s so recent construction—I was free to attack the living room walls.
I had an old sheet that I used to protect the floor, so I spread that along the bottom of the wall and brought out the can of paint from the storage closet that ran along the back of the house, behind my little apartment. I’d eventually get to those walls, but I wanted to show my gratitude for Bax’s and Abel’s generosity by finishing their house first. And, really, who was going to see my walls except me? No one, that’s who.
Half of the short wall on the far end of the room had been painted when I heard the shuffle of footsteps on the porch, and then a knock. I left the paint brush propped up in the can of paint and went to answer the door.
It was the Alpha.
I was so startled I gaped at him, which really wasn’t a particularly good look on me, but I couldn’t understand why he’d be there.
“Can I come in?” he said and smiled. Or tried, anyway. I’d say he gave it a good shot, but there was tension in the corners of his mouth that dragged at the lines of his face and made him look older.
“Of course. But no one’s home right now. Just me.” I stood back to let him in.
“I know. I came to talk to you.” He brushed past me and stood in the entry, dripping onto the rag rug that had been my gift to Bax for his mating to Abel.
I closed the door, my brain running in all different directions.Please don’t let him be like the other alphas.I hadn’t been home in Buffalo Gap long enough for the alphas to get the idea through their heads, but I’d heard the whispering, couldn’t miss the way the rest of the pack had looked at me, as if I had something to do with my own downfall. Fuck it. Might as well find out. “Did you want to sit down?”
“I can’t stay long. I wanted to apologize for earlier.” Yet, despite his protested lack of time, he wandered toward the kitchen and, I assumed, the promised cup of coffee. I followed him, curious about this apology. What did an Alpha have to apologize for?
The pot was ready, just needed to be turned on. It felt like such a luxury still, to drink coffee whenever I wanted, and of all the things that were new and wondrous to me about Mercy Hills, this was the one thing that still remained so. I pushed the button with a feeling just shy of reverence, and pulled down a plate to set out some cookies.
“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” the Alpha said behind me. “I… haven’t been sleeping well lately. It makes me… jumpy.”
“You didn’t frighten me,” I said, turning around and leaning back against the counter. He was still looking at me that way, though he tried to hide it. It was flattering, but also made me nervous, because I was bound to my former mate by my biology. I had nothing to offer him, except maybe a friendly ear. “Not once I realized it wasn’t a seizure. We had someone at Buffalo Gap that used to have them. It was scary, but that wasn’t what it was with you.”
“No. I get…” He looked down at his hands. “Sometimes I forget where I am. When I’m tired, or not paying attention.”
The coffee pot began to gurgle its promise of sweet bitter ambrosia and I set the plate of cookies on the table in front of the Alpha. He looked so twisted up in his memories that I couldn’t keep myself from laying a hand on his shoulder. “Me too, sometimes. Though my reasons aren’t as traumatic as yours.”
“But traumatic for you.”
What could I say? He was right. I nodded and moved to pour the coffee into mugs. “Having a place where I feel safe helps.” I looked around the kitchen. “Having a home helps.” I brought the coffee over to the table and set his mug in front of him. “Talking to Bax helps.” I took a sip. “Do you have someone to talk to?” I was half-shocked at my temerity, but at the same time, it felt like the right thing, and the right time.
He shook his head and stared down into his coffee like it held all the answers and wouldn’t give them up. “I don’t want to bleed on anyone here. People come to the Alpha for support, that’s my job. I can’t put this on them.”
“No, I can see that.” And yet, here he was, talking to an omega. Then again, we were the nurturers of the pack. And it occurred to me that this would be the time of year I would normally have a heat. Not that I showed it much—defective that way too, and one of the insults my former mate had thrown at me, that he should have known when he couldn’t smell it on me until he was up inside me. But now that I’d thought about it, I could feel it, that sneaking warmth coiling through my body, the subtle physical awareness of the alpha before me, and then I wondered if maybe my old mate’s hold on me was fading with distance or time, and what that would mean for me. Or if it was Alpha Quin’s presence here that had triggered it.
Regardless, I wanted to do something for him. Something to help, to make his life easier. And there was something I’d seen on my brief investigation earlier. “You know, there are people who are paid to help others by listening to them, and who have training to help them.”
He smiled crookedly, as if his mouth didn’t want to make that shape. “You mean a therapist.” He sipped from his mug and sighed. “I can’t leave the pack a couple of times a week to go see one, even if I could find one that would see a shifter. Particularly a shifter with my…problem.”
“No, and I don’t think you should.” I got up from my chair and came back with my phone, already opened to the webpage I’d found earlier. “There are therapists who will talk to you over the Internet. You could do it from home, and never have to let them know that you were a shifter.” It felt surprisingly good to know this thing that might help him. I wanted to help, to take some of this weight that was bowing down his shoulders.
His eyes widened slightly and he reached for the phone, his fingers brushing over mine. A shiver ran over my skin and I dropped the phone, then stared up at him with the words, “Uh oh,” running through my mind over and over again. His nostrils flared and then he stood up so abruptly the chair fell over behind him.
“I should go. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…” His words stumbled to a halt.
“No, I know. I didn’t either. Broken, you know. My insides don’t work right.” I wanted to cry—stupid hormones. How could he tell when my mate had never been able to? I wanted to touch him, and have him touch me, because this awareness was new and wonderful. And I wanted to take some of that weight bowing down his shoulders on mine, because it wasn’t fair he should have to carry the pack, and the weight of a past that was so much heavier than mine.
Instead, I got a, “Thank you. I’ll look into this. And again, I’m sorry,” before he bolted out the front door with his shoes in his hand because he hadn’t taken the time to put them on. The door slammed behind him.
I sat in the kitchen until it was nearly time for supper, and the paint had dried on the brush. I was a fool and apparently a slave to my omega nature and I wanted him. But until my heat had run its course, I wouldn’t know if it was real want, or just something cooked up by my hormones. Though it was nice to know that I wasn’t tied to my asshole ex-mate for the rest of my life, which cheered me up a little.
I washed the paintbrush out as well as I could, put something on for supper that could cook without supervision, and disappeared into my apartment at the first sounds of Bax’s happy family coming home. At the moment, I wasn’t in the mood for someone else’s happy ending.
