Page 6 of The Omega's Alpha
Abel snorted, drained his mug of tea, and disappeared out into the hall, though not without a four footed friend behind him.
Chapter Six
Today was laundry day. Bax and I got the pups all ready to go to the daycare, or—in Fan’s and Beatrice’s cases—school, and we each took a bag of dirty clothes with us while we walked the distance over to the park. Abel came with us, Noah on his shoulders and Beatrice on his hip.
“We should look at getting drivers’ licenses for more of the pack too,” Abel remarked casually as we followed the rutted track toward town. “And roads. Real roads.”
I glanced over at Bax’s mate, wondering what had gotten into him. Bax, too, seemed baffled.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Abel turned slightly to look at him, but kept walking. “I didn’t tell you?”
“Apparently not,” Bax said dryly, but he tempered it by bumping briefly against Abel’s arm. “It must be good news.”
“It is. There’s been an expression of interest in the panels by a home renovation chain that stretches all across the country. We have to prove we have the capacity to supply them first before they’ll sit down and talk to us, but Quin’s looking for funding now and trying to find ways to trim the pack budget so we can build a bigger space for the factory. That, or we’ll have to find space outside walls to rent, which might be the best option all around. No idea how this will fly, but it’s hopeful.” He frowned and reached for Bax’s free hand, then said, “Oops!” and put it back on Noah’s leg.
Bax shook his head, but his love for his mate was obvious in the fond smile and the way he rubbed Abel’s arm and laid a kiss on his shoulder.
I knew I’d never have that. It had taken me six months to come to terms with being repudiated, and then another to come to terms with my lack of purpose. Now, I was starting to think toward the future. I had a home with Bax and Abel for as long as they had pups—which could be another couple of decades, knowing those two—but after that? Or even before? And I was starting to get restless, trapped in the house with the family. I’d been careful not to go out too much, first because I was heartsore and scared, later because I didn’t want to cause gossip for Bax and Abel. But that could only last so long.
We dropped the pups off at the daycare. Bax lingered in the doorway, unwilling to leave even though Taden was almost nine months old now, and I decided not to wait for them. Instead, I took the other bag of laundry and waved goodbye as I set off for the laundromat.
I figured I’d put the laundry on to wash, go to pick up food and a new pair of jeans to replace the pair that Teca had completely totaled on the playground the other day. By then, the wash should be gone through, and I could switch everything to the dryers and take the food home. Then I could get the breakfast dishes cleaned up and the floors swept before heading back for the laundry. After that, the rest of the day was mine until school was out and it was time to go pick up the pups. I was lucky I had that much free time—most families would have kept the pups home with me, to make up the credits I would use up for food and clothing.
Mercy Hills was certainly different. I could see how it had changed Bax, could feel how it was starting to change me. Like in the fairy tales, I wondered what I would become by the time it was done with me. Certainly educated—I was taking two courses toward a high school certificate, something which was usually reserved for the more academic shifters in both of the packs I’d been in. Even here, where they sent all the pups to school until they had the same basic education as the humans, I was startled when Bax had presented me, the Christmas after I’d arrived, with a box of textbooks. “I did it,” he’d said. “You can too.”
So after the cleaning was done and the laundry collected, I would spend the afternoon with my books, playing catch-up with shifters three years younger than me. I didn’t care—I loved it. Oh, not the work, though I was capable of doing it. But the sheer normality of it, that there was nothing special about sending an omega to school.Thatamazed me.
The laundromat was in the big main building of the pack, the one that Bax and Abel used to live in, that Quin lived in now. Abel’s software company, all six of the pack’s computer nerds, were on the eleventh floor, just underneath the floor where the guest apartments and the Alpha’s office were. The next one down was just large rooms with nothing in them, a requirement of the human government, who said that there had to be a place to segregate parts of the population if necessary. It was strange that it was up so high, until I realized it was a giant raised middle finger to the humans to put it on that floor. Apparently, it was full ofstuffright now—Fan’s description, which made me smile.
Along with the laundromat, Supplies, the clinic, and some other things that I hadn’t been out and around enough to discover occupied the first four floors. One floor was set aside to become a real hospital, whenever we had the money to attract a doctor and buy the equipment, which apparently was crazy expensive. Abel got real quiet whenever it came up, so no one mentioned it unless it was absolutely necessary.
Most of the rest of the structure was the young adult barracks. All the new adults moved out of their parents’ homes into rooms on these floors, sharing bathrooms and kitchens and learning how to get along in larger sub-packs. It also meant that most of the damage that high spirited young shifters could do was limited to a space that was easily repaired. If I’d been born here as something other than omega, I’d be living there now.
I glanced up at the building as I got close. It towered over the rest of the pack, towered even over the walls that kept the humans safe from us. Or us safe from the humans—no matter what they’d started as, I was convinced that that’s what they’d turned into. I shouldered through the front door and down the hallway to the last door on the right. A couple of the young shifters that lived in the building came out of the door opposite that led to the inside stair. They carried laundry bags too, so I politely held the door for them to enter behind me. One of them said something, too low for me to make out, though the tone was pretty easy to read. I schooled my face and took my bags down to the machines at the far end of the room, closest to the shifter working the desk, hoping they’d pick the ones by the door.
No such luck, though they didn’t choose the machines right next to me. Instead, the stopped about halfway down and began unloading their things into two of the washers.
I finished loading mine—four machines, between lights and darks and the pups’ filthy play clothes—added the soap, signed the register for the machines, and packed everything away again in the bags to head out.
The two young shifters were taking their time, and clogging up most of the aisle between the row of washers and the matching opposite row of dryers. I contemplated the dryers while I watched them out of the corner of my eye, and wondered if I had enough time to run the supplies home before I had to come back to the get the wet clothes. I could take them home to hang on the clothesline, instead of spending the credits to dry them here. As the person who actually handled the household budget, I tried to cut costs where I could.
Yeah. If I went fast, I could do it. I picked up the laundry bags and the now empty little bottle I carried the soap in and started to make my way out of the laundromat. “Excuse me,” I said politely to the two young shifters. They didn’t move out of the way, but instead seemed to expand so that in order to get by, I’d have to brush up against them.
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Though, to give Mercy Hills credit, it was far less often than I’d expected, though part of that was because of how rarely I was out on my own. It made me wonder what kinds of stories the young alphas and betas told each other about omegas that they thought it was okay to just grab at me in public, instead of politely coming to call. Although, here I was, running around without an escort—I guessed I was asking for it. Though I’d kind of expected better of Mercy Hills.
I couldn’t even ask, because I didn’t want to scare Bax, and I was, honestly, a little afraid what Abel might say.
I didn’t want to hear again, “Well, you should expect it, being what you are,” my father’s words floating back up from whatever pit of forgetfulness I’d thought I’d drowned them in.
“Hello, Holland,” one of the young men said in a tone that made my hackles rise.
“Excuse me, I have things to do.” I pushed my laundry bag out in front of me, using it to lever them out of my way.
One of them laughed. “Don’t do that, sweetheart. We’re just being nice.” He put his arm out to keep me from forcing my way past them.
“I’m not your sweetheart,” I told them through clenched teeth. I didnotwant to make a scene. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t make one, but I’d bepissedif I had to.
