Page 20 of Mating the Omega
“Just half an hour, get the cobwebs out of your brain,” Mac said in a cajoling tone.And I want to talk to you, and you’ll need to be in a good mood for this.
Abel stared at him for a moment, then grinned. “Fuck it all, why not? I’m already a century behind on everything, why not add another half hour? You know what, let’s make it a full hour. Might as well be shot for a sheep as a lamb, right?”
“That’s the spirit.”
They stripped and changed to their wolf forms, panting with glee as they pushed the elevator’s buttons, leaving all their human cares behind. They raced out the building, heading east, toward the small woods and the pond near where Mac had first found Jason.
Rabbit.Mac sniffed around where he’d smelled the animal, then yipped softly at Abel to come smell too. Abel jumped on him, knocking Mac to the side, and then they were off, the scent-trail of the rabbit only an excuse to run and jump and play puppy games with other. Play-fighting amongst the trees, then trying to pick up rabbit’s trail, losing it, finding it again, then deciding to have a bit of fun with the security team on duty that night.
Mac knew he shouldn’t have done it—it wasn’t responsible, or proper behavior for the head of security, but he justified it as training. It was easy to get slack when the walls were that high, and the computers did most of your work for you.
He and Abel split up, slinking along the outside walls of the building. Abel headed for the garbage cans outside the front door. Mac stationed himself right underneath the window of the room with the monitors and the control panel for the sensors and cameras, and waited.
Abel’s taking his time about this.All of a sudden, a horrendous racket broke the evening’s silence, the rattling clang of the garbage cans bouncing off the steps even louder than Mac had expected.
Shouts and the rattle and clash of chairs being knocked over as their occupants fled were Mac’s signal to pounce. He jumped up, huge front paws on the windowsill, and gibbered and howled at the shifters inside, making easily as much noise as Abel had. Then he took off at full speed for the cover of the trees. Abel was about ten yards ahead of him, his darker fur making him hard to see in the half-moonlight.
They hid just inside the edge of the woods, watching until the furor died down, then drifted away, back toward their other lives.
Upstairs in Abel’s apartment, they flopped on a stained, fur-covered rug in the corner of the room and slowly changed back to their human forms.
“Fuck, that was fun. Why don’t I do that more often?” Abel asked. He scratched at his beard and grinned. “Did you have that planned? Was that all the new guys?”
“Most of them. Not planned, no, but I saw the opportunity and thought we might as well go for it.” He chuckled. “You’re getting slow, sitting behind a desk all the time. Took you long enough just to knock over some garbage cans.”
“I took a shit on the step too, a good one, right in front of the door.”
Mac let out a laugh that still held more than a little of his wolf in it. “I wonder what they’d say if I told them it was their Alpha that did that? Can’t wait to hear the stories tomorrow night.”
Abel frowned at him, then his expression cleared. “Right. You’re going outside to pick up plants for the omega tomorrow day, aren’t you?”
“I am.” And here was his opportunity. “I wanted to talk to you about him.”
“Oh?” Abel stood up and headed around the corner to the kitchen.
Mac followed him. “Don’t you think you should be spending more time with him than you are?”
“I’m busy. You know that. I just don’t have the time.” Abel handed him a beer, one from the little start-up brewery a couple of shifters in their pack were running, and headed back into the living room.
“You’re getting mated,” Mac said, two steps behind him.
“Slow down, there. I never said I’d mate him.”
What?“Hold on, what do you mean? I saw the contract.”
“Yes.” Abel watched him for a moment, then shook his head. “You didn’t really read it, did you? Come on, it’s in my office somewhere.” He led them through a door in the corner of the living room, into the office he used as the head of both the pack and the software company. He rummaged in one of the drawers of the desk, his beer dripping condensation onto the wooden surface.
“Your staff is going to kill you for that,” Mac remarked, nodding at the ring of water forming around the bottom of the bottle.
“Fuck.” Abel picked up the bottle and wiped at the surface with his forearm. “Don’t tell on me, okay?”
“Like they’d say anything to the Alpha.”
“You’d be surprised what they say to the Alpha. ‘It doesn’t suit your status. No, you can’t have simple. No, you can’t have affordable. You have to show the world blah, blah, blah.’” He turned around with a sheet of paper in his hand. “Here’s the contract we signed.”
Mac took it, but ignored it for a moment in favor of his friend. “You sorry you fought for the position?”
Abel waved him back into the apartment. “No. I don’t know. I just feel sometimes like I’m missing out on life, you know? I’ll be thirty in the fall. There’s got to be more to life than paperwork and fencing with the human authorities.” He flopped back down on the beanbag chair and began fiddling with his keyboard again.
