Page 53 of Legally Mated
“I would, if I were him.” I grimaced. “As much as I hate to say it, we really don’t have experience with this sort of thing. It’s always been the Alpha’s job to decide where the money was spent. But this,” I waved at the pile of paperwork between us, “will add too much to his workload. We’llhaveto spread it out among other people inthepack.”
“So you’re recommending weagree?”
“As soon as we’ve come up with a list of names for the boards, I’d say call him and invitehimback.”
Holland’s eyebrows went up. “Okay.” His eyes strayed to the omega trust paperwork, sitting by itself in the middle of the table. “Whataboutthat?”
My heart sped up, I didn’t know why. Frightened, exhilarated? I knew that equality for the omegas was a project near and dear to the hearts of our Alpha and his Mate. Abel and Bax too. Probablyothers.
Not me, because I for damn sure was never admitting to thatgeneticflaw.
“There’s a yearly limit on what you do with the money,” I said as I pulled it toward us. “Entirely omega run. It’s kind of broken up too, there’s specific parts of the fund designated for education, and more for legal representation, but after that, the rest of it is up to us to spend as we want. Or up to the omegas that are running it.” I sat back and watched him flip through the pages, understanding everything even without being able to parse the legalwriting.
“So we can make space to bring omegas here? To give them a…a place they can come to in order to be themselves? To be what they were meanttobe?”
“Yes. And I think the word you’re looking for issanctuary.”
“Sanctuary,” he said slowly, as if tasting each letter. “Yes, that’s exactly the word I was looking for.” He raised his eyes to mine, and it seemed to me that they shone like the noon sun. A shiver raced over my skin—not attraction, but as much as I hated to admit it, more akin to like calling to like. “Let me go get Quin,” he said and practically bolted out of the room, blowing through the connecting door to the Alpha’s office with enough speed to make the door bounce off the wall and swing shuddering halfway to closed again. Low voices met my ears and I smiled at the sharp exclamation of surprise from Quin. And then they were back throughthedoor.
“So they’re good? We’re not signing our future away to him?” Quin asked as he slid into a chair and pulled one of the contractstowardhim.
“Unless I’m missing something, and I don’t think I am. It’s written pretty clearly, there’s not a lot of places to hide anything. Cas feels the same way.” Cas had been both chomping at the bit and bemoaning the future loss of all his free time once he got a look at the business trust. “In my opinion, this is a surprisingly good thing for us. I’m a bit nervous about what Fate or Kismet might have in wait for us if we agree to this, but I think the risk is probably worth it.” I grinned at them both, then sobered. “I will caution that this will likely end up in some blowback on us in the local community. Though I suspect the hospitals will enjoy not having to treatushere.”
“Staffing will be a problem,” Quin said absently. “We’ll have Bram and Adelaide—maybe they can sit on that board. But we’ll need more staff if we want to actually fill in those floorswithbeds.”
“I have a suggestion,” Holland said softly, and it hurt me to recognize his old restraint. “Why not build an actual hospital. I think there might be a better use for those two floors in thisbuilding.”
“What’s that?” Quin dropped the contract and reached forHolland’shand.
“This.” Holland pulled the omega contract toward them. “This gives us money to spend. On omegas. On programs for omegas. On…housing.” He put his free hand over their connected hands. “Sanctuary.”
Quin stared at him with a strange look in his eyes. For a moment, I thought Holland had overplayed his hand, but he knew his mate better than I’d ever guessed. “How do we get the word out?”Quinsaid.
Holland threw himself at his mate, and I bolted to my feet, knocking my chair over in my hurry to leave my Alpha and his amorous mate to their own devices. At least now I knew that the episode with Quin’s mother hadn’t caused any permanent damage between the twoofthem.
I let myself out through the door into the office, closing off the romantic murmurings with the click of the door closing. Bax looked up when I exited into the outer office. “Give them a few minutes?” Iaskedhim.
Bax glanced at his computer screen. “Sure.” He turned back to me with an amused smile on his face. “Maybe more than a fewminutes?”
“I’d give them an hour,” I said judiciously. “By the way, are you interested in sitting on a funding board forthepack?”
He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “Talktome.”
Chapter44
The cafe wassmall and dingy and nowhere near anywhere Laine would normally have eaten. Which made it perfect for meeting up with Ravi. He ordered two coffees and two slices of pie while he waited for the investigator to arrive, something to keep hands and mouths busy, to give them an excuse to bethere.
Ravi showed up at the same time as the coffee. He busied himself putting cream and sugar in his cup while the waitress went to fetch their pie, his smile charming as he thanked her and made her blush. As soon as she was out of earshot, he said, “I have some interesting informationforyou.”
“Useful information?” Laine used the side of his fork to cut off the tip of his slice of pie and shoved it in his mouth. It was okay—not as good as the bakery pie he used to bribe Garrick with, butedible.
“They weren’t very secretive about it,” Ravi said dryly. “I hardly had to do any work for itatall.”
“Does that mean I don’t owe youanything?”
“Fuck you,” Ravi said mildly and started cutting his pie into chunks. “I talked to a bunch of people who graduated at the same time as him. There was some variation in how they personally felt about him, but there wasn’t a single person who didn’t peg him as the guy you went to if you were struggling with a course. More than half of the professors liked him, thought it was a shame he was shifter because it would hurt him in court and keep him from developing a strong client base. A few disliked him on principle, thinking he should have stayed in the enclave.” He shoved a forkful of pie into his mouth, then wiped it with the paper napkin. “And there were a few who took it a bit more personally. Apparently,” he pointed his fork at Laine. “They had to create a custom schedule for him because there was one professor who refused toteachhim.”
“He wouldn’t happen to be named Balding, would he?” Laine pushed his pie awayfromhim.
