Page 115 of Abel's Omega
Suddenly, I was exhausted. “Maybe lie down for a bit? If that’s okay? After I finish this.” I gestured at the wax.
“Of course it is.” Abel carved another chunk off the block. “It won’t take long with both of us.”
When the wax was finished, I went upstairs to wash my face and try to find sleep, but it escaped me. I tossed and turned on the bed for about half an hour before I gave up and went downstairs again, searching for Abel and is miraculous ability to make my brain go quiet when I needed it to.
I found him in the living room, feet up on a stool, with the laptop balanced on his thighs. He was typing away industriously, and I changed my mind about disturbing him, but he noticed me before I could escape back into the kitchen.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, setting the laptop aside.
I nodded and came to curl up at his side. “I’m not used to being alone in the bed anymore, I guess.”
He wrapped his arm around me. “Do you want me to come up with you?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to stop you working. Do you mind if I just sit here with you while you work?”
“Of course not.”
So I laid my head in his lap while he typed with one hand, the other slowly combing through my hair until he did indeed lull me to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
News traveled fast in the pack, and we knew almost as soon as the pallbearers arrived at Usher’s house. Abel and I were dressed in our best, as were the pups, and the pups had been couched on proper behavior. It grieved me to see the memories in Fan’s eyes, and some shadow of them in Teca’s, though I doubted she’d had any real grasp of what had happened when we’d burned their Pappuh. But Fan remembered, because he remembered Patrick, and he’d been the last one to toss an offering on the pyre before Patrick had been burned. I held his hand as we walked out to join the procession, then picked him up and carried him, so we could be of some comfort to each other. He clung to me as if he was afraid he was going to lose me too, and I patted his back and whispered nonsense in his ear as proof I was still there.
Abel had Noah in one arm, our offering in the other. Behind us, Mac carried Teca and Mam walked beside my Da, carrying Beatrice. And behind them was strung out the greater part of Buffalo Gap.
The pallbearers reached the burning place. It looked like a bier, but it was hollow, with space to add wood and other combustibles underneath the corpse, and then the propane flamers to make sure there was nothing left of us after it was done. Burnt like vermin. I hugged Fan a little closer, and walked on to take my place near Usher’s head.
He looked so peaceful. The wind stirred his hair and the flowers poking out from underneath his hands. At a nod from Uncle Mitchel, the first of the mourners came forward to offer their gift, and speak their last words to the dead.
I still didn’t know what I would say.
The pile of offerings around Usher covered his legs by the time it was our turn. The only mourners left after us would be the Alpha, and Boris.
“Do you want to come with us?” I murmured to Fan. “You don’t have to.”
His eyes had grown wide as he watched and he shook his head.
“That’s okay. Do you want to go to Mac, or to Dada?”
“Mac,” he said in a small voice.
I kissed him. “I’ll be right back.”
He nodded. “I don’t like it here.”
“We’re going home tomorrow.” We could make the trip in one day, which I was grateful for. I was tired of being away from home. Travel wasn’t as much fun as the novels had led me to believe. I passed Fan over to Mac, and watched as he buried his face in Mac’s neck. Hiding from the world. I turned to Abel and reached for Noah, cuddling him close.
We walked up to Usher and Abel passed me the basket, allowing me to say the first words.
I took a handful of the grains of wax and sprinkled them around his body. “I was always jealous of you.” The words surprised me, but I let them keep coming. “I wanted your hair, and I used to practice, trying to imitate your walk, when I was alone in my bedroom.” I sprinkled another handful, while I considered my next words, and the cold rage burning so deep inside me I’d almost forgotten it. “You didn’t deserve this. You should have had your fairy tale—we should all get to have them. You deserved pups, and a job, and respect for your contribution. You deserved love.” Another handful. “I swear to you. I cannot fix this for you, but I will fix it for others.” And in a whisper. “On my head be it if I fail you in this.” I sprinkled a last handful of the fragrant beeswax over him, then stepped back to let Abel speak.
He stood and contemplated Usher for several long, silent moments. The tension in the crowd built, wondering, I was sure, what he would have to say about an omega he’d never even met until the night before.
Abel dug a handful of wax out of the basket and spread it the length of the bier. “Omega Usher Buffalo Gap, I offer my sorrow in sacrifice for your loss. I have little to add to my mate’s words, for he spoke the truth of my heart. But in your loss of faith, in your despair of your future, I see the defeat of our people. I see how small we have become, that we neglect our own out of the misguided notion that they are somehow less. Omega is not less, as alpha is not more. It simply is, as the maple is different from the oak, but no less valuable for its difference.” He spread another handful of the wax granules. “And this I promise you, Omega Usher Buffalo Gap, that I will not fail your kind, as we all have failed you. There must always be another path to choose, for those who need to choose it.” He poured the last of the wax out onto the offerings, and reached to take my hand and lead me back into the crowd.
The air filled with a quiet tension. I glanced across to Usher’s mother, and saw her nod. Whatever else we had done, we had lifted one small burden from the shoulders of Usher’s family. That would do.
Uncle Mitchel stepped into the fraught silence and began his speech, placing small sticks of fragrant wood around Usher’s hands. When he was done, Boris came forward, his face calm—I wondered if he felt anything at all except perhaps inconvenience. Or relief. It occurred to me that a loveless mating went both ways. He spoke a few words about how lovely Usher had been, and their grief in the spring and how hard Usher had taken it. He bent to pick up a can of gasoline that had been sitting at the foot of the bier the whole time, and began pouring it into the hollow beneath Usher. My breath caught on a sob, and Abel put his arm around me and pulled me close.
