Page 114 of Abel's Omega
“I think I owe it to him. If I’d been paying more attention—”
“You couldn’t have known. You’d been here three hours. If no one else in the pack saw it coming, how could you?” He shook me gently, not in anger, but maybe in frustration with me. “Don’t beat yourself up over missing something an entire pack missed.”
I nodded sadly. “I want…” What did I want? I shook my head and kissed him quickly. “I might be a while.”
“Do what you need to,” he said, stroking my hair. “We’ll be here waiting when you get back. Do you want to give an offering?”
I nodded.
“I’ll look after that, then.” He hugged me again, then turned us back toward the stairs. “You go out the front while I run interference with your uncle. Just, promise me you won’t try to punch anyone else?”
“I promise.” I gave him a smile, weak, but the best I could come up with at the moment. “Don’t forget about Noah in our bed, okay?”
“I won’t.” He put and arm around my shoulders, and we went back down the stairs together.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Mam came with me as we walked across the town to what used to be Usher’s home. We met other packmembers on our way, and joined them inside the house. It was crowded, except for the smaller bedroom, where Usher had been laid out on a spare tarp to be washed and dressed.
I stopped in the doorway to look at him, feeling oddly numb and, at the same time, enraged that this could happen.
“Bax,” someone said behind me. I turned to find Usher’s mother holding a small plastic tub full of water. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Ma’am,” I said and reached to take the tub from her. “I’d like to help, if that’s not going to step on any toes.”
“No, it won’t.” She smiled tiredly and let me take the water. “He always looked up to you, even when he was jealous. It’s kind of you to come do this last thing for him.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” I set the basin on the rickety table at the head of the bed. Usher was still wearing his clothes from last night, though they were stained where the blood had flowed from his wrists. I’d heard on the way over that they found him in the back yard, in the corner where they’d buried the ashes of his still born pup that spring. I hadn’t known that, and it made my heart ache again for him.
I reached out to smooth the dark hair away from his face. “Oh, sweetheart, why didn’t you ask for help?” Except I knew why, and I wished I’d had more time, to let him know that even if the pack didn’t see him, I did. With a sigh, I began to unbutton the fine, store-bought shirt, peeling it out of the dried blood at his waist. His mother and his sisters worked at the rest of his clothes, and then we washed him, carefully, respectfully, and dressed him again in his best clothes, and a set of fine leather boots that looked hardly worn. His mother combed his hair and arranged it around his face, and his sisters brought wildflowers to place in his hands. I ended up doing the actual arranging of the flowers, as the girls couldn’t bear to look at Usher’s poor abused wrists.
Finally, we had him as beautiful as we could manage, the long cuts hidden against his stomach and behind the bright petals of the flowers, and we left his mother to keep watch over him until the pack came to carry him to the burning place. I went back to the guest house to play with the pups for the afternoon, but found that Mac had them out hunting lizards again. Truthfully, I was grateful for that, because my emotions were still rubbed raw.
Abel had bought a pound of beeswax—hugely expensive—and we spent a quiet hour together crumbling it into tiny balls as our death offering to Usher.
“How is his family?” Abel asked quietly, about halfway through.
I thought for a second before replying. “Tired. Bereaved. Confused. I didn’t see Boris.”
“No, I think Mitchel had him out somewhere.” Abel set another handful of wax crumbles in the basket we were using. “How are you doing?”
“About the same.” I scooped together a bunch of the tiny shreds that always fell off when you cut the wax, and started pressing them together, using the heat of my fingers to meld them into perfect little spheres. “This needs to change.” I looked up at him. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” he said patiently.
“Be your salesperson thingy, whatever. If we don’t show them that omegas are good for more than babies and housework, they’ll never learn, and this will never stop.” My voice broke on the last word and my hands stilled, holding the wax ball between my fingers. I stared at it coolly for a moment, then crushed it, all my work gone, destroyed in an instant.
Kind of like Usher.
Abel ignore my wanton destruction and took my hands in his. “Thank you. I know it’s not easy for you.”
“I don’t want someone else raising our babies, but I need to fix this, somehow.” I lifted my eyes to Abel’s. “His death needs to mean something.”
“I trust you. And I’ll be raising our babies with you, so you can scratch that worry off your list,” was all Abel said, but it was the right thing. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment, and the smile I gave him was genuine.
“I can finish this, if you need to go deal with Mitchel,” I told him. “Or even go chase lizards.”
“I’m going to get some work done while it’s quiet,” he said. “What do you plan to do?”
