Page 21 of Sanctuary
“On the wall behind the clothes.” Ori watched him pull the straps over his shoulders, then stepped in to let them out a little and give Patton some more room inside them. “What do you think? Better than the sacks, right?”
“Yeah. And it looks like more than a month to get there, depending on how long we walk each day.” Patton made a face, and reached out to rub a hand over Ori’s arm. “I’m sorry. I should have planned this better.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What else were you going to be able to do without letting them know?” He glanced around, remembering the lectures about proper behavior in front of humans and how fussy they got about two males being affectionate, then leaned in to rub his cheek against Patton’s. “Think about it, Pat. Everything’s locked down, accounted for, signed for, assigned, watched like a hawk on a mouse’s nest. I’m surprised you actually got me out.”
“You are?” Patton said, his whole body speaking of his shock.
Ori nodded. “You think they wanted to lose that deal with Jordan Bay? I’ve hardly had a second alone in the past two months—I thought they were going to move one of the pups in with me, to provide a witness to my purity.” He felt the snarl rising up his throat and stopped himself, taking a deep breath and wrapping himself up in the memories of his and Patton’s first night together. The pack couldn’t separate them now, right? “So trust me when I say that it was a plan worthy of the guys from that Tom Cruise movie with the spies. They couldn’t have done it better.” He wanted to kiss Patton, needed to kiss him, and he thought Patton must have smelled it in his scent, because Patton’s pupils dilated and he took a deep, shaky breath.
“What else do we need, then? I’ll bow to your expertise.” He grinned and, even if he still looked a little shaken, he seemed more himself, more in charge once more.
“Cooking things, I think,” Ori said, accepting the change of topic. “We might as well be comfortable.” Or as comfortable as they could be, while living wild.
They found shelves full of kitchen things on the other side of the store. Patton left him to it, saying he was going to try to save the map to his phone so they wouldn’t be dependent on finding a place with wifi they could get on.
Ori picked carefully through the shelves of cookware, looking for the most useful and the cheapest things he could find. The money would only last so long, but Ori still remembered all the food they harvested around the enclave. And Patton had said he could hunt for meat too. They’d figure it out. They had too, or Ori would be hauled back to Perseguir, and then Lysoonka only knew what would happen next. Nothing good, Ori was sure.
Finally, when he’d pared his list of purchases down to the absolute minimum, he tracked Patton down—funnily enough, in the toy section. “Here, we should get these. And I found some socks still new in the package.” Ori handed him his finds. “And the little frying pan will be useful.” He bit his lip. “I hope it’s not too expensive.”
Patton checked the tags hanging from some of the items. “We’re going to be a month getting there, I think we’ll need them.”
“Okay.” Ori bounced a little on his toes, suddenly excited. “Let’s go pay, and then we can get food and get out of here.” Ori hummed as he followed Patton up to the front of the store. It was very much like going to shop at the pack’s central supply desk, except he didn’t have to wait for everything to be brought to him. They dumped everything onto the counter and the woman behind it tapped it all into the computer, then told them the total. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, but more than he’d hoped, and he had to suppress a wince as Patton handed over fifty of their human dollars to the woman, getting back five and some change.
Ori didn’t even wait until they were out of the store before he started packing all their things into the backpacks. “This will be a lot easier to carry,” he said. “And we can use our bags for other things.” Somehow, he managed to fit everything into the two backpacks, even the new clothes, and then they were off down the street, watching for the grocery store that the guy at the gas station had told them about.
At the grocery store, Ori took over again, walking up and down the aisles, scrutinizing everything that went into their baskets.
“You’re looking at that can of tuna the way I’d think the alphas would look at a rabbit on full moon,” Patton whispered, his breath tickling across Ori’s ear.
Ori gasped and Patton chuckled, his scent changing slightly, a heavier musk. “Funny beta,” Ori said severely, but he couldn’t help the way his body just seemed always aware of Patton. Like Patton was the sun, and he was a planet orbiting him. But maybe that was what being mated was like, outside all the other things that everyone talked about. He’d have to think about it.
It did help him realize that this shopping trip was making Patton feel better. Every carefully chosen can or bag of food placed in his or Patton’s basket loosened the tension in Patton’s shoulders another notch,until he was almost grinning and certainly goofy by the time they’d covered the whole store. Ori chose carefully, comparing prices and weight and did his best to the get the most food for their tiny fund of human money. Finally, Ori sighed. “I don’t want to spend too much more, because it’s going to get heavy. But I don’t know when we’ll have this chance again.”
“It’s okay. We’ll load the heavy stuff in my pack,” Patton offered.
“That’s hardly fair,” Ori said, but in truth, he was relieved. Patton was taller and he’d been working hard the past few years, digging trenches and forcing piping into place with not much more than the strength of his body. Ori had worked hard too, but scrubbing stains out of clothing and kneading bread until your shoulders ached didn’t build up the kind of muscle that Patton was carrying.
The food took another forty of their rapidly dwindling dollars, but when they had it all packed into their backpacks and their no longer empty sacks, the weight of it was surprisingly comforting.
“Ready to go?” Patton asked with a grin. “Start our new life?”
“All set.” He wanted to kiss him right there in the street, but there were humans around and he didn’t know what they’d do. Instead, he bumped his shoulder against Patton’s and followed him off north, toward the road to freedom.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y
A t lunchtime, they found a small green space, not really a park but something like it, and laid out their food on top of their blanket. They opened a can of tuna to share with a container of cooked rice that Ori had apologetically explained as a splurge, and then finished it off with some of the fresh fruit that Ori had chosen.
"I wonder if Mercy Hills eats food like here," Ori mused happily. "I heard that they were really involved with humans, that one of them is even spending, you know, time with one."
Patton had heard that rumor too, and he was surprised anyone had let Ori hear it. "I don't know. It'll be interesting to find out. The idea doesn't bother you?" It bothered him a little, because it made him wonder if the rumors he’d discounted about how odd the Mercy Hills shifters were could actually be true. He knew they let their omegas run rampant--it was a source of slightly hysterical and more than slightly scandalized laughter in Perseguir.
"No, I think it's marvelous," Ori told him, biting into an apple. "I mean, I want pups some day." His hand went to his belly, and then he abruptly pulled it away. "But I wonder what it would be like to be more than just a breeder."
"What would you want to do?" Patton asked, suddenly struck by the idea.
Ori looked thoughtful. "I don't know, really." He regarded his apple core for a moment, then took another bite. "Maybe something to do with stories," he mumbled, a hand over his mouth to hide his chewing. "I like stories. But I haven't really thought too much about it, you know?" He swallowed and gazed off into the distance. "So much seems possible now." To Patton's great surprise, he leaned over and planted the sweetest of platonic kisses on his cheek. "Thank you. It's the best present anyone's ever given me."
Patton blushed, and his tongue went all in a tangle. "You're welcome," he muttered.
