Page 107 of Omega's Flight
"I'm sorry," I said automatically, then explained, "I know I'm overstepping. You have more things to worry about than me. If you want him to come here, then I’ll deal with it.“
Holland shook his head. "No, that's not right. Pack members should feel comfortable in their homes.”
"I don't want him to move in with me, but if the only way to keep my pups is to make a space for him here in their lives, I'd be willing to be civil.” My lips twitched, and then his twitched as well. “Maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe you’re right, and he’ll be different here.”
My Alpha's Mate nodded, but I noticed he still looked thoughtful as we broke through the trees and onto the rough road that circled the town.
"I'm assuming," Holland said in a slightly too-casual voice, "that Cas went home this morning?"
"C-Cas?" I stuttered. I hadn't decided yet how public I wanted to make this new stage of our relationship—I was still rolling around in the scent of it in my mind. Did everyone know that he'd spent the night with me?
"Yes, Cas." He squeezed my hand. "Cas disappeared with you last night, and Quin couldn't find him this morning. I put two and two together and came looking for you."
"Is the Alpha...angry?" I ventured, my heart up in my throat.
"Angry about what? Not being able to find Cas?" Holland laughed low in his throat. "It wouldn't be the first time that Cas has gone AWOL over—" His bright flurry of words stumbled to an awkward end. He took a breath and finished at a more measured pace. "I mean, Cas did always enjoy going out and meeting people. He's the most extroverted of the four of them, from what I can tell, though Kaden is probably close behind."
Holland's words rang in my ears and I tucked them away to think more closely about them later. It wasn't a surprise that Cas had had other lovers. Not even that he'd had a lot, which is what Holland's awkward verbal tap-dancing had implied. But I wanted to be someplace quiet before I examined the hot ball of territoriality that had just settled under my breastbone. "He went home to sleep," I said slowly. "Is he not there?"
"He's not answering his phone."
"He's a heavy sleeper." And if I hadn't confessed my sins before, well—it was out in the open now.
Holland made a noise of amusement deep in his throat. "Let's go wake him up then. We need him." He turned abruptly in the direction of the bachelor's apartments and, because my hand was still firmly held in his, I ended up going to. My instincts to force him to let go of me were at war with my knowledge that he was my Alpha's Mate and I was supposed to obey him. That he was also on the board of the omega's council weighed heavy on my mind too—I couldn't afford to lose the money they were spending in their efforts to let me stay here. So I let myself be dragged into awkward-land and hope Cas wouldn't be awake enough to be—well, Cas.
And I was curious. I'd never seen where Cas lived. Really, I'd hardly seen any of the enclave. I could get from my home to the different places I was assigned to work, I could find Bax's and Jason's. I'd even found Bram's, though he wasn't living in it at the moment but in the city, working in a clinic there to gain experience. The daycare, the main building with all its little important places—that was it. I'd been too busy to go exploring, though I wanted to.
But here was bachelor's quarters, which turned out to be a row of narrow buildings stretching back from a gravelled path, the buildings long and narrow and pierced with windows all down their sides. "This is where all the single shifters go?" I asked Holland, who was heading for the second building.
"As soon as they're too old for the barracks. Which happens at different ages for everyone—they have to apply for an apartment and be approved because we don't want them using it as a place to have drunken parties. Being in the same building as the Alpha keeps the uproar to a minimum."
I nodded in understanding. Alcohol was more common here in Mercy Hills than it had been in either of my former packs—in Nevada Ashes, only the public buildings had carried any. I'd never actually tasted it until Degan let me have a mouthful of his beer one summer night not long after we'd been mated. It had been interesting but not interesting enough to want to have more of it, though I'd developed a taste for the cider they made here. But I knew enough about the effects of alcohol to shudder in sympathy at the thought of dealing with a couple hundred newly-minted adults who had been drinking.
The door shut heavily behind us and we clanged up the metal stairs to the second floor. Holland must have been here before because he walked straight down the hall and knocked on a door that looked like any other door in the hall. There were no numbers and I wondered for a moment how he could be sure it was Cas's apartment, until I took another breath and realized the space around the door was filled with his scent.
Rustling noises sounded inside, then the shuffling of bare feet, until the latch clicked and Cas, eyes still half-closed, opened the door. "Yeah?" he muttered, then his eyes opened wide. "Holl! Is everything all right?"
I wondered if I was imagining things, but I thought he scanned Holland's body, for what reason I couldn't imagine. But when Holland shook his head, Cas relaxed and it was then that his eyes fell on me.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked. "You okay?"
I glanced to Holland to explain.
"They've called a meeting of the Alphas. We don't have a date yet, but we got the notice this morning that Quin is going to be called to appear and justify what he's done."
"You think this is over Raleigh?" Cas stepped back and ushered us in. His hand in the small of my back sent a tendril of excitement curling over my skin and I was sorry when he pulled it away to set out a chair for me. "Sorry, let me tidy things up a little." Hastily, he threw the bedcovers back over the mattress, gave a half-assed attempt to smooth out the wrinkles, then perched on the corner closest to us. "Tell me." The goofiness was gone now and I saw the alpha preparing himself for battle.
"It's pretty much what I said. Quin has the advisement, he'd like you to come talk to him and maybe see if we can get hold of Garrick to come up with a plan. Or at least figure out what we need for a plan."
"Plan A, or Plan B?" Cas asked cryptically.
"Both. I'm trying to avoid buying omegas. As you said, it sets a bad precedent. And Quin's right, we could use that money for other things."
"Yeah, we'll work on that. There's other ways we can pay though and not make it look like a payment..." His voice trailed off and his eyes grew unfocused. "I need to call that divorce lawyer. Maybe it's time to move outside the pack structure like Montana Border did." He jumped up and began pulling open drawers in the cabinet I hadn't noticed until now. "Hang on while I get dressed."
I was kind of sad that he was going to put regular clothes on—he'd gone to sleep shirtless, and the pajama bottoms he'd changed into were worn thin with age. Not quite see-through, but even sexier for the difficulty I had making out anything more than the general shape of him beneath it. Then again, it meant a chance to see him without clothes again, which was more enticing than I'd expected. I hoped Bram was right proximity being the axe that would sever the omega bond.
And... he spoiled my plan by disappearing into what I guessed what his tiny bathroom. While the water ran on the other side of the door, I looked around the room, wondering if it would tell me anything different than Cas had.
