Page 122 of Omega's Flight
"How are you going to look after them? You can't look after pups and work—who ever heard of omegas working outside the home anyway? It's not right. You should be at home, doing what you're made for."
“I look after them the same way any alpha, beta, gamma or delta does. And I find your attitude insulting, telling me I’m less capable than any other shifter. I think it's time you left," I said through gritted teeth. "If you can't see how much better it is for everyone here, then I don't know how to convince you."
"Yeah, but they've been taking money from the humans—"
"Enough," I snapped. "That hasn't been going on that long. I remember you complaining when Abel came to bargain for Bax about how rich Mercy Hills was and how they should share with the other packs. That was way before the Mutches ever came out of their den and offered the money. And if you love your pups, you'd want them raised here, in a house, with their own bedrooms and a new school being built and a damned hospital in the enclave in case they got sick!" I was so frustrated with him I thought I might start throwing things and I gripped Cas's arms and pulled them around me, as much for the comfort as for the assurance that if I lunged for Degan, Cas would hold me back. "I don't understand you."
He looked stunned, his jaw hanging open in shock. "I don't understand you. I don't know why you're trying to throw away a perfectly good mating. I looked after you, you never went without a meal. I brought you home the chain I promised, but you were already gone." His voice had gone bitter and I had a moment of doubt, thinking of him carefully choosing a chain, balancing the cost of it against the things we needed.
"I think we should invite him in," Cas said, but it wasn't a friendly sounding invitation. His arms tightened around me and he dipped his head to scent along my temple like proving his ownership.
Fuck that. "Why?" I demanded.
"He should see what the pups have here." Cas's arms loosened around me and he stepped back. "Then he can make his choice."
Cas and I stared at each other for a long, tense minute. It was strange how I could read him now, see how he wanted to establish himself as the more dominant alpha with Degan, feel his desire to crush the man who had once been my mate. "Behave yourself," I whispered. I didn't need a fight in my living room.
He nodded, then turned and walked back into the house. "Do you want anything to drink?" he called over his shoulder.
"How about sweet tea for all of us?" He was subtle, my Mercy Hills love. Making it obvious that he knew his way around my home, had rights to use my things. I could have been angry about it, but I could see his strategy too—one designed to keep me from dumping him out the door on his own ass. He knew I'd do it, too. But it also put Degan on another alpha's territory, which I was guessing Cas expected would keep the aggression down.
I turned back to Degan. "We might as well talk about this in comfort." I stepped aside and ushered him into my home.
While Degan's eyes widened in awed appreciation, I thought back to my first days in Mercy Hills. Not that long ago, as things went. I remembered how impressive this house had been at the time, with tight windows and walls that weren't full of cracks or missing paneling. The way the floor didn't creak, the relative newness of the furniture. The television on the wall.
"I... Is this really your house?" he asked in a subdued voice.
"Mine. And the pups. Bax has promised me something nicer once the rest of the construction is done, but they pulled everyone off the houses to have them building the hospital." I looked around the living room, seeing it with new eyes. "I don't know, I've grown fond of this place. We've had lots of good things happen here." I smiled and touched the wall where Cas has measured the pups, the little black line with their neatly written names and dates a link to the future I thought we could have.
"Does this work?" he asked, touching the corner of the television.
"Not for television, but the cabinet underneath it has some movies that people have given the pups, and we can borrow them from the library or from other packmembers. The cables running up to it are for the DVD player." I did my best to sound casual, because I wanted Degan to understand what he would be taking away from the pups if he forced the old pack law on us, but I still found it exciting to be able to choose a movie and sit down in my own living room with the pups to watch whatever we wanted, instead of having to crowd into one of the public buildings to see what had been voted on by the majority of the pack.
He opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it, shaking his head slightly in what I read as disbelief. I waited a moment to see if he would say anything, but I thought my house was making my point for me, so I led him toward the kitchen, where Cas had set out glasses of cold sweet tea and a plate of cookies.
"Thank you." I rubbed his arm briefly and took a seat beside one of the glasses. Cas sat down beside me, which left the last seat to be the one across the table from mine. Probably for the best—I wanted to be able to see Degan, and I didn't want him trying to get cozy in an ill-advised attempt to coax me back to his side. I sipped at the tea, but ignored the cookies. If I kept eating the way I was, they'd have to roll me around the enclave.
Degan threw an uncomfortable glance at Cas. "Does he have to be here?"
"He's a part of the pups' lives now. He needs to be part of any decision I make." I watched Degan carefully, expecting an explosion of temper, but he just slumped a little more in his chair.
Was it wrong of me to feel so angry about that? I wondered for a moment what would have happened if Cas wasn't here—would he have tried to bully me, frighten me into giving in to him? Given our history... I didn't really know. And that was the hardest part of all this, because for every unpleasant memory with him, I had one where we were happy. I wanted to be fair, but what did fair look like in our situation? One of us was going to lose the pups, and that wasn't right. Even if I talked to Abel about those pills he had mentioned, so that I could go back to Jackson-Jellystone if no other option presented without worrying about having any more pups, and if we could figure out some way to make it work, it still wouldn't be the same.
"They're my pups too." Degan fiddled with his glass but didn't drink. "I don't know... I thought we were good, at least in the beginning. I know it was tough the last while and it wasn't fair to take it out on you. I don't know how you fed us all on what you had to work with." He looked up at me and smiled sheepishly. "I had to start going to eat at Ma's sometimes, 'cause there wasn't anything left in the kitchen."
Maybe he thought that would make me more sympathetic to him, but all it did was make me want to sigh in frustration. "That was my job, my contribution to the family. I would have worked outside the home if I could have."
"Raleigh, what would people have thought?" He sounded outraged and I had to put a hand on Cas's arm to keep him from saying the things I could tell he was just bursting to let fly with.
"I suppose they would have thought you respected me and wanted me to live a full and independent life." Thank you, Bax and Holland, for that turn of phrase.
"But they would have said I couldn't support you!"
"They wouldn't have been wrong," I replied tartly. "But we could have told them whatever we wanted. Except every time I brought it up, you started growling and fussing, so eventually I stopped." I let the words And then look what happened hang in the air between us.
He glanced over at Cas, apparently realized that he wasn't going anywhere, and turned back to me. "I want to try again. I can do better, be a better alpha. I talked Roland into letting me try out the car business all year long, taking profits from each of the cars I sell as my own. We'll fix up the house. You can have that little alpha you always wanted."
I did want a little alpha, but I thought I already had one in Pip. Degan was talking about a little boy alpha, though why it made a difference to him when it made no difference to ninety-nine percent of the pack I'd never understand. Maybe he didn't believe Pip was an alpha, but I thought I saw an alpha's protectiveness in the way she looked after those around her.
