Page 129 of Omega's Flight
Raleigh shook his head and stepped back. "No. I don't want him in here." He looked tired, and when he turned to walk back into the house, he walked like he'd been doing hard labor all day. "Come on in. I need to talk to someone who makes sense to me." He collapsed onto the couch and let his head fall back, his eyes closed and every line of his body speaking to how done he was with this day.
"I make sense to you?" Cas closed the door behind him and went to sit on the couch next to Raleigh.
"You know you do. Goofball." Raleigh smiled and laid his head on Cas's shoulder. "Lysoonka, it was so tense. Like he really expected everything to go back to the way it was, only here, not in Jackson-Jellystone."
Cas put his arm around Raleigh's shoulders. "How did the pups react?"
Raleigh was silent for a long moment. "Is it bad of me that I'm disappointed with Ann? She was so excited to see him. On the way home she asked if we were all going to live together again and I just… ugh.” Raleigh pinched the bridge of his nose and then shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “Henry's not old enough, I think, to really notice when anyone but me isn't around. Pip wants nothing to do with him, which Degan doesn't understand. You should have seen him trying to explain to her tonight that what she saw was an adult thing and it wasn't something that adults did to pups. She wasn't having any of it. I think you're right—you've got a baby lawyer in there."
He couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped him at Raleigh's word picture, but the tension still radiated off of Raleigh like the sun at noon. "So, overall, some good, some bad?" He felt Raleigh suck in a long breath, then let it out, and the tightness of his shoulders went with it.
"Pretty much. I wish I knew how this was all going to turn out!" He thumped a fist on his thigh and his body went tight again.
Cas pressed a kiss to his temple. "Shhh, it'll all be fine. Bax is rooting for you." Funny how they were all getting used to Bax's ability to subtly guide events. Raleigh's expression, though, said that Bax's support wasn't what he needed tonight to deal with everything that had gone on today. So what to do? Cas kneaded the muscle of Raleigh's upper arm and had an idea. "Are the pups here or at Degan's?"
"Ann and Henry are with him. Pip's asleep in her room." Raleigh twisted in his embrace and looked up at him with an anxious expression. "I'm not really in the mood for sex tonight, either. I'm sorry if you came here for that."
"Like that's the only thing I want you for?" Cas pretended to be offended, while deep inside his emotions warred against each other for dominance, the hurt he felt at realizing that Raleigh was still waiting for Cas to become an alphahole, and anger at Degan and the other shifters in Raleigh's family for teaching him that that was the best he could expect. He pushed them aside, because now wasn't the time to sort out his own feelings. "You're tired, you've got things coming at you from all directions, and you keep trying to look after everyone." He raised his hand to stop Raleigh's protest. "No, don't argue, you know I'm right. You've got the pups, you spent all day yesterday getting your ex-mate's house ready for him and putting more thought into it than I put into my own place. And you've taken those poor boys from Perseguir into your own personal pack." He paused and gave Raleigh a stern look, until he saw the urge to argue with him die in Raleigh's eyes. "That's right," he continued. "So, since you haven't looked after yourself in a long time, I'm going to do it." He stood up and held out a hand to help the other man up. "Come with me."
"Cas," Raleigh replied on a note of warning, but Cas simply shook his head.
"No sex, I know. You really believe that I do all my thinking below the belt?"
A flush of color rushed up into Raleigh's cheeks. "No," he said, shamefaced.
"Then trust me." Cas pulled him to his feet and led him back toward Raleigh's bedroom. "You go strip down and I'll be back in a minute."
Raleigh stopped dead. "I thought you said—"
"Lysoon, you're stubborn when you get an idea in your head." Cas leaned down to kiss his cheek. "A massage, you goose. You're so tense I could probably use your shoulder muscles to hammer nails. Not that you could convince me to hammer nails. I'd rather have someone else do that for me. And I bet Adelaide would be tutting and fussing over your blood pressure. Be kind to old Addie, would you, and let me help you not burst a blood vessel?"
Raleigh gaped at him, the corners of his mouth turning up, and then he started to laugh. Just a bit of a fizz at first, the more, until he'd closed his eyes and leaned against the wall for support. "Are you never going to let me feel sorry for myself?" he complained, but the words hiccuped out of him with the laughter.
"Why should you feel sorry for yourself?" Cas asked reasonably. "You have a house, your pups, a promising new career, and most of all—me!"
His jokes did what he'd hoped they'd do. Raleigh laughed some more, then reached out to stroke Cas's cheek. "All right. I trust you. But I'm going to put a towel down so we don't make a mess."
"Right. See, this is why I need you, to be smart about practical things."
Raleigh kissed him and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the kitchen. "You know where the oil is."
"I do indeed." Cas watched Raleigh disappear toward the bedroom with a feeling of immense satisfaction. They'd get through this, and if this situation did nothing else, it reminded Raleigh that he did have people he could turn to for help and support. With that promising thought in mind, Cas headed for the kitchen to hunt out the bottle of oil.
C H A P T E R 9 0
W hen Cas woke the next morning, he was in Raleigh's bed, but he was alone. The sound of someone moving around in the kitchen, though, told him where—at the very least—his bedmate had gotten to. He relaxed into the pillow and thought back to the night before, puzzling through the differences that Raleigh still seemed to expect. He was much better at being good to himself, this omega that Cas was slowly claiming, but last night had been a surprise and a bit of a stumble on Cas's part.
The scuffing of tiny feet broke into his train of thoughts and he turned his head to see Pip creeping into the room, a huge grin on her face. "Boo!" she yelled, then cackled with glee when Cas recoiled in mock terror.
"Pip!" Raleigh called over the sounds of breakfast being made. "What did I say?"
"You told me to wake him up for breakfast," Pip giggled.
"I didn't mean scare him to death in the process." Raleigh appeared in the doorway and shook his head fondly at his pup. "Go wash your hands, it's almost ready."
"Yay!" she yelled and ran out of the room.
Raleigh came to sit on the edge of the bed. "Good morning."
