Page 34 of Omega's Flight
Cas opened his mouth to volunteer, but the words wouldn't come out. He wanted to stay and watch over Raleigh, but he knew he had no reason or right to. "I'll go," he finally forced out. "Where are they?"
"Henry will be with the toddlers," Bax said from the door. "I can go."
Holland slipped past him and came to stand at the side of the bed, taking the hand that Cas had almost forgotten he was holding. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I'm sorry—" Raleigh apology cut off abruptly when Holland shook his head.
"No apologies. These things happen, and if it was going to happen, I'm glad it was here, with the resources we have to make you better. Bax said he left you his phone?"
"Yes, it's in my pocket." Raleigh reached for his hip, then put his hand to his mouth. "Oh, it's in my jacket."
"I'll get it," Holland said. "It's in my apartment."
"I'll wait for you here," Bax said, and moved up to take Holland's place at Raleigh's side. He shot Cas an unreadable look, then backed up and whispered something to Holland. Holland's face froze and his lips twitched, a reaction that made the hair stand up on the back of Cas's neck. What was there in this situation for his packbrother to find funny?
Holland left, and Bram disappeared out the door, coming back a few minutes later with a tall stool. "Here, sit down," he told Bax, and set the stool beside him.
"Bram, can you start a file for him?" Adelaide asked.
"Sure."
"Bring it back here to fill out. I'm going to go through our stock of medicines and read through the instructions for the ultrasound again. Call me if anything changes."
"I will." Bram scurried out of the room in her wake, but was back almost immediately with a file folder and a form printed in pale green. "I'm going to have to do a quick exam again, Raleigh. That okay?"
"Sure," Raleigh said, but Cas noticed that his fingers flexed in Bax's grip.
Bram set the folder down on a rolling tray-table and reached for Raleigh's wrist, then paused and turned toward Cas. "Can I get you to step outside for a few minutes?"
"Sure." More reluctantly than he expected, Cas moved away from the bed and headed for the hallway. "Door closed?" he asked over his shoulder when he reached it.
"Please," Bram said and moments later Cas was on the wrong side of the door.
He stood there for a full minute, his eyes focused blindly on the cheap wood and wondered what to do with the rest of his night. It was obvious that his services were no longer required, but he wasn't in any mood now for dancing. The new omega was losing his pup—it couldn't have been any plainer if someone'd written it up on the wall neon paint. It wasn't anything to do with him, but the knowledge still cast a pall over the night.
Cas wasn't needed here, but his packbrother was upstairs getting ready for Full Moon, and Cas had questions.
C H A P T E R 2 5
H olland opened the apartment door wearing an exasperated expression, which cleared when he saw who it was. "Oh, it's you. Is he okay?" He stepped back to let Cas in, then closed the door behind him. "I can get changed again if they need me."
"Raleigh's fine, as far as I know. Bram's doing an exam and I got kicked out, so I thought I'd come up here."
"Why?" Holland turned and walked off on him, but Cas just followed until they were both crammed into the bathroom.
"I wanted to ask you something."
Holland picked up his hairbrush and began carefully separating his thick hair into sections. Cas had seen the operation before—Holland had explained once that it was the hair as much as anything that got him modeling jobs, so it was worth the effort to be careful with it.
"Go on," Holland told him, and began slowly drawing the brush through his hair.
"You've read all the omega diaries, if I heard correctly. I wanted to know... That is..." Cas paused and debated how to put this out there. "I got the impression that omega matings didn't always work like they do now." It was lame, but it was an entry to the topic. He had other questions he could ask once he knew what direction the answers would take him.
"No, they didn't." Holland's voice was curt, but the hairbrush continued its mesmerizing glide through his hair. "Why do you want to know?"
"What was it like? Before? What were we before we were crushed into these tiny spaces and left to survive in whatever way we could?"
Holland's hands slowed and his expression turned thoughtful. "I can only tell you what Cosimo wrote, but I got the idea that the things we accept as normal, he found them troubling because they were different. In one of them, he talks about a young omega and how she hadn't yet found someone she wanted to mate. And later in the year, he mentions that she's being given as a mate to an alpha who had been causing trouble within the pack and he said straight out in that entry that it wasn't right." Holland opened his mouth as if he meant to say something more, then shook his head and pressed his lips tight together. "I don't know enough."
