Page 69 of Omega's Flight
"You want me to make an appointment with Quin?"
Holland grimaced. "Probably the best. Give us a couple of hours in his schedule, okay?" He raised a hand and beckoned Cas toward the table. "Since we're not planning to use those floors for a hospital now, and we've sent the last of the Green Moon shifters that were staying here home, Quin and I were thinking about moving you and Garrick in here. With some extra room, if you talk anyone else into going to law school."
Cas followed him, curious, and his eyes widened at the plan Holland showed him.
"It's pretty good, huh?" Mutch said. "You want anything changed, just let the architect know."
"Jesse put us in touch with one of their architectural firms," Holland said in the mildest of voices, but Cas knew his packbrother well enough to hear the dryness of the tone beneath it.
"It's...wow." Four offices, large ones by the numbers printed along the sides. A conference room and a smaller meeting room. A reception area. He was in love. With a piece of paper. Okay, and maybe all the little green pieces of paper that went into providing it.
"It's coming out of the legal funding," Holland told him. "We can't pull anything more out of construction."
Cas waved his hand and bent over the plans to study them more closely, or perhaps burn them into his brain. "No, that's okay. Garrick can make it up working with Laine. For that matter, maybe I can pick up a bit of work with him too, once I've gotten over that bar." He flicked an eyebrow at Holland, who laughed dutifully at the terrible pun.
"When do you plan to sit for it?" Mutch asked him, in a tone that Cas read as truly interested. Kind of surprising. Or maybe not. The man was weird.
"One wolf in the trenches at a time," Cas joked. "Garrick's going to be pretty much out of commission while he's studying. We can't have both of us off at the same time."
"I can loan you one of my corporate lawyers—" Mutch started, stepping eagerly forward.
Holland blocked him with a casual hand against his chest. "We're fine. We need to do some things for ourselves, Jesse. That's the point, right? For us to be independent?"
Cas watched with interest as Mutch flushed and mumbled something that sounded like an apology. He didn't think it was something the man did often.
Holland looped his arm through Mutch's, a sort of reward for good behavior Cas guessed, because it perked their guest-slash-benefactor-slash-overlord up quite a bit. "We must be getting near to lunch. Why don't I take you down to the restaurant? I'll just let Quin know where we'll be." He gave Cas a get-out-while-you-can look, and started guiding the human toward the corridor.
Cas grinned and strolled along behind them. His packbrother kept up a stream of chatter, nothing important or anything that the pack would have to worry about the human hearing, mostly gossip about who'd agreed to mate and how they were organizing the housing, which youngsters were showing promise for skills the pack needed and who they were currently ignoring their studies for because they thought they were in love with one of the other youngsters. Cas had to admire the skill that went into keeping the conversation going, fending off Mutch's well-meaning attempts to try to micromanage them all, right down to romantic relationships.
How did the man manage as many companies as his family owned if he needed to have his fingers in each and every pie? Maybe Garrick could find out from the lawyer, Eva. She'd likely know, being some sort of cousin on a different level of the family tree to Mutch.
"Maybe I'll join you," he offered. "I need to find something to eat."
"I thought you had to analyze those papers?" Holland asked meaningfully and lifted one eyebrow. What are you doing? he seemed to be asking.
"I can do that later," Cas told him. Don't pull the tail of a wolf bringing game.
Holland sent him a measuring look then shrugged almost imperceptibly. "The more, the merrier. Anyone else you know who might like to go out for lunch?"
C H A P T E R 5 0
I spent the entire afternoon on the picture of Holland and Quin. I didn't think I'd ever spent this much time on a picture, but it was entirely worth it. The shading had been difficult, and my back and hand were sore and cramped, but when I closed my eyes and then looked at the picture again, for a moment I thought they were going to move. It was absolutely my best work ever.
Holland should have this. As a thank you. I glanced at the face of my phone to check the time—if I left right now, I could slip up to the office and leave it there for him, then still get to the school in time to pick up Ann and Pip. Quickly, I packed up the pencils and put them away on top of the refrigerator —to keep little paws off them—then rolled up the picture to protect it.
The snow from Christmas had all disappeared over the course of the afternoon, but it was still cold enough that I was glad of the winter coat. And it had a pocket on the inside that was just the right size for the picture to stay dry in.
A car took up the space in front of the main pack building, one I hadn't seen before. It didn't belong to the pack, I thought, being far too new and just...too rich looking. It was dark, with dark windows, and it shone in the sunshine like it had just been washed, and there was a man sitting inside it, reading something on his phone. I skirted it carefully, in case the stranger decided to pop out and... Well, I didn't know what I expected him to do, but I couldn't deny that alphas and humans all made my stomach twist with anxiety still. With the exception of a few remarkable individuals.
The human didn't seem to find me all that interesting, thank Medeina, only glancing up once from his phone before obviously dismissing me. But I was so focused on watching him for any hint of a threat that I completely missed Holland and a human coming out the front door of the building.
I ran straight into the human. "Oh!"
We swayed in place, getting more tangled the harder we tried to pull away from each other. Holland's arm around my waist gave me the last bit of steadiness I needed to step away from the human, and I'll admit I hid behind him as soon as I was free.
"You okay?" Holland murmured and let me stay in my safe place behind him.
"I'm fine." My heart was pounding like it wanted to leap out of my chest, because I'd just realize who the human I'd run into was. It was the same one who'd dropped by this morning with Mac, and had complimented my drawing.
