Page 22 of Lone Wolf
“Well, I don’t see why it needs to end, as such,” she mused, staring off into space. “I’ve been trying to convince the Alpha to let me set up a puppy-care center in one of the houses, or just behind them. Something that’s open longer hours, or even overnight. For the ones that want to keep working after they’ve had their pups. We lose too much good talent that way. But you know what alphas can be like, so darn traditional.” Her gaze fell on me again and I realized that, though I was a fellow omega and packmember of hers, I was also a lever for her to move her mate in the direction she wanted him to go. “I take it you don’t want to mate the alpha.”
I only just barely kept myself from making a huff of frustration. “I don’t know who the alpha is. I’ve never slept with a shifter. Not that I knew of, anyway. Apparently,” I gestured at my belly, “I’m not as good as telling the two of us apart as I thought I was.”
Verena pursed her lips and looked me up and down. “You know, people often put us omegas down as being too much swayed by our emotions. All instinct, no logic. But sometimes, if you listen to your instincts, they’ll lead you in the right direction. Tell me, what areyourinstincts saying about how you ended up pregnant? Which of the three does your body say it was?”
But I already knew: “David.” And suddenly I was so, so very angry with him. If he’d been in the room I would have gone straight for his throat. Howdarehe? How dare he put his pleasure above my future? I hoped he was having a good laugh about it now with his friends, because if Ievergot my hands on him, I was going rip his heart out andstompon it!
“At the very least, he should be brought to an awareness of his responsibilities in this. If he’s a feral, it might be possible for the Alpha to entice him to join us here. If he does have a pack, the Alpha will bring a council complaint against them and we can negotiate something from there.” She frowned. “They may demand you mate him.”
I stared at her, the anger still rumbling under my skin.
She laughed softly. “I’ll remind the Alpha that they already had their chance.” And just like that, the tone in the room changed. “I’ll leave it to your mother to sort out how to handle your work until you give birth. The omega bond will make it difficult for you to maintain your standing in the houses.” She gestured at my bracelet and I instinctively put a hand over it to protect it. “It’s better to take a leave and keep your rank than have it stripped for lack of performance. If you like, I can speak to her about this.”
I didn’t know what to say. It felt like I was caught in a flash flood, being tumbled over and over in the water and absolutely nothing I could do or say could save me from whatever was going to happen. Numbly, I nodded, then looked down at my hands. Suddenly, I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was curl up in this too comfortable chair and sleep until it was all over and decided. “Thank you.” At least I still remembered my manners.
Verena leaned forward and put one of her hands over mine. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll figure something out. In the meantime, you’re going to want to start on things for the baby.” She got to her feet and beckoned to me to so the same.
Curious, I followed her across the room, to stand in front of a set of shelves covered in skeins of soft yarn and bundles of fuzzy flannel cloth and denim and stretchy t-shirt material.
“Pick out a few balls of yarn and some cloth with patterns you like, we’ll start building you a supply of clothing for the pup. And curtains and blankets and all the other little things you’re going to need going forward. We’re a couple of months behind, but we’ll get you started anyway.” She showed me a cubby farther along the wall. “Put whatever you pick in here, that will all be yours and no one will touch it. We have a small group that gets together here in the morning to work on baby clothes.”
“I’m not very good at sewing,” I admitted, but I couldn’t help touching the downy softness of the balls of yarn and running my hands over the fabric.
“There will be people here to help you with that. And it’s nice to have other pregnant shifters to talk with, without the sires around to be made uncomfortable.” She giggled and winked at me, and it somehow made it all feel just a little more right. I knew at some level that in this she was being Alpha’s Mate, and seeing to the emotional health of the pack, but I realized I was also grateful for the help and the promise of support while I figured this out.
“Thank you,” I said slowly, my eyes roaming over the choices in front of us. “I’d love to come.”
“People usually start arriving around nine, once they’ve got the rest of the family off to school or work or what have you, and we usually break up just before lunch. You don’t have to come every day, though some do. It all depends on your schedule, of course. You might want to come more often to get caught up, but I’ll leave that to you and your mother to sort out.”
Ma. And Da. I held back a sigh and reached out to touch some of the fabric. “This is nice.”
“It is.” She promptly picked it up and dropped it in my cubby. “I recommend this one, as well.” And then the issues surrounding the unknown sire of my pup disappeared beneath a mountain of advice, and yarn, and cloth. And if I didn’t know what exactly my future was going to hold, I at least knew that my mornings from now until May would be spent doing my best to prepare for whatever it brought me.
I wasn’t entirely okay with that, but it was for the moment the best I could do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It had become a habit of Damian’s, each night before he went to sleep, no matter where he was—unless they were on a communications blackout, anyway—to go to the Nevada Ashes website and slowly scroll through all the pictures and videos and descriptions as he worked his way toward Salem’s. No, it wasn’t as good as having pack around him, but it eased something inside his brain.
They’d been going over surveillance satellite photos for the past week. He was bored and his baser nature was trying to talk him into going back to Nevada Ashes again. On an intellectual level, he knew it would be a bad idea—what he’d gotten there was fine, for what it was. But it wasn’t the connection he craved and he had a very real fear that his need would make him do something he’d regret forever.
Tonight he took the laptop to bed with him, along with what was probably a triple of good rum, and slowly began his ritual. He started in all the other houses, staring at the faces and imagining what it would be like to live among them. Tried to picture what their wolf forms would look like, what they’d smell like, sound like. Who would be a good tracker, who would be the one watching out for the weak or ill. Eventually, he’d make his way over to the Silver page.
Around Midwinter, Salem had changed his photo and the short video in his profile. Damian had dug about in the Internet until he found the old ones—now he had all of them saved on his computer. The last one had been winter themed, or Christmas themed. Would it be replaced with a new one, or with the old one again? The not knowing was hard in the strangest way.
Tonight… wait, where was it? He clicked around, going carefully through all the pages. Nothing.
Salem was gone. There wasn’t a trace of him anywhere on the site.
Damian lay there and stared at the screen, so many emotions rampaging around inside him he couldn’t even begin to figure them out.
In the end, he decided it had to be a good thing. He’d make it be a good thing. Someone had finally seen Salem’s value and coaxed him out of that house. Maybe he was even now mated and planning on pups with his new mate. Damian could picture him already, rubbing his mate’s shoulders and asking about his day with that soul-deep sense of caring that had warmed Damian so much their one night together. And later, in their bedroom…
Damian threw the computer across the room and then threw the rum after it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My life changed after that meeting with the Alpha, but it wasn’t all bad. As far as we could tell, the shifter who’d gotten this pup on me was a feral—the Alpha had requested help from the other packs, but we all knew what they thought of us. The only one that had any sympathy for our situation was probably Mercy Hills, but they were weird and I didn’t really ask too much about it. Whether they found the alpha or not didn’t really make much difference to me. I was figuring things out, and I didn’t need an alpha poking his nose into my business. A few tried—I fixed that.
