Page 9 of Omega's Heart
Dad came over with my bags at that point and was introduced to the Alpha. Interestingly, the Alpha did the same thing with Dad as he’d done with Phineas and offered his scent, though Dad was only just barely able to call himself an alpha. Like Phineas, he kept a respectful distance from Julius, who nodded and smiled, though his expression still struck me as kind of vacant. I hope he’s not stupid. Although he might be easier to live with if he was.
We followed the Alpha through the door and into a large open foyer with several doors leading off in different directions.
“Laundry’s there,” the Alpha said, nodding at one of the doors. “It’s not the only one, but it’s the newest and tends to be busier than the one at the east end of town, so if you want to be sure to get a machine, my mate tells me early in the morning is best.” He pointed out the other doors, mostly places I wouldn’t have any reason to go, then explained that most of this floor and the one above it were given over to Supplies, which was like our version of Warehouse. Though apparently Supplies also had a warehouse—small w, though.
My head was starting to hurt.
We piled into a small room, so small we didn’t all fit. Mac and Abel laughed and waved, loping off toward the front door with the excitement of pups on Full Moon. The doors slid shut as I watched them, and then the room moved.
The first thing I did was panic and I think I must have left bruises on my Dad’s arm until I realized this had to be an elevator. I’d never been in one—never even seen one, though I knew there were a couple scattered around in different buildings in White River. The Alpha pretended not to notice my startled response, which I was grateful for. I was beginning to feel like an idiot, especially since Julius just stood there like this was nothing special.
The doors slid open and while I didn’t make a break for the hallway, it was close. Dad handed me one of my suitcases and took the other himself, and then we followed the Alpha down the hallway and around a corner. He pointed out a door as we passed it. “My apartment, if you need anything. Holland’s home more now that we’re expecting another pup, and pack business keeps him busy as well. Plus, we don’t need the money he was bringing in as much as we used to, so he can be pickier about which campaigns or picture shoots he takes.”
Yep, brain melting. I sighed quietly as we came to another pair of doors in the hallway, almost directly across from each other. “Guest apartment,” the Alpha said, gesturing to the one on the left and farther down the hallway. “And this one is where you’ll be living.” He stood back and gestured to Julius, who pulled out a key on a ring with a heavy black thing hanging from it and opened the door.
“I should probably move to the other bedroom,” Julius said quietly, sizing me up from the corner of his eye. He had huge shadows under his eyes and in the brighter light, the tone of his skin was sickly.
“I’m fine anywhere,” I told him. “My room at home was just big enough for my bed. I don’t want to put you out of your space.” He looked relieved and I decided then and there that, as much as I could, I was going to look out for him.
Julius led me down the hallway. We passed a bathroom done up in pastel colors and stopped at the next door. “This is yours,” he said quietly and opened the door, stepping out of the way so I could be the first one through.
I reached behind me to take the other suitcase from my Dad because I didn’t know how much room there’d be to move around when I went in, but the room was bigger than I’d expected. Not the size of my parents’ room back home, but maybe the size of the next largest one in the house. The bed was a double with a clean, simple, home-made quilt on it and four pillows stacked up at the head. A dresser with a mirror on it stood on the opposite wall and a second one without a mirror kitty-corner against the third wall, underneath a window that looked out over the stretching expanse of trees that would be Mercy Hills’ space to run on Full Moon.
A bustle of noise distracted me from the view and I followed Julius back toward the long room that made up the kitchen and dining and living rooms. There, we found two tall, black-haired shifters —both stunning and obviously related—starting to unload a couple of collapsible crates onto the kitchen table. One of them was very pregnant but he moved so easily it almost wasn’t noticeable.
“I’m sorry,” the taller of the two, the pregnant one, was saying. “I didn’t have time to cook, so I ordered from the restaurant. The food’s good, though, and there’s plenty to choose from.” He folded down the sides of his crate and leaned it against the wall out of the way, then turned to look at us. His eyes fixed on me and he held out his hands, ignoring Phineas and coming toward me with a welcoming smile. “Felix, we are so very happy to have you here. And we hope you’ll be happy to be here with us. My name’s Holland, I’m your Alpha’s Mate. This is Cale, my brother.”
“I’m gonna eat,” Cale grumbled.
“Here at the table,” Holland tossed over his shoulder, but there was the snap of command in the words. He turned his attention back on me and smiled again. “Come eat and we’ll talk. About whatever. I’m sure you’ve got some questions.”
I nodded dumbly and followed him back to the table. Cale and Julius had already set it and Julius was coming back with glasses of water. I noticed the shiny gleam of stainless steel from the refrigerator and shiny black from the stove and suddenly wanted to cook in this beautiful, modern kitchen.
We sat—Phineas pulled out a chair for Holland, who accepted with a graceful word of thanks— and then the meal began.
C H A P T E R 7
T he discussion that night tracked from who my family were and who I was related to, over to what my life had been like in Winter Moon, took a sharp turn into pack politics that I didn’t even try to follow, and then veered into a discussion of my Dad’s work as a horticulturist in some of our indica greenhouses.
It was late now, long past time I’d normally have been in bed. Everyone had finally left and I’d managed to hide myself away in my room without, I thought, giving offense to Cale or Julius. I needed a moment, to breathe and to think.
The mattress sank beneath me when I sat on the edge and I couldn’t bring myself even to lie down on it, because that would mean taking my shoes off and I was too mentally and physically exhausted to even lean down and untie my laces.
I was here. In Mercy Hills.
Why did I want to just bury my face in my pillows and scream?
A soft knock disturbed the peace of my bedroom. I grabbed handfuls of my hair and tugged, then sighed and got up to open the door.
It was Julius. “Shhh,” he said and held out a clear bottle filled with a pale yellow liquid. “I was a mess my first night here. Cale got me drunk and I was able to sleep after.” He lifted the bottle up so the light shone through it. “Paying it forward I think is what the humans call it.” He made a face and spit out a word in a language I didn’t recognize, but which I guessed wasn’t one you used in polite company. “Cale’s studying, let’s go sit in the living room.”
I followed him out, careful not to walk too loudly. Cale’s bedroom door was closed, soft music seeping out from underneath it. Julius hit the switch for the living room lights and turned on the TV. “Camouflage,” he said and smirked. “Sit down. I have to figure out if we have a wine bottle opener thingy.” He left to start digging in drawers in the kitchen, coincidentally giving me a chance to explore the living room in a way I hadn’t been able to before when everyone had been here.
The couch was worn, a deep red material that felt like suede but probably wasn’t, because who in the packs could afford furniture that expensive? The arms had been rubbed smooth, and places on the cushions had gone a dark grayish color that gleamed in the ceiling light. A low table took up the floor space right in front of it, with a candle and a box of matches on a plate in the middle, and a wide, rounded remote that I guessed was for the TV. I picked it up and turned on the screen, not expecting a picture. We were too far out for antennas to work, though this high in the air, it might pick something up.
To my surprise, it opened to a screen offering several different choices.
“We have cable here,” Julius said behind me. I spun and he held out a juice glass filled with the pale yellow liquid. “But we can also watch videos off the Internet and there’s a place we can go— Abel set up something like a library of files that we can play through the TV.” He took the remote from me and flipped through screens so fast it almost made me dizzy. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “You pick a folder, depending on what you want to see, and then pick a movie or a TV show.” He showed me how to page through things on the screen and, with only a few wrong turnings, I got us set up watching a cartoon of some sort that I’d never seen.
