“Here we go. They call themselves the Remus Group.” Dan reaches over and pulls a piece of paper from a cubby, then he grabs a pen and scratches shapes onto it. “I’ll give them a call. Hang on.”
Dan presses buttons on a phone that looks completely different to Jax’s. This one is in the shape of a large block attached to the desk.
A muffled voice sounds from it.
Dan asks questions and nods, and every now and then, he stops to ask Gray a question which he then relays to the mystery person on the other side.
Finally, he holds the phone out and says, “Here, they want to talk to you.”
Gray takes the machine and holds it to his ear the way that the Sheriff did.
A male voice sounds in his year. “Hello. Can you hear me?”
Dan points to the bottom part of the thing that Gray is holding. “Say something.”
“Yes. Hello. I can hear you.”
“If you don’t understand anything I say, tell me or pass the phone to the man that is there,” the voice says. It sounds kind.
“I will.”
“How many nights have you been away from your pack?”
Gray thinks. The nights have all blurred together. “Many.”
“Are you broken? Are you hurting?”
“A little bit, but I am being fixed. I have medicine.” Gray explains about the white cast on his arm and the damage to his neck.
The voice continues to ask him questions and Gray finds himself starting to relax.
Finally, the questions stop and the voice tells Gray to pass the phone back to Dan.
Gray finishes his tea while Dan talks to the person on the other end.
When Dan puts the phone back down, he takes a long swallow of his coffee and takes the seat opposite Gray.
“They’ve got a place for you in Fort Gosford. You’ve taken the bus before?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay to do it again?”
“I think so. How do I know where to get off?”
“I’ll speak to the driver, and there’ll be someone to meet you at the bus top.”
“Thank you.” Gray feels a pang hit his chest. He doesn’t want to go. Jax is still nearby. Jax who doesn’t want him. “Can you let them know that I’m coming now?”
JAX
socks and sobbing
There are fools and there are damn fools, and Jax is the latter. It took him too long to work out what to do. He just sat there, jaw flapping open and closed like a fish.
All he could think of was how he couldn’t be away from Gray; even the thought of it was a punch to the stomach.
It was too much for him to deal with in one go: the imprinting, the claiming, the heat, the mating run, and damned Aidan Ronmin with his stupid grin and patronizing comments.
And Adam just sat there for endless long minutes waiting for him to make up his mind.
“I’ll go with him,” he said finally. If Gray couldn’t stay, Jax would go with him.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere. There are plenty of cities that are happy to accept alpha-omega couples as long as they’re not pack aligned. I’ll use my savings to set up a new practice. Plenty of omegas prefer to see an omega doctor anyway. It’ll be fine.” The last sentence was almost under his breath, as if he needed to persuade himself more than Adam.
“Okay,” Adam had said.
Then to make it worse, they’d sat and talked about it for ages. It was important. Jax and Gray had to move quickly and they had a lot of plans to make. They’d talked about the practicalities, the potential destinations, how much money Jax would need to set up a new practice. Adam had called Max Foster in Button Oak and arranged for Gray and Jax to stay with him while Jax got everything ready for a permanent move.
That was yesterday.
Today, Jax sits on the edge of his bed and tries to breathe. Ben is beside him, head on Jax’s shoulder, his arm around his waist.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be just fine,” he’s saying, while Jax tries to control his breathing and try not to sob like some damn fool omega who just lost his alpha.
It is going to be fine. He knows he’s going to be just dandy. All he needs is to wait out all the hormones and brain chemicals currently flushing through his brain and telling him that this is the worst disaster of his life.
They lie. It’s nothing other than a biological reaction to the claiming. That’s it.
It feels like he’s breaking. Everything aches.
Hormones and mating pheromones. He’s going into withdrawal. That’s why it hurts. The only reason.
He knew Gray a week. That’s not enough for a real-life bond based on mutual compatibility and companionship.
He’s in lust, not in love, and lust always fades given enough time.
He sobs again, like a damn fool, and Ben hugs him tighter. The company of the other omega is a soothe to his soul. He only wishes Cal could be here too.
A knock sounds at the door. It opens a section before either Ben or Jax have a chance to answer and Adam’s voice drifts through.
“Hey, I got hold of the wild wolf organization. They’ve promised to pass your message on. At least that’s what I think they said. They wouldn’t say if Gray was there or not.”
“Thanks,” Ben says, and Jax is grateful for it. Every time Jax speaks it turns into a great big whine.
The door closes.
Your message.
“Please call.” That was it. It was the only message he was capable of passing on. He wanted to beg and plead and ask him to come back but he wasn’t going to do that.
He can’t stay here. The room still smells like Gray, and what doesn’t smell like Gray, smells like flowers.
The scent of Gray permeates everything. Jax reaches up to the broken skin at the nape of his neck and wonders if it’s part of the claiming. He’s not sure if it’s real, or a scent-memory or something to do with the claiming. Maybe he’ll be seeking out the scent of Gray for the rest of his life, and never get to see the real thing again.
He stands up suddenly enough that it makes him dizzy and Ben has to hold him steady.
“I can’t stay here. I’m going to work. I need to force my mind to think about something else. Anything else.”
He crosses the room in two big strides and begins pulling clothes out of the dresser: shirts, jeans, socks. No, not those socks. Gray wore those.
He doesn’t want anything to remind him of Gray.
For the first time in his life, he’s grateful for the mating run. Tomorrow, alphas and omegas are going to come streaming back down the mountain and Jax is going to be ass deep in stitches and antiseptic for two days straight.
He’ll also not have to look at the sympathetic faces of his family and friends.
“Do you want me to come with?” Ben says. Jax turns to look at him. The young omega has filled out since they rescued him from the pack keeping him captive. He’s still slim, but not the painfully skeletal creature with the visible ribs and sunken cheekbones.
He’s also still jerky and nervous around the alphas in the pack, but he’s a lot more confident than he was. Jax no longer worries about him on a daily basis like he did when Ben first arrived.
“No, I don’t think so, but thank you,” he says, shoving his phone into his pocket. “It’s going to stink of alphas down there. You don’t want to deal with that. I promise to call if I want company,” he says smiling.
“No problem. I’m sorry this happened, Jax,” Ben says.
Jax exits his room to find Adam leaning against the wall in the corridor looking worried.
“Please don’t tell me you’re standing out here for me,” he says. “Because that would be pathetic.”
“No,” Adam says. “Okay, yes. I’m concerned.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.” Adam replies. “Your face is all puffy and you look like someone’s rubbed chillies into your eyeballs. You look terrible.”
�
�Thank you,” Jax says dryly.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. It’s the last day of the run. Don’t you lot have anything better to do?”
“No. The run is covered. Ronmin has gone. Finally. Gregor and Luke are out making sure everyone knows they need to come down tomorrow. I’ve got nothing to do except make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m going to be okay.” I think. “I’m going to work. Let me know if you hear from the Remus Group.” Jax doesn’t wait for an answer. If he doesn’t get out of here, and into the fresh air, he is going to go insane. He’s aware of Adam watching him as he leaves.
The air outside doesn’t smell like Gray. It smells like everything else: the town, the mating run, the cars and the pines, but not Gray. It makes Jax want to run back inside and bury his face into the clothes that he hasn’t washed yet.
That would be a crazy person thing to do. Jax does the sane thing. He gets into his truck and starts the engine. Just an ordinary doctor going to his ordinary job on an ordinary day.
He cries all the way there.
GRAY
flip flops and beer cans
The woman who meets him at the bus stop is an affable omega named Shirley. The side of her neck is a mass of ugly scar tissue.
“My alpha wasn’t a good fellow. It was either head into the city or stay and let him kill me,” she volunteers when she sees Gray noticing the damage. “Your sheriff said you don’t have much difficulty with language?”
“I don’t understand all the words, but my mother was human. She taught me when I was a cub.”
Shirley nods, satisfied. “That’ll make it easier. We get wolves who’ve never encountered language before. That makes it much harder to integrate. Come on. I’ve parked just down here.”
Gray follows her to a small green vehicle. Shirley opens the door for him. She explains how things work automatically as she does things.
“Watch both sides of the road and check for cars before we cross. Fit your fingers in there and pull. That’s it. Pull the seatbelt down and clip it like so. Good stuff.”
The car rumbles to life, and Gray wonders if it would be impolite to take off his shoes. They’ve been rubbing at his feet ever since he left the clinic, and he thinks that Shirley might understand. She’ll have had to learn to wear shoes too. But he has to learn to be human first so he says nothing.
“I’ve got some good news,” Shirley says, pulling the car away from the pavement. Gray is impressed with the ease with which she does it. Maybe he’ll learn to drive a car too. “We’ve located your uncle.”
The silver wolf. So, he didn’t die. He went down the mountain and into human life. Gray wonders if he also took the bus out of Aylewood.
“How do you feel about that?” Shirley says, glancing at him.
“I don’t know.” Gray hadn’t liked the silver wolf, but that was a long time ago and everything has changed.
“He’s offered to put you up until you get settled. If you don’t want that, you can just get in touch with us and we’ll find you somewhere else.”
“That will be fine.”
After a bewildering array of turns and stops in the car, Shirley pulls the car up outside one of the highest buildings that Gray has ever seen. It’s at least four times as high as any of the ones in Aylewood.
“It’s called an apartment building,” Shirley explains. “That’s like a lot of little homes in one building.”
Gray nods, unsure. He doesn’t like the thought of being confined with a lot of packs. That doesn’t seem sensible.
“It’ll be fine. I promise.”
Gray just nods again and gets out of the car. It’s not like he has a whole lot of choice.
There’s a man standing outside the building.
It’s been over twenty years. His uncle smells the same as the wolf he remembers but nothing else looks the same.
He’s a man, not a wolf for one thing.
The silver hair that Gray remembers is non-existent. There’s no hair left at all on his head, although plenty sprouts out from the unbuttoned top of his shirt. Gray watches him out of the corner of his eye, unwilling to stare.
“Boy, just take a good look. I’m not going to bite. I’m long done with that kind of thing.”
Gray does as he’s told. He has a thousand questions and he’s not sure where to start. Or even if any of the questions will be welcomed.
“I’m called George now.”
“I’m Gray.”
“Original.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gray sees Shirley raise her eyebrows.
“Come on in, then,” George says. “Shirl, you want a cup of tea?”
“No thanks, George. It’s getting late. I’ll let Gray get settled in and then I’ll come by in the morning.”
Gray says goodbye then follows George inside and into a small room that has doors that close by themselves. It rises when George presses a button.
Gray tries to stand still and calm as if he were expecting it, but George just laughs. “You are going to do just fine, boy. How long have you been out of the mountains?”
“Just over a week.” A week is seven nights. Gray learned that from Shirley in the vehicle. She is amazing.
“And how long before that comes off?” He nods at the cast on Gray’s arm.
“More weeks.”
George harrumphs. “We’ll get you to the doctor then and get you checked. Come on, out you get. You can sleep on my sofa for a bit, but I don’t have a lot of space so it can’t be for long.”
Gray follows him along a small narrow corridor with a multitude of scents that co-mingle and overpower each other.
George produces a key from his pocket and then turns it in the lock on a door at the end of a long corridor.
“After you, boy,” he says.
Gray obeys. He walks into a room similar to the common room at Jax’s packhouse but smaller. It has places to sit, and a television in the corner.
It also has a lot of the same things that Jax’s pack keeps behind their bar, but these are all over the floor, and mostly empty, if still stinking.
“I’ll clear it up for you,” George says. “Guessing your nose is still sensitive. You’ll lose a lot of that. Don’t worry. It’s a good thing. Nothing worse than a wolf with a sensitive nose in the middle of the city. Sit.” He indicates the sofa.
Gray sits.
“You want a coffee? Or tea? Beer?”
“Tea, please.” Gray says.
George crosses over to the other side of the room where there is a long set of cupboards with a stove and kettle, and Gray realizes that this apartment has the rooms combined. He makes a mental note of it in his head. Not all houses are set out the same in the middle.
“You want to tell me what happened?” George asks.
“The ash-scented wolf challenged me and I lost.”
George barks out a laugh. “Right, I remember when that happened to me. He ambush you like your daddy did to me?”
“He didn’t ambush you,” Gray says, but he’s trying to remember. Isaiah was hard, but he was fair. Mostly. Sometimes. Occasionally.
“Oh yes, he did.” George says firmly.
“I don’t remember,” Gray admits.
George shrugs. “That’s fair enough. Wolf brain isn’t made for keeping memories. That’s a human thing.”
The tea isn’t anything like the kind that Jax makes, but Gray drinks it anyway.
“We’ll have to get you some more clothes too.” George says. “You’re going to have to find a job, and no one’s going to hire you looking like that.”
Gray looks down at the clothing he’s wearing. He has no idea what is wrong with them. They look human to him, although the shoes are a different type to the ones Jax wears.
These are called flip flops. They don’t completely cover his feet the way that the other shoes do, although he’s not yet used to having something stuck between his toes.
“Okay,” Gray says, cupping th
e mug between his hands. He likes the warmth of it. The closest he ever got to this was lying on a sun-warmed rock before, but that was a lot bigger. He thinks that tea must be a useful thing to have when winter comes, and the world is covered in snow.
George comes and sits beside him, his drink in hand. Whatever it is, it smells bitter. Gray decides not to try that one.
“I’m sorry about your father,” George says, looking away. “I really am. I know things went bad for us, but he was still my brother.”
Gray doesn’t say anything but he understands.
Later that night, he lies awake on the smelly sofa, listening to George snoring from the room next door, and wonders if this is going to be him in twenty years time. Bald, in a tiny block surrounded by strangers, drinking bad-smelling things from cans and leaving them all over the sticky soft floor.
Maybe one day, Ash’s son will turn up at his door, confused and holding his nose, and Gray will be the one explaining to him how the human world works.
JAX
itchy scars and lines on a stick
Jax stands next to the toilet and stares at a dumb plastic stick with a pair of lines on it.
This is his own fault. He knew his heat was coming. He knew the reaction his body had to Gray. They hadn’t used any condoms, although Jax has been taking his contraceptive pills on time same as always.
It was the heat and the imprint that did it, overriding the pills. It would have been a surprise if he wasn’t pregnant. They’d certainly done it enough times to make it stick.
Knowing that he’s been an idiot makes no difference at all.
In a week, everyone will be able to scent it too and then Jax Winterstoke is going to be just one more knocked up omega as far as most of the world is concerned.
He’d thought about what it would be like to be pregnant, of course. All omegas did, even the ones who didn’t want kids.
When you’re going to be the one left holding the baby in a world that treats you like a sex object, you think about what you’ll do if it happens.
Even so he hadn’t expected it. Not really. He’d always been careful to use condoms during the heats that he didn’t block.
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