Sebastian got up from the counter and went to make himself some coffee as well. He needed the boost this morning, and he also needed the time to think. “I’ll be honest, I don’t think you’re needed here,” Sebastian said as he sat down across from Connor again.
“That’s fine. If you two are perfect and I can’t be of any help, I’ll leave soon. No worries. If not and if you actually do have some issues to work with here, then I can try to help you with them. So now that we’ve both had some coffee, let’s get started. What’s a normal day for you like?”
Sebastian didn’t want to do this, not with Connor or anyone else, but if he didn’t at least answer some of Connor’s questions he was pretty sure that Logan would be annoyed at him. He could have left and gone outside into the woods for a while, but leaving his own house to get away from someone he didn’t want there to begin with sounded like a lot of hassle and effort, and he’d only barely started his coffee. Storming off could wait.
“I wake up, I get dressed, I come out here and have some coffee, I look at my phone, and then in a few hours I go do a little work in the garden,” Sebastian answered. “Sometimes I need to work on the pack newsletter or something, but generally I don’t do a whole lot.”
Connor pursed his lips. “When do you see Logan? Does he come home for lunch or dinner?”
Sebastian wished that he could say yes to both of those options, but that wasn’t the truth. “Sometimes he’s home by the time I eat dinner, but sometimes he’s not back until nine or ten, and I can’t wait to eat that long. I always make extra though, so he just heats that up and...” He shrugged. There wasn’t much for him to tell Connor. “We’re not a love match. It’s fine that we spend time apart. That’s not the reason we’re having issues. He’s always had a heavier workload than me in the pack, but I can’t take some of his responsibilities to make sure that he has less so that he’s home more.”
“You don’t think your time apart is the reason for your disconnect?” Connor pressed him.
“That is what I said.” Sebastian was starting to realize that he really didn’t like counseling at all. It was more than just having a stranger in his home. It was also that the stranger was asking him annoying questions and picking apart his life with Logan. It was better left untouched. They were fine. They weren’t a love match, so being happy all the time wasn’t going to be possible. He got that. He was okay with that. Most of the time anyway.
Connor got up from the counter and paced, his mug of coffee in his hands. At the speed he was walking, Sebastian was surprised the hot liquid wasn’t sloshing over the sides and burning him, but if it ever did burn him, Connor seemed oblivious to it. “Were you always this disconnected? Since I’m being called in now, I assume that’s not the case and that you two were, at one time, different together than you are now, but I have to ask just to make sure.”
Sebastian reminded himself that Connor was just trying to help, even if his questions did feel invasive. “No, we weren’t always like this. We used to be a lot closer.”
Connor stopped pacing and turned to him. “Did anything happen to facilitate the change? I’m not judging. I need to know where things are so that I can help you both try to get back to that place before the difference happened.”
“Nothing happened.” Sebastian was sure about that.
Connor didn’t look convinced. “No infidelity that you know about? No assault? No huge disagreement that ended in someone storming out and spending a week away from home, for example?”
Sebastian had to try very hard to hold back on his anger and not snap at Connor. It wasn’t his fault he was being insensitive. “No, I think I covered that when I said that nothing happened. We’re just...” He didn’t really know how to put it. “We’re different than we were. He comes home and it’s like we’re roommates. We’re not awkward like we were when we were first mated. Now we’re just distant. It’s not uncomfortable, but I think we’re both sad. At least, I’m sad. And I assume that he’s sad about it too.”
Connor came back to the island and sat back down with him. “Okay. We’ll start there for now.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “There’s no ‘for now’. That’s all there is. I’m not hiding anything from you.”
“I didn’t say that you were. Now, what do you do in this garden you mentioned?”
“What everyone does in their garden, I imagine. I weed. I prune. I gather up anything that’s ripe and ready to come inside.” Sebastian really didn’t understand this guy. He was grating on his nerves and he didn’t enjoy spending his alone time with Connor at all.
“What does Logan do during the day?” Connor asked. “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him,” he snapped.
Connor gave him a quick smile. “Oh, I plan to. But right now I’m getting to know you, and all about what you do when you’re alone. Do you enjoy having this time to yourself? Or do you get lonely without having Logan around all day?”
Sebastian was done talking about this right now. He needed a break. “I’m going to go out in the garden. Please don’t follow me.”
Connor, to his credit, didn’t look surprised by Sebastian’s abruptness. “I’m going to go for a walk too. I’ll see you back here in a few hours.”
“Fine.” As long as Sebastian was free of him, he didn’t really much care what Connor did with himself. He hurriedly finished his coffee and went outside.
He didn’t really have anything that he needed to do out in the garden, but it still felt nice to be away from Connor for however many hours he could be while he was out there.
He took out his phone, intent on texting Logan and telling him how much he didn’t like Connor being there and dissecting their lives, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good. He was stuck with Connor, whether he liked it or not. And he definitely didn’t like it.
I wish you were home, Sebastian texted him instead.
Logan’s reply took almost an hour, and Sebastian had nearly fallen asleep by the honeysuckle that grew wild near the edge of their garden in that time. I do too. How are you and Connor getting along?
Sebastian would have rather not had his mate ask about the omega currently invading their house. He tried to think of something nice to say about having Connor there with them, but he couldn’t think of anything. He left me alone when I told him to, at least. It was the best that he could come up with.
He’s there to help.
Sebastian tried not to be annoyed at how quickly Logan’s texts came when they were talking about Connor. He had no immediate reason to be jealous of him, but he couldn’t help it either.
He didn’t reply for close to ten minutes.
Sebastian? Logan texted.
I’m fine, he sent back, knowing that he sounded annoyed and not caring one bit.
Liar. Talk to me. If we can figure this out ourselves we don’t need him. The only reason he’s with us at all is so that we don’t lose each other.
That was just it, though. Losing each other, whatever Logan meant by that, wasn’t something they could ever do. You’re never going to lose me, Sebastian texted him back.
Thank you.
Sebastian didn’t have the heart to tell him that the reason he’d never lose him was because they had no choice but to stay together.
He was left alone for one more perfect hour until Connor came out and interrupted his peace. Sebastian glared at him before he could come within ten feet of him. Connor stopped short. “What?” Sebastian snapped at him.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not buying some omega I don’t even want here food.”
Connor snorted. “That’s funny. Logan offered to buy me coffee last night. You’re dead set against spending money on me. And yet I came here with my own money. Sebastian, I’m really just here to help. Relax. I’m not trying to take anything from you or to ruin your life in any way. So how about it? Want to go get food with me, or are
you going to stay out here all day being pissed off at me?”
“Fine,” Sebastian said, grumbling to himself the whole time as he got up and walked over to Connor.
* * * *
Connor couldn’t remember another time when he’d ever been so unwelcome in a couple’s life. Logan had seemed all right, for the most part, but Sebastian...Connor wanted to apologize for something he hadn’t even done and he was on edge expecting Sebastian to snap at him for no reason. It was exhausting, and part of him didn’t want to help these two out at all. But Connor had promised Allen that he’d do his best, and because Logan was Allen’s nephew, Connor would try to help them. He really didn’t have much hope for being able to fix whatever was broken between them though.
Sebastian and Logan didn’t have a second vehicle, but they didn’t live that far from a small diner. It was more like a gas station with a grill top, but it was less than a ten-minute walk from their house, which Connor and Sebastian did in complete silence.
It took Connor a few minutes to realize that not everyone around them was a werewolf as they sat down. “Huh,” he said, looking around. There was a mom and her two young children, and a guy drinking coffee while looking at his phone. There were also the people working there—one cooking, one to take orders, and the guy at the register. And they were all humans. Connor looked over at Sebastian. “I haven’t been around...people in a long time.” He was careful not to reveal who they were to people who should not know they existed.
Sebastian shrugged. “They’re not so different. In a lot of ways I envy them. Their social structure doesn’t tend to be as rigid as ours. At least from the cultures I’ve seen.”
Connor’s attention caught. “Are you feeling a little suffocated under the structure you live with?”
“Don’t twist what I say,” Sebastian snapped.
Connor took that to mean that he hit a nerve, though it could have been nothing. “What did you do before you and Logan were...” He looked around at the humans and changed what he was going to say to “married?”
A waitress came by to get their drink orders and to give them menus. Connor wanted a soda, which he rarely had because he was trying to cut back on his sugar, and Sebastian stuck with iced tea.
“I ran errands and helped out where I was needed. I stayed busy,” Sebastian said offhandedly as he opened the menu.
Connor didn’t have to ask if his life was different now. It clearly was. The question was, though, whether Sebastian preferred it how it was now, or if he missed how his life had been before he’d been mated to Logan. “Why was the decision made to pair you two up?”
Sebastian gave him a hard look, but he answered the question anyway. “Higher ranking members need personal assistance within their homes and in their lives. We were friends anyway, and we’d done a few projects together. I guess to the people in charge it made sense..”
Connor was glad that Sebastian was being careful about what he was saying too so that he didn’t give them away. It was interesting to him though that the alpha, and likely any elders in Sebastian and Logan’s pack as well, thought that Logan needed to be taken care of. “So, in effect, your life stopped when you were joined and your daily activities became largely about him. Is that correct?”
Sebastian didn’t answer him, but maybe that was answer enough.
“Your house certainly is spotless, you must do a good job,” Connor continued on in the absence of Sebastian’s affirmation.
Sebastian rolled his eyes.
“But,” Connor pressed on, “I wonder if you get bored. Or lonely maybe. I know I would. There’s only so much TV to watch in a day, and so many times I can watch my favorite movies. You’ve got your garden though, and the newsletter too. Maybe you’re more fulfilled than I would be.” Or, Connor assumed, than any werewolf would be. They weren’t designed to be on their own for large chunks of time.
“Maybe a little lonely,” Sebastian conceded.
It wasn’t much, but Connor was glad that Sebastian was willing to give even that little bit. “Have you talked to Logan about feeling like that?”
It only took a second for Sebastian to shake his head. Connor thought he’d have to drag another answer out of him, but then, surprisingly, Sebastian decided to offer some information up on his own. “Logan is busy. He’s important to our...community. Adding that concern onto him would be unfair. I know my place. I’m not a high-ranking beta, except in title since we were put together, but that hardly matters. It’s just words. I’m just there to support him because he is.”
“Were you ever a higher-ranking beta than you are currently?”
It was a fair question, and with Sebastian’s silence Connor knew his answer. He frowned. So, if his guesses were correct, Sebastian had some standing before, and had been a useful member of the pack, before he was told to mate with Logan. Now he kept a house clean, gardened, and rarely saw his mate. “Do you resent Logan for the changes in your life?”
“No.”
Sebastian’s answer was quick, and final.
“But do you resent the people who made those decisions for you both?” Connor continued.
It wasn’t wrong to not agree with the alpha, or the elders. They wouldn’t get in trouble for voicing their concerns, even if they were to go to the alpha with them directly.
Sebastian gave him a little nod and Connor eased up on his questions. For their first day together, he was happy with their progress. It wasn’t going to fix everything, but maybe it was a place to start.
“Are you going to ask Logan all these same questions?” Sebastian asked him.
“No. I’ve got a whole different set of questions for him.” He looked around. “Does it normally take this long to get service here?”
“Sometimes yes, but this seems unusually long. Want to go? Since we’re already this far out, the house isn’t that far away. We could just go eat there.”
Connor assumed that the house Sebastian was talking about was the pack house, in which case it would be good for them to be around other werewolves in his opinion. “Yes. Let’s do that.” He got up as he spoke and was glad that Sebastian was ready to leave with him.
When they were outside and walking along the side of the paved road again Connor spoke up again. “When was the last time you shifted?”
“Couple months maybe. It’s not that big of a deal for me.”
With Sebastian walking in front of him, he couldn’t see Connor’s deep frown at his news. “When I was growing up, we were told to shift at least once every few days as children, and closer to once a week at minimum as an adult, otherwise the shift could really hurt us. Did you stop because it began to get painful for you?”
“No. That’s not the reason.”
Connor wondered how hard he’d have to dig with Sebastian to get his answers this time. “Will you shift with me when we get to the pack? I could use a run. It’s been about two days for me.”
“You’re a stranger,” Sebastian reminded him without missing a beat.
“You don’t shift with people you don’t know?” That would certainly be unusual.
Sebastian stopped walking and Connor hurried to catch up with him so that they could walk side by side the rest of the way to the pack. “I don’t get naked with people I don’t know,” Sebastian explained. “And I don’t shift alone, and Logan’s always gone so...” He shrugged.
“Would it have been better if you two lived within the pack? I assume you both grew up closer to other wolves. Right?”
“We did. We were two houses away from each other when we were little. He was ahead of me in school, but we still had lunch together all the time. Not many kids in werewolf school, so you tend to make friends with whoever is there, which I’m sure you already know.”
Sebastian sounded sad so Connor decided to let up on him a little. “I hope you and Logan are able to figure this out.” He meant that for everyone he was asked to go help, but these two seemed like
they really did want to be happy together, they just had so much standing in the way of that.
“Thanks,” Sebastian mumbled.
They were quiet as they got to the pack. Connor had always known werewolves to live in gated communities to keep the humans away, but there was no definite distinction between where the human world ended and where the pack began here. At least not one that Connor noticed.
Instead, it was in the air. In the secret smile of a child riding a bike that passed by them on the dirt road. It was also in the way Sebastian carried himself while they were there. That was Connor’s biggest clue. Sebastian no longer seemed hurried as he walked along with his shoulders hunched, avoiding eye contact with him. Now that they were within the pack, Sebastian held his head up, and every once in a while Connor caught his smile.
“You miss being within the pack.” It wasn’t a question. But Connor didn’t expect Sebastian to hunch back down either. He pursed his lips. He really hated how Sebastian seemed so guarded around him all the time.
Sebastian walked up to a large farm house. It had been much smaller, long ago, but the obvious additions with their mismatched sidings had built it up into nearly a mansion. A delipidated one with peeling paint and a few cracked windows on the upper level, but a mansion nonetheless.
Connor was prepared to wait with him at the front door. He would never dream of entering an alpha’s home uninvited, but Sebastian simply opened the door and walked inside.
“Don’t we need to wait?” Connor called out to him while he hesitated at the open door.
Sebastian turned back to him with raised brows. “Wait for what? There’s no one here. This is the original house, but now it’s just storage and a place for guests. We’re just grabbing food here.”
From Sebastian’s reaction to his question, Connor felt silly, but he tried to brush that aside as he followed Sebastian into the house where indeed there was a fully stocked kitchen. Someone had even made cookies and left them on the counter for people to take. Connor ate two before going in search of something to drink.
Sebastian handed him a glass of iced tea without Connor saying anything to him. The small gift was a welcome change from how Sebastian had been treating him, but Connor was sure he shouldn’t read much into it. One act of kindness didn’t automatically mean that Sebastian was going to start welcoming his intrusion into their lives.
Forbidden Omega Page 2
