Page 139 of Omega's Flight

"You should go back to work." I didn't much want to move, my limbs slack with pleasurable exhaustion, but I'd interrupted his day, and for a lot longer than I'd intended. "Really. And I have things to do too."

He sighed and kissed the top of my head, one hand stroking down my back. "I suppose you're right. This is going to cost me two weeks of early mornings." He brought his hand up to raise my face to his and kissed my lips. "Worth it."

I chuckled and hugged him. "It was. But now it's time to go back to being grown-ups."

"Damn," he said, but he was smiling. "All right." He let me get up, then stood himself to start the process of putting his clothes back into place. We hadn't stripped entirely—his shirt still hung off one arm, and I was still wearing mine, though my jeans had disappeared...oh, there they were, dangling from a tree branch dangerously close to the edge of the pond.

"How did these end up here?" I asked through a laugh, and walked over to tug them down. "Really, Cas!"

"My lover's very enthusiastic," he replied solemnly and walked over to wrap his arms around me and ease me back against his chest. His jeans were pulled up again, but he hadn't done the fastenings yet. My lips met his over my shoulder for a long, contented kiss, and then he let me go, offering an arm to steady me while I put my jeans on.

We found my sneakers back near the flattened section of grass, but one of Cas's had made it past my jeans and landed in the pond. With a quick, guilty glance around him, Cas broke a branch off one of the nearby trees and fished it out, pouring water all the way back to shore. I bit one of my knuckles to keep myself from laughing while Cas stared at the shoe for a moment, then shrugged in resignation and shoved his foot into it.

"You want a walk back to your place?" he asked, throwing an arm over my shoulders. His wet foot squeaked with each step as we turned back toward the town.

"I've kept you long enough I think. And I have a few errands to run. Will you be home for dinner?"

"Sure. What time?"

"Six is good." That would give me enough time to have the overlong conversation I expected with Degan and still get the meal together. "I'm going to try to teach Ann to cook a little. Just the easy things. So be prepared to really enjoy the food." I slipped my arm around his waist and kissed his shoulder. "Whether it tastes good or not."

"Got it," he said and squeezed me back. "Should I bring anything?"

I shook my head. "Just yourself."

"I'll be there."

We were quiet all the rest of the way to town. I hoped Cas's quiet was just contentment—the only time I knew him to stop talking was when he was truly happy with his lot in life for the moment. It would be nice to think that our stolen interlude in the woods could give him that.

For myself, I was planning my approach to Degan this afternoon, what I would say, what he might say, how I could respond to that. I had so many plans by the time we got to the outskirts of the town that I'd already forgotten half of them, but it gave me confidence anyway to know that I had at least thought out some of my arguments.

We parted with a simple hug, him back to his desk covered in paper, and me to gird my loins—as Abel called it—and track down my hopefully soon-to-be ex.

I found Degan at the pack's garage, something I hadn't even suspected existed until our deal had been struck. He and Mac were hidden inside the front part of a car, something black and fancy looking, their arms extended down into the thing's insides like they were being eaten. I knocked carefully on the door and waited for them to pry themselves out.

He looked happy, covered in grease and with a screwdriver dangling carelessly from his fingers. I felt a twinge of guilt at what I was about to say and hung diffidently about near the entrance to the garage while Mac assured him he could afford to take a half-hour to talk to me.

Degan walked toward me, wiping his hands off on a filthy rag and grinning in a way that took me back to Nevada Ashes, and I felt a subtle, traitorous arousal stir inside me. Memories of better times, perhaps, my body remembering us before we soured. "Wasn't expecting you," he said, and tossed the rag onto a table inside the door before following me outside. "What's up?"

"I need to talk to you," I said, before my courage failed me.

"Sure," he said, but the simple happiness in his face faded a bit. "What about?"

I jerked my head and took a few steps away from the garage. He followed, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows.

When we were out of earshot of most of the buildings, I stopped and turned to face him. "I want you to officially repudiate me."

His eyebrows shot up. "Why would you want that? It'll ruin your reputation."

"Not here," I said and shook my head at him when he reached for me. "And the longer I stay here, the less I care what the other packs think. Our Alpha's Mate was repudiated, but look at him. Would you say his reputation was damaged?"

"He's strange, everyone knows that. He's hardly like an omega at all."

I don't think you really know what an omega is. I was still waiting to figure out what my particular talent was, or if I even had one—Holland had broken the news gently to me one day, that not all omegas seemed to be True. But even if I never learned to heal like Bram or cool tempers like Jason, a Mercy Hills omega was a different beast from one anywhere else. "It doesn't matter. I want to stay here, the pups love it here, they have a better life here. You could have a better life here."

That made him pause. Then he shook his head. "You're determined on this course, aren't you?"

"I am. I can't go back to being unhappy, to being half a person and a ghost of myself. Like you, with your cars. This is you, not the odd jobs and handyman work in Jackson-Jellystone." Greatly daring, I inched closer and put a hand on his arm. "Why not stay, help me raise the pups? I think, if I ask, when one of the new duplexes is available, we could maybe be assigned to one, me on one side, you on the other. You could work on your cars. It wouldn't be a bad life."