Page 67 of Omega's Flight

"I don't really have the right paper for it—" I began, but that was as much as I managed to get out because Mutch broke into the conversation and spoke right over me.

"Well, we can fix that. You have some real talent there. Have you ever considered doing culturally based drawings? I could get you a showing at an art gallery, I have a cousin who has an interest in one." He spoke his words as fast as the heartbeat of a swallow, beating against my ears like they were trying to drive their way into my brain.

I flinched backward and clutched the pad closer to my chest, memories of that awful bus trip rising up, reminding me of the terror that I’d only kept in check because I was more afraid for my pups than I was of the humans. My heart began to pound and the urge to change shape and run made my fingers twitch against the cover of my drawing pad.

He opened his mouth to take another breath, to say who knew what, but Mac put a hand on his arm and somehow, without words, had the human walking out of my kitchen and toward the door before my instinctive panic got the better of me. I let out a sigh of relief, not really caring if the human heard me or not.

"I'll call you later, or come by, maybe?" Mac called over his shoulder. And as they crossed the living room, he leaned down and whispered in Mutch's ear, "Take it easy, he's had a hard time."

I cringed, then as the door banged closed behind them, sighed and sat down at the table again. Victim. I hated it, but I wasn't going to lie to myself and try to say that it wasn't how the pack saw me. The pad of paper made a solid whoompf as I dropped it onto the table's surface and I flipped it open to look at the picture of Holland and Quin again.

It wasn't that bad. Oh, I was definitely out of practice, but the lines had captured the emotion, which was really what I'd been going for anyway. Maybe I wouldn't color this one after all—a few minutes with the soft pencil and a bit of smudging might add more depth to it than all the colored pencils in the world.

That thought brought me back to Mutch, and his words, how he could fix my wrong paper. Would he buy things for me, proper sketchbooks and real artist's charcoal? Pastels—I'd love to try some pastels. Or paints. I didn't think I could use watercolors, they were so terribly precise. But oil paints? Maybe.

My heart began to beat faster again, but this time it was excitement. Suddenly, I could see a path forward, something unique that I could offer to the pack.

With renewed optimism, I picked up my pencil and began to shade in the sway of Holland's hair.

C H A P T E R 4 9

T he third week of January, Cas got a text from Holland. Got them was all it said, but Cas didn't need it spelled out for him anyway.

Holland had managed to track down which omega had at least one of the journals. More, probably, going by the word them in his text.

He stared at the year-end summary paperwork for the school and daycare for a moment, then decided it wasn't urgent yet. Taxes would be due in summer and he tried to give Quin a head's up on how much they'd be by March, but it was still only January. He could take a day off. Be right over he texted back.

You're so easy. He packed everything away in its folders, put those in their envelopes, and made sure everything went into the right banker's box before putting it back in its pile in the corner of the room.

"You heading out?" Garrick didn't even lift his head from the case law he was scrolling through, still building their back-up case on the chance that their arguments based on pack law failed them.

"Yeah, I need a day," Cas lied smoothly. "Gonna go have a nap, maybe get food from the restaurant instead of eating my own cooking."

"Since when do you cook?" Garrick asked, but he wasn't listening for the answer. His entire body had frozen, and his hand dove toward the tray with his pens in it, but then his shoulders slumped and he made a discontented noise. "Damn."

"Thought you had a good one?" Cas asked politely as he grabbed his coat off the nail in the wall and pulled it on.

"Thought I had the one," Garrick said ruefully and leaned back in his chair with a twisted smile on his lips. "Well, enjoy your day off. If anyone comes looking for you, do you want me to take a message or send them to find you?"

"Message," Cas told him firmly. "It's not a day off if I end up working."

Garrick laughed and waved at him as Cas started toward the door, his head already turning toward the screen in front of him as he searched for the perfect bit of precedent. Cas hoped that his own research would be more useful.

Holland wasn't in the apartment, and Cas ended up sticking his head into Bax's office to find out where he'd gone. "Hey, you seen Holland?"

"He's shepherding Mutch around the enclave. Why?"

"He said he had something for me."

"Ah." It appeared he didn't have to explain what to his other packbrother. "You'll probably find him down on the tenth floor, where the plans for the hospital are. We're breaking ground in a couple of months. Mutch is giving him a hard time."

"Why isn't Quin dealing with him?" It seemed more natural that the Alpha would deal with the human who held the purse strings, but Quin and Holland had a strange relationship.

Bax punched a last key on his computer and sat back in his chair. "Because he gives Quin a harder time. Not omega, right? That human has an obsession with omegas." Bax got up from his chair, ignoring the landline ringing at his desk and crooked his finger at Cas. "I think I know where he left them. Hang on." He pulled out his phone and sent a text, then led Cas past Louise's empty desk and into Quin's office.

"Where's Louise?" Cas asked. She was a fixture in the office. Her not being there either meant the Apocalypse was coming or something worse.

"She's got that flu that's going through the pack," Bax said, and got down on one knee to rummage in a box of papers on the floor by the wall. "I wish we'd started the hospital last year, because it's bad." He gave a frustrated growl and pulled a stack of papers out of the box to slam them on the floor. "Too much junk. I need a twenty-six hour day."