Page 10 of Watcher's Omega
“No,” Glenn shook his head and I thought he meant to refuse staying. I took a deep breath, ready to tell him that I’d stay with him the whole time and ensure he didn’t have to deal with anyone until he was ready.
“No, Eamon,” he managed a tired smile. “That’s part of the no. You need to get some rest. I can’t do nothing except rest with how drugged up they have my wolf. You’ve got to rest and get to know your mate. I’ll be here. I’m not pulling a runner, and I can’t imagine needing much over the next few days besides sleep and blood both of which the hospital has an ample supply of.”
I bit my lip. Was he just being nice? Was he just wanting to not feel like a burden? Was he so doped up that he didn’t know what he needed? I glanced at Rhomas but he gave a little shrug that said he’d be wherever I was. I looked around the room from Rhomas to Glenn to Lee and then back to my mate. That’s when Rhomas spoke up.
“The hospital is a good place. A safe place. The guards are good. The doctors even better. Most of the nurses are the greatest. They’ll take care of him. I’m sure I can find a couple people to take shifts sitting with him if you’re really worried but post-surgery he won’t get to be alone very long at all. I could leave Jolly too. I mean, if we’re…” one look said everything. “He won’t have much to do. Except then someone needs toaccompany him outside because he doesn’t take well to strange shifters trying to pet him or stuff when I’m not around. He’s only friendly to people I’m friendly to. Otherwise all two-leggers are….” He scrunched up his nose in a way I was pretty sure meant Jolly saw two leggers like rabid squirrels or rabbits. I stifled down a laugh.
“Are you sure, Glennie?” I asked, trying not to frown.
“The guy who did it was killed by books. Come the hell on, Eamon. If that’s not cosmic justice, I don’t know what is.”
“What about…. Blondie?” I asked.
“He won’t come here. It was never going to be that serious…. I mean, he should’ve helped me but….”
His heart monitor sped up and Doctor Knight insisted we change the subject.
“Eamon, if I keep rambling, I’m going to embarrass you. Look at him. He’s all standing there big and broad and wolfy and looking at you like you’re a treasure and a snack. He also tastes fucking yummy. Like if vampyric gods drank wine – they’d taste like your dude over there! Go home with him. Then in a few days when I have a brain again and the inhibition not to tell you to go home and lay the man until you don’t have a working leg between you, we’ll figure out the apartment and our stuff – I mean if anything’s left.”
The heart monitor ratted his anxiety out again. I sighed and spotted a yellow triangle sign on the ceiling that said ‘call don’t fall.’
“Go home with him and seriously – do him! If my mate walked in here right now- that’s what I’d do!”
The more Glenn rambled on the less sure I was about leaving him on his own at the hospital.
“They won’t allow him to be intimate with anyone while he’s admitted,” Rhomas said, stepping closer to me.
“We really won’t. Not even true-mates get to have intercourse after a surgery like this,” Doctor Lee said.
Rhomas crinkled his nose at his dad saying the word intercourse and Lee rolled his eyes. It took a few more minutes of convincing but my wolf agreed that we needed to get someplace ready for Glenn to call home. Since everyone was avoiding my question about the state of the building, I figured it couldn’t be good news.
Since Lee said we were both too tired to drive and Jolly didn’t have his license, he called one of the on call pack helpers to drive us home. At first the guy didn’t look thrilled to see Jolly but he smiled as soon as he saw Rhomas.
“It’s just us. I know the older he gets the more he looks like a dog rather than a wolf sometimes,” Rhomas shrugged. “He’s still Jolly.”
Said wolf sat between us in the back seat, wagging his tail excited to go home.
Chapter Seven
Rhomas
Hemlock Mountain
Home was the very house I sometimes called home as a pup. Sure, sometimes that meant my parents came to stay or my siblings dropped in but as a single wolf it never bothered me much and I couldn’t imagine Eamon would mind the company after we got to know each other. If he did, I’d have to speak with my parents. The house was technically theirs but with me living there they never had to worry about hiring a caretaker because keeping a den in livable shape was something wild wolves were born to do.
Copying shifter tradition, I carried my mate over the threshold. He was shocked when Jolly rose up on his hind legs and booped the security sequence with his nose. Others had asked if his security add-on made the house more at risk for break-ins. It didn’t. Jolly knew the code on the special large pad made just for him, but it was his very essence that actually unlocked the door. Okay that and his living DNA.
Jolly opened the door for us and I carried Eamon into the house. I had called around and hired a catering company to setup breakfast and one of those shopping center places to bring over a rack of clothes – the sort where you can shop at home without someone looking over your shoulder. In a few days, they’d come back and pick up what Eamon didn’t like and I’d pay the difference.
Jolly sprinted straight for his seat at the table. His tail banged against the chair as he waited to be served his share of the hunt. I shut and locked the door behind us and helped my mate remove the coat he borrowed from my dad. Snow was starting to fall again. January blizzards weren’t unheard of in this part of the territory. I hoped they held off long enough for us to bring Glenn home. Trekking back and forth in the snow might be fun for Jolly and me, but I wasn’t sure it would be fun for Eamon. He was shorter than me and more slender. He wasn’t wild born and I was sure he’d get cold much easier than us.
“Hey! I’m still a wolf, mister!” he said, teasingly shaking his finger at me.
I grabbed it and then his hand and brought it to my mouth for a gentle kiss.
“I will take into consideration your comfort for as long as I live, mate,” I said, still holding onto his hand. “Whether it was choice, fate, reincarnation, or merely the nature of wolves that brought us together, it matters little. For we are mates and that means forever thinking of the other. It’s impossible not to think of you and it’s an honor to think of your wellbeing. Imagine, out of all the souls in the Other World you chose me to do just that.”
“For all you know, the last time around I was the alpha,” Eamon smirked.