Chapter Eighteen
Imight have bent the truth a little when I told my mates that the issue was arranging transportation for some of my more questionable belongings. The issue wasn’t that I didn’t have shifter contacts who could do it, it was that I was all but being blackmailed before they would.
Word had traveled about Shifters Sanctuary, of course.
What I hadn’t gambled on was my personal involvement being broadcast along with the general knowledge that the shifters in Iowa had discovered how to release peoples’ locked alpha designations.
My contacts in Europe were not stupid: they had put two and two together and knew that I had likely performed the spells involved in the process.
There was some (understandable) bitterness coming my way from those who felt I should have brought The Magic to help in their communities instead. Sadly, no amount of explaining that The Magic had other plans would sway their opinions.
I understood why. To those who couldn’t feel the unearthly pull, it sounded like wishy-washy excuses. It was something I could not prove, and that they could not quantify, so I could see why they were frustrated.
But I was also growing increasingly frustrated. I wanted to return to my mates, to the home I was going to settle in for as long as my mates wanted to stay there. And I couldn’t do that while my contacts refused to assist me.
Ironically, given the task Sage and Dex had been assigned by their pack, I wore scent blockers for all of my dealings with my contacts and always had.
None of them knew my species, and I liked to keep it that way.
Fortunately, because they were used to my use of the blockers, none of them questioned my use now, either.
This was a good thing, because I didn’t particularly want them to discover my change in designation, either.
I felt that would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull — in some cases, quite literally.
Having returned to my barren apartment after another day spent in fruitless pursuit of willing transport, I collapsed into my leather armchair and sighed.
The Magic was beginning to get restless beneath my skin, my inner alpha stamping his hooves and braying for me to return to my mates.
As the two additional weeks came to a close, I realized that I might just have to abandon my property, or at least store it somewhere until such time as I could return to try again.
At least I could call my mates and get some measure of comfort by simply talking to them.
But, just as I was reaching for my phone, there was a knock at the door. I frowned. My neighbors never bothered me, and I didn’t have any close friends in the country, either. So, who was at my door?
Letting out a soft grunt, I pushed back to my feet and crossed the space towards the front door, swinging it open just as another round of sharp, rapid knocks sounded. The man on the other side stumbled forward, not having been prepared for the door to swing open unexpectedly.
“Shit,” he cursed in a familiar Irish brogue, righting himself before scowling at me. “You could have given me some warning.”
“Jamie,” I replied curtly, cautiously eyeing the man who had most likely followed me from my final meeting in the city, “what are you doing here?”
The omega rolled his eyes and brushed past me, sauntering into my apartment as though he’d been invited.
He did a slow circle, clearly taking in the piles of neatly stacked boxes against the walls, then finally faced me again, tucking wild auburn curls behind his ears.
“I came to beg you to see reason,” he answered.
I shook my head but closed my apartment door, resigning myself to another long, likely unsatisfying conversation for the both of us.
Jamie Bartlett was an entrepreneurial shifter and a businessman at heart, but he was less threatening than a box of kittens.
Literally. The man was a squirrel shifter and, even though he was young and fit where I was on the wrong side of middle-aged, he was still physically outmatched.
“I am seeing reason,” I told him calmly. “It’s you that won’t. The Magic—”
“Oh, pull the other one,” he cut me off, gesturing angrily in the air between us, “it plays fucking Jingle Bells.”
“Jamie, please listen—”
“No,” he stepped in closer and jabbed his index finger into my chest, “you listen. You have the knowledge to help shifter communities all over the damned world and—” he paused and scented the air, his eyes going wide.
Well, shit.
“—and you’re a fucking alpha, too.” Frown deepening, Jamie curled his fingers around the lapels of my jacket until his knuckles turned white.
“Is this why you wear the blockers?” He shook his head before I could answer.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re an alpha and you know how to unlock other alphas.
You have to help us. Keeping the secret in one tiny town in fucking America, of all places… ”
“The plan has always been to spread the word once it became more practicable. Right now, there’s still no way of knowing who is a potential alpha and who is not. Once we know how to narrow it down—”
“No. No. Why can’t these experiments happen worldwide? Why can’t others help with the research?” Jamie’s eyes were glassy and his cheeks pink with his heightened emotions.
Sympathy welled within me. Even though European omegas weren’t generally mistreated like those across America, there was still a power divide between them and the betas in their communities.
Additionally, the desperate hope swimming in Jamie’s hazel eyes reminded me of Sage, and of his desire to have children.
“The Magic insisted the focus had to be in Shifters Sanctuary,” I responded softly, prying his hands from my clothing. His hold loosened and his hands fell uselessly to his sides. “And even if I wanted to help you, I don’t have access to the scientific portion of the process.”
Jamie perked back up. “We have scientists in our packs here. Have your people send us their workings, and then we can host one of those…what do you call them? Unlocking events?”
I groaned, still not quite understanding how the pack in Iowa had gone from attempting to Unlock individual potential alphas to doing so en masse.
As far as I could tell, Eric loathed the parties, mostly because it prevented him from being able to keep a closer eye on the test subjects before and after their alphas were unlocked.
There was no real way to track them all, or to compare test results to find a pattern amongst them.
“It’s not that simple,” I tried to reason with him, and he scoffed.
“How? How is it not?”
“Well, the magical component has to happen at a very specific moment in the moon’s cycle, and—”
“So we wait for that.”
I almost choked on air. “No. That’s almost two weeks from now and I have to return to Iowa.” Being gone for almost six weeks was difficult enough. I missed my mates terribly. I didn’t think my inner beast would survive another two weeks of separation. I wanted to go home.
Home.
It was a strange concept for a nomad like me.
“Two weeks is nothing compared to a lifetime,” Jamie bit back sharply.
I wanted to huff at him. He hadn’t seemed to clock my species yet, but his lifetime was a blip against mine and…
alright, maybe that was a point in his favor, too.
What was two more weeks apart from my mates when we could be together for hundreds of years?
It really was selfish to put my own wants ahead of others who weren’t as blessed as me, wasn’t it?
The Magic stirred within me, and I wanted to groan. Now it wanted to exert its presence in Europe? Now?
Well, I knew better than to argue with it.
Nodding slowly, I acknowledged, “You’re right. It isn’t.”
Jamie seemed surprised by how quickly I had backed down. Cocking his head, he asked, “Does that mean you’ll help us?”
Licking my lips, I nodded.
My omegas were going to kill me.