Chapter Twenty-Four
Movement from the next cell over from mine caught my eye as I lay on my sad little cot feeling sorry for myself. I was convinced that I was wasting away, the depressive state caused by being separated from everyone I loved making me feel lethargic and sickly.
I’d hate to think about how awful I’d feel if Serge, Dex, and I had actually bonded, I thought to myself, not for the first time.
None of the bonded couples living in Shifters Sanctuary had tried to test Eric’s theories about bond sickness caused by extended separation, but we’d all been subjected to his rambling thoughts over the years.
I imagined if I felt this way from everyday loneliness and homesickness, it would be way worse if I’d had magical ties to my bondmates stretched or, considering the cell I was in was designed to resist magic, severed completely.
Just the thought made my stomach roil, though I didn’t think I was going to throw up again. At least, not right then. I didn’t have anything left inside me to bring up, as I had stopped even trying to eat the slop the guards brought in.
Turning my head in the direction of the movement which had caught my attention, I watched as a little red squirrel slipped through the bars of the ‘window’ (and I was using that term loosely) of the next cell over.
The creature paused on the little ledge created by the brick and scented the air, then tilted its tiny head in my direction.
It chittered for a moment, then scurried down the wall and through the open cell door, though I thought it would have obviously fit through the bars themselves, and raced to stand outside my locked cell gate.
I sat up slowly, watching as it tentatively reached a paw towards my cell, then screeched and pulled it back as soon as it barely got a claw between the bars. Within moments, a man stood where the squirrel had been, and he shook his hand out as though he’d been burned.
“Fucking dark magic,” he complained, and I blinked at the unexpected accent while he glared at the bars, “can’t believe they’re using this shit on you.”
He spoke like we knew each other, and I squinted as I took in his curly auburn hair and pretty hazel eyes.
He was petite, with a thin nose that turned up at the end, and sharp cheekbones.
The crescent moon birthmark visible on his naked right pec marked him as another omega.
But for all that I stared at him, I couldn’t place him.
“Who—” I started, and he facepalmed.
“Forgive me. I’m Jamie. I’m a friend of Sergio’s. Obviously, he would’ve preferred to be here instead of me, but I’m the only one who could sneak into the yard and through the bars.”
I had to take a moment to breathe and properly process his words, having gotten caught on the idea that this very pretty little omega was “friends” with my alpha.
Meanwhile, he was still talking.
“—says you should hold tight and not do anything stupid like taking a plea deal.”
I bristled a bit more. This complete stranger had no right to tell me what to do.
“Why should I even trust you?” I blurted, interrupting him.
And it was a valid question. Definitely not a bitter one, driven by irrational jealousy.
Nope. Totally valid. Because he had appeared out of nowhere, had said he was friends with my alpha (though there was no proof of that), and what if…
well, what if this was the message he was passing on because he wanted me to spend longer behind bars?
After all, Sergio, Dex, and I weren’t bonded yet.
This lithe, pretty omega could take advantage of my prolonged absence and replace me.
Okay, okay, I knew that was a bit melodramatic. So sue me, I was going a little stir-crazy being left to my own devices in such a limited amount of space.
The guy —Jamie? Was that what he’d said his name was?— smiled ruefully. “Yeah, that’s a fair question when you don’t know me from Adam.” He hummed to himself, then straightened up, brightly chirping, “Wait here.”
“Yeah, because I’ve got any other option,” I drawled, but he was a squirrel again before I’d finished speaking, and he raced back into the other cell and up the rough brick wall as quickly as he’d arrived.
My stomach sank. Even if I hadn’t trusted —or even liked— him, he’d been company…and now he was gone again.
Great work, Sage.
I sat down heavily with a sigh and hung my head.
A handful of minutes later, though, I heard his little feet scrabbling against the brick again, and I looked up to find him carrying a phone on some kind of makeshift lanyard, the cord clamped between his teeth.
The device swung and clattered against the brick as he scrambled awkwardly down the wall with it, but then he shifted once he reached the ground, picking the phone up and tapping at the screen.
“A little scratched, but it works,” he said, sounding relieved, before bringing it over and holding it through the bars of my cell. I noticed that he was careful not to let his fingers breach the perimeter of the bars, extending the phone through by holding one end of the screen carefully.
“It doesn’t hurt when you’re in human form,” I told him, but I took the phone and let him back up anyway. My eyes watered as I understood that I could call Sergio and Dex —or anyone else I chose to— through this act of kindness. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” he said, leaning against the smooth concrete wall on the other side of the hallway from my cell. “Go ahead and call whoever you need to. They’re all going out of their minds trying to get you out of here.”
Throat tightening, I dialed Sergio’s number, relieved to see it come up in Jamie’s contacts as ‘Sergio Lightfoot – Shaman’ as though my alpha was a vague acquaintance or professional contact, and not a lover. Serge picked up as soon as the first dial-tone began to bleat in my ear.
“Sage?” he asked and simply hearing him say my name had tears spilling down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”
“What? Why? Baby, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
I shook my head, even though Serge couldn’t see me, and I didn’t bother to fight the tears or hide them from my audience.
He’d turned away slightly to give me some semblance of privacy, which I appreciated, but now that I could hear my alpha again —could even talk to him— I didn’t care who saw me breaking down.
“I…I was angry, and I told you to go fuck off and stay away, and I didn’t mean it.
I just wanted you to come home.” I’d regretted my angry parting words more and more with every passing hour since I’d been arrested.
What if I never got the opportunity to apologize or explain?
What if Sergio thought I was still angry with him? What if—
“I deserved it, Sage. I was gone for too long, and then I broke my promise…” There was a deep, mournful sigh down the line.
“I am sorry, beautiful. The Magic might have agreed that we should start passing the knowledge on, but it didn’t feel urgent.
I should have come home and made arrangements to help at a later date, or sent someone else over…
or something.” Serge sighed again, letting out a short, self-deprecating huff of air as he added, “I might be old, but I am certainly not wise.”
“You’re not that old,” I argued back through a watery chuckle, reminding him, “you keep up with me and Dex just fine.”
“Or at least you humor me and allow me to believe I do.”
The conversation fell into a lull at that point, despite the fact that I had a million things I wanted to say to him. I just had no idea where or how to start.
Before I could try, though, Serge said, “We’ve told the lawyer to try harder to get you out, and Dex and Brandt are looking for the dealer who did this to you, okay? No plea deals, beautiful. You’re coming home soon.”
I snorted, wishing I had the kind of hope he did. “That gross-smelling waste of space is probably long gone by now,” I said. “And the lawyer was right; the evidence against me is way too strong to fight against with just my word.”
“Sage, no. Listen to me, you can’t—"
I tried to steel myself against the newest wave of emotion.
I wanted to be strong for my alpha. For both my mates.
I didn’t want them to waste time on something so futile.
Not when it would really only be a blip in the grand scheme of things.
I cleared my throat and spoke over the top of him, my voice wavering while I tried to sound resolved.
“You, me, and Dex…we can…we can survive a few years of me being away, right? I mean, with our lifespans—"
“We’re not having a baby with you in jail, Sage. Even if Dex has to break you out of there…”
I…what?
“What…what baby?” I asked slowly, feeling my stomach sink. “Serge, is Dex...was Dex’s heat…”
I couldn’t finish the questions, not sure if I even wanted to hear the answers.
Of course I would be happy if Dex was pregnant, but some part of me was already jealous of the idea.
He’d never wanted to bear children, while my omega longed desperately for it.
But Dex was my mate as much as Serge was, and that still meant that I’d be a dad, even if in a different capacity to the way I’d always dreamed I would be.
“Shit,” Sergio cursed, which sounded funny coming from him. I would have laughed, but obviously he hadn’t wanted to say anything, and that made me want to cry.
“It’s…it’s okay,” I tried to assure him through a throat that felt so tight that it burned. “I-I’m happy that you and Dex…that, uh, that we’re—”
“No, Sage, you misunderstood me.” Serge sounded strained now, tense in a way I couldn’t pinpoint, but I swore I heard him swallow before he continued, “Dexter isn’t pregnant.
” I felt so, so guilty for the rush of relief that swept over me at those words that I almost missed the next ones. “You are.”