Chapter 52 The Institute
The Institute
Acadia
About two weeks after our date to the dance club, we are finally move-in ready.
Ro and I are sharing a room, but there’s a separate room for the nursery that’s set up for me to stay in there, too, when the baby comes.
All three boys, Kol, Locke, and Mads, share the large room.
Oscar has his own. I’ve kept Mads out of the house all day while Kol and Locke finish installing the two aquariums, a saltwater aquarium at the entrance and a freshwater one on his side of their room.
Mads and I are at lunch at this cafe near the river.
He still is so very wary of alphas. Our server is an alpha, and I noticed Mads pulled down his collar to expose his mark.
It did the trick because the alpha has stayed a good two paces away from us while taking our order and had someone else run our food.
“Do you ever think you’ll relax around alphas?” I’m only curious because I’m not sure what to do about his aversion. Should I help him work through it?
He smiles and drinks some of his beer. It’s a tall one that’s so clear it looks like champagne.
“Never.”
“Never!” I slap the table, and he laughs. “You can’t be serious, Mads. You can’t go around being afraid of alphas. You have three of them!”
He adjusts his sleeves on his shirt, shrugs, and keeps that little smirk on his face. He’s so relaxed on this breezy patio. I take off my sunglasses so I can see him better. His foot slides across the bricks to touch mine.
“Are we on a date?” I pull up the drink menu to cover my face. I’m trying to find a good mocktail. After a beat, he pulls the menu down, leaning over the bistro table.
“Why do you ask?”
The bubbles from his beer race upwards to the foamy top next to us.
“I like going on beta dates. Dates with my beta.”
He pulls my face towards his with just my chin and kisses me, then lets me go.
“I’ll make sure I ask you out more. We never did make it to that movie.”
I set the little menu to the side and stab some lettuce with my fork.
“No, we did not. When do I get to meet your mom?”
Mads smiles even more at me.
“I’ll call her later and ask when she can come see the house. Meet you. Meet Ro, too.”
I sigh while chewing my leaves.
“She’s so funny.”
“Isn’t she?”
“She keeps asking to go on walks with me and just pacing in front of the hair school. She is so excited to start.”
“When’s orientation?”
Ro and Oscar have a tour scheduled today, but she hasn’t started yet. She has been up and dressed since dawn.
“Next week. How are things at the omega shelter?”
“So good! We got another grant. Now we can build lockers by the orgy…lounge.”
Mads nearly spits out his beer.
He coughs but gets it all down.
“How’s physical therapy?”
“Really good. Oscar found me a good place to go to. Much better than where I was before. I got some steroid shots and an antidepressant from my new doctor. It helps with pain, too. I was worried about all those pills I took in Salt Port. I’m really opposed to opioids.
But, I don’t know if I would have survived without them.
Anyway, I’m fine. Back on ibuprofen. They gave me a script for cannabis. My first delivery is tonight.”
“I want to get high with you!” I blurt out before it dawns on me. “After…I have the baby.”
He chuckles.
“Are you feeling ok?”
I wave the server over and tell him, like I’m shouting across the patio, that I want the blackberry lemonade.
He nods and runs off.
“I’m not too sick. If I don’t eat meat or carbs, then I’m fine. I saw someone eat a hamburger on tv and wanted to hurl. But didn’t.”
I’m due at the end of May. Kol is certain I’m having a girl. Oscar says boy. Both think they have special alpha powers that can do an early gender detection, but I don’t think that’s right.
“You look great. You glow.”
He admires me in the sun.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course. Ask me anything.”
“What happened in Salt Port?”
His head kicks to the side.
“What do you mean? We went over everything…”
They did. They went over the tiger cage. The bonding. The escape. Sending the tiger back in for Legs…
“It eats me alive, thinking about it.”
My lemonade gets to the table by a nervous beta woman. I thank her, and she runs off.
“Ro and Locke got away by the skin of their teeth. Thinking of them being there under Legs’s control is so fucking horrible. It was worse than we could imagine, wasn’t it?”
He slowly nods.
“I think it was worse than even they can process.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about being a mom.”
“Oh yeah?”
I run my hand over my flat belly.
“I don’t know. I’ve been wanting to make sure she never has to go through what they did. What you did. What Ondine did…”
He reaches across the table and holds my hand.
“Locke and Ro went through hell because of their designations. And everything you went through. I don’t know, I want to make things better. I want to make the world a better place. I get so…emotional about it. I can’t believe we aren’t angrier.”
“Don’t worry, I’m very angry.”
He makes me laugh so much. I watch him pull back and sip his beer, then touch his hair and clothes, self-regulating.
“I don’t want my daughter to be brought into a world with so much suffering. I remember how fucking world-ending it was to find out the Whitehorses casually abused their omega daughter. I just…I want to stop it all. I hate what you all went through.”
I pick up my cloth napkin and catch a tear, but Mads’s thumb gets there first.
“Cadi…”
“The solution can’t be sending man-eating tigers to our enemies.
We can’t fight every injustice by having sex with the right destination or dating how we want.
I want to do something bigger. More impactful.
I want to really do something so big that even our grandchildren and their children feel it. You know?”
“Yes, I know,” he whispers. “I know.”
I shake my head and tell him I don’t actually have any ideas right now. Well, I do, but I don’t tell him. I change the subject instead. We talk about the house. The shorter days. The gossip from the gym they all go to.
In my mind, though, I am grabbing hold of an idea. Something that’ll make our child proud. Rayne for a girl. Rain for a boy. Something for them.
Mads and I finish up our three-hour lunch over the river and come home.
Ro was at the hair school doing a tour along with Oscar.
We all arrive home at the same time. Mads holds the door for me, and it takes him way too long to see the smiling Kol and Locke in front of the aquarium.
Ro comes up from behind with a very confused look.
“It’s just water?”
“Oh my god, you guys got an aquarium?” Mads asks, confused.
Oscar comes in last and shuts the door, cutting off the street noise.
“We got you an aquarium! Two of them!” Locke shouts. Kol gives him a quick, scathing look.
“I got you an aquarium. Two aquariums.”
Ro steps up to the glass and taps it. Kol swats her hand away.
“It’s just water,” she says again.
“Of course. Mads gets to pick out his own fish.” Kol watches Mads approach the fish tank with nervous energy.
The thing is massive. Maybe four feet long.
It divides the entry, so you can walk around it.
It’s like a built-in room divider that goes all the way to the ceiling.
Kol switches on the lights. I can see Mads’s reflection in the glass. He’s in awe.
“This is beautiful.”
“It’s salt water. I already scheduled the cleaners to come regularly. I figured you already had fish suppliers. Oscar showed me your old social media with your tanks, so I figured you had some idea of what you want.”
Mads turns, grabs Kol’s shirt, and pulls him in for a kiss. Kol is surprised at first and then returns the kiss.
“Why?”
“It’s a courting gift. From me to you.”
Mads huffs out a laugh and kisses him again.
Ro rolls her eyes at the men and then looks at me with a raised eyebrow. She’s unimpressed by the tank of water.
I put out my hand, and she takes it, stepping close to me. Ro rests her forehead on my shoulder. I do my best not to point out that I can feel how jealous she is, even if she’s acting outwardly so apathetic.
“The substrate is beautiful. It’s already so clear!” Mads starts taking inventory of everything.
“I watched a lot of videos and read through forums. I wanted it to be perfect.”
Oscar steps up to Mads and hands him a square, blue jewelry box. The same color as the one my necklace came in. Ro twists to see, her forehead still on my arm.
He pops open the lid, and there’s a bracelet inside. A silver bracelet.
“All of our names are engraved on it. It’s a courting gift.”
“Fuck, this is so nice. Why are you…” Oscar takes the chain from him and clasps it on his wrist.
“You deserve nice things.”
Locke dances from foot to foot. Oscar asks him what’s wrong, and Locke goes red.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I have a courting gift for Ro, too.”
She goes stiff with excitement. I take note that we may need to give the omega a gift every time we give each other something, otherwise she gets pouty and petulant.
With a wide smile, Locke gestures for us to follow him to the courtyard in the back, which we are turning into a secluded garden. There’s something new back here. A red hutch underneath a peach tree.
Locke goes to the hutch, opens the door, and pulls out a tiny black rabbit.
Ro screams.
“Oh my god! A bunny!” She rushes him, and he gently hands off the bun.
“It’s a girl.”
“A girl! A girl bunny!”
She takes the bun to Mads to show him, and he smiles and pets the baby. She does not let Kol touch her, though. She spins around and sits down in the grass that was just installed, so it has that checkerboard pattern, and puts the bunny in her lap. They look so cute together. Locke joins them.
“Come see Cadi! She’s so cute!”
I nod but stay where I am.