Business as Usual
Owen
Ibring one hand up to cradle Lyra’s face and kiss her again, and let the other slide down the curve of her side to squeeze the soft swell of her ass through the thin cotton. She makes a small, pleased sound into my mouth that goes straight through me.
I should quit my job.
My phone buzzes against my thigh, and reality comes crashing back down.
I break the kiss with a groan, dropping my forehead to hers. "That's my reminder. I have to go."
"No." Lyra frowns, and it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. "Call in. Tell them you died."
I snort, then press one more kiss to her frown. "Sorry, gorgeous. The rent won’t pay itself."
She sighs and steps back, letting me go. I turn to the counter and pour my coffee into the travel mug. Behind me, Lyra twists at the waist, one hand pressed to the small of her back, arching into a slow stretch with a little wince.
I glance over my shoulder. "You sore too?"
"My lower back is killing me." She rolls her hips, working out the ache, a sheepish little smile tugging at her mouth.
"You okay?" I turn to her, not sure how worried I should be.
"It’s nothing." She waves a hand at me. "I think I'm going to take something for it and go crawl back into bed with the boys."
"Good plan." I screw the lid onto my mug and check my watch. "They won't be up for another hour, at least. You've got plenty of time to get some quality snuggling in before they have to leave."
Her whole face lights up at that, and she moves toward the hall, already halfway back to that warm bed and our three big alphas sprawled across it. We all slept in the big bed last night.
After that awful party, Lyra needed her whole pack next to her.
"Have a good day," she calls over her shoulder.
I rush after her and catch her hand before she gets away and reel her back for one last kiss, soft and lingering, my thumb brushing Nico’s mark on her throat.
"I'll be home by five," I tell her. "Save me a spot."
Then I grab my keys, and I head out into the Monday morning, happier than I have any right to be.
The library is quiet when I walk in. The morning light comes down through the tall windows, pooling gold on the marble. It smells like old paper and lemon polish, the way it always does, and I breathe it in and feel a small pang.
I’m really going to miss this place.
Marguerite's at the front desk, glasses pushed up into her silver curls, and she looks up when I pass.
"Well, good morning." She tips her head, studying me. "You're looking awfully bright-eyed today, Dr. Cruz. Something's got you glowing."
"I had a good weekend." I can't help the grin. "A really good weekend."
In fact, I can barely sit down, but I don’t tell Marguerite that.
Nico, Adrian, and Mack were all insatiable. They took turns with Lyra, then with me, then with each other, until the entire house smelled like nothing but pack, sweat, and sex. And now I have a deep, tender ache low in my back that flares every time I shift my weight.
Worth it. Every bit of it.
"Must have been." She winks before going back to her monitor. "Try not to let the workday ruin that good mood too much."
"If only." I rap my knuckles on the counter and head for the elevator.
The old brass cage rattles closed, and I lean back against the wall as it carries me up, and I let myself think about my interview with Halvern last week.
I can't think of a single reason I won't get the job.
They want me to build the whole exhibit from the ground up, an open, honest collection on pack history and culture, right out in the daylight where anyone can walk in and see it.
No more hiding.
Unfortunately, the money's a good deal less than what I make here. But we've been saving for a while now, and even if it takes the boys a few months to find steady work, we'll be comfortable enough in Halvern to breathe. Things are cheaper out there. Slower.
We might even manage a bigger house.
The cage settles on my floor and the doors fold open.
I'm smiling again when I step out.
My office is about halfway down the hall and to the right.
I let myself in, drop into my chair, and thumb the computer awake while it grinds through its slow morning wake-up.
A couple of coworkers drift past my open door, coffee in hand, none of them so much as glancing in. It's a normal Monday. Quiet.
I pull up my email and start typing out a reply to a colleague at another university about a manuscript loan. Half my mind is still three hours up the coast in a house that doesn't even exist yet.
I wonder how much it would cost to build a custom shop for the boys.
My office door squeaks.
I glance up with a smile already on my face, expecting someone from acquisitions, or a page needing a signature. But it’s neither.
Crispin Maleth is standing in my doorway, and the smile on my face instantly falls.
The alpha looks like hell.
There's a dark, ugly bruise spread along the left side of his jaw. It’s purple at the center and going green-yellow at the edges, exactly where Mack's fist landed at the party. It's swollen enough to pull the corner of his mouth down.
"Dr. Cruz." He leans against my doorframe, his chin jutting forward like he's ready for a fight.
I make myself breathe, then I pull my professional face on, the one I use for donors and difficult patrons, and I keep my voice easy.
"Mr. Maleth." I clasp my hands on my desk. "How are you doing?"
He doesn't answer. He just tilts his head, studying me, and something cold moves behind those slate-gray eyes.
"I have to admit," he finally says, "I never realized how close you and Lyra are."
Everything in me goes still.
I shift in my chair before I can stop myself, and I hate that I do it, because a man like Crispin reads a flinch the way I read a card catalog. But I don't know what to say.
It also doesn’t help that I don't know what he saw, or what he thinks he saw, or how much of this is a guess he's fishing to confirm.
Crispin strolls the rest of the way into my office like he owns it. He unbuttons his suit jacket with two fingers, then lowers himself into one of the chairs across from my desk. He settles, then crosses one leg over the other.
Fear climbs up the back of my throat, and I do the hardest thing I've done in years.
I reach for my bond with Nico, and I take everything churning in me, the fear and the racing pulse and the certainty that this is very bad, and I smooth it down on my end until nothing leaks across. Nico doesn't need to feel me panic over this.
Because the truth is, an alpha like Crispin doesn't get his own hands dirty.
He loves his reputation too much. Men like that don't throw punches in a public building where anyone might see.
If Crispin wants me hurt, he'll do it the coward's way, a quiet word, a hired stranger in a parking garage weeks from now. Not here. And definitely not himself.
Whatever Crispin wants, I’ll handle it. Alone.
"I was surprised, frankly," Crispin goes on, conversationally, "to watch you leave that party with Lyra. All of you. One big happy group." He tugs at the edge of his cuff. "I keep turning it over."
"Lyra's mated to a relative of mine," I say simply. "We carpooled. That’s all."
"Carpooled?" Crispin snorts, then his eyes narrow. "Which one?"
I frown. "Which one…what?"
"Which relative?"
"Adrian," I say my mate’s name. "Adrian Bennett."
Crispin leans forward, elbows on his knees, and his voice sharpens to a point. "And how, exactly, are you and Adrian Bennett related?"
My mind goes blank.
Because it would take exactly two minutes for Crispin to check my family tree, and see that there’s no Adrian Bennett anywhere on it. Anything I say now is a rope he can hang me with later.
I swallow, trying to hide it as a sigh. "What can I help you with, Mr. Maleth?"
Crispin stares at me, completely still, then the corner of his bruised mouth twitches like he's pleased I didn't answer.
Then his gaze drifts across my desk and stops on the framed photo beside my monitor. He reaches over and picks it up without asking, turning it toward the light.
It's an old one. The four of us on the dock up at the lake, shirtless and sunburned, Nico in the middle with his arms slung around Adrian and Mack, all of us squinting and laughing at whoever held the camera. Just four men on a summer afternoon.
Nothing in it a stranger could read too much into…I hope.
Crispin studies it a long moment anyway.
"Handsome group." He sets the frame back down on my desk, but not where it was. He turns it a few degrees so it faces his chair instead of mine. "You all look very close."
A cold knot of dread tightens in my stomach. He knows. He has to know. Every instinct screams at me to keep my mouth shut, to not give him anything else.
"I want to talk to Bennett," he finally says.
I frown then shake my head. "I'm not sure how I'd get ahold of him right now," I say carefully.
"Bullshit," he says simply. "I know exactly where you live, Dr. Cruz. You share a house with your husband and two other alphas, including Adrian Bennett. And now, it seems, an omega." He tips his head. "That's an awful lot of people for a two-bedroom house on the edge of town. Don't you think?"
My heart is slamming so hard I'm sure he can see it moving my shirt.
Crispin settles back in the chair like we have all afternoon.
"You want to know the part that eats at me?" He tips his head, studying me from the side. "I saw it. That night at the gala. I saw the way you looked at Lyra when you thought no one was watching." His bruised mouth pulls tight. "Like she was already yours. Like you'd made up your mind about her."
I keep my face still and say nothing, because there is nothing safe to say.
"I told Aldric to point that investigator at you first." A short breath pushes out through his nose.
"He wouldn't hear it. A soft little library beta, sniffing after his daughter?
He was insulted I'd even suggest she'd lower herself that far.
" His eyes stay flat on mine. "But I trusted my gut. I always do."