Chapter 22 #2
“It ain’t forever,” he said quickly. “And it’s almost summer vacation. Most of the kids won’t have school.”
“I guess,” I frowned.
“Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do for safety,” he said. “It sucks but keeping the kids safe is the most important things. None of those assholes are winning and we’re doing everything to ensure those kids get to keep going to Flight School.”
It sucked but the old bear was right.
***
I slept like shit that night. I tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable.
I wasn’t even pregnant enough to blame it on my belly or anything like that.
Next to me, Beryl slept like a rock all stretched out on his back with not a care in the world.
I envied him. Then again it wasn’t his business being modified because of jackasses.
Unable to sleep, I got up and checked on Jondi. He was out cold and buried in otter form under all his blankets. Then I stood in front of my closet contemplating getting dressed. I could get started on catching up on everything that I missed at Flight School while we were gone.
“We told Philip we wouldn’t go alone,” my lion reminded me.
I swore under my breath. If I couldn’t even drive to my own business and work in the middle of the night what was the point? The fuckers sending threats had already won. Why did assholes ruin everything?
I ended up in the kitchen where I polished off a box of those fruity gummy snacks and had to drive to the store to get more so they would be there for when Jondi wanted them.
I drove past Flight School. Tonight it was Amorti and Canton sitting guard.
That was the other thing that bugged me.
Not that people wanted to help but that I couldn’t run a simple playroom without someone taking offense to it.
“We need to eat the people threatening us. We’d probably only have to eat two or three before the threats stopped,” my lion said into my thoughts.
“We know people who could find their info for us. It would be easy. Eat them and then they won’t be around to threaten the baby. Our kitten will be safe.”
He was right on all counts but still I managed to make it to the all-night grocery store without eating anyone.
I grabbed a few boxes of the fruit snacks and some other things that looked yummy.
When I got back to the house, I sat in the Wing Mini and ate a whole cake from the store’s bakery.
It was deep, dark chocolate with coconut and pecan frosting.
Shit, I could’ve eaten a second one if I bought it.
Pregnancy had already turned me into a bottomless pit.
When the cake was gone, I reclined the seat and listened to the radio.
There wasn’t any point in going back inside if I couldn’t sleep.
At least that’s what I thought until I woke up hissing at a knocking sound that vibrated too closely to my head.
Beryl knocked on the window again and I rolled it down.
“Did you sleep drive or just not want to sleep in the same bed as me last night?” he asked.
I sniffed the air to discern if he was joking or not. He wasn’t.
“I went to the grocery store. I was hungry,” I yawned, already thinking about my morning cup of coffee.
“You could’ve woken me up, I would’ve gone,” he frowned.
“I know how to get to the store,” I rolled my eyes.
“Mate,” he leaned in through the window. “People are threatening you. Do you really think it’s a good idea to go out at night alone?”
“I wish one of them would try something. I’d eat them! I’m so fucking over this whole I shouldn’t do anything because other people suck thing!” I growled and he took a step back.
“I would’ve gone to the store for you. That’s how people do it, right? You wake up with a craving and I go hunting to fulfill said craving.”
“I’m not going to sit at home like some house omega. That’s not how they raise ‘em here in the GGB,” I said and climbed out of the window before remembering the bags in the backseat.
“I’ll grab the stuff,” Beryl groaned.
“Mate?” I said, meeting his gaze.
“Yeah?”
“I know you’d have gone to the store. I’m not mad at you. I know you just want to protect me, but I’m not going to let them win and if I sit around at home afraid of them, they win,” I said and walked back into the house to make a cup of coffee.
After we dropped Jondi off at school we swung by the Green Bay Omega and Baby Clinic for my well omega exam.
Beryl was a little annoyed that I asked him to stay in the waiting room.
Being away from him wasn’t fun for me either, but I wanted to ask Doctor Lawngry some questions about my hormones and my urge to eat people that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to ask him in front of Beryl.
Sure, my alpha would probably get it, but he’d also probably offer to eat them for me and that’s not the vibe I was going for.
“No mate today?” Doctor Michael Lawngry walked into the room smelling like some coconut concoction.
“He’s in the waiting room. There are some things I wanted to ask you about,” I said. “He’s done nothing wrong. I think if anything, I’ve been a jackass, especially since my morning sickness started. It’s not every morning and I am managing it with the gummies.”
“I love to hear that,” the doctor grinned and sat down on his spinning stool. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“This is sort of awkward and I don’t even know if it’s pregnancy related or not, but I want to eat people,” I said and then quickly added, “Not random people. Not even non-shifting people. I know that happens sometimes if lions get low iron, but I want to track down and eat the people threatening the playroom.”
“This one, I actually have an answer for or at least I’ve seen it often enough to know what’s going on,” he said. “Do you want the long version or the short one?”
“The long because I think I might have to explain it to other people eventually,” I said.