28. Honey #2
The shirt smells distinctly like him. I pull the collar to my nose and take a long smell.
I don’t know when I started being able to tell Phoenix and Zephyr’s scents apart, but Zephyr’s is much more tart apples than Phoenix’s muted sweet cherries.
I like them both the same though. I draw another deep lungful and find myself smiling. Why am I so happy?
When I come out, Zephyr is tying the laces on his work boots. His leather vest hung over his shoulders makes him look so much more unapproachable than yesterday, when he went without it.
“You’ll have to wear your tennis shoes if you’re going to be down in the garage with us until I get you some safety-toe ones. But for now, the tennis shoes will be okay.” He keeps his voice low, and I assume it’s to not wake Phoenix, but the low growly sound sends an electric shiver down my spine.
I put on the shoes and tie the laces, then follow him out into the hallway. I know the way down to the garage, but when we get down to the main garage, Zephyr leads me out into the driving area and then across the street. A large garage door is open, and we step inside it.
“Well, well, well. Who is this young, gorgeous thing?” A large alpha steps toward us, his eyes set on me.
Zephyr puts himself between me and the large alpha despite the size difference, at least six or eight inches, between them.
Zephyr’s shadow goes to the maned wolf shape and looks like it’s growling at the man.
“Move,” Zephyr commands.
The alpha isn’t wearing the same vest as Zephyr, and I don’t know what that means, but I get the feeling it isn’t a good thing.
“What, I don’t see a property cut? There’s no harm in me talking to the little omega.” The larger alpha moves to go around Zephyr.
I cast my eyes down and away, trying to be as small as possible.
But the second I look away, there is a huff as if air is being knocked out of someone, drawing my attention back to the men.
Zephyr is pushing the larger alpha to the floor. Their shadows try to fight, but Zephyr’s maned wolf clearly strangles whatever animal is supposed to be this man’s shadow.
“I said move. She’s off-limits. I’m letting you go, and you’re going down the block to the bar to wait on the bench while I finish your fuckin’ bike.”
“Yeah. Yeah, whatever.” The other alpha holds his hands up in surrender.
I’m breathing heavy. It’s hard to swallow, and my core is tight. I don’t understand what’s wrong with my body, but Zephyr just . . . smiles at me. He holds his hand out, and I slip my fingers into his, and he leads me through the rest of the shop into the back.
We step into another garage-type area similar to the one back across the street. But this one is full of mechanical equipment and various tools. All the way across the garage, at the farthest station, is a black motorcycle on top of a large metal table. Tools are scattered around the workstation.
“He always leaves such a mess.” Zephyr groans and scrubs his hand down his face.
He looks over at me, and his expression is all goofy with how his hand holds onto the skin.
I giggle. “I am guessing Phoenix left a mess?”
“Always,” Zephyr murmurs as he picks up a tool and then puts it back down rather than cleaning it up and putting it away.
“He’s kind of a mess himself.” I agree, thinking of how one of the rooms always seems messier than the other. But he’s kind and caring all the same. His mess isn’t worse than his best qualities.
Zephyr nods and tugs on my hand, dragging me closer, and then pulls a stool out from under the metal table. “You can sit on this.”
“Okay.” I sit on the stool, and he pushes me by the shoulders, maneuvering me out of the way.
I almost fall, but his shadow holds me up. I run my fingers through the darkness of it. It would be so interesting if I could touch the shadow and not feel like I’m just touching air.
Zephyr shrugs out of his black vest and hands it to me. “Put this on.”
Carefully, I reach toward it and do as he instructs. “Why do you want me to wear this?”
“Because it tells everyone you’re mine.” Zephyr gifts me a cocky smile that pulls up on one side of his mouth more than the other.
His? I let my mouth fall open with the shock.
He picks up a tool from the bench and starts looking at the bike. “Even if it’s not true, yet, no one will hassle you.”
His. There is no mistaking it, Zephyr is telling me that he wants me.
It’s not like he hasn’t said it before. With the gifts of bedding and then again with clothes, he and Phoenix have made it quite clear that they’re interested in courting me.
But hearing him say it like that. His. Butterflies flutter in my stomach.
I run my thumb along the leather fabric of the vest, feeling the rough machine stitching.
Lazarus made the statement that I shouldn’t stay here. Just once, he said that I should ask to be trafficked, taken away from this place. But I don’t know what that really means, and I don’t know why he wouldn’t want me here. Somehow, I am maybe beginning to feel like I belong here, with them.
Zephyr starts working on the motorcycle. He has tools moving and parts coming off the bike in an ordered and meticulous fashion.
“You don’t like being alone, do you?” Zephyr doesn’t stop working, his tools moving fast in his hands, his shadow holding things for him.
“I spent a lot of time alone, at the community. They call it sequestering and quieting. It’s supposed to help us reflect and be more faithful.” I hang my head, wondering if he’ll judge me for spending so much time in sequestering.
“Hey.” He sets a tool down with a little more force than necessary, and it draws my attention. “Don’t do that.”
I shake my head, not understanding.
“Don’t feel bad about what other people did to you.” He gives me a firm nod. “But I know a little bit about what it’s like being locked up alone.”
“I was hoping they didn’t do that outside the community.” I slouch a little on the stool and play with the worn edge of the leather vest.
“Omegas? Practically never. Alphas and betas, a whole lot more. I did something against the law, for a good reason, but I got caught and had to go to prison to pay for my crime.” He fiddles with a tool for a second before going back to working on the bike.
“How long?” It feels intrusive to ask. I want to know everything about him though.
“Three months.” He answers but adds quickly, “It’s a short sentence because what I did wasn’t very bad.”
Sadness in his words resonates with the broken parts of myself. The bits that got broken every time the door closed and the lock flicked over.
“I can’t imagine being sequestered that long,” I tell him.
“I wasn’t alone the whole time. It’s not quite the same.
What happened to you and me are equally bad, but it’s a little different.
In some ways, yours is way worse.” Zephyr draws a long breath and holds it for a moment.
“I’m not big, and that made me a target for other alphas to push around.
For my safety, they put me in a block, mostly by myself, for days at a time.
But it was only for three months, it wasn’t for years of my life. ”
Zephyr understands me a lot more than maybe anyone else I’ve encountered yet. I hate how similar our lives are in that sense.
I run my fingers over the vest’s soft leather. It’s worn but well-loved. That’s the difference between us. As similar as we are, Zephyr has someplace that loves him, that he can call home. Everything about where I was seemed like a trap. But with Zephyr, it’s like he gets it. He sees me.
But I also see him. He looks over his shoulder a lot. He doesn’t trust what’s going on around him, and he’s so on edge. I remember what that feels like and how I just had to get used to the feeling of being watched. I hope it doesn’t stay with him. I hope that he finds a way to get past it.
I rub my fingers over one of the patches on the vest, my fingers bumping over the edges.
When I feel braver, I break the long silence between us. “What does the vest mean when you wear it?”
“That I’m a member of the Night Wraiths MC.” He answers simply as he looks over to me. “Different patches mean different things, but ultimately, it means that I belong to the club and the club has my back. You wear it, and everyone knows if they mess with you, they’re messing with the whole club.”
“Oh, and outside of when you were in prison, do people mess with you a lot?” My question must be funny because Zephyr laughs.
“No, my last name generally takes care of that for me.” He stops working on the motorcycle and walks around so it’s no longer between us. He leans against the table the motorcycle is on and crosses his arms. “Why?”
“No reason.”
The appeasing answer that normally made the disciples at home forget an omega asked a question doesn’t work on Zephyr.
“There’s always a reason.” Zephyr crouches down, putting his eye level just below mine.
“I’m wondering if I belong here.” I answer as honestly as I can since my thoughts aren’t making as much sense as he would probably like.
“Do you want to belong here?” Zephyr pulls my hand from the vest and cups it with his own.
There’s such a difference in his hands as an alpha and mine as an omega. His are large and powerful, and mine are small and weak. I smile, the drying grease from his work on his skin now muddying up my own. We’re so different yet the same.
“I don’t know.” It isn’t a lie, but it sure feels like it could be.
“I want you here. Phoenix wants you here. And as much as Laz is being a dick about you being here, I know he wants you too.” Zephyr smiles up at me. “Give us some time to prove you fit. Give us a chance. Please.”
He squeezes my hand with his until I nod an agreement. “Okay, I promise.”