Chapter Two
Altan
I tossed and turned all night, so breakfast was something easy. Biscuits and sausage in the oven and scrambled eggs. Easy as far as I was concerned since it was my day to cook. Cooking was something I loved, but lately I didn’t have the heart or the energy for it.
The lack of sleep was becoming a problem.
My wolf was hyperaware, for lack of a better term. He wanted me to run at all hours of the night. We had security cameras around the house and would know if something was up, but he insisted.
Prowling at all times of the night in my head, the feeling was strange. Never had he been so insistent.
I’d woken in a cold sweat again the night before at three on the dot—rather, that morning.
Maybe what I’d been thinking about was ready to be spoken out loud. As I pulled the biscuits out of the oven and stirred the eggs one last time, my pack brothers bustled about the house.
This morning, we needed to talk.
It was time to move on from Pleasant, but though I was the alpha of this pack and made the final decision, I wanted their input.
My wolf could be behaving weird. Animals did that.
“Morning,” Orin called out, eyelids heavy, hair pointing in every direction.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, his hidden, small-town speakeasy was closed, so he got decent sleep, but usually only enough to catch up only to repeat the process again.
Thank goodness he was able to take naps during the day to keep his energy up.
“Morning. Coffee’s ready.”
Orin strolled over to the coffeepot, picked it up, and then put it down again. He rested his fists on his hips and looked from the coffeepot to the espresso machine he insisted on and then back again.
“Trouble?” I asked, laughing. He’d done this before.
He chuckled. “I’m making the most important decision of the day. Shush.”
That should’ve made me laugh considering Orin took his coffee as seriously as the liquor he sold at his bar but, instead, it made me rethink everything, not that I wasn’t doing that enough on my own.
Coffee had become one of the most important parts of our day. Along with food. What to eat. What to wear. Work. Shifting. Paying the bills.
There was more to life than this, and I had a sinking feeling that we were missing an integral part of it. No, more than a feeling. A knowing. We were a pack and had been since we graduated from college. I went on to law school, but we were a pack before that.
Packs formed because of a bond of brotherhood but, more than that, we formed so that we could prepare for having a center. A pivot. An omega.
And here we were contemplating coffee and breakfast and a lack of sleep instead of spoiling a mate rotten and prioritizing her needs over our silly male needs.
We didn’t talk about what we were missing, but all of us were well aware of the absence.
Orin made the espresso decision and got to work on that while I ate at the table with my tie laying over the back of the chair. Damned thing. I didn’t put it on unless I had to and then I took it off as soon as possible.
When I was pouring over law texts and studying my ass off, I didn’t consider the wardrobe in my career decision. I should’ve. Ties and suits were the absolute worst.
Sovann was up next and chipper as ever. Unlike Orin and me, Sovann had always slept like the dead no matter what was happening in our lives.
He worked from home but was in between projects, so he filled his days with taking care of our chickens and our tiny vegetable garden.
We wanted to expand it, but who had the time?
“Morning.”
I grunted instead of answering, and Orin said something unintelligible while he sipped his espresso.
“Both of you are grumpy? It’s not even Monday.”
“Do you two think we should move?” I asked, not able to contain myself anymore.
All movement stopped. Orin’s cup was halfway to his mouth. Sovann paused in front of the dish cabinet with the door partially open.
I couldn’t have been the only one with the thought in my head.
Or maybe I was.
Sovann turned around. “What do you mean?” Apparently, the look I gave him answered the question. “Why? Are you thinking about moving us?”
“We moved here to settle in and find our omega. That hasn’t happened.”
There. I said it.
Orin polished off his espresso and pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning on.
“What if we move on and she’s here? Or she’s about to move here?
This was the place that called to us most. We’ve settled here.
We have a paid-off home. I have a business.
You a job. We like it here. If Fate intends for us to have an omega, then our worlds will collide. ”
I almost scoffed but thought better. Orin believed with his whole heart in Fate and destiny and soul mates and scent-matches made in heaven. “My wolf has been antsy. I don’t know why. I’m fucking tired of being alone. All of us.”
“We are too.” Sovann, followed by Orin, came to sit next to me with a plate of food. “But we can’t give up. And I think Orin is right. What if we move, and she’s on her way here?”
“Okay. Then we wait for her.” No movement felt like giving up, but I trusted my pack’s instincts.
I sometimes walked to work, since our place was outside of town but not too far to enjoy the commute.
On this day, there was some sidewalk construction at the end of Main Street, so I changed my route and went a different way.
On a side street, I noticed some movement in a shop that had been empty for years.
The window was filled with blooms and a summery backdrop. When had it opened?
Maybe they were right. Pleasant was growing by the year and hopefully it would attract our omega to move in so we could find her.