Chapter 35
Atlas
“And another thing,”—Dorian hadn’t stopped talking since we’d gotten into his car—“you’re going to have to be okay with DP. Opal wants it. I’m fine with it. You’re the cockblock here.”
Am not.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” I refused to speak with him about this, regretting almost every choice I’d made tonight.
Or was it early morning now?
I glanced at the dashboard clock, still keeping one eye on the road at all times and my feet planted on the floor to pump the imaginary brakes.
3:24 am. We’d been on the road for hours.
And he needs to slow down.
Dorian checked his GPS map again. “Penelope—the nurse—told Opal about the Omega community in Denver. It’s the closest place I can think of that they’d take her to and if they didn’t, we can find someone there who does know where she went.”
I really hoped he didn’t mean Penelope’s Alphas.
“I’m surprised you remembered,” I grumbled, trying and failing to see how this plan was going to work. It might be a commune of sweet Omegas, but if their mates were anything like Penelope’s, we weren’t going to be able to stroll in and start making demands.
“Contrary to popular myth and what social media might lead you to believe, I do pay attention to things other than myself.” Dorian took his eyes off the road to glare at me.
I stared at the road for us both, not impressed by his attempt to stroke his own ego. “Why did you even leave the show if you love the spotlight so much?”
“Because our mate was leaving.” He growled.
It might’ve been a slip-up, but my wolf stopped mid-pace when Dorian said the word “our.”
We hadn’t used that word yet, had we?
My mate. Your mate.
We don’t deserve her.
If Dorian realized what he said, he didn’t acknowledge it. “I know you think I’m a shit Alpha, but unlike you and the rest of the daddy’s boys who got handed your pack on a gold platter with a guidebook, I’m figuring this out as I go.”
He never shuts up, does he?
“And I played by the rules,” Dorian said. “It was within my rights to claim a new territory of government sanctioned land for my pack.”
“Technically, that land is reserved for new Alpha and Luna couples who are starting their own pack,” I pointed out, and while I was at it, “You’re almost on empty.”
“I fucking know.” He downshifted like he had something to prove.
The gas station lights up ahead grew brighter as I sat there thinking about what Dorian had said. Unlike him, I didn’t feel the need to defend my position. Almost every Alpha I’d ever spoken to had some sort of sob story, but most didn’t go around sharing it.
But he was right. I’d never met another Alpha in his position that started a pack from nothing like we were in the old days of the Wild West or something.
I swallowed my pride as Dorian parked by the pump. “Do you want me to fill it up?”
“No, I don’t,” he grumbled. “I do have enough money for gas, you pretentious prick.”
“Fine.” The cold night air was a welcome relief to the anxious stress sweat that coated my skin.
“Where are you going?” Dorian slammed his door shut.
“To get us some coffee.” I didn’t turn back around.
The gas station bell chimed as I exited with two steaming Styrofoam cups in hand. I half-expected Dorian to be gone, but he was still there, waiting.
“Took you long enough,” he huffed as I slid inside his ridiculously small hotrod.
I hummed my agreement as I sipped the hot brew and resumed my place of staring out the window.
“Needs sugar,” Dorian said, minutes after we’d gotten back on the road.
His words were lackluster, but they echoed in the silence between us. The barren landscape pressed in on either side of the headlight beams and shadow monsters danced on the guardrails.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a bad mate for Opal,” Dorian said, not able to stay quiet this long.
I chuckled at his unexpected comment. “How painful was it to say that?”
“Have you ever taken a trapeze bar to the nuts?” He smirked.
“I can’t say that I have.” And I’d never be able to say it. Not that I’d want to. I took another sip of my coffee before asking, “Why does Bailey Pack need an Alpha? I thought you circus types were all wild and carefree.”
“You know, I’m not only a circus clown.” Dorian rolled his eyes. “I also act and dance.”
“But you can’t sing,” I pointed out.
It’s not like you’re great at it either.
“No, that I cannot do. You’re the one with the pipes.” He grinned. “And to answer your question, they don’t. Or didn’t need one. You know my mom and Aunt Sunny were class acts in their day. So were the others. Did you get to see Basch?”
“That fire-breathing lion shifter?” I asked.
“He used to be on Broadway until he got swept up in our crew,” Dorian explained. “And the monkey twins?”
“Georgie and Garrett.” I was good with names.
“Those two were famous contortionists when they were younger. But they worked with another troupe…” He gritted his teeth as he rounded the bend in the road.
“Anyway, it’s easy to take advantage of talent like this.
Everyone wants a piece. So you get Beta bitches such as Charles Benson who come in like vultures and say they’ll help negotiate better wages or handle the bookings.
Before you know it, they’ve signed contracts and owe more than they can pay. ”
“Charles Benson?” I asked. He said the name like it was someone important. “Never heard of him.”
“You wouldn’t have. He disappeared.” Dorian tightened his hands on the wheel. Now he was the one staring straight ahead. I should’ve been happy about that.
The way he spoke gave me pause. “Did Benson do something to your pack?”
Dorian still wouldn’t look at me. “I shouldn’t have been born.
It wasn’t possible. My ma had never been with an Alpha.
When Ma and Aunt Sunny realized I was an Alpha male, they hid me away until I was strong enough to take that fucker down.
After that, I discovered he had a whole laundry list of similar grievances and troupes he’d screwed over. ”
“Took him down…” I echoed.
That’s not… allowed.
I swallowed another sip of my coffee, but I no longer needed it to stay awake. “You said Benson was a Beta.”
For the first time that I met him, I smelled real fear on his skin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But I did.
When you’d been around as many traumatized shifters as I had, you learned to read between the lines. Dorian had no right to challenge a Beta for Alpha of the pack. If he made him disappear, by all legal accounts, that was murder.
When I glanced up, he was watching me. “If you decide to call it in, it’ll be hard to find proof. But I’ll take the punishment as long as you let my pack stay where they are. We won’t bring the spotlight in. I promise. They deserve a place to finally rest. Let them have this.”
Spoken like a true Alpha.
I sighed and took another sip. “You know if I did, Opal would hate me. Plus, I don’t want to be Alpha of your crazy pack.”
Dorian smirked again. “They’d eat you alive.”
“They’d have to get through Volk Pack first.” I laughed, feeling something shift between us. It seemed like I owed him a truth for sharing one of his. “I wasn’t ready to take over Volk Pack when I did.”
Dorian snorted and I almost stopped talking, but a tug in my chest urged me not to.
“My dad was a good man. He was soft-spoken, but laughed loud. He saved my mom from an abusive relationship before I was born, taking her in as a chosen mate. Before she got sick, she had the great idea to help more female shifters like her. I was still a pup when the first new pack members came in. One of them had a few pups younger than me who couldn’t look me in the eye.
They were afraid of me because of my size. ”
Too big. Too scary. My wolf lowered his snout to his paws and whined.
I stopped talking as I stared at my hands.
“So…” Dorian blew out a heavy breath. “No one wanted to play with the Alpha.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“I’m kidding.” He sighed. “I know who Volk Pack is and what you are to them. Somehow, you convinced an entire pack of traumatized shifters that you were the safest Alpha to be with. That’s no small feat.”
“If you knew, then why?” I asked. My heart started to race and it wasn’t because of the caffeine.
“Calm down,” Dorian said. “It was after all your mysterious pack-secret hints that I did more digging. I just pieced together the whole puzzle today. Though you aren’t as stealthy as you think. Some of the underground systems mention Volk Pack by name.”
“We have to allow the rumors.” I rubbed my hand over my chest, willing my pulse to slow. “It’s the only way some of them will know that we exist. That there’s hope.”
And if you do anything to ruin that, I’ll rip your heart out with my teeth.
“I hear you loud and clear.” Dorian nodded. “And once we get our girl back, I have a proposition for you.”
Our girl…
“Fine. We’ll talk then,” I said, even though my voice hurt from talking this much as it was. “But I think we’re going to need a better plan than barging into an Omega sanctuary to steal our mate.”