Page 40 of His Prodigal Alpha

“I didn’t mean to!”

At my other side, Royce erupted into a fit of giggles, the traitor.

“Seriously,” I scrambled to regain whatever ground I’d lost, “I’m sorry. My big mouth gets ahead of me.”

Thankfully, Damon snorted and he nodded. “I know. I haven’t exactly forgotten our reunion, remember?”

“So,” I grabbed for my plastic cup of water and raised it in a toast, “Merry Christmas!”

* * *

“Jesus H Christ,” one of the old bear shifters, Mortimer Drake, growled and glared down at his phone, disturbing the relaxed ambiance of the party.

Night had well and truly fallen, but the dragon-lit bonfires around the marquees were generating enough warmth to keep us all comfortable. Many of the families with young ones had either taken the kids up into Ollie and Beck’s house to nap in what I was affectionately calling ‘puppy piles’, and us grownups had lapsed into long stretches of companionable silence, sated by too much rich food and maybe a little bit too much alcoholfor some, too. Chatter had dimmed to low, warm murmurs, and it felt kind of like my very earliest memories with my mama before she’d died.

Well it had, until Mortimer’s loud complaint broke the contented air around us.

“Morty,” his wife whined at his side, “you’re being loud again.”

Heads swiveled in their direction, most people wearing amused smirks at their antics. Smirks fell as he held up his phone with a scowl. “Morstein’s issued a goddamned call to arms,” he groused, and I noticed Beck and Ollie sit up a little bit straighter in their seats.

As the party had dwindled, we’d all moved to one table, and I had been enjoying getting to know even more members of the town. Now I was glad that we were all together because I was able to watch Beckett’s reaction to Mortimer’s announcement.

“What?” Beck gestured for the phone. “Explain.”

I leaned towards Damon, whispering, “Wasn’t Morstein that preacher guy? From the cult church?”

“The one that tried to have Beck kidnapped, yeah,” Damon nodded, his eyes also glued on Beckett. “He basically controls most of the old-school packs. I’m pretty sure he gets, like, fifty percent of the monthly tithes or something. He’s always creeped me out.”

I nodded in understanding. I might have grown up human, but even we had our share of evangelical religions and whatnot, particularly down in the Bible belt. Not to mention my long-held personal belief that far too many wars were waged in the name of religion: though it was obvious that social power and money were the real driving forces.

Wasn’t there a saying about absolute power corruptingpeople absolutely?

Beckett paled as he read whatever it was Morstein had posted online. “Is this guy for real?” he asked, sounding disgusted as he passed the device to his fiance. “Wasn’t Moonmusic supposed to be a church? Preaching peace and love and good will to all mankind, especially at Christmas?”

Ollie scoffed and pointed at the screen. “Not when we’re clearlysucha danger to the shifter way of life.” He seemed to be paraphrasing the text in front of him. “More like he doesn’t want any of the old-school packs getting any ideas about getting out from under his thumb. Our numbers are already growing: that means less tithes headed his way, not to mention a drop in free labor.”

“Plus the status of an alpha outranks him, and news is bound to get out that we’ve gottwoalphas now.” Mortimer muttered, accepting his phone back. “Not that Ethel and I have ever cared ’bout status. Came out here for a better life for James, didn’t we? Just ’cause he wasn’t beta didn’t mean he should be treated with any less respect than us. Saved us a pretty penny in tithes, too.”

It was a story similar to most of the people living in Shifters Sanctuary, and I could understand why Morstein and his ‘church’ would loathe the loss of more and more shifters.

“How many people do you really think are going to buy into his lunacy?” Tim, Sam & Becca’s son, asked, looking to his parents for reassurance. They’d raised him in Shifters Sanctuary since he was only a couple of months old, because they hadn’t wanted to subject him to the kind of life many other omegas suffered. “I mean, with a lot of that older generation, uh,” he cringed as he looked over at Mortimer.

“Dying out. You can say it,” Ethel waved him off dismissively.

“Yeah, well, with a lot of the older generation dying out, surely less and less people are quite as…zealous.” Tim finished his thought. “Like, aren’t the younger generations more likely to use critical thinking skills or whatever?”

“If they’ve been raised with the ability to think for themselves, sure,” Damon offered, shrugging. “My pack back in New Mexico made most of our folk homeschool, and only the basics. Critical thinking skills were discouraged. They don’t want you to know just how unfair their treatment is.”

“Mine were the same back in Virginia,” Ollie agreed with a nod. I noticed that he had picked up one of the paper napkins and was twisting it between his fingers. “I applied for every scholarship and grant to get into a college —any college— just to escape it.”

“Me too,” Damon sighed. “So, yeah, sure…there are a lot of younger omegas looking to escape from the oppression of their packs, but why would the majority of betas in these packs want that? When they get us to do most of their hard labor for free, or toss us into what they see as the most menial roles in their packs and take our tithes out of what minimal wages they allow us to earn…why would they want that to change?”

Beck cleared his throat, and pointed at Mortimer’s phone. “Regardless, that diatribe Morstein posted means we’re going to have to get a bit more vigilant. I’m not expecting them to attack the town or anything, but they’ll probably start sending people to scope us out, find out our weaknesses and whatnot. I’ll get the council together tomorrow and we’ll organize a neighborhood watch.” He rubbed Ollie’s back and looked across the table to meet my gaze. “I don’t want to freak people out to the point where we all stop going about our daily lives, but we can’t dismiss Morstein’s ramblings as harmless, either.”

I turned to look at Damon as the reality of what Beck wasn’t saying out loud hit me.

Despite us not being bonded, my pregnant omega was a target.

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