Page 14 of Real

“Well, you need clothes now. C’mon, let’s go look around.” I hold out my hand to Buddy. He slips his silicone fingers in mine and pulls himself up. I’m surprised by his weight. If I didn’t know better, I’d think his body was made of flesh and bone.

He pushes the car door shut, pausing to make sure it closes completely. “I don’t have money. Don’t you need money at stores?”

“I have money.”

He scrunches his shoulders together. “But we’re buying clothes for me.”

“I’ll buy them for you,” I assure him.

“Why? I don’t know how to make money. I can’t pay you back.”

I could tell him I’m buying him clothes because it’s my job. That’s partially true. He needs clothing for court tomorrow, and Steppe asked me to buy it for him. But that isn’t why I’m spending my own money so Buddy can get something more than the cheap button-up shirt and slacks Steppe intended for him.

“Because I like you, Buddy.”

The smile he tries to hold back makes my heart grow three sizes. He continues to grip my hand as we walk across the parking lot to the glass door of the shop. A young, blonde omega woman in a pencil skirt and cardigan waves at us from the cash register. She does a double take when her gaze falls on Buddy.

Buddy inches closer to me. “Maybe we should go.”

If Buddy has to prove to the judge he’s human, asking this woman to treat him like he’s one is a good start. “You have every right to be here. Go on, look at the clothes. Pick out some things to try on.”

He glances at the woman again before turning his attention to the display of button-up shirts and jeans at the center of the store.

“That shirt has a crane on it,” he says, pointing to a light blue shirt with a navy-blue crane on the breast pocket.

“Do you like cranes?”

He bobs his head up and down. “Candlewick showed me lots of YouTube videos of cranes. He says they’re a classy version of a flamingo.”

I laugh. The more Buddy talks about Candlewick, the more I like him.

I grab one of the smaller sizes of the shirt and hold it up to him. It’s impossible to know if it will fit while he’s wearing that damn hoodie. “Want to try it on?”

He looks over at the cashier. “Will she let me? There are probably lots of people who want that shirt. It’s a great shirt.”

I hold back another laugh. “There aren’t any people competing for it right now. Let’s go to the dressing room.”

Along the back wall of the shop are four dressing rooms that are wide open. Buddy is still clutching my hand, so I guide him back there and hold out the shirt to him.

He releases my hand and takes the hanger from me. I almost ask if he wants me to come in with him, but that wouldn’t be appropriate. He steps into the dressing room by himself and closes the door as carefully as he shut the passenger door of the car.

I don’t think he ever left Dorian’s house. How long was he trapped there?

While Buddy changes, I pull out my phone. There aren’t any missed calls or text messages. But there is an email from Vicki, Felicity’s paralegal. It includes a link to an article inForbesentitled, “Forget finding a mate, Dorian Gray intends to make one.”

The article has a huge picture of a devastatingly handsome man with the same blue eyes as Buddy and brown hair of the same shade. In fact, this man is eerily similar to Buddy in a lot of ways—his angled bone structure, his sharp nose. The main difference is that Buddy is smaller.

Dorian Gray, the heir to his alpha father’s Tobacco empire, announced today that he won’t be taking a mate through this year’s burrowing season, despite turning thirty last spring. Fox shifters rarely wait past the age of twenty-five before starting the process of finding a mate, but Gray claimed there weren’t any omega fox shifters who interested him.

“I don’t want to settle for less than I deserve,” he said in an interview last Monday. “Instead of trying to find the perfect mate, I’ve hired a warlock to make one for me. Then I can get exactly what I want.”

When asked what kind of price a spell like that would have, he said he wasn’t concerned.

“Bringing life to my mate might cost me a few years of my own, but who wants to get old anyway? Once I start pissing myself and losing my teeth, what’s the point of living?”

An anonymous warlock told us a spell like the one Dorian wants will likely cost him at least twenty years. And that doesn’t include the monetary price for the spell casting. A large portion of Gray’s fortune will likely go to the warlock who has agreed to attempt such a controversial spell.

“Any alpha who can afford it will be creating their own mates after this. You’ll see,” Gray said. “It’s impossible to find an omega who’s pure and sweet these days.”

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