Page 9 of Real

Silence stretches between us. Steppe probably doesn’t know how to react. During the last twelve years, I’ve always been the guy in the background who simply did what everyone told me to. And I don’t mind that. I don’t want to be in charge.

I just want Buddy’s case to matter.

“I’ll talk to the legal team. Who do you want?” Steppe asks.

“Felicity.”

She’s the one who preps the kids I work with. She’s kind and never condescending. I think Buddy would respond well to someone like her.

“Felicity specifically requested to be taken off Buddy’s case.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. You could give her a call and find out. I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”

The line goes dead. I remind myself that Steppe is a busy man. I just wonder if he’d be so short with Ken, the director of the sanctuary, or Timber, helps with fundraising, or even Manny, who works for the same vigilante group that rescued us from the red wolf shifter breeding pits.

I think Steppe would take all of them a lot more seriously. I’m just a caretaker to him. In the culture we grew up in, caretaking was omega’s work and not considered as important as the work the alphas did on the compound. I think Steppe sometimes forgets the culture we grew up in was backward and wrong.

Maybe that’s how he justifies the sanctuary’s choice to send so many children back to red wolf shifter compounds. I lose sleep over it, even though I know placing those kids in other homes probably wouldn’t be safe.

Buddy is still watching me closely, his body completely still. It was insensitive for me to have that conversation in front of him.

“Everything will be fine,” I assure him.

He lowers his eyes to his lap. “Okay. I’m just… worried about Candlewick. It doesn’t matter what happens to me as long as he can go free. I’ll go back to Dorian.”

He’d go back to the man who made him afraid of the world for the sake of his friend. My chest fills with an emotion I don’t know how to label. Sympathy? No, that isn’t it. Longing, I think. Longing to fix the world so Buddy can be happy and free.

I reach for his silicone hand. It’s warm. Combined with the incredible detailing, it’s hard to tell it isn’t made of flesh and blood. Only the dent on the outside of his pinky gives it away. It feels far too similar to holding hands with an omega, and I’m ashamed when I realize how nice it is.

Maybe I’m no better than Dorian.

“Listen to me. I’m going to do everything I can to get both you and Candlewick a fair trial. I’m your friend, okay? You aren’t in this alone.”

He searches my face, the uncertainty from before present in his eyes.

“There were people who once thought I wasn’t human too,” I tell him.

Buddy’s eyebrows furrow. “Why?”

I release his hand and rotate my wrist until he can see the bluish green veins on my forearm. “Because of the blood that runs through my veins. I’m a red wolf shifter. People buy and sell red wolf shifters all around the world.”

“That’s horrible,” Buddy says.

“Yes, it is. How you’re being treated is horrible too. I won’t let them get away with it. I swear to you.”

It isn’t a promise I should make. The odds aren’t in our favor.

“I’m not real, though,” Buddy says. “So it’s different.”

I grasp his warm, soft hand again and look him straight in the eyes. “You’re real to me.”

His cheeks turn pink, and he ducks his head. “You don’t mean that.”

Before I can stop myself, I grasp his chin and lift it until we lock eyes again. “Yes, I do.”

He stares back at me with a mixture of fear and hope in his eyes. I don’t know how much time passes as we sit there, taking each other in. I have no business noticing how full his lips are or letting my gaze lower to them. He isn’t mine to kiss.

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