Page 21 of Unsubmissive Omega
I shrugged. Wasn’t like I was going to change.
???
“Come and meet Marta,” Darius said, after he’d shown me what there was to be seen around the compound.
“Who’s Marta?” I asked, accompanying him back to the long packhouse, the same building where our personal quarters were located at one end, and the offices and a few other specialty rooms were located at the other.
Darius paused mid-stride. “Marta is… it’s hard to explain. She’s our cook but she’s more than that. She’s like a mother to everybody. I don’t know her personal story, but everyone here views her that way. She really took me under her wing, so to speak, when I first arrived here. I struggled a bit at the time. I was young and it was my first time living away from my birth pack.”
“She sounds nice,” I ventured, not sure what else to say. It was a long time since anyone had given a shit about me, so I couldn’t really imagine what that felt like. I’d been taking care of all my own emotional needs for the last 10 years.
“You’ll like her,” Darius smiled warmly, the light reaching his eyes. “And she bakes the best cookies.”
He was right about the cookies. A short while later, as I stood there awkwardly in the kitchen while being introduced,the aroma of freshly baked cookies teased my nostrils, causing trickles of saliva to pool in my mouth.
“I’m pleased to meet you Xander,” Marta said, ignoring my habitual pouty expression. “These are just out of the oven, help yourself.”
I took one of the offered cookies and bit into it, noticing from the corner of my eye how Darius was not above swiping a second one from the tray as Marta turned to place it back on the counter.
“I’m pleased to see Darius settle down at last,” Marta told me, slapping Darius’ hand away from the biscuit tray. “He needs someone to keep him in line, and you look like just the man to do that.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe she was referring to my permanent scowl. I needed to work on that.
“It was nice to meet you,” I murmured, as Darius led me away. “Thanks for the cookie.” I knew who I needed to be in good with if I wanted more treats around here.
“Where are we going now?” I asked Darius as he led me down towards the business end of the corridor, where his office was situated. More offices were located on each side of the corridor, as evidenced by the desks and computers inside, but the rooms were empty.
“Office work is a part-time job for most of us here,” Darius explained when he noticed me peeking into the rooms as we passed. “Almost everyone has an outside job or a maintenance job of some sort. I’m taking you to meet someone special.” He pursed his lips, indicating he wasn’t going to say who this special person was, but his eyes danced and his cheeks were round and plump as he grinned with excitement.
Obviously, this was a big deal. To him. I wasn’t really all that interested in meeting any more members of the pack. As I kept reminding myself, I wasn’t staying, so what was the point? And they were only interested in me as an extension of their Pack Alpha, anyway. I wasn’t interested in another life in the shadows.
“Here we are,” announced Darius coming to a halt outside a narrow door at the very end of the corridor. There was no overhead light down here, and the darkness clung to the door in a forbidding way, creating strange shadows on the timber. Stay out, it seemed to say. Although that wasn’t exactly how the words formed in my mind. PISS OFF was what actually came to mind.
“Somebody obviously wants to be left alone,” I smirked, indicating the door with a toss of my chin. Finally, it looked as though I’d found someone as happy to be here as I was.
“Why do you say that?” Darius blinked, a small crease forming in the middle of his brow.
I pointed at the script on the door. “It says… so,” I faltered, as I belatedly remembered I probably shouldn’t be telling the Alpha his pack member wanted him to ‘piss off’, especially if he hadn’t noticed the message himself.
Darius squinted at the smooth wooden surface. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing there.”
I frowned. Could he not see it? Well, it was a rune, but it clearly said PISS OFF. Maybe he couldn’t read runes.
“Never mind. Am I going to meet whoever’s in there, or are we just gonna stand out here?” I couldn’t keep the impatience out of my voice, but either we were ignoring the warning and goinginside or we were standing here wasting my time. And I didn’t want to be standing here, inhaling this man’s pheromones. My mood was swinging all over the place, alternating between annoyance, and the most infuriating unwelcome lust.
Darius raised his hand to rap on the door, but before he could do so, a youthful voice wafted through the timber, “Come in.”
Darius laid his hand flat on the wooden surface and gave a gentle push. The door silently eased open. Interestingly, there was no actual latch. No door handle either, I realized.
The aroma of lavender and the bitter tang of spent magic assaulted my nostrils as I stepped inside.
My first impression was that the room was little more than a closet: dark, tiny and cramped. I could barely make out vague outlines in the gloom. As my eyes adjusted, I looked around. A small window set high in the wall grudgingly allowed a small shaft of daylight to venture in, the light barely making it down to a wooden desk pressed up against the wall, and at which sat a shape shrouded in shadows, face hidden in the depths of their hooded cowl. A bulky leather-covered tome lay open on the desk. Directly behind them, two single bunk beds were stacked against the wall. There was barely room to breathe.
The room was stifling, intimidating with old magic.
“Hey, Xeres,” Darius said cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the undertones in the atmosphere. “I want you to meet my mate, Xander. Xander, this is Xeres, our pack mage.”
A mage. That explained how there could be a message on the door but Darius somehow unable to see it. It didn’t explain why, however.
The mage hadn’t moved beyond the faintest shifting of shadows against the wall. The silence grew uncomfortably long. I thought about out-waiting him, just because I could. Silence had been my biggest protection in my uncle’s house. But… why antagonize a mage? I might be an asshole, but I wasn’t stupid.
