“It matters.” Zhuang smiled as he turned toward the cot. “Come on out, Xias.”
For a moment, nothing happened, and then the blanket lifted and Xias scooted out. He wrapped the blanket around his waist as he stood. Zhuang noted that he didn’t bring the box of cubs out with him. He kept the smile on his face as he held out his hand to Xias.
“Xias, this is my friend Tao.” He tugged on Xias’s hand, pulling the man to his side. “Tao, this is Xias, my mate.”
“Seriously, man?”
Zhuang chuckled. “Seriously.”
Tao’s eyes rounded as they went to Xias. “Dude!”
“I need to get Xias and the cubs to the council.”
“Cubs?” Tao’s jaw dropped.
“Xias gave me three cubs,” Zhuang said, his smile brightening. It didn’t matter to him if they were his cubs or not. They were Xias’s and that was all that was important. “They won’t be safe until we get them to the council.”
Tao cocked his head to one side. “What’s going on?”
“Xias’s ex-alpha is after him.”
Xias’s snort was cute.
“The guy has some really fucked-up ideas about stuff. Xias is an omega, but the alpha didn’t register him with the council. Xias never even knew that there was a shifter representative. He’s never met one. Anytime a stranger came to their clan, he was locked up.”
“That’s fucked up, man.”
“Xias’s former alpha believes the cubs belong to him,” Zhuang explained.
“He just wants Bai,” Xias added in. “He wants to kill the other two.”
“Why?” Tao asked.
“Bai is a boy. Liang and Ying are girls. Osamu has no use for girls except to use them to create more cubs. Since he sired Liang and Ying, he can’t get cubs off of them, so they are useless to him.”
“Osamu?” Zhuang asked, realizing he had never heard the alpha’s name from Xias until now. “Osamu Ju?”
Xias paled. “How did you know?”
Zhuang tried to keep the bile out of his throat. “I’ve heard of him before.”
He’d run across a couple of Osamu’s clan members who had snuck away in the middle of the night, a woman and her teenage daughter. Osamu had had the mother beaten when she’d refused to allow him to take her daughter as one of his concubines. The daughter had been fifteen at the time.
Zhuang had reported the problem to his father and gotten the two women somewhere safe. He’d thought that was the last time he’d hear of the alpha doing this kind of shit. Kind of made him wonder if Osamu had been sanctioned at all.
“Needless to say, that asshole is after Xias and the cubs, and I refuse to let him have them. They belong to me now. I’ve already tangled with this jerk once, hopefully injuring him long enough for us to reach the council, but I doubt it.”
Tao nodded. “I only have the smaller snow CAT, but there’s a narrow bench in the back. I think we can get everyone safely inside.”
“How bad is the storm?” Zhuang asked.
There was an almost apologetic wince on Tao’s when he reached up and scratched the side of his neck. “It’s pretty bad, Zhuang. That’s why I came up here after you. The avalanche danger has skyrocketed with this blizzard. If we don’t leave pretty soon, we might not make it out.”
Zhuang drew in a heavy breath and then slowly blew it out. “Okay. Xias, I have some clothes you can put on. I’ll get the cubs ready to go.” He glanced at his friend. “Tao, can you warm up the CAT?”
“Yeah, sure, man.”
Zhuang waited until the front door closed behind Tao before turning to look at Xias. He didn’t like the anxious frown marring Xias’s face as he stared at the door. “What is it, Xias?”
