I wheeled him through town, passing every store. A few people quickly glanced curiously in Wesley’s direction, but said nothing. I didn’t know how many of them knew there was another Scarlet Ridge omega among us, but I was sure as Wesley recovered, he’d become more well-known. Charlie and Mason were already accepted as beloved members of our pack; I was sure it would be the same withWesley.
We remained in comfortable silence as I wheeled Wesley out further out from town. Soon we neared a viewing spot. It was a wide deck crawling with ivy and other plants that sprung up in-between the wooden floorboards. It was old, but sturdy - built by shifters of our packgenerationsago.
“Here we are,” I said, helping Wesley to his feet. He leaned against me until we reached the rails and he could stand on his own, although I was never too far away. His eyes widened in awe as he stared out at the beautiful scene in frontofus.
Down below was a stretch of smaller mountain hills and lush forest. Everything was green with splashes of color here and there. I hadn’t been here in a long time and I’d forgotten how gorgeous oursurroundingswere.
“Where’s the indigo?” Wesleyasked.
I leaned slightly over the rail and gestured for him to do the same. “Lookdown.”
Wesley looked over the edge, thengasped.
Down the side of the cliff, as far as the eye could see, were blue and purple flowers growing sideways out of the soil and rock. Carefully, I leaned down and plucked one close by before handing it to Wesley. He stared in awe at the tiny blue flower, twirling it around bythestem.
“It’s a forget-me-not,” Wesley said quietly. “Thisflower.”
“Do you know a lot aboutflowers?”
He shrugged. “A little. We… don’t have as lush of a territory at Scarlet Ridge, so I mostly had to learn about flora throughbooks.”
“You don’t have flowers in your old pack?” I asked,confused.
“Not like this,” Wesley said as he shookhishead.
“Strange,” I mumbled. “I can’t imagine why. Scarlet Ridge isn’t so far from us, so our local nature should bethesame.”
He shrugged. “It’s a lot of concrete, for safety and sturdiness.” He glanced at me. “Just in case anyone decides to attack it. Flowers don’t hold up as well asconcrete.”
I blinked at him. I thought it was a strange thing to say, but I didn’t press the issue. Wesley lived here now; he didn’t have to worry about Scarlet Ridge anymore. Still… why did he think Scarlet Ridge would be attacked? Maybe he was just paranoid and anxious afterescaping.
“Well, you don’t need to concern yourself with that,” I said. “No one has attacked us for as long as I can remember. We only had a couple of incidents with previous omegas - Charlie and Mason - that were swiftly takencareof.”
Wesley glanced at me. “Incidents?”
“I guess you wouldn’t know about them, huh?” I said, leaning on the rail. “Well… the first one happened with Charlie, the blond omega you met earlier. He escaped with his daughter, and one of Scarlet Ridge’s goons was sent after him, but we sent himpacking.”
Wesley’s brows raised. “A…goon?”
“I don’t know who he was. An alpha named Hector, Ibelieve.”
Wesley frowned. “I know about Hector. Gunnerkilledhim.”
Shock ran through me, but in the end, I couldn’t say I was really surprised. After all I’d heard about the awfulness of Scarlet Ridge, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary that an underling would be killed for failure to perform. That’s just the way things seemed to bethere.
“I guess Gunner didn’t take kindly to him coming back empty handed,” Imuttered.
Wesley looked out at the scenery. “No, hedidn’t.”
We were quiet again, just gazing out at nature. It was a comfortablesilence.
“How are your legs?” I asked. “Stillholdingup?”
“For now,” Wesley said. He turned to me with the slightest smile on his face. “Thanks for… this. For showing mearound.”
I found myself blushing at his smile. It was hitting me just how handsome Wesley was - but I instantly pushed those thoughts out of my head. Not only was he only nineteen, and hadn’t even had his first heat yet, he was mypatient. As a doctor, I could never get involved with him. It was simply out of thequestion.
“You’re welcome,” I said, avoiding his gaze and leaning ontherail.
