The conversation with Orpheus lifted my spirits so much that it was getting easier for me to tell off my negative thoughts. And what harm could a little fantasy do, anyway? If I wanted to make up stories in my head about Orpheus being my fated mate, what was the harm? If I knew it wasn't real, I could entertain those thoughts safely and without repercussion.
Except maybe disappointment when Orpheus finally left, but there was nothing I could do about that. He'd made it clear that was going to happen no matter what.
I decided to go hunting for some snacks for Orpheus. The guy had been on a diet of gross herbal tea and leftovers from the pack hunts. I figured he'd enjoy something a little more personal. Besides, it had been a while since I hunted on my own. I was usually too busy babysitting to join the hunts with all the other predator shifters.
Not to mention the guilt I still felt about my first meeting with Hugo, in which I'd been chasing his now mate. That made it kind of hard to hunt alongside the guy.
On the menu for today were small prey items that were nice and easy to swallow, like voles or field mice. Conveniently, foxes and ravens shared a lot of the same tastes in food. That made it easier to hunt for Orpheus.
I shifted into my fox form and was about to head off when a familiar voice called out, "Hey, Red!"
I turned to see Hugo behind me, as if right on cue. He'd accept me as an official member of the pack back when I had helped Morgan, the omega buck shifter, get away from an asshole trying to steal his kid. Even though my past with Hugo was rocky, he put it aside and forgave me. But that didn't mean I still didn't have lingering feelings of shame about it.
"Hey, Hugo," I said. "What's up?"
He smiled. "It's rare to see you apart from your new friend. You're going on a hunt?"
Geez, did everybody think that way? I was spending a lot of time with Orpheus, but that was to be expected when I was responsible for his health. I hoped I wasn't being too obvious, but at the same time I didn't really care what people thought. Orpheus wasn't sticking around anyway, so I was going to spend as much time as possible with him while I could.
"Yeah," I said. "He must be sick of the tea that Dr. Pyne prescribed him."
Hugo chuckled. "I don't blame him. That stuff is strong."
I flicked my tail slowly, feeling a bit awkward. But Hugo didn't seem to notice.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Hugo asked. "Len and the other omegas are watching the kids, so I figured the alphas could grab some food."
Ah. There it was. Just one more thing I was hiding from him. Well, technically that wasn't true, but if past experience had taught me anything, it was that the technicalities didn't matter.
I might've ducked out any other time, but talking to Orpheus had put me in such a good mood that I didn't think anything, not even an awkward conversation with Hugo, could bring me down.
"Sure," I said, wagging my tail.
The two of us set off. There were plenty of little rodents in the nearby field and we had no trouble catching enough to make a nice, filling lunch.
"It's nice that you're doing this for Orpheus," Hugo said as he snatched a plump vole from a stalk of grass.
"I'm just doing what anyone would do," I replied. He tossed me the vole and I added it to the nearby pile.
"Not true. You could have let him scrounge on leftovers for the remainder of his time here."
I scoffed. "No way. He deserves better than that." As I counted up the pieces of prey, I noticed that Hugo had sat down and was watching me with a smile. "What?"
"I've never seen you so enthused about a newcomer," Hugo said.
"Hey, I went through a lot of effort to help Morgan, didn't I?"
"Sure. But you didn't have the same sparkle in your eye as you do now. Is there something special about Orpheus?"
The fur on my chest puffed out and I embarrassingly tried to smooth it out down. "It's not like that."
Damn romantic Hugo. The guy was always going on about fated mates. Hell, that was the whole reason this big misfit pack existed in the first place. If Hugo hadn't decided to take the first step in finding his one true partner, none of us would've known each other.
But that didn't mean that Orpheus was my fated mate. It just wasn't possible.
Right?
"If you say so," Hugo said with a smile, obviously not believing me. "But there's nothing stopping you from giving it a shot. I want you to be happy, Red."
