Doc pointed at my phone. “Do you know what this is? Or these?” he asked, gesturing to my headphones. I felt bad as she shook her head again, looking miserable as the gravity of the situation seemed to finally set in.
I could feel her misery like she had punched me in the face with it and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and tug her into my arms and protect her from what Doc was about to tell her.
“This is a phone and those are headphones. Juneau, you aren’t in 1915 anymore. This is 2022,” Doc said like he couldn’t quite believe it himself either.
“No. No!” Her second no ended in a scream that made all of the alphas in the room tense as her pheromones spiked in the siren call of an omega that was in distress. Then, to my surprise, the candles that Doc had lit earlier began to flicker and grow wildly, causing Storm to have to jump out of the way in order to not get burnt.
“What the fuck was that?” Bat yelped as he stared at the counter.
I had no fucking clue, but my attention wasn’t on the crazy candles. It was on the omega who had just crawled under one of the booth tables and curled into an anxious ball.
“No, I don’t want to talk,” I heard her mutter a moment later as we all stood a few feet away trying to figure out what to do next about the seemingly magical omega in our midst.
“Stop!” She yelped and I watched with a clenched heart as she covered her ears with her hands. It was a movement that I had done far too often when I couldn’t regulate my own emotions as a child and the familiarity of it made my heart break for her.
“Who is she talking to?” Rex growled, clearly afraid that more supernatural things were occurring right under his nose. I elbowed him in the side.
‘Be quiet, I’m trying to listen,’I told him, earning me a glare from the alpha as he muttered something under his breath. Thankfully, he didn’t argue and remained quiet so we could hear what Juneau was saying.
“But I want to be athomewith my family. That’s where I belong. So take me back.” Her words ended in a plaintive whine and I watched Doc grunt as he fought off the desire to protect that shouldn’t have been present. Most bonded alphas weren’t as affected by omegas other than their own, but it seemed like the omega under the table was the exception to that rule.
I wished I was an alpha with the power to soothe her. Ever since her blue eyes had met mine, I was fascinated with her. It was the same fascination I’d felt last night when I was looking at the mirror online.
Whatever she said next I couldn’t hear and I began to creep in closer, trying to make out her words as she spoke to whoever was in her head.
Storm’s wet earth scent, which I could never figure out if it was from him standing outside during every rainfall or if that was his natural scent, enveloped me as he stayed close to my back to make sure that I was safe as I approached the omega.
“Shit,” she cursed daintily and buried her face in her knees again.
I was pretty sure that she didn’t know any sign language, so I opened up the notes app on my phone and typed out a message.
I gave her knee a gentle pat, making her jump with fright until she saw me and her expression melted into something more beseeching, like she wanted me to somehow protect her from the world around her.
‘ARE YOU OKAY?’ my message read.
She shook her head. “No, I am not.”
My fingers flew across the touch screen keyboard as I typed out my next question. ‘WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO?’
“I don’t know, there’s a man in my head and he told me that he was looking for someone and that my lifeline was the same as hers, so he pulled on it hoping that it was her,” Juneau said with a shrug.
“The fuck does that mean?” Bat asked, sounding as confused as I felt.
“I don’t know what it means,” Juneau answered Bat’s question, her eyes flashing with irritation. “He said that he needed the power of the Spring Equinox to even bring me here, so it’ll take until the Summer Solstice to take me back.”
“Makes sense,” Bat said as he crouched on my other side, his dark eyes taking the curled up omega in. “Equinoxes and Solstices are the times when folks celebrate their gods. The gods in turn are supposed to bestow gifts.”
Bat must have felt our questioning gazes on the side of his face because he became immediately defensive. “What? You all seem to forget that my mama was a Wiccan. She celebrated all that shit with her coven when I was growing up.”
Ihadforgotten all about that. It was hard to imagine Bat in his perpetually black wardrobe and body that was almost completely covered in tattoos taking place in a nature ritual with flower crowns, or at least I hoped they all wore flower crowns.
“I can’t be here for three months, where will I stay?” Juneau asked, her voice small. A wave of sympathy for the omega in front of me washed down every line of our bond, followed by irritation from Rex.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I heard Rex growl from where he was still standing with Doc, his arms folded across his chest.
But Bat was already offering. “Well, you can stay right here with us if you’d like.”
Chapter Five
