Dismissed.
A half hour later, having packed a duffel with a couple of days’ worth of clothes, I was on the road again, this time on a thinly veiled errand for Father. Waiting only until I cleared the lands, I pulled over and looked to see what was so important that it couldn’t be mailed. Or emailed and signed digitally.
A quick scan revealed a list of items we were planning to purchase from them. The Erreldell pack were famous for their pottery, and apparently our pack wanted a few crates of bowls and cups and such. It was a purchase order. Definitely could have been an email. And the fact I was to wait for it to be signed? What a crock. If I had to guess what the purpose was of this facade, Father was “getting me out there” to meet and greet. I’d be stuck for a few days while passing time with the other pack, who would likely understand the purpose.
Heirs apparent in our local packs often were sent to meet the others. To visit, be wined and dined, and generally give them an opportunity to show their respect to the sitting alpha by their treatment of the next. They might even have a potential mate for me, a way to create a stronger bond between packs. Not my fated. I’d met everyone in their pack at various gatherings, and my mate was not among them.
I could not do this.
Could not take a step designed to convince others I had accepted the job. But I also did not want to go home and face the amped-up pressure. So, I pulled back onto the highway and drove. And drove. Stopped in a small town to mail the envelope, which was fortunately already addressed, then got back on the road.
When I was exhausted, I spotted a motel by the side of the road and decided to stop before I fell asleep behind the wheel and caused an accident. In addition to sleep, I needed to think. Until I figured out a way to resolve my differences with myfather, convince him that I wouldn’t change my mind, home was off the table.
Chapter Four
Temple
Most people would hate a work schedule like mine today, one where they were working from breakfast through dinner. Not me. I loved it.
Being at work was my happy place, which said a whole lot about my life. The people here were great, both those I worked with and those I fed. I was good at my job and enjoyed trying new food combinations. Best of all, it was away from my brothers.
So, when I was asked to work the entire day so that Peter, the other cook, could go see his cousins for a fishing trip, I was all about it.
I snuck out of bed long before my brothers were thinking about waking up, left them meals for the day because goddess forbid they make their own, and skipped off to work. It was going to be a great day. I could feel it.
The morning rush wasn’t very rush-like, but that was fine because I got to chat with some of our regulars and experiment with some new pancake shapes for the little ones. I mastered dogs and cats, but I was working on some funner designs, including balloons and houses, which to be fair didn’t actually sound fun, but they were requests I got pretty regularly from one family in particular. If I could make their little one smile, I was going for it. That was what made them fun.
My morning had a lot of failed attempts. The house might be impossible, the straight lines never holding up once it was flipped. The balloons? The top was easy peasy, my struggle there all about the string, which broke every time. I was about to give up and just stick a piece of licorice in the bottom and call it good. They’d probably love that. Their parents, not so much.
Breakfast came and went. Unlike the morning, the early part of lunch was packed. It was threatening to rain, and anyone who would normally eat outside decided to come to the diner for soup. Soup, I ran out of. I hated when I misjudged prep like that. Layla told me it was fine, and I knew Gary would feel the same, but I liked to be on top of things. This diner might not be mine, but I treated it with the same care as if it was.
“Order up!” I tapped the bell twice, and Layla waved at me with the same hand the coffee pot was in. She needed to stop doing that before someone got burned. Try telling her that, though. She’d just say what she always did. “Have I spilled any yet?” And, fair enough, she hadn’t. Still made me nervous.
“Why don’t you grab something to eat?” She grabbed the plates. “I can handle this while you’re gone.”
If I hadn’t been working through dinner, I’d have told her I was fine for now and I’d eat when my replacement came in. But she was right; this was the best time. So I threw a burger on the grill and some fries in the basket. It was hardly a healthy meal, but it was delicious.
I snuck out back when it was all done and sat on the stoop, ready to dive in. I had one bite of the juicy goodness in my mouth when I heard my eldest brother, Sal, growl. He was such a dick, and if he was showing off with his ability to have his beast make noise in his human form, then my other brothers weren’t far behind. And sure enough, Jeffrey and Carl came around the corner to join him.
“I’m eating,” I said, not caring that my mouth was full.
“What did you buy that with?” Jeffrey came over and snatched the plate from me, Sal stealing a fry from the plate because apparently, that was how they were rolling today.
“I didn’t. Layla gave it to me,” I said, not that they needed to know that, but it was best not to argue with them. I’d already been snappy and that was a crime I’d pay for later.
“So you weren’t going to have to pay her with this?” And that was when I realized why they were there. It wasn’t to torment me; it wasn’t to steal my food. It was because they had found my stash.
Sal was waving my money in the air. “We found your money.”
“No!” I stood up, my rage getting the better of me. This wasn’t going to end well, but I couldn’t help it. That was my bug-out money. I was gonna save enough so that, eventually, I could leave this fucking place, leave them. “That’s mine!”
“Oh, look at our brother,” Carl sneered. “He forgot the rules. What’s mine is mine. What’s Jeffrey’s is Jeffrey’s. What’s Sal’s is Sal’s. And then here’s the big one you never seem to remember—what’s yours is ours.”
If we had been home, one of them would have been shifting, and I’d be bleeding somewhere that would be hidden by clothing later on. But we weren’t home. We were downtown, a place where anybody could walk by, a place where there was some safety. They wouldn’t shift here. It wouldn’t protect me when they got me home, but for now…
If only my omega father hadn’t cheated, then maybe I, too, would be a wolf, and I could take them down. But then I’d share an alpha father with them, and he was made of evil. That didn’t sound good either.
“Give me my money back! I earned every penny of that. That’s not my salary, and you get all that.” I shouldn’t be yelling at work, but I couldn’t hold back. This was the step too far. “Those are my tips, and I work hard for them!”
