“What? Why?”
He tilts his head as if to ask, “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Why? Because my mate was a man, like me.”
My heart sinks and my face turns cold. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes.” Omar’s shoulders slump just a little, but he sips his tea as if what he told me wasn’t the most outrageous thing I’d ever heard, like it was inevitable.
“I’m so sorry. That’s like, the worst thing ever.”
“It was. But that is how the packs work.”
“Not all packs,” I say. He raises an unconvinced brow. “At least you had your mate—what’s his name? Is he traveling with you? Is he here?”
Omar takes a breath and sits quietly for a moment. “His name is Mateo. When we were told to leave the pack we were given a choice: we would be allowed to stay if we rejected each other. I chose to leave. He chose to stay.”
Instinctively, my hand rises to my chest. I want to say something but no words are coming to mind. My mouth flaps open and closed but there’s nothing I can say for how terrible this is.
Omar takes a minute, cupping his mug between both hands in his lap, then lifts his head.
“But that was more than a year ago now. It’s just how it is.”
“It shouldn’t be,” I say, trying to put every ounce of disgust and sympathy I have into those three little words.
“No”—he shakes his head gently, then looks up—“but it could be worse: I could be stuck with a bullheaded macho type.”
His cheeky smile lets me know exactly who he’s referring to. I scrunch up my face, trying not to smile, and go to slap his arm but miss.
“Okay so you said you were a traveler; where are you going?”
His eyes become distant, almost like he’s picturing someplace in his mind.
“I heard from some wolves farther south there is a place—a sanctuary for rogues—where we can live like we belong, with community and kinship, and there are no alphas and no borders.”
“A rogue sanctuary?”
He shrugs. “Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?”
“I dunno.”
The only rogue colony I’ve been to is Rogue City, and it wasn’t much of a sanctuary, more of a hideout. But I hope for Omar’s sake there is someplace better.
“I don’t know either. But we’ll see I guess. When the winter passes and Agatha has everything she needs, I’m going to travel back down south. Maybe it will become my new home, or maybe I will keep walking until I find something else.”
I reach out and place a hand on his forearm. His bronze skin is warm.
“You’ll find it.”
With a bang the door opens and Jasper staggers in looking like the Abominable Snowman. Frost hangs from the fur around his head and rests on his shoulders; ice sticks to the soles of his boots.
“You’re awake,” he says, whipping off the hood and smiling. “How do you feel?”
I glance at Omar, who rolls his eyes in a sneaky but friendly way, and then smile at Jasper. That warm feeling is in my chest again, only this time it’s spreading to my limbs and my face. I’m so lucky, because even though it’s been escaping me this whole time, I know what home feels like.
Half an hour later I’m strong enough to walk around, and Omar has lit a fire outside.
Jasper and I sit on a log and let the heat soak into our bodies. I have a blanket over my lap and a sausage on a stick that I’m rotating slowly for a perfectly even cook. How charming is this?!
