CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The carriage rocked harder, swaying Tav’s body, until he realized he was stationary, and the movement came from a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, sleepy head, wake up, we’re here.”

Tav sat up, trying to blink away the fog of sleep. Zep blocked the view of the other side of the street as he stood up, as much as the foldable carriage roof allowed. At least Zep had woken him by shaking his shoulder, rather than the clip around the ear he would have given when they were pups. But back then, Tav wouldn’t have retaliated. The bruise on Zep’s cheek proved that things had changed and for the better.

“Where’s here?”

“I’ll tell you inside, this is not the—”

“You’ll tell me now, or I’m going to go look for Mir myself.”

Zep huffed out a laugh. “So the balls aren’t only visible when you’re in musth, good to know. But you won’t have to look far.” He shifted so his back faced the front of the carriage, nodded at the building across the road. The etched glass of the large window proclaimed ‘Omega Justice’.

On autopilot, Tav reached for the door, the thought of seeing Mir pulling on his ribcage as if an angler were reeling him in on a hook.

“Ah ah, brother, storming in is not going to help matters. Even if you could beat Mir’s alpha brother with a broken hand, where are you going to take Mir with no money or genuine certificates?” Not wiping the smirk off his brother’s almost took more restraint than Tav possessed.

“Where’s my luggage?” Tav bristled, shoulders stiff.

“In the apartment opposite the Reeves’ living quarters so you can stalk them to your heart’s content.”

“If you think I’m going to sit and just watch, you’ve —”

“And where do you plan on Mir delivering? In a hotel room? Because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, Sakish will have someone watching the train station in Langan. You were seen getting on the train. Which is how he knew to come down. Now, he might not have found your hideaway yet, but I can guarantee he’ll be looking.”

Tav’s fists clenched at the thought of anyone trespassing on his property. “I dealt with him before, and I’ll do it again, gladly.”

Zep grinned. “Tav the fierce, eh? And yes, you beat Sakish, but that was by surprise, from behind, and you were in musth. Thing is, there are a whole bunch of alphas who’d be delighted to help him keep their patronage of his facility a secret.

“Think you and Mir could handle a dozen or more, possibly armed, alphas, along with their affiliated betas while looking after three infants?” Zepish wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think so. You’d need an army.”

Tav’s mind stalled, but not at the thought of that many alphas attacking him. He swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. “There were dozens of them?”

Zep plopped back down into the seat next to him, for once not gloating. “Yeah. I guess Mir didn’t tell you that?”

He shook his head, still trying to comprehend the fact that Mir had been used, hurt, and degraded by that many alphas. For fun. For entertainment. For whatever this damn program involved.

“Look, I understand if that changes your feelings; it would—”

Tav’s good hand was around Zep’s throat, forcing him down to the padded bench. A growl emanated deep in Tav’s chest as he bared his teeth.

“Let him go, Dr. Grabar.”

Tav ignored the beta’s low voice behind him. An unfamiliar metallic click came from behind him. “In case you don’t recognize it, that was the hammer being pulled back on an antique revolver pistol. It’ll make a hell of a noise, and might do me more harm than you, but if you don’t back the fuck off my alpha, I’ll blow a hole in the back of your head.”

Finger by finger, Tavish released his hold on his brother’s neck and faced the front.

Rowen had turned in his seat and was hunched forward, hiding a short black metal barrel with his body. Like a charmed snake, Tavish couldn’t take his eyes off it.

The leather seat creaked beside him as Zep sat up. “Didn’t need your help, Row.” Zep brushed at his clothes as if trying to remove some annoying dust.

“Are you going to behave yourself, Dr. Grabar?”

“Put it away, Row, for fuck’s sake, before someone sees you and thinks that peashooter is actually real.”

“It is real.”

“No, it isn’t.” Zep gave the window emblazoned with ‘Omega Justice’ a pointed look. “Now, shall we go inside before the alpha in that building, who must be blind and deaf not to have noticed this odd behavior, wakes up and calls the police?”

Tavish felt his balls starting to shrivel as the pair carried on chatting as if he wasn’t there.

“Is that the gun that shot Mir?”

“Does it matter?” Zep asked.

“Yes, it damn well does. It would be great to know how many guns are around my pregnant mate.”

“Fair enough. Yes, it is,” Rowen said, but his aim didn’t waver.

“Row, would you please shut the hell up?” Zep’s exasperation would have made Tav grin at any other time.

“Shutting up as ordered, boss.”

“Give,” Tav said in his best doctor voice and held out his hand, palm up.

Zep snorted. “No way, you’d blow either your foot or your head off. Besides, it’s not loaded. Pa confiscated the bullets, and you can thank me in advance for lying about your whereabouts. You took off from the monastery this morning before I got there. And before you ask, I lied because otherwise he’d be pressuring you to pledge your loyalty to him and Lang. I use the church as a get-out-of-jail card, but I don’t think that’ll work for you. Clay might get sent back up to your hidey-hole to see if you’re back there though.”

Suddenly tired of all this shit, Tav asked, “Which door?”

“Green one,” Zepish said, “I’ll come in with you.”

“I don’t need or want a babysitter,” Tav ground out and reached for the half-height carriage door with his injured hand before growling in frustration at his own stupidity and swapping hands.

“I agree, and I’m not staying because I’m heading back up north to see if Sakish has found out about your hideaway. There’s no point in taking Mir back there if he knows about it. You need to sit and wait while I check it out. Besides, you need to get your proving certificate, a real one this time. While you wait, keep your distance from the Reeve siblings.” Zepish’s dominance slammed Tavish, but unlike when he’d been a pup, his instinct was to fight, not duck and cover.

“No damn way, Mir—”

“—is with their legal guardian.” Zep held up a finger, dominant, but not outright aggressive. “A legal guardian who is an expert at the law and will kick up the biggest media stink Malthusia has ever known if Mir goes missing again. He’ll have the whole damn world looking for them, and it’ll be game over if you get caught and locked up.”

“We’ll go somewhere else. Start afresh.” Tav nodded to himself as the plan formulated.

“Somewhere they don’t get newspapers?” Rowen interjected. “The far north is about as remote as you can get on Malthusia Island, and you’ve been found there. Unless you fancy a boat trip to the uninhabited regions. Not sure I’d fancy raising kids in total isolation without even a single beta to help. Damn long way to go to get supplies or medicine. Not to mention the wildlife.”

Tav lifted his chin. “We’d cope. This is Mir we’re talking about.”

Rowen shrugged and lowered the gun. “True. If anyone could do it, they could.”

Tav looked over his brother’s shoulder. For some stupid reason, he thought he’d felt Mir looking at him, but only a beta office worker moved between the desks, carrying a huge, red leather-bound book with both hands back to a shelf containing dozens of identical volumes.

“Maybe he means somewhere else that they don’t get Malthusian newspapers.” Tav’s gaze shot to Zepish, who gave him a grin. “Well, well, little bro has been poking his nose in things that don’t concern him. Time to take this inside, after you, Doctor.” He nodded toward the green door. “Row, stay with the horses and keep the entrance shielded from across the road.”

“You got it.”

No ‘sir’. In fact, Tav couldn’t recall Rowen using any honorific apart from ‘boss’. Zepish would never have allowed a beta to drop the honorific when they were younger. Maybe he had changed, a little, but Zepish was the least of his worries.

The carriage rocked as Tav stood and stepped down onto the pavement. Betas hurried past, but all of them kept their eyes on the ground. Torn between loving the automatic respect and mourning the nods he’d gotten when he’d been one of them, Tav looked back toward the building opposite, which hopefully contained the one person who had accepted every part of him. Trapped, incarcerated against their will, again. Not running over there and storming through the door was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But he only had Zep’s word that Mir was in there.

The carriage obscured the front of the office, but Zep didn’t waste any time as he unlocked the door and slipped through. Reluctantly, Tav followed him into the dim, musty, barely ten feet long, passageway. Shutting the door behind himself felt like intentionally putting another barrier between himself and Mir. A low growl of discontent rumbled from his chest, and he shut it down. I sound like a pissed-off guard dog. Get a grip.

Zep either didn’t hear the truncated growl or he ignored it as he started up the dusty wooden stairs. “The store owner lets an alpha organization use the top floor. The Reeve twins setting up an omega-focused investigation and legal service rang more than a few alarm bells. They’ve had someone watching the place ever since.”

Tav glanced up, seeing the staircase winding upward, forward, and back across small landings. The wooden floors and banisters weren’t polished to a shine, and the scent of any cleaner product had faded beyond his ability to detect, but it was clear the area got swept occasionally. He’d bet his life that none of the alphas who stayed here ever swept the stairs. Although…. He took a quick sniff. He couldn’t smell any other alphas except himself and Zep.

“I said I’d take my turn again, although, to be honest, most of us dump spy duty on a beta.”

“Like every other duty that might take some actual work?” The words were out before Tav realized that the complaint he’d made for the majority of his life, now also applied to him.

“Like alphas stick out like a sore thumb around here,” Zep said as he turned the corner on the landing and headed up the next flight, steps even and relaxed in contrast to Tav’s own. Blowing out a breath, he tried to calm himself, tried to be more like his normal measured, logical self.

“The Reeve twins are anything but stupid,” Zep continued. “They are clever, stealthy, and have an almost perfect record of winning cases. Having a bunch of alphas popping in and out of the door opposite would not go unnoticed.”

“You sound scared of them,” Tav bit out then gritted his teeth. When did I get so damn adversarial and petty?

Zep’s footsteps hesitated a fraction before continuing at the same steady pace. “The only thing I’m scared of is disappointing the Almighty when I stand before them.”

Tav snorted. “I always knew I was the bright one, but religion? Really? It’s a construct to keep those without social advantage in their place with a promise of a better existence after death.”

A key rattled in a lock above him. “The Almighty gave us the opportunity to make paradise on Earth, and I’m—”

Heat flushed through Tav’s body as he stormed up the final stairs to the door his brother held open. “It’s hardly paradise for people like Mir, is it?”

“We all work in the way the Lord—”

A roar broke from Tav’s throat as he shoved Zep backward with both hands. His brother’s foot caught on a rug, and he tumbled back onto his ass. Tav loomed over Zep, cradling his broken hand to his chest. The flash of pain didn’t help control the flare of aggression. “Don’t…” he swallowed, trying to stop staring at the pulse in Zep’s throat. “Don’t you dare tell me what happened to Mir was for the greater good.”

Zep rolled slowly to a seated position, his movements deliberate and predictable. Nothing to set off his crazy little brother. “I’d never do that. What’s being done to those omegas is hideous and against everything the Almighty intended. But you have to admit, the trend to place higher value on weak omegas won’t do Malthusia any good in the long run. That’s why I support the voluntary use of the manifestation drug, emphasis on voluntary.”

Tavish grabbed onto the statement. “So the abnormalities it produces in offspring aren’t life-altering?”

Zepish grinned up at him. “I think you finding out for yourself will be so much more fun than me simply telling you.”

Tav stood there, staring down at his brother. “I really want to kick you in the head right now.”

“You’re welcome to try, little brother. Although, if you do, you can kiss goodbye to any more help. I can only be pushed so far.”

Tav walked into the apartment, past Zepish, who hadn’t tried to stand up. A sniff as he walked in revealed the scents of various betas, but the most significant scent belonged to Rowen. The beta had probably been staying here while Zepish made nice with the family. The functional living space boasted a couple of brown saggy leather sofas, a three-foot diameter table near the basic kitchen area, a sink, a cooker that looked older than him, and a few wooden wall cabinets. He guessed the two wooden doors at the back of the living space led to a bathroom and a single communal bedroom. Definitely not somewhere a classy alpha or even a beta would choose to stay, but none of that mattered as the view out the net curtain covered window stole his focus.

Over the road, on the top floor, a figure approached the window. Mir. His knees felt weak and his mouth dried as relief slammed into him. However many times Zep had said Mir was ok, he hadn’t let himself believe it without seeing his mate for himself.

Their hair curled around their chin, and their slow movements suggested fatigue. Alive, but are they ok? Do they want to be there? Do they miss me?

Everything around him faded as his feet carried him closer to the glass. Details, he needed more details. Mir’s hair hid their eyes as they looked down at the street below, but there were no bruises, no injuries as far as he could see. But that oversized, dark blue shirt that hung off Mir’s shoulders could hide so much. The sill came up to just under Mir’s chest. He leaned closer, peering to see if he could catch a glimpse of Mir’s belly. Are they even still pregnant?

“Don’t touch the curtain,” Zep snapped from behind him. “As long as you don’t have a light on at night, and leave the curtain alone, they can’t see you.”

But he wanted Mir to see him, touch and hold him, hell, even being shouted at, seeing anger flashing in those bright eyes would make his heart soar. He turned toward the door, intent on making his fantasy reality.

Zep leaned his back up against the door. “You can’t. It’s not safe, not for Mir, the babies, or for you. Sakish knows about you now, and he will be looking for you as well as Mir and the babies. Mir and the pups would survive, but you?” His jaw tensed. “You he’d use to entertain his more sadistic friends who enjoy a good hunt. Mir is safe where they are, for now.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You need to stay here and wait while I check out other options.”

Tav threw his arms up. “Options like what? You already said Sakish might know about Freedom Farm, and if he doesn’t, the chances of staying hidden when it’s within a day by horse of Langan station?”

His jaw clenched as Zep didn’t deny the accusation. “Everywhere on Malthusia would be almost as bad, newspapers remember?” He turned back to the window, unable to prevent the visceral need to watch Mir. His heart lurched as in the short time he’d been talking to Zep, Mir had vanished.

Zep’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Calm down. Look at the floor below. They’re in the living room.”

Tav’s gaze flicked down. Yes, yes, there they was, belly even bigger than Tav remembered. Mir moved out of his eyeline, toward the back of the property and out of the kitchen area, and he crouched, trying to keep them in sight.

An alpha walked into the kitchen, blocking his view. The growl rumbling from his chest had nothing to do with conscious thought, and far more to do with territorial instinct.

“Wow, growing balls has really messed with you. Turn off the rabid dog mode; that’s their brother, Tav. He’s not a threat, not to Mir, unless that family is far kinkier than their upstanding citizen personas imply. Seriously, he’ll protect them with his life, just like you would. And that includes protecting them from anyone he perceives as a threat, which, right now, will include you too.”

Acid bubbled up his throat, and he swallowed it down before rasping, “I am not a threat to Mir.”

“I know that, Mir knows that, but does Corish? He’s just got them back, and he’ll be, metaphorically I hope, pissing on all his boundaries twenty times a day. The only reason that I brought you here is that I thought it’d settle you a little being able to see Mir, but if you can’t keep your distance, we’ll have to think of something else while I research other options.”

Swallowing against his dry throat, Tav tried to get his brain back in gear. “I can… I can do that.” He rubbed the back of his head as if it’d help contain his raw alpha instincts. “This research, you don’t mean somewhere in Malthusia, do you?”

Zep’s brows drew together. “Who have you been talking to? Clay? That little shit is too bright for their own good.”

“So you know someone who can cross the veil,” Tav confirmed. Having access to a veil traveler opened up a whole new set of possibilities, although from what Tom had said, the other side of the veil was all the church made it out to be. Not the sort of place to bring up pups.

Zep’s eyes narrowed. “No, not Clay, even if they did work it out. They wouldn’t have left half the beans in the jar. They would have spilled all of them. Mir?” Zep shook his head. “I knew they was sneaky, but they must have been playing dumb for a damn long time for anyone to let it slip, I certainly didn’t.”

Cold sweat slicked Tavish’s back. “Sakish is a veil traveler? How the hell is that going to help me? I can’t exactly go up to him and say ‘Hey, brother, remember me? The guy who tried to tear your throat out? ‘Dear brother, would you mind taking me and Mir across the veil so we can hide from... well, you?’ Are you really that thick?”

Zep’s smirk got wider the longer Tav’s rant continued. “What the fuck are you grinning at?” The fingernails of his uninjured hand bit into his palm as he clenched his fist.

“To answer your question, yes, Sakish can cross the veil, that’s where the pups that go full term are taken, but so can others in the direct Grabar line.”

Tav’s jaw dropped open, then closed. “So you can…”

“Yep, and yes, I took Mir’s first set of triplets over there. But you can probably cross unaided too. It’s one of the reasons the Grabars have been so successful, although, as far as I know, neither Pa nor Daven know about it. Or if they do, they’ve never tried to cross, although I have to wonder where all Ma’s sapien books came from.”

Books? He’s wondering about a few paperbacks?Tav honed in on the important part of what Zep’s revelation suggested. “So you think Mir and I could… go over there? Is it safe?”

Zep snorted. “It’s a hell of a lot safer than being on Sakish’s radar, but I’m not suggesting you go over there permanently, just until Sakish, and more importantly, his backers are brought down.”

Tav’s mind whirled, but Zep glanced at his watch. “Your luggage is in the bedroom, but I’ve got to get on with things. I need to go back up north, then see if I can find a little hidey-hole for you, Mir, and the pups on the other side. I would offer you a place at a monastery, but our dear half-brother has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. I couldn’t guarantee word wouldn’t get back to him about your location. Sit tight, don’t show yourself to the Reeves, and I’ll be back as soon as I can, got it?”

Tav nodded dumbly. But as Zep reached for the door, he had an idea. “Can you send a message to Sibiren, Dr. Alcott, at the hospital? If I’m here for any length of time, I’m going to need someone to get supplies.”

“As long as you don’t reveal anything sensitive, yeah. I trust you, not them.”

“You got it,” Tav said. He didn’t think his pragmatic former mentor would believe all this anyway. It was pretty far-fetched, even for someone living it.

Zep held out his hand to shake on their agreement. Tav reached for it, only to find his forearm grabbed and pain exploding in his gut as Zep planted his fist in it. He staggered back and might have fallen if his back hadn’t hit the back of the sofa.

Trying to draw air into spasming lungs, he held his arm protectively over his throbbing belly.

“That’s for all the threats and the throat grab. I might be a man of the church,” the cruel smirk was identical to the one Tav remembered from his childhood, “but I’m still me.”

After the door shut on his asshole brother, instead of going to check if Zep had told the truth about his luggage being in the bedroom, Tav moved back to the front window.