Chapter Four - Rex

S hifters Sanctuary was not the town's official name. Or, at least, they didn't have any signs declaring the place as such. I supposed that might garner them attention from humans and, even though humans knew shifters existed, it seemed smart to try and lie low anyway. At least until human society felt less threatened by their — our — existence.

I was still struggling with my own identity as a shifter, what with not actually having shifted yet. I hadn't had the balls to try. I could just see myself getting stuck as an animal and living out my days eating rodents or something.

No, thank you.

Anyhow, when I parked my car on the main street (unsurprisingly called ‘Main Street', if the lone street sign was anything to go by) and meandered into the tiny convenience store, I was not expecting the short, frumpy woman behind the counter to react the way she had. She scented the air, her button nose twitching, and she regarded me with wide, surprised eyes.

"Hello, ma'am," I pasted on my friendliest smile, "I was wonderin' if you could point me in the direction of—"

"Our Pack Alpha?" she finished for me, already reaching for her phone.

I cocked my head. "Could you tell me a little about him first?"

She firmed her lips and regarded me with suspicion. "You're not plannin' on challenging him, are you? Because Beck's a good Alpha. We don't need any trouble around here."

I could feel my lips twitching in amusement at the idea of this short, matronly woman giving me a talking to. Schooling my features, I held my hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "No, ma'am. No challenge, no trouble. I'm actually hopin' to find some answers about this whole…alpha thing."

There was no sense pretending she couldn't scent what I was. I'd encountered a few shifters on my journey to Iowa, and the ones I had spoken to had all sniffed the air and looked at me with wide, curious eyes. Somehow, I had known that they knew what I was, but thankfully none of them had given me any trouble.

The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed as she clearly assessed the veracity of my claim. "You promise no trouble? Not even with D…" she paused, seeming to rethink her phrasing, "any of the omegas?"

Placing my hand over my heart, I assured her, "I swear on my birth mama's grave, I'm not here to stir the pot with anyone. I really do just want answers."

I decided it was a good sign that she was such an enthusiastic gatekeeper for the town, not that I thought she could do too much damage if I did have nefarious intentions. But her defense of the Pack Alpha had to mean that the rumors I'd heard were true: he was a nice guy and was trying to build a safe space for people like him. People like me.

"Well then," relaxing marginally, she stuck out her hand, "welcome to our little pack. I'm Jazz."

"Rex," I introduced myself, bending to kiss the back of her hand and smirking as she giggled lightly.

"Oh, you're dangerous," she accused, then pulled out her phone.

Within minutes, she was shutting up shop and hustling me towards my truck, inviting herself along for the drive. "I'll direct you," she'd insisted when all I'd asked for were directions to the Alpha's home, to which I'd apparently been summoned. Her eyes had gleamed with what I could have sworn was mischief. "I'm not missin' this show for the world."

"Show?" I asked as I climbed into the driver's seat.

She grinned. "You'll see."

The drive to the large farmhouse took less than ten minutes and, as we drove up the long driveway from the street to the house proper, I couldn't help but smile to myself. The crunch of gravel beneath my tires, the scents and sounds of a working farm, the crisp, clean country air…it was all so familiar to me. Familiar and calming.

I was a country boy through and through. I'd grown up on a ranch just outside of Fredericksburg, Texas. While my adoptive parents had mostly raised cattle, the property had also grown crops and had a large copse of peach trees. It had been idyllic and, if not for my parents' rampant homophobia, I would have wanted to visit again, just for old times' sake.

I parked my pickup next to a similar vehicle, its paint white where mine was red, and tilted my face up towards the sun as I climbed out of the cab, enjoying the warming rays in the cold December air .

"Come on," Jazz urged from the other side of my truck. I could barely see the top of her thick, brown hair through the window, "Beckett and Ollie are waiting for us."

I nodded and made my way around to her, then followed her up the front steps of the farmhouse. The wrap-around porch was freshly painted, as was the front door. Jazz gave three firm raps on the glossy white surface and, barely ten seconds later, the door swung inwards to reveal a willowy young man with a baby on his hip.

He smiled warmly at me, extending his free hand. "Hi," he beamed, his green eyes sizing me up from my toes to my hair, "I'm Ollie. And this," he bounced the baby at his side, "is Duke. Come on in. Beck's just changing Rory." The look he shot towards my companion was almost plaintive. "Jazz, could I trouble you to make us all some coffees?"

I shook his hand as Jazz bustled past me, declaring his request was no trouble at all. "Rex," I introduced myself, then wiped my feet on the welcome mat and moved inside as I'd been instructed to, "it's nice to meet you." I looked around the cozy timber-hewn living room and smiled at the worn floral couch, so much like the one we'd had back in Texas. "You have a lovely home."

"Thanks," Ollie replied, still making absolutely no secret of his curiosity in me. He cocked his head. "So, an alpha, huh? Bet that came as a shock. It did for Beck." His lips curled upwards. "Especially with the way it happened."

"Oh?" I arched an eyebrow at him. I didn't know much about the Pack Alpha's backstory, only that he'd thought he was human…until he wasn't anymore.

"Popping a knot mid-orgasm is understandably unnerving," Ollie shrugged .

"Oliver! Honestly ." I turned my head at the sound of the exasperated admonishment, watching as another guy —older than Ollie, but he had to be close to a decade younger than me— came down the stairs, holding a dark-haired baby to his shoulder. He was about my height and broad shouldered, with short dark hair and dark eyes. He held himself straight, even while his smile softened and became almost conspiratorial as he turned his attention to me. "Sorry," he said, his gravelly voice deep and more mature than I'd anticipated. "Ollie likes to overshare. I don't think the word ‘boundary' is in his vocabulary." He came to a stop in front of me and extended his hand. "Beckett Smith," he introduced himself easily, but there was a subtle power about him that told me he was an alpha. The Alpha. Even though I hadn't met another alpha before, my instincts told me he couldn't be anything else. Hell, even his scent seemed kind of electric, so different to the other shifters I'd encountered so far. "But you can call me Beck. Everyone else does."

I shook his hand. "Rex. Rex Murphy."

"Come sit down, Rex," Beck gestured to the couch. He waited for me to sit before he chose the matching armchair positioned on the other side of the timber coffee table, then he extended his arm out to Ollie. "I'll take Duke if you want to head down to the clinic and get Eric or Brandt. I'm sure they'll have questions for Rex, and answers to any of his questions, too."

Ollie nodded and carefully maneuvered the baby he was holding onto Beck's lap, where Beck secured him with his free arm. He paused to smile at the way the boy reached for the other baby, making gurgling sounds. Then he cocked his head back at Beck. "What about D—"

Beck cut him off with a shake of his head. "One step at a time," he cautioned, then leaned his head back for a quick kiss. Ollie obliged. Beck's smile was warm. "Thanks, babe."

Ollie nodded and then bade us goodbye as he headed back out the front door.

"He won't be long," Beck told me when a few moments of awkward silence had passed. "Eric and Brandt are the town doctors and researchers. Eric's been researching alphas for years: long before I kind of magically discovered I was one. He's been a huge help through all of this."

One of the babies —the darker haired one; Rory, was it?— squawked in his lap. He bounced his knee and gave Duke a soft pet on his back. "Be nice to your sister."

I hadn't even noticed that the little guy's hand was squeezing the other baby's arm, no doubt causing the sharp complaint.

I jutted my chin at the pair. "Looks like you've sure got your hands full."

Beck chuckled, and he sighed in that tired way that all new parents seemed to do. "They're not easy, no," he agreed. "But I wouldn't trade them for anything."

"How old are they?"

"About four months," he answered. "They're way easier to handle now that they can support the weight of their own heads. I was terrified I'd break them when they were all fresh and new."

I blinked at him and did some quick mental math. When did the whole mess in New York happen? About a year ago? Assuming babies cook for about nine months…

"Hang on," the words were out before I could remind myself that his relationship was none of my damn business.

I took a closer look at the babies in his lap. One looked a hell of a lot like him, not that I thought I was any good at being able to see resemblances between squidgy baby faces and adults. It wasn't exactly something I often found myself in a position to do, and it wasn't as though I spent a lot of time with kids. I definitely had no plans for any of my own, either.

"I mean…" I trailed off and shook my head, holding my hands up apologetically. "Sorry. It's really none of my business."

There were a number of plausible explanations for the situation, really. He might have already gotten a woman pregnant prior to being with Ollie. He and Ollie might have had an open relationship. He might have hired a surrogate before meeting Ollie. They might be his sibling's kids.

It was none of my damned business.

Except he spoke about them like they were his own and… nope. I didn't know the story and it wasn't my place to poke around asking about it, either. I was there to get answers about the whole ‘surprise alpha' thing. No sense getting derailed by my natural curiosity. That had always been my downfall.

Beck's dark eyes were locked on mine as he sat in what felt like contemplative silence. He hummed in thought to himself, then sighed. "How much do you know about shifters?"

I blinked. "Pardon me?"

"Like, there's the basics we learned in history back in school," he continued, back to bouncing both his legs to the contented babbles of the babies in his lap, "but that didn't really cover the whole alpha/omega/beta thing at all."

I nodded. "No, I'd never even heard the terms until…"

Flashbacks of that night with Damon blinked through my mind.

Beck lifted the corner of his lip in a wry, knowing smirk. "Yeah, I've been there. Bought the t-shirt and everything. "

Was it my imagination, or did he dip his chin towards the kids when he said that?

"So," he forged on, disrupting my curious thoughts, "there's a whole old-school hierarchy that comes with the alpha thing. Not that we really follow it here. Well, except for the whole town's insistence that an alpha should be Pack Alpha…but I'm working on trying to change their minds. Biology shouldn't determine leadership status, you know? Even though I can do this weird thing where I can momentarily compel them to do stuff. But I don't like to do that because it's totally an abuse of power and…I'm rambling."

"Okay…" I replied slowly, trying to follow his point. "So it's just a hierarchy thing? Which doesn't really matter unless you're part of a pack?"

Beck shook his head and his expression turned uncomfortable. "The whole belief system when it comes to alphas being superior to betas and betas to omegas is fucked," he said bluntly, then cringed and looked down at the babies in his lap. "Shit. Ah, damn it. I mean… ugh. Sorry. Just don't tell your Papa I cursed, okay?"

The infants gurgled back at him, and I chuckled. "I think you're safe for now. I don't know much about wrangling small humans —small shifters?— but pretty sure it takes most of 'em a while longer to start repeating the stuff they're not s'posed to. Or," I added, cocking my head, "telling on you to their Papa."

"Yeah, well, their Papa may look sweet and harmless, but I'd rather not find myself in his bad books, or in the doghouse, if you'll excuse the pun."

I arched my eyebrow at him, and he snorted. "Because I'm a wolf shifter. Not that wolves are dogs, but I'm taking creative license here. "

"Right…"

Beck cleared his throat into the stilted silence that fell between us. "So, anyway, the whole power structure is dumb. But there are other, um, differences between each secondary designation. Biological ones."

I sat up a little straighter, all ears again. "Like the slick thing? And the knotting?"

He nodded and bit his lip. "Eric, Brandt, and Ollie can explain it better than I can, and I'm sure they will when they get here."

"Give me the summarized version," I demanded, not having the patience to wait. This was what I'd come here for, after all. To learn about what I was and why I was like this. To learn what my body was secretly capable of. The details could come later.

Beck's expression twisted uncomfortably again, but he nodded. "Okay, well, betas are the closest to human in terms of their biology. They can shift, but…that's about it in terms of anything special or different about them. They're born unmarked, or so I'm told."

"Okay…" I rolled my wrist at him, hoping he might speed it up a little.

"But omegas are born marked from birth. They get a mark in the shape of a crescent moon somewhere on their bodies." His handsome face contorted into a scowl. "So, even though it makes no damn difference until they hit puberty, they get whacked with the label that they're omegas and, without alphas, aren't good for much except slave labor, and they're usually raised without a whole lot of self-worth."

The news wasn't really a surprise to me, not after what I'd heard back in that bar in Mississippi, but it still got my metaphorical hackles up. "But why?" I demanded, leaning forward to jab at my own knee with my index finger as I spoke. "Why does their value rely on the presence of alphas?"

Beck shifted the babies in his lap and couldn't quite meet my eye. "Without alphas, they can't help grow the pack."

I knew I must have looked a hell of a lot confused, ‘cause I sure felt it. "I don't follow."

"What, um, what did Da…" He stopped himself and started again. I was beginning to wonder what people around here were trying not to say. "What did the omega you were with tell you about his slick?"

"That it helped with…" I tried to recall his words and frowned. Having gone over that night so many times in my head, I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to. However, I'd never realized that my sweet kitten hadn't actually said why he got slick. I'd inferred it was to make having sex easier for his kind. Self-lubrication for the win. "You know, he didn't say. He got flustered." Despite my mixed feelings about the events that had followed, I couldn't help but smile at the memory. "Then we, uh, got distracted."

Beck snorted and raised a knowing eyebrow. "I know how that goes." He looked back down at the babies, his expression softening. "Worth it."

The logic didn't compute.

Suspicion began to niggle at the back of my brain, willing me to make some sort of connection between my experience and what was in front of me. But, try as I might, I was at a loss.

"What do you mean?"

Steeling himself, Beck began, "So, the slick is to help with mating, for lack of a better term."

Feeling my shoulders relax, I nodded and chuckled, "Well, yeah, I got that part."

"No, I mean—" Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of one of the infants filling their diaper. Loudly. It was followed by a drawn-out moment of stunned silence before the baby in question began wailing. Beck sighed. "Really, dude? I just changed your sister. Can you two not, like, get into sync or something?" He looked over at me, chagrined. "Would you mind holding her? I've gotta take care of this."

Before I could agree or protest, the other baby was thrust into my arms and Beck was heading towards the stairs. I blinked at the startled baby, and she blinked back at me.

"Uh," I said stupidly, "hi."

Her lower lip quivered and turned down.

Panic flooded me.

At forty-two, I'd had very little experience with small children, and even less with babies. I'm pretty sure the tiny creature could sense my unease because she started to whimper and squirm.

"Oh no," I muttered, repositioning her into the crook of my arm and tucking her in close to my chest on instinct. "It's okay, little darlin'. We're cool. Shh ," I rocked from side to side in my seat. "Hush now. Your Daddy's comin' back in just a few minutes, I swear."

"Not if it's another diaper explosion," Jazz's amused voice almost had me jumping out of my skin. She entered the room from the rounded archway that seemed to lead into the kitchen and dining area of the home. In her hands, she carried a tray containing an eclectic assortment of mugs and a French press coffee maker full of the dark brew, which smelled delicious. She set it down on the coffee table in front of me as she continued, "Beck's notoriously bad at dealing with those. But Ollie insists he's gotta get used to it, so…it may be a while." She gestured down at the tray. "Cream and sugar?"

"Yes, please. Two sugars, ma'am."

The infant in my arms had stopped grizzling, clearly just as surprised by Jazz's abrupt entrance as I was. She reached up a chubby hand and smacked my bearded jaw with a surprising amount of force for such a tiny, uncoordinated little thing.

Jazz chuckled and set my coffee down on the table. She straightened and, with her hands on her ample hips, observed, "You look good with a baby."

"I…what?"

Lips curling upwards, her smile seemed kind of secretive. But she jutted her chin towards Rory and repeated, "It's a good look. There's somethin' about a handsome man holding a baby that makes my ovaries ache."

I had no idea how to respond to that.

My cheeks burned. "Well, this is probably the second time in my entire life I've done it, and it will probably be the last for a long while, so get your fill while you can, I s'pose."

"Now, honey," Jazz's smirk was suddenly unsettling, "you don't know that, do you?"

"Know what?"

"That this'll be the last time you hold a baby for a while."

I didn't like the way she cocked her head or the way her dark brown eyes glinted with humor. It set off all kinds of internal alarms and my instincts were usually right.

"What are you not sayin', Jazz?"

Eyes widening with exaggerated innocence, she held her hands up in surrender. "Nothing, nothing! Just that you'll probably be staying close to Ollie and Beckett for a while, won't you?" Before I could refute that, she stuck those same hands out towards the baby. "Here, let me take the little princess so you can drink your coffee before it gets cold."

I leaned back, holding the kid a little closer to my body. Not that I thought she was a threat to Rory or to me, but I didn't want to be distracted, and I certainly didn't want her to have an excuse to wander away while I was trying to not-so-subtly interrogate her.

"Jazz," I said her name with my most charming smile in place, deciding that it would be easier to catch flies with honey, "what have I missed around here, hmm?"

She bit her lip. I could see her resolve wavering. Nevertheless, she shook her head, wisps of brown hair flying about her head with the motion. "I think it's best to wait for Beck to come back. O-or Doc Weldman. Er, Weldmans? Docs Weldman? Whatever, there are two of 'em now, and one of them'll be able to explain."

"Explain what , though?" I was getting frustrated.

"Me," a new voice answered in her stead, and my heart leapt into my throat.

I knew that voice. It had haunted my dreams and memories since the day I had fled that roadside bar in Texas.

"Or, more to the point," Damon continued, sounding tired and wary as I heard him get closer. I couldn't bring myself to turn my head and face him. I was still a damn coward where he was concerned. Still ashamed for having freaked out and left him the way I had. " This ."

The last word was spoken as he rounded the couch and stood in front of me. He was every bit as beautiful as I remembered, though his face was a little rounder and simultaneously more drawn as he stared me down in Beck and Ollie's living room. But that wasn't where my vision focused.

No…my gaze was drawn to his hand resting on his swollen belly.

The clues finally snapped together inside my head with an almost audible click. Beck and Ollie. The babies. The dancing around what omegas and alphas meant to each other. Jazz's weird commentary.

My throat went dry, and I lifted Rory, pushing her blindly towards Jazz, my eyes not leaving the very obvious bump beneath Damon's clinging gray woolen sweater. "On second thought," I heard my own strained voice say, like I was having an out-of-body experience, "I think you'd better take her."