“What changed?” Zane wondered.
“Josh did,” Brax argued. “It was like he flicked a switched and turned up the flirting. It almost felt… deliberate.”
“Yeah, he did the same over pizza,” Duke admitted. “Like it’s a distraction.”
“And then he pulls back, withdraws from the conversation, and…” Brax said.
“And we resume our normal schedule,” Cole said. “Bickering and sniping, upping the tension any chance we get.”
That was what happened when you had so many alphas in close quarters and not enough omegas to diffuse the tension.
“He reminds me of Dutchy,” Thorn said suddenly.
“He’s nothing like Dutchy,” Zane retorted.
On the one hand, Cole agreed. There weren’t a lot of similarities between Josh and the omega who’d been their anchor in the military. And yet…
“He is, though. Not in obvious ways, but… when we’re all together, and he’s relaxed, and the conversation’s flowing… he has a way of evening it all out. Dialing down the tension, bolstering the low points. It was his voice that got Thorn back into his seat earlier. And his touch that stopped me from riling Thorn up when the urge took me.”
Alphas clashed, it was in their natures. Omegas were like the sandpaper that wore down their rough edges.
“Are we saying he’s a Keeper?” Brax asked, sitting forward.
There was a long silence as they looked at one another, taking in the magnitude of what they were saying.
“If he is, maybe he doesn’t know it,” Duke suggested.
“It’s more than that,” Cole said quietly. “When he catches himself anchoring us, he withdraws. That’s why he left the packhouse so suddenly the last day. Why he was ready to run out the door just now. Why brunch crashed and burned the way it did.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Thorn argued. “Anchoring is instinct. It must feel as good for him as it does for us. Why would he fight it?”
“I don’t know,” Cole admitted. “Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but that’s what I’ve seen so far.”
Thorn’s assertion opened up a whole new set of questions. Despite their rocky start, Cole knew he was catching feelings where the omega was concerned. Could Josh really be a keeper, an anchor omega? And the more important question—if he was, could he be theirs?
Chapter Eighteen
Josh wanted nothing more than to be back at the stables. Horses were easy. People were complicated. But there he was, sitting on the floor of the nursery with Oliver and his four cubs as Oliver tried to get them dressed after their lunch. Tried being the operative word. The little ones did everything they could to escape: wriggled, shifted back and forth, and raced off across the room to hide. Oliver didn’t seem bothered, laughing at their antics as he tried to get the special shifter babygros onto them.
“I’m trying to get them used to wearing clothes,” he told Josh. “And to associate clothing with staying in their human forms. That way, we can take them out more. Right now, they’re still a little young to have that kind of control.”
“I don’t think I’d manage one,” Josh admitted. “Let alone four.”
“Four sounds daunting, I know. But it’s not just me and Brax. The whole pack is here to help. There’s always a pair of hands when I need them. The cubs are still pretty attached to me, but as they get older, they’ll spend more time with the others, and I’ll be able to get a bit more work done.” He smiled over at Josh. “Speaking of work, Cole says you’re having some legal trouble?”
“Not exactly,” Josh hedged, reluctant to bring it up. There was so much he’d have to explain, so much that he felt he couldn’t say in front of Oliver. The omega who was so with it, so together, that Josh felt like an ignorant fool in comparison.
Oliver waited patiently for Josh to continue, frowning a little at the continued silence.
“Josh, believe me when I say that I’ve heard it all. Nothing you could say would shock me. Not if you told me you robbed a bank or killed someone or left a library fine unpaid.”
Josh giggled at the last example, calming enough to admit, “Nothing like that. It’s… my contract, with my agent. Cole thought I should talk to you about it.”
“You’re looking for a way out of it?”
Was he?
“I don’t know, I…” He wasn’t sure how much to say. Did Oliver need to know everything about what Stewart had said and done?
“You want to know your options,” Oliver surmised. “Sure, I can take a look. Can you email me a copy?”
Josh pulled out his phone and sent it. Oliver slipped from the room to grab his tablet, returning to sit cross-legged on the floor, reading as he kept an eye on the kids. Josh distracted himself playing with the cubs, sure this would all come to nothing.
“How long have you been on this contract?” Oliver asked suddenly.
“Um, since I was sixteen. Fifteen, actually. We fudged my age a bit. The terms changed a little when I turned eighteen, and again this year when I turned twenty-one.”
“Has anyone else ever looked this over? Did your parents have a lawyer check it, back when you first signed with Stewart?”
“I was in a group home,” Josh admitted softly. “No parents. The… um… the carers helped me with the paperwork.”
“How did Stewart find you?” Oliver asked, his eyes still scanning the document. “Were you attending auditions? Casting calls? Linked with a modeling agency?”
“No, nothing like that. I never had any ambitions to act or model.”
“Then you were headhunted?” Oliver queried, looking up at him. “He spotted you on the street?”
Josh almost said yes to that. Anything to hide the truth. The panic must have shown on his face, because Oliver set the tablet down and leaned forward.
“Josh?”
“The carers at the group home arranged it. The prettier and more desirable we were, the more money they got. It wasn’t just agents like Stewart, they let much worse people have dibs on us. I was lucky. Stewart took me away from all that, set me up with an apartment and an allowance.”
“I see,” Oliver said slowly. “That explains this contract.”
“It’s pretty standard; I’ve met other omegas with ones just like it.”
“I’m sure you did.” Oliver tapped the tablet. “There are a lot of problems with this.”
“I can’t get out of it, can I? How much will I owe Stewart if I break it?”
Oliver lifted a mewling cub into his arms and rocked him slowly. “Breaking the contract isn’t the biggest problem, Josh. The contract itself is the problem. I have a friend who works in contract law, he’s handled some similar cases. I’d like to pass this on to him and get him to take a look.”
“I don’t really have the money to hire a lawyer,” Josh admitted.
“And I can see why,” Oliver said. “But that won’t be a problem. He’s a friend, he’ll do it as a favor to me.”
He waited expectantly for Josh’s answer, and Josh wasn’t in any position to turn down help being offered so freely.
“That would be really great. Thank you, Oliver.”
If he could get out of the contract without having to pay Stewart back, at least he wouldn’t end up penniless or in debt before he’d even started trying to make a new life for himself.
“Now,” Oliver said. “I think maybe you should tell me the rest.”
Josh froze before he slowly glanced up at the omega. “The rest? What did Cole tell you?”
The alpha knew altogether too much about recent events in Josh’s life. Who had he told? Did everyone in the pack know?
“Cole hasn’t told me anything except that you need some advice of the ‘omega and the legal kind.’ We’ve got the legal out of the way, but I’m guessing the two are interlinked. And while Cole hasn’t said anything, Thorn did let slip something about a rescue mission to the city yesterday. Do you want to talk about it?”
Josh felt a little blindsid
ed. He knew he could say no, thank Oliver, and just get up and walk away. But he stayed where he was as Oliver continued talking.
“Cole told you I’m an advocate, right? Did he explain what that means?”
“Not really,” Josh said. “I guess you stick up for omegas when they’re in trouble and need someone on their side.”
“More or less,” Oliver said. “I do most of my work through the courts system. Lots of custody cases, divorces, domestic violence. I’ve seen plenty of omegas put in terrible, impossible positions. They’re vulnerable when they don’t have an alpha in their lives to look out for them. It shouldn’t be the case, but it is.”
“And you help them?”
“I help them, and I teach them how to help themselves. Sometimes it’s about getting them to a place of safety, or helping them stand on their own two feet, whether that’s a job or training.”
“What if they’re the ones in the wrong?” Josh asked, “What if they’ve done something bad?”
“That usually means they’re more deserving of my help, not less,” Oliver explained. “Oftentimes they were vulnerable, manipulated by someone they trusted into a position that allowed others to take advantage of them. And then they’re the ones left carrying all the blame.”
Josh knew exactly how that felt.
“Like Jack’s omega father, Corin. He made some terrible decisions, took the fall for an alpha who was bad news. Duke asked me to step in, and I’m trying to help him get his life back on track,” Oliver added.
He’d heard enough of Duke’s story to know his ex has caused him a lot of pain and heartache. That they were willing to look past that and help him said a lot.
“I—” he started to say, then faltered.
Oliver nodded in encouragement. “No judgment here. There’s nothing you can say that would shock me or make me think badly of you. I treat people as I find them.”
“You know about me and that alpha?” Josh asked. “The tape?”
Oliver nodded, not a flicker in his expression.
“We’d met on set a few weeks before. He contacted me after, through my agent, and we talked over the phone. He said he and his partner had an open relationship, and he invited me over for some fun. I knew there’d be sex, I agreed to that, but…”
Oliver didn’t try to fill in the blanks, just waited for him to continue.
“He spiked my drink with alpha dust. I didn’t know there was a camera. I didn’t have any idea he’d filmed us until the tape got out.”
“Why?” Oliver asked softly.
“Huh?”
“Do you know why he did it?”
“It was a career move. He needed to spice up his image for this big, multi-film role he wanted.”
“What about your image?”
Josh shrugged. “I’m tarnished goods now. The only person who wants to work with me treats his omegas like prostitutes, both on and off the set.”
“Did you go to the police?”
Josh drew his knees up to his chest and shook his head.
“No. I mean, I went there for sex, and I got what I came for.” He hesitated before adding, “But I did go to the hospital, because I felt weird the next day and my memory was patchy. I don’t do drugs, ever. It’s one thing Stewart and I agree on. They found the alpha dust in my system.”
“Did they do any other tests?”
“Standard stuff, I guess. Weeks later, when the tape came out, I told Stewart I wanted to report it. He said it was too late, that no one would believe me.” He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories. “Could we change the subject? I just want to forget all this stuff.”
“Sure,” Oliver said. “Could you do one thing for me, though?”
“What’s that?” Josh guessed he’d repeat what Cole had said, and ask him to talk to Kira.
“Send me anything you have in writing that refers to that night. Any texts, emails, hospital stuff. Voicemails, if you have any.”
“But there’s no point. No one’s going to believe my side.”
“It actually ties in with the contract issue,” Oliver said. “In fact, it would be a big help if you could write down any occasion where Stewart mediated contact between you and someone else in the industry.”
“Like the dinner he organized yesterday?”
“Like that,” Oliver told him. “What he said would happen, what actually happened, and any specifics you can remember: when, where, who.”
“Why?”
Oliver shuffled closer, pressing a hand to Josh’s knee. “Your situation reminds me of some others I’ve heard about recently. I think I can help you, but I need a bit of time to look into it. Is that okay?”
“I guess.”
“And if you hear from Stewart, I’d like you to let me know. I’ll help you handle your interactions with him while we’re getting you free of this contract, okay?”
“You’d do that?”
That sounded really good. He didn’t want to have to deal with Stewart alone. Now he had Oliver and Cole.
“Of course.”
“I do have a little bit of money set aside. I can pay you…”
Oliver shook his head. “I’m not asking for payment. I’ve been itching to get my teeth into something for a while. Babies are great, but I like more of a challenge now and then.”
Josh nodded, feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time.
“I wish I’d met you years ago.”
Oliver leaned in and hugged him. “So do I. But we’re friends now, and that’s what counts.”
Cole stuck his head in the door half an hour later. Josh was lying on his back on the ground, three cubs curled up asleep on his chest and stomach. Oliver had taken the other two to see Brax.
“You look like the most comfortable pillow,” Cole whispered. “I’ve got half a mind to lie down and join you.”
“I’d like the company,” Josh admitted.
The alpha settled down next to him, and true to his word, rested his head against Josh’s side.
Josh kept his movements slow, not wanting to disturb the cubs as he tangled his fingers in Cole’s hair, running them through the short locks and massaging his scalp. Cole let out a low groan of appreciation.
“How’d you get on with Oliver?” he murmured. “Good talk?”
“Good talk,” Josh agreed. “I like him a lot.”
“Great,” Cole murmured sleepily. “That’s really great.”
By the time Oliver poked his head back through the door, Josh had four sleeping against him, not three.
Chapter Nineteen
Cole walked back to the cottage with Josh, musing on ways to strengthen the connection that had sprung up between them. Now that every second word wasn’t a snipe or an insult, now that they were actually seeing each other clearly, it felt like there was space to explore what was going on between them. And he had an idea how they might do that.
“So I was thinking,” he said as the cottage came into view. “You’ve been here a while, you’ve mastered the art of the sweeping brush, how about I start showing you how to take care of the horses?”
“I’m already mucking out their stalls,” Josh pointed out, wrinkling his nose.
“I meant working with the horses themselves, building up to you actually riding one of them.”
“You’d let me do that?” Josh asked uncertainly.
“That is why you’re here, sort of. I thought we’d start with brushing them. That’s a good way for you to get familiar with them, and for them to get to know you up close.”
“Really?”
Far from the reluctance Cole expected, Josh seemed excited at the prospect. He felt a pang of guilt for not having done this sooner.
Josh went to change, and Cole headed into the stables, letting Thunder out of his stall. He was the most placid of the horses and the best choice for Josh’s first time.
“You’ll be good for me and Josh, right?” he said, patting Thunder‘s flank. “There’s carrot sticks in
it for you. Maybe even a mint.”
“Does bribery work on horses?” Josh asked from behind him.
“Every time.”
He showed Josh the brush. “Usually I start with a comb, then a hard-bristled brush, and finish with this. It’s got soft bristles, see? But since we’re just letting you two get the measure of each other, we’ll stick to this one.”
Josh eyed the horse uncertainly. “Are you sure he likes this?”
“Definitely. Just take it slow. Start at Thunder’s neck and work back. Watch his body language. He’ll let you know if he’s not happy. Stay where he can see you for now. The biggest risk is him getting spooked and kicking you.”
The omega made a face. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It won’t happen,” Cole assured him. “He likes you.”
He used the brush to demonstrate for Josh, letting the omega see the direction of his strokes, how firmly he pressed, and how Thunder responded to it.
“He really likes that,” Josh said softly.
“It feels nice. He gets hot and itchy under that heavy coat.”
He passed the brush over, noticing that Josh’s hands were shaking just a little. The omega was nervous, and Cole wasn’t certain if it was his proximity or Thunder’s. Placing his hand over Josh’s, he guided the brush to the horse’s flank.
“Nice, slow strokes,” he said softly. “See how he likes that?”
“Yeah,” Josh murmured.
The position of his hand put him close to Josh’s back, but the omega didn’t seem unhappy with the closeness once he had time to adjust to it.
“You try now.” Cole let go of the brush and rested his hand on Josh’s shoulder. His touch elicited a wince from the omega.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, tugging at the neckline of Josh’s T-shirt.
The omega shoved his hand away, stumbling in his haste to get out of Cole’s reach. Knowing panic when he saw it, Cole backed right off.
“It’s just a bruise,” Josh whispered, calming with each step that Cole took.
Cole had a good idea where and how he’d gotten bruised. He hid his anger, knowing Josh might not understand that it wasn’t aimed his way.
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