Page 7 of Flight of the Omega

He sighed. “She ain’t ever gonna run another race.”

JP took a big sip of his coffee to quell further questions. Jack did the same, slurping at the end. He smacked his lips together and peered off across the mess, toward the bank of east-facing windows at the end of the log-cabin styled room. The morning sun wasn’t terribly poetic, but he looked thoughtful, and JP thought it suited him.

“Guess we’ll put her out to pasture,” Jack sighed.

“You’ll shoot her then?” JP asked.

“Heck no!” Jack cried, glancing at him with something like ferocity, and JP’s heart slammed into his ribs like he’d just done a hundred-meter dash. “I mean put her to pasture. She’ll be a good training bird, although not much good for trail rides. Maybe fairs and stuff. Anyway—we’ll keep her happy and comfy.”

He frowned. “The heck would we put her down for? A lame bird can’t run a race, sure, but that’s no reason to kill ’em.”

Slowly, JP’s heart rate returned to normal. “I guess that’s true,” he almost laughed. “I mean, you just hear a lot of awful things, right? That—that they used to …”

Jack shook his head. “Not what we do around here. Not if I have a say in it, at least.”

JP peered at him, tilting his head. “I think you’re the one who cares about the birds.”

“Of course!” Jack snapped. “Who wouldn’t? I don’t care what anyone says, those birds are smart. They’re kind and caring, and they deserve the best from us.”

JP turned his mug around on the tabletop, stunned into silence. “Did you … were you …,” he started, but he couldn’t get further than that.

Jack sighed. “You won’t convince me there’s a better companion on the face of the Earth or Alerian,” he said. “I’ve been let down by a lot of people, but a bird’s never let me down.”

JP lowered his gaze, peering into his mug. He wished he felt the same. He’d been let down by quite a few birds. His mother, for one. Several of the birds his father was partial to as well.

He glanced back up at Jack. “And,” he said slowly, the question moving through his mind like molasses, “you … were close with a bird?”

He didn’t know why the thought made him so damn uncomfortable. He shifted side to side as he awaited Jack’s answer.

“My best friend when I was a child,” Jack murmured. “Rocket and I went everywhere.”

JP sipped his coffee as Jack described the adventures he and Rocket had on back trails near Midlothian and in the mountains further west. JP wondered what it was like to have a friend. Arealfriend.

A hint of a blush stained Jack’s bronzed cheeks. He glanced at JP. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said softly, “but Rocket was my first boyfriend too.”

“Was he a shifter?” JP asked, perking up a bit.

Jack shook his head. He gave JP some side eye. “Don’t get no ideas either. I was eight.”

“O-oh.” Now it was JP’s turn to blush. He knew exactly where Jack was driving with that. Plenty of people looked down on bird fanciers—and angelics, because they were the result of those “unnatural unions.” JP rarely told anyone he was a shifter. His father had told him not to, encouraged him to stay in human form. It was why he was so pissed when JP would transform in class or in front of company. People judged. And people judged JP harshly. His teachers had frowned, and his classmates—who at first thought he was neat—found insults. Birdbrain, freak, and other, worse things.

Suffice to say JP hadn’t exactly been in with the popular crowd. Even the “bird girls”—girls who played with Alerian figurines and read books about them and had their parents pay for expensive riding lessons—wouldn’t be friends with him.

So he hadn’t cared when his father had pulled him out of school at sixteen. He’d thought it would be better—no teasing, no laughter, no pranks, no avoiding him in the halls.

It had been worse. So much worse.

Jack sighed. Then he looked at JP with a frown. “You don’t think that’s weird?”

“No weirder than a human marrying a shifter,” JP declared. “I mean, except both would be shapelocked, instead of just one.” Like his parents. He didn’t like thinking about it. He waved a hand, trying to dismiss the subject.

“Right,” Jack said, narrowing his eyes as he gazed at JP. With a sudden swiftness, he made a grab for JP’s wrist, capturing it.

“Hey!” JP cried, nearly spilling his coffee. “What are you doing?”

Jack inspected his wrist, tracing over the joint carefully, and JP shuddered at the bite of the rough pads of Jack’s fingers against his skin. “You hurt your wrist,” the ranch hand declared.

JP tried to yank his hand back, nearly yowling as he wrenched his wrist through Jack’s iron-clad grip. Jack frowned, and JP winced. The ranch hand caught his gaze. “You need to have this looked at,” he said. “It could be broke. Sprained, at any rate—the bruising’ll come up soon, I think.”