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Taking his sweet time getting dressed, he sorted through his clothes to find what he wanted to put on first. Apparently he was a ‘socks on first’ kind of guy. Or maybe he was doing this to me on purpose, all the bending over and flexing his muscles. There were more tattoos on his back that I hadn’t noticed last night, including a large and intricate realistic pine tree, snow draped on the branches. The piece had to be an homage to Caspian.
I’d assumed their coupling was more for convenience and neither acknowledged their feelings for the other. My assumption had been off base. No way would Shan have a tattoo like that if he didn’t accept his feeling for Caspian.
Not that it mattered. They couldn’t matter to me, not emotionally. Now that they had confirmation that I was an Omega, I needed to wait and see what they did with the information. After, I could consider taking them as mates. “Are you going to invite me to stay for breakfast?” he asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.
Scoffing, I stormed out of my nest and into the living space. “I have plain oatmeal and stale cereal. If you insist on staying for breakfast, take your fucking pick.”
Ozzy sat on the kitchen island, licking his paws clean. I wasn’t certain he slept, and if he did, it wasn’t much. My familiar was always awake before me, vanishing in the night once I was deep asleep and didn’t need his comforting presence anymore.
“You’re in a foul mood for someone who just got laid.”
Glaring at him, I pulled open the fridge and grabbed a single serve yogurt cup. It had expired, but only a few days ago. That was something. “I thought you said you only have oatmeal and cereal.”
“This is the last one, and it’s mine.”
I sat on a bar stool at the island and stirred the blueberry flavouring into the tart yogurt more violently than I needed to. Having Shan here was hard because he reminded me of how wonderful last night was. That reminded me I couldn’t count on this state of peace to last. Wait and see. I had to wait and see.
A small orange paw landed on my arm and Oswald rubbed against me as Shan got settled on a high-backed stool across from me. He’d found a granola bar and taken it upon himself to eat it without asking. I couldn’t have told him those existed, so I wasn’t too put out. It might be moldy or stale. He could take his chances.
When silence stretched from seconds to minutes, Oswald trotted over to the seldom-used, pink cat-shaped food bowl in the middle of the island and placed his paw on the rim. The meow he let out was absolutely pitiful.
“Your familiar watched us fuck last night and now he wants you to feed him like a cat?” Shan asked incredulously.
My glare hadn’t dropped since I woke up and realized how much deep shit I was in, but it focused in on Ozzy now. His attempt at comic relief was unwelcome when all I wanted to be was angry.“Comic relief? I’m just hungry,”Ozzy said innocently, having listened in on my loud thoughts.
I clamped down on the projection, rolling my eyes when he let out another sad little meow.
“The fuck does he even eat? Does he eat cat food?”
Sighing, I spun on the stool and reached into the cupboard housing a small supply of all natural cat food. The can popped open, and I dumped a mix of tuna and shrimp into his cat bowl. He smirked at me, if that was possible, and set to work on his snack. “Mainly he drinks the blood of small animals. Occasionally he has a craving for fish.”
Shan’s eyebrow rose. “Familiars don’t usually drink blood.”
“He has his quirks, remember?” I said simply, avoiding any talk about his curse. The blood cravings were likely connected, but I hadn’t the slightest clue how.
While his tactics needed work, Oswald had turned the conversation away from tense silence or awkward topics like my designation. I could work with this. “Sounds cursed to me. Though I’ve never heard of bloodlust as a side effect. We could look into it for you?”
“I doubt you have time for something like that.”
“Em, our other team member, has all the time in the world at the moment.”
Glancing at Ozzy, I held back a sigh. If I was lucky, they might find something to help him. If I was unlucky, they would use his curse against me. I was beginning to believe that, possibly, Shan was above methods of blackmail or leveraging information. When it came to me, at least.
“Fine, if he’s got the time. Is he your only other team member?”
I asked purely because I was curious, but Shan stiffened the tiniest amount. Sensitive question. He looked at me flatly and shrugged. “We work indirectly with a large team.”
Staring down at the counter, I stirred my yogurt. Faster and faster, trying to calm my irritation. I’d been vulnerable for him. I’d given him proof I was an Omega. I’d let him into my fucking nest. And I still wasn’t to be trusted to know about his friends? His team members? Sure, that information could be used against them if someone nefarious was to find out how many people were working together. But it was such an insignificant detail. My information could be used against me far easier.
Unfortunately for me, thinking about the tragic lack of information I had made me angrier and stirring wasn’t doing much. With a growl, I slammed my spoon down on the table and pointed at the front door. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
“We need to talk first.”
“No, we will not talk. You don’t trust me even a smidgen. We have nothing to talk about.”
“And you’re saying you trust me?”
“I was trying to get there!” I was yelling by now and I slid off the stool to pace. Ozzy was still eating his damn tuna like nothing was happening. He would give me advice all day long, but was useless when it mattered. “Why do you fucking think I brought you here? Into mynest? That’s not somewhere I bring people, Shan.”
