Chapter 2 Brandy

It was such a relief to be out of town that I could have cried- and not just because I'd become a hormonal piece of shit since discovering I was pregnant. It was the relief, the absence of that exhausting tension- and it was the look on Tsuki's face.

It was amazing how much I had come to care about him since he had come back from his time with the outlawed pack of heathens. I had always hated Tsuki because of his relationship with Neo; fighting so hard for the attention of the natural born alpha had pissed me off, when he gave it to the male omega so easily. No amount of flirting or hair flipping had been able to distract him. It wasn't the taboo which had driven me insane- I couldn't care less, it was the twenty-first century and people could sleep with whoever they wanted to. It was the pressure, the lectures from my father, the heavy expectation from the rest of the pack to have strong children with Neo for the power of the next generation.

Without that pressure, I could see a little more clearly. Neo was obsessed with Tsuki, in a completely unhealthy way. I wasn't sure if it had always been that way- I doubted it, because back then, Tsuki had been able to smile. He never smiled anymore. And I wasn't jealous of his relationship with Neo anymore, either.

The change in the omega stood out sharper the farther away from the pack we were. There, he tried to hide it; he faked smiles, cooing sweet words and pretending to be okay- because when Neo worried, things went bad very quickly. As soon as there was nobody watching, he let that facade fall. His shoulders slumped, the unnatural tilt of his lips giving way to a sad droop, and the exhaustion showed in his eyes. Tsuki was being smothered under the weight of his relationship with Neo, and I was the only one who cared.

"You're staring," Tsuki said softly, without raising his gaze from the froofy cup of blended coffee he had cradled between his hands.

"Sorry," I said immediately, though I didn't really mean it- and he wasn't really upset. We'd grown a natural relationship between us, like siblings, thanks to the amount of time we spent together. It had been rocky at first- of course it had, I'd spent over a decade devoting myself to using him as a whipping boy. Tsuki had opened up more the first time I stepped in between him and Neo to stop the agitated child of the stars from escalating into the nasty temper he'd been showing since Tsuki came back. And when we had found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks ago, he had sworn to support me in any way I needed him.

It bothered me, because in my opinion, he was the one who needed help.

"What are you thinking about?" Tsuki looked up at me then, his silver eyes looking sharp thanks to the dark circles beneath them. He softened it with a wan smile before hiding his expression by sipping from his coffee. It was halfway gone before he realized how quickly he was drinking and his face flushed with pale color.

I sighed softly, propping my elbow up on the table and cupping my chin in my hand. "Everything, of course. Are you feeling okay today?"

"Fine," Tsuki shrugged, fidgeting under my searching gaze until he told the truth. "Tired, like I haven't slept in a few days. And I can't shake the dizziness or the nausea. And I'm starving- always, all the time."

I frowned at him, concerned. "Have you been taking your medicine?"

Tsuki winced, tugging his long sleeve further down his wrist; he never wore short sleeves anymore, marking the ever present marks in his inner arm from injecting himself with whatever serum the outlaw pack had sent with him. "Of course. I'm not risking anything. It gets weirder every time- my veins glowed for an hour last time, and it was hard to hide it from Neo. It even spreads up onto my face sometimes. But I don't know what will happen if I stop it, since I would have been a vegetable without it."

"I'm sorry," I said softly, hating the fear and uncertainty in his eyes.

He shrugged again, with the demure acceptance trained into him to avoid sparking Neo's temper. "If you avoided talking about everything that upsets me, we would probably never speak."

I tried to keep a straight face for a few seconds before I snickered. "True. You're a minefield these days. If Neo's not careful, you'll be the one shouting one of these days."

"He doesn't mean anything by it," Tsuki protested immediately, stiffening in his chair; if his cup hadn't been empty, his death grip crumpling the plastic would have squeezed the frozen drink all over his hands.

I leaned back automatically, fighting the shiver which wanted to crawl down my spine. Tsuki was harmless- I knew it, but when he looked at me like that, sometimes I doubted it. Though maybe it wasn't so much the dark look in his eyes so much as the sudden, oppressive headiness of his scent. Nobody had ever warned me that an omega's scent would affect more than just horny men, but sometimes it swayed me in ways I was sure Tsuki didn't even know about.

Most of the time, it was where Neo was involved. Despite everything Neo had done, Tsuki still cared about him; hell, he might have still loved Neo. He'd certainly loved him before, for so long that he couldn't see clearly when it came to the charming child of the stars any better than the rest of the pack. The rest of the pack had the excuse of fear, or blind loyalty. I was the only one not bound by emotion or duty- so I was the only one who saw what a fucking failure that prick had become.

Neo was too fixated on Tsuki. Demanding control of every facet of the omega's life in fear of Tsuki slipping out of his reach again, he was too quick to lose his temper and hurt the omega in fits of anger. Tsuki passed it off as something he deserved; after being abused for the first twenty years of his life, I could see why. I just didn't think he deserved it. Not now that I had gotten to know him, how sweet he could be. With my view of him untainted by bullshit pack law or equally crappy jealousy, I knew Tsuki deserved much better.

He couldn't see it, thought he belonged here and deserved everything that was happening at Neo's hands, and it helped spur the destruction of our pack.

The other problem with Neo's obsession was that it kept him from paying attention to his pack. A lot could be said about my father, but he was always attentive to the wolves he commanded. He kept their instincts in check. Prevented them from becoming human killing mass murderers. It was so easy when it came to wolves. It was a nasty snowball effect, the growing bloodlust and dissatisfaction with Neo and his illegal relationship with Tsuki. The pack was brewing the same homicidal mania which had nearly destroyed the Cereus pack under the mad wolf's rule.

"Hey, you need a refill?"

A new voice's interruption made me jump, fingers turning to claws against the table and my body tense as I looked up to see who had spoken. Tsuki raised his hand in my direction, but it was his bright smile which calmed me rather than the gesture. "Hey, Rickon. Thanks, but I'll be fine."

"Really? It's on the house. You can take it home with you- you don't usually stay this long anymore, but you could use the sugar." The barista smiled at Tsuki, brown hair whisked back from his forehead by the hand not holding a fresh cup of coffee.

Tsuki stared at him for a moment, smile dulling and gaze going distant before he forced his smile back in place. "Can't say no to free, I suppose. Thanks."

There was a quick switch of cups, the barista making a well-aimed throw to launch the empty cup into the nearest trash can and earning a smattering of applause before he turned back to Tsuki. The brunette was silent for a long moment before he sighed. "You doing okay Tsuki?"

"Fine." The answer was so quick it was obviously a lie.

"O-kay," Rickon drawled the word. "I won't pressure you. But remember, I'm here for you if you need anything. Anything at all."

Tsuki said something, but I wasn't paying attention to him. I was too busy watching the barista through narrowed eyes, breathing deeply to double check his scent. He was human, but… But there was something off. Not wrong, not wolf, just… off.

The wide gazes of both men alerted me to the fact that I had missed something, and I cleared my throat. "Sorry?"

"I said it's probably time to go home," Tsuki said slowly, with a tolerant smile.

I nodded, pushing myself up out of my seat. "Got it. We'll take the long way. Anything else you need before we go?"

"No. I'll meet you outside, okay?"

"Outside?"

"Well, from the staring, I assume you want to do the whole hair-flipping, eyelash-batting thing you do to flirt with all the boys. Rickon's a nice guy. You can do better than what you have now."

I gaped at him until the door had closed behind him. I deserved better? There was something wrong with his head, whether it was brain damage from a car accident or from Neo's fist. It took me a bit to remember what I had been so interested in, and I turned on Rickon so quickly that anybody else would have flinched away from me.

Rickon stood casually still, and there was a different look to his eyes. Soft, sad, agelessly wise- and concerned as he raked his gaze over me. "The baby growing inside of you has a hard future, omega of the Ipomoea pack."

"How do you know that?" The words were blank with shock, anger muted by the words which had flowed from his mouth.

A strange smile quirked his mouth, bittersweet."That's for me to know. How is your pack, omega? I hear the Moon Guard sniffs at your door. It worries me, for if they learn what we know of Tsuki, the fate of more than just your pack will grow dark. Have they met Tsuki yet?"

My confusion grew as my anger bloomed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

It was rare for somebody to move faster than a wolf, and a human should never have been able to. So there was no explanation for why he moved so quickly that I couldn't track him until his hand was fisted in my shirt and I was up on my toes to keep my feet touching the floor. "Have they met Tsuki?" Rickon repeated the words, and there was an unearthly tone to his voice- strange, but not the powerful timbre of a child of the stars. Something different, and I was growing concerned about the people Tsuki made friends with.

"No- they haven't. Tsuki is always in the garden. Neo wouldn't let them near his precious bondmate!"

"Bondmate?" Rickon repeated, his face paling. "Neo has bound him. That is…. Exceptionally dangerous. I have to report that before things spiral further out of control. We need to extract as quickly as possible."

"Report? Extract? What the hell are you talking about?" My voice was a growl, but it turned into a surprised yelp when the barista shoved me away from him. "Hey! Answer me, god damn it!"

Rickon paused, and gave me an unreadable look, a slight frown pulling his mouth. "I'm sorry, but I can't. Just know that we'll do everything we can to protect Tsuki. Do your part, please- we can't touch the pack without reason, but you can at least keep him safe while he's there. Keep him away from the Moon Guard, or I promise you'll regret it."

"Wha- hey! What did I just say!"

Rickon shook his head, before his tone became bright and cheerful. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to get back to work. I hope you have a good day!" The words gave him freedom to walk away from me, quickly passing through an employees only door where I had no hope of following him.

It left me standing there, pissed off and confused- and with a growing bud of fear in my chest. I had no idea what that boy had been talking about, but it didn't sound good. Tsuki, the Moon Guard, this mysterious 'we'... there was a storm brewing, and it seemed like the omega boy was at the center of it.

He didn't deserve this, any of it, and I was praying to the moon I could keep him safe.