Rolling his eyes, Dylon muttered, “Like you have a choice, Mr. Ghost Walker.”
“Hey, I like that,” Zane said, grinning. “Um, speaking of gifts, has Ollie told you about his yet?”
“What gift?” asked Dylon, looking at Jackson.
“Zane thinks Ollie has the gift of invisible speed,” Jackson said. “And no, I haven’t had time to ask him, so until I do, I don’t want either of you to mention it to anyone, including Ollie.”
“My lips are sealed,” Zane said.
“Just let me know once you find out so I can use his gift in a mission, if needed,” Dylon said.
“Will do. If there isn’t anything else…” Jackson said.
“Nope,” Dylon said, getting up. “Once I have a plan, I’ll let you know.”
Jackson waited until they left before picking up his phone and calling Penn for legal advice about the arrest warrants and his plan to fight them.
~/~/~/~/~
Digging into his backpack, Ollie pulled out some clothes to replace the ones that were shredded, hoping he wouldn’t need to shift again since he had no more gear to spare.
As he watched his mate sort through his clothes, questions cascaded through Mac’s mind; he wasn’t sure where to begin, but now seemed as good a time as any. “Oliver…” he said tentatively.
Slipping on a pair of jeans, Ollie zipped them up before glancing at his mate. “What?”
“I don’t understand why Theo…”
“Why he didn’t help me fight off the wolf?” asked Ollie. After seeing Mac nod, he sighed and sat down on a chair. “Theo’s former Alpha…”
“The Ghost Bear Alpha, right?”
“Yeah…it’s a long story. I don’t know how much you know about Ghost Bears…”
“Not a lot.”
“Right. Well, their Alphas pretty much rule the lives of every member of their pack.”
“In what way?” asked Mac.
Snorting, Ollie said, “The Alpha’s word is law, and pack members must obey. I know it sounds terrible, but it’s not…unless the Alpha is like Theo’s former one, who used his absolute power to benefit himself and not his members.
“According to my parents, he wasn’t always that way, but one day he decreed that all cubs born after a certain date belonged to him but would live with their parents until they reached adulthood. That was only the first of many decrees he issued pertaining to ‘his cubs’ as he began to call them. From then on, the Alpha kept giving himself more and more power over all the cubs, from what they could study to what jobs they would have as adults.
“It was during this time that my mother became pregnant with me, and she was afraid of what the future would bring since the decrees were getting more and more restrictive. That’s when my parents decided to leave the pack before I was born so the Alpha couldn’t claim ownership of me. They begged Theo’s parents to come with them, but they refused—they were sure the Alpha would never go through with any of his decrees since, up to that time, he hadn’t enforced any of them.
“By the time Theo came along…ten years later… nothing had really changed in the pack. The cubs still lived with their parentsas they had in the past, and since Theo was an Omega, they thought…”
“Why did it matter what Theo was?” asked Mac.
“Omegas are valued because their ability to produce cubs increases the size of the pack. So they’re exempt from the many lessons the other cubs had to learn, such as how to fight. The Alpha didn’t allow Omegas to even watch the other cubs fight since he didn’t want them to get hurt accidentally.
“I’m sure my fight with the wolf is the first one Theo ever saw, which unfortunately, was between a full-grown wolf and a Ghost Bear…both of whom were out for blood, and you saw how it affected him. I probably would’ve reacted the same way if I had grown up without the benefit of years of fighting lessons.”
“That all makes sense, but if Omegas have protection, then why did the Alpha allow Theo’s parents to ship him off to Arald’s?” Mac asked, looking puzzled.
Pulling his t-shirt on, Ollie ran his fingers through his hair, trying to straighten it out. “Hell if I know…none of it makes any sense to me,” he muttered. “Hopefully, once we get them out of the Alpha’s clutches, we can get some answers to this whole crazy mess.”
“And that leads us back to Theo and what his reaction will be when we bring back his parents.”