I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 127: CP: Let’s Go Meet Lucas

Jade, who had been listening from three feet away with the patient intensity of a four-year-old who’d learned that adults said interesting things when they gather up, slithered forward.

"Are we going somewhere?" he asked.

"We’re planning," Alex said.

"Planning to go somewhere?"

"Planning to plan."

Jade considered this with the expression of someone who found the concept of meta-planning deeply confusing.

"Uncle Granite says planning is just doing things slowly," he said. "He says you should do the hard thing first so you stop being scared of it."

"Granite said that," Alex repeated.

"He says lots of things when he thinks we’re asleep," Ripple added helpfully. "He talks to himself. We hear everything."

"Everything," Siddy confirmed, appearing from nowhere in the way he’d apparently perfected over four years. "He also says Mama has good instincts but bad risk assessment and that’s why he might soon get grey fur. Uncle Granite doesn’t have grey fur but he says it’s coming."

[Well,He’s not wrong about the risk assessment,] System noted.

"Whose side are you on?"

[Yours. Which is why I’m pointing out that Jade has accidentally identified the correct strategy. The hard thing first—except in your case, ’hardest’ is relative. The Wolf Alpha is harder emotionally. The Lion Lord is harder politically. Both are necessary.]

Naga had been quiet through most of this, his coils arranged in the loose configuration that meant he was thinking rather than resting. Now he lifted his head.

"The Wolf Lord," he said, "should be handled with honesty. Not strategy. He offered himself to you in good faith. He deserves a response in kind."

"I tried to give him one," Alex said. "I told him—"

"You told him you weren’t interested," Leo said, no accusation in it. "That was true then. It’s different now. You have three mates. You’re building a sanctuary. You’re bringing your sister to a world that nearly killed you six months ago. You’re not the same person who stood in the wolf territory and said ’I’m not ready.’"

"He won’t care that I’ve grown as a person," Alex said. "He’ll care that I grew toward Zale and not him."

"Maybe," Zale said from his sphere, his voice careful. "Or maybe he’ll care more about what happens to the sanctuary than what happened between you. We don’t know him well enough to predict."

"I know pack lords," Leo repeated. But then, slower: "I also know what it’s like to be wrong about what someone is capable of. We never saw him fighting. Or I could be wrong about Lucas."

The admission cost him something. Alex could see it in the careful stillness of his face.

"You’re not wrong often," Alex told him.

"No," Leo agreed. "So when I am, I try to notice it."

Sally had been quiet for a full two minutes, which was unprecedented. Alex glanced at her and found her watching him with an expression he recognized from childhood—the one she got when she was about to say something she’d been sitting on.

"What?" he asked.

"I’m just thinking," she said. "About Lucas."

"Don’t," Alex said.

"I’m thinking," she continued, ignoring him entirely, "that you’re really worried about hurting him. Like, the way you say his name is different from how you say the Lion Lord’s name. The Lion Lord is a problem. Lucas is... something you feel bad about."

Alex didn’t answer.

"Which means," Sally said, "that you already know this isn’t just political. You’re not just going to talk to a Wolf Alpha about neutral land rights. You’re going to see someone you said no to and explain why. That’s different."

"Thank you, Sally, for that insightful—"

"I’m just saying," she said, spreading her hands, "that maybe that’s okay? Like, maybe it’s okay that it’s hard and complicated and you feel bad about it? You don’t have to fix it. You just have to be honest about it."

The silence that followed Sally’s words stretched longer than any of them expected.

Alex stared at the map, at the glowing point that represented their future sanctuary, at the territories surrounding it—wolf lands among them. Somewhere in those forests, Lucas was probably going about his day, unaware that the bearer who’d rejected him was about to walk back into his territory with a request that would change everything.

"I hate when you’re right," Alex said finally.

Sally grinned. "I know. It’s my best quality."

"Your best quality is being occasionally right about emotional things?"

"My best quality is being occasionally right about EVERYTHING," Sally corrected. "The emotional thing is just where you notice it most because you’re emotionally constipated."

"I am not emotionally constipated."

"You bonded with three different apex predators in six months, gave birth to six snake babies, and still can’t have an honest conversation about feelings with someone you already rejected," Sally said flatly. "That’s the definition of emotionally constipated."

"She has a point," Leo murmured.

"Whose side are you on?"

"The side of truth."

"Traitor."

Drakar watched the exchange with the patient amusement of someone who had never, in a thousand years, been called emotionally constipated by a teenager and was finding the concept fascinating.

"The human child speaks with surprising wisdom," he observed. "For a species that lives such short lives, you develop insight quickly."

"Survival mechanism," Sally said. "If we didn’t figure things out fast, we’d die before we learned."

"Fascinating."

Alex rubbed his temples. The map still hovered there, patient and unchanging, waiting for decisions he wasn’t ready to make.

"So," he said, "we’re agreed? Wolf territory first?"

"Not agreed," Naga said. "Considered. We need more information before we decide."

[Agreed,] System chimed in. [Lucas is a known variable, but four years have passed. Wolf packs evolve. Alliances shift. The Lucas you knew might not be the Lucas waiting for you now.]

"Four years," Alex repeated, the weight of it settling over him again. "Everything’s changed. The snakelings grew up. Granite aged in stress. And I was gone for three hours."

[Time is cruel that way,] System said. [But it’s also consistent. The wolves experienced the same four years you missed. They’ve had time to process, to change, to move forward or not. The only way to know is to look.]

Jade, who had been listening with the focused attention of a four-year-old who understood more than he let on, slithered closer. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"The wolf place," he said carefully. "Is it dangerous?"

"Not more dangerous than other places," Alex said.

"Is the wolf lord dangerous?"

Alex thought about Lucas. About those pale eyes, the weight of leadership, the way he’d held back when he could have taken what he wanted.

"Not to us," Alex said. "I don’t think."

Jade nodded, apparently satisfied with this answer.

"Then we should go," he said simply. "The hard thing first. That’s what Uncle Granite says."

"That’s what EVERYONE says," Ripple added from his spot near Alex’s feet. "Uncle Granite says it, Uncle Zale says it, even Siddy says it and Siddy doesn’t listen to anything."

"SIDDY LISTENS," Siddy protested from somewhere above them—he’d apparently climbed during the conversation and was now draped across a high ledge like an iridescent scarf. "I just don’t AGREE with listening. There’s a difference."

"There’s not," Sterling said, from a different high perch because apparently all the snakelings had learned climbing from each other.

"IS TOO—"

"Is NOT—"

"Children," Alex said, and was immediately ignored as the argument escalated into the kind of sibling chaos that only six four-year-olds could generate.

Naga watched them with the expression of someone who had, over four years, learned to tune out approximately seventy percent of what his offspring did in order to preserve sanity.

"They’ve been doing this for years," he said calmly. "It will escalate until Siddy falls off something, then it will stop while we check for injuries, then it will start again."

"Four years," Alex said again, the words hollow.

"Four years of this," Leo agreed. "Every day. Granite deserves a statue."

Sally had been watching the snakeling chaos with an expression of pure delight.

"I’m going to teach them so many things," she said.

"No."

"Card games. Board games. The concept of ’taking turns’ which they clearly don’t have—"

"Sally—"

"Strategic games. I’m going to create an unbeatable team of tiny geniuses—"

"SALLY."

"What? They’re SMART. And they climb things. That’s a valuable skill combination."

Sally grinned at him, and Alex realized with dawning horror that his sister and his children were going to be absolutely terrifying together.

[So,] System said, clearly amused. [Wolf territory?]

Alex looked at the map again. At the glowing point that would become their home. At the wolf lands between them and it.

"Yeah," he said. "Let’s go see Lucas."