Chapter 216

Sarah POV

It was incredibly good to be home. I got up and helped the girls get dressed, even though they didn’t really need that sort of help anymore. Then I made waffles for breakfast with fruit and coffee, for me, and milk for them.

After Ollie had taken them to school, I walked through the hedge maze, purposefully losing myself a couple times just to draw it out. Then I went to my office and just sat at my desk looking out the French doors.

Zane was there all the while. I didn’t know what he’d done at the temple because I didn’t want to ask about it yet, but he had returned with a supremely satisfied air that made me happy.

Zane, just in general, made me happy, and I told him so.

“You make me happy too,” he said. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage it yet, but we’re going to mate.”

I nodded. “Yes. Whatever it takes, I’m up for it.”

Which is when he took me to bed. It might kill us both, but we were going to be together.

My bubble of euphoria deflated a bit, not all that unpleasantly, when Melissa showed up the next day. Zane was out doing Pack Alpha things, and the girls were at school.

As a friend, she got by the gates without my being warned, and Hans opened up the front door to her and called me down.

She looked incredible, beautiful and chic in a light blue suit that matched her eyes. She broke out into smiles upon seeing me, and I forwent formalities and grabbed her up in a hug.

“You must tell me everything,” she demanded. “What the hell went on in there?”

I took her to the kitchen for a glass of Chardonnay and ended up telling her everything: the temple, the naked priest, my spirit walks and meditation, Zane and me in the temple, and my rescue. It all just came pouring out.

“So, I started to realize something was wrong when they got all weird about my phone.”

“Your phone?”

“Yeah. First it was, you know, ‘Leave it here,’ and then the charge was low, and Katya said she’d charge it, but she had this little room with basically nothing but her bed and a nightstand, and the only thing on the nightstand was her charger, but then the charger didn’t have a phone on it.”

“Oh?”

I scowled at her. “Nothing by itself was all that weird, until I woke up tied to the bed. I’m saying it was little things here and there. Like, OK, you want me to come to the moon greeting ceremony; that’s great. But why did I basically go into a coma afterward?”

Melissa held up a hand. “Look, I get it, I think. And I have to say, it sounds like you were in a cult.”

“Yes!” I was so relieved to have her understand. “But it’s the Luna Temple—I mean, the Luna Temple! I mean, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Well, it sounds like Zane did whatever the next step was.”

I shook my head and looked at my wine. I didn’t have much left in the glass, or in the bottle, I found out. I got another one.

“I haven’t been checking in with the world,” I admitted. “What’s he done?”

“Tossed out the head Oracle, which means she has to go live in disgrace somewhere.”

“Janine’s out? She’s not head Oracle anymore?”

“That’s right. It’s all over the news, and the internet is going ape-shit.”

“Good for him,” I said with a smile.

“He threw out some others too, some Oracles and a priest.”

“Hollister.”

“Who?”

“The priest who wanted to impregnate me that they trotted out naked.” I shuddered.

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“He was, like, seventy. His balls were down to his knees.”

We wound up laughing again. I told her a few more things, and when I was done, we sat there together while we recovered: me from revealing so much and her from having so much revealed.

“So, the Luna Temple is a bunch of power-hungry freaks?” she finally asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I think Janine and a few others saw whatever it is they think I offer and just went a little nuts.”

“A little?”

“OK, a lot. A lot nuts.”

Melissa nodded, and then our eyes met, and we started screaming with laughter. Perhaps it was wrong. I didn’t know. But the stress of the last few days just came out that way. We laughed until I legitimately felt ill, and it looked like she did the same.

“You know, I actually came here to tell you I have an omega lined up,” she said eventually.

“What?”

“For Let’s Talk! I have a male omega who’s willing to go on camera and talk about Omega, Inc.”

It took a moment to remember my real life. “Yes, yes. That’s great! What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t want to say.”

I frowned at her. It occurred to me I might have had more wine on an empty stomach than I should have. I stepped over to the ‘fridge to see about making some sandwiches.

“My biggest concern is that they’ll try to shut us down,” Melissa said.

“Who might shut us down?”

“Well, YouTube, frankly. I’m sure once we put the video up a thousand people will be in their faces screaming about how unseemly it is to feature an omega in a video.”

I turned from the ‘fridge with some cheese in my hand. “So, let’s not give them the chance.”

“How’s that?”

“Let’s do it live.”

“Live? You mean, livestreaming?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just let him say whatever it is he wants to say, and when the dust settles, we’ll have had a show.”

I thought about it. We’d both finished our sandwiches and were decidedly more sober than we had been.

“Let me show you something,” I said.

Melissa smiled. “Whatever you like.”

I led her out of the villa and down the path to Mavis’s new poppy garden. Enough time had passed that the new plants were between one and two feet in height, and there were buds on some of the stems.

Melissa and I stood there and then walked on the path through the beds for several minutes.

“It’s going to be lovely,” I said. “Just as pretty as before.”

Melissa looked at me, obviously trying to figure out what point I was making. “But you’re saying it’s just a bunch of plants?”

“Well, it is just a bunch of plants, but look at what Mavis has done. She’s recovered something that was precious to her.”

Melissa nodded as she looked around.

“I’m going to keep what’s precious to me safe,” I said. “Chloe and Grace and Zane are everything to me, and I’m going to keep them as safe as I can.”

Melissa grinned. “You’re going to mate him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if the world will allow that, but he and his daughters are everything to me.” I gestured around us at the garden.

“Whatever it takes, I want to be with Zane. There might be some serious fallout from that, even violence. If you don’t want that in your life, you need to end our friendship. I will completely understand.”

She looked surprised, but then her brows came down. “I stand with you, Sarah. You should know that.”

“I assumed it, but the time for those sorts of assumptions is over.” I waved at the garden again. “What Zane and I are contemplating will burn fields, and maybe there will be riots and challenges, and goddess knows what with the temple, but we’re going to do it.”

Melissa looked around. Then she stood taller and met my gaze.

“I didn’t become your friend because you like to sew.”

I burst out laughing again.