Freedom For His Omega

2. Asher

2

ASHER

Cities smelled like death. Not a good, clean forest death, the wind and earth and rain reclaiming bodies unto themselves, but the death of sickness. The poison of too much metal and concrete. I hated coming into the city, but unless I wanted to live as a wild man in the woods, I had to make money somehow. Some days, that idea had merit. But I was a fan of some elements of modern technology. Like the internet and Vietnamese restaurants.

Perhaps I could make this trip slightly better by stopping by and picking up some pho for my brother and me. Simon would b***h about how soup wasn't real food, but he'd eat it all the same. On second thought, I could just buy two servings and keep it all for myself. The metal stairs creaked as I climbed the outside of the graffiti-tagged building just outside of downtown Nashville. Tommy's office was tiny. He didn't need much, though. He had a closet almost as big as the office where he kept all his files and a shoe box of a restroom. He had two old, plastic school chairs across the desk from him. The good plastic, though, the kind that hardly cares if it's left out in the sun and rain for a decade. I never bothered to sit, though. I was never in his office long enough to warrant it. I got the goods and got back on the road heading north on 65 A-S-A-P. My wolf got itchy if I stayed a moment too long in the city.

"Heya, Asher! Got your packet right here." Tommy's words ran together as though they were meant to be one. Gotcher. I took the packet he tossed to the edge of the desk and pulled the papers out far enough to flick through them and ensure they were all in order. We worked with a few bail bondsmen, but Tommy was one of our main connections.

"Yep, that right there's a dirty one," Tommy said, unable to completely avoid small talk. It just wasn't in his DNA. I grunted, and he seemed to take that as encouragement. " They’ve got him on the line for a string of fires. All family homes. See-ree-al arsonist." Tommy rolled his eyes and made air quotes with his fingers, a surprising gesture on him. "Alleged. They're all alleged until proven. But why run if you ain't guilty?"

Tommy had made his opinion known on that subject multiple times, and I wasn't in the mood to give him room to wind up on it.

"I'll let you know when we have him." I nodded and turned to leave. Tommy didn't blink an eye at my lack of words. He was used to me by now.

"I don't think the boys in blue would mind if this one was roughed up a bit by the time he got turned in." Tommy's cackle was softened but not blocked by the metal door falling shut behind me. It didn't quite fit into the frame properly, and his cackling laughter followed me down the creaking stairs.

I tossed the packet on the far side of the bench of my pickup. I'd pick up some pho and then get back on the road.

Before I headed back to the house, I stopped by the KOA north of Nashville where Kurt had been parked for the last few weeks. Kurt was a mountain lion shifter, and he wasn't good at staying in any one place for very long. Or at working in a team. But he was a freaking tech whiz, and our ragtag band didn't seem to offend his individualistic streak too much. It helped that we'd been able to tell from first scent that we were pretty compatible. Not, like, sexually or romantically. I was compatible with every man on my team, but not in that way. Shifters can scent a lot of information: musky male or sweet female; woodsy alpha, herbal beta or floral omega; species; emotion; compatibility. The more compatible you were with another shifter, the stronger their scent was. I had built a team of alphas who I was very compatible with. That didn't mean they all got along, but I was always able to work things out with my men, one way or another.

I knocked on Kurt's door, even though I knew he must have already heard me roll up. I didn't even hear him pad up to the door before he opened it. Damned cat stealth. It was useful on jobs, though, whenever we could convince Kurt to get out of his damn RV and get his hands dirty.

He didn't step back to invite me into the RV, and I didn't expect him to. I handed over the packet Tommy had given me. "New skip. Arsonist. Good money."

Kurt took the papers and immediately started flicking through them. I waited to see if he'd say anything. Sometimes he did. But the door closed behind him without a word. Cats.

The pho was already getting cold, but nothing a few minutes on the stovetop wouldn't fix.

Simon was watching TV when I came in. We lived in a double-wide we'd bought after the first year of fugitive recovery. Or as Simon never hesitated to call it, bounty hunting. He knew how that pushed my buttons.

When people think of bounty hunters, they think reality TV and Boba Fett. In reality, fugitive recovery is a lot of slow, hard work without a steady paycheck. But it worked for me. For us. The job attracted independents. That was probably the nicest thing you could say about our crew.

"Did you seriously get that damn soup again?" Simon complained without taking his eyes off the screen. "Our bodies need meat, Asher. Meat and bone. Maybe some potatoes and bread. And butter. Lots of butter."

"More for me," I said as I passed in front of him on my way to the kitchen. First thing, I pulled out a pot and plopped the soup in it, the burner on low.

"Hey, Larry stopped by to pick up the tithe."

I pulled out two bowls and two spoons. "Did you give him the envelope?"

"I couldn't find it."

My eyes closed and my head dropped back in frustration. I left the damn envelope the same place every damn time. And Lawrence, our pack's second, was a tight a*s. If Simon hadn't given him the pack tithe on time, he'd be all up my a*s about it. And he'd nag me about paying the late penalties too. I opened my eyes and realized my claws had buried themselves in the laminated counter. I forced them to shift back. At least the holes matched the others littering the edge of the counter.

Before I could start in on Simon, he was in the kitchen, stirring the pot of soup. "I kid. I gave it to him like a good pup."

The kid knew how to push my buttons. Not a kid, I reminded myself. He'd been itching to go out on jobs with me for years, and I finally let him the day after he turned eighteen. Five years younger than me, Simon was the youngest of our crew, but after three years of hard work, he was as valuable an asset as any of the others.

"So we got another job?" Simon asked as he dished up a bowl of pho like I knew he would. He might b***h about my food preferences, but he was lazy. Given a choice between already made food he hated and cooking, he'd always choose the already made.

"Yep. Handed everything over to Kurt. If we're lucky, he'll have a lead for us in the morning."

We settled into the couch with our soup and watched old westerns until I headed to bed. I didn't bother dwelling on the job. I rarely did. When I had a lead, I'd move. Until then, it was out of my mind.