Oscar had left him sitting in the back seat of the car, parked outside the Nevada Ashes enclave. No one had a gun on him—they’d traded out the ziptie on his wrists for one on his ankles, which were a lot harder to work around. Not that he was going to try anything anyway. Here, in public, with three of them watching him? His mama didn’t raise no fool.

And Oscar had said he was going to go in and “see this omega that’s got your thinking all twisted” with his own eyes. So maybe, just maybe, things might not be so bleak.

The phone rang for the guy in the front seat. He answered it, “Yeah?” then listened. “It’s a fucking whorehouse. You expect it to be quiet at night?” A few moments later, he told whoever was on the other end of the line—probably Oscar, from the few words Damian got to listen to—”All right, I’ll deal with it.” He put the phone away and turned in his seat to look at the three of them. “I’m gonna go talk to the gate guard. He tries anything, you shoot him.” He looked Damian up and down, then added, “In the leg, if you can. Oscar wants him alive.” He disappeared toward the gatehouse.

Damian closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the headrest. Like a good soldier, he could sleep anywhere, and that’s just what he did.

“Get up, Damian, we’re moving.”

Damian snapped awake and batted away the hands shaking him. “I’m up, I’m up,” he muttered.

Oscar was staring in the open car door at him. “Put your feet out here, I’ll get that tie off you.”

Mutely, Damian did so, but he watched Oscar’s face the entire time, hoping for a clue as to what was coming next.

“Get him his shoes,” Oscar snapped and then tossed a wet towel into the back seat. “Clean yourself up. I’ve got us a room in the guard house for a while—we’re going to hash this out one way or another.”

Damian cautiously picked up the towel but it didn’t smell like anything but wet cotton. He worked around the bruising and the cuts as well as he could but he knew he probably still looked like something out of a horror movie. Or the losing end of a car chase. Though, when he looked at it, he thought the towel had come out of it the worse of the two of them. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Oscar stared down at him, then leaned into the car and spoke softly, for Damian’s ears alone. “You should have come to me. I could have fixed this. Now, I don’t know.”

Damian shook his head and even to his ears, his voice sounded tired. “Thanks, but I doubt it. I know what we are to you.”

“Not me,” Oscar insisted, then gave him a hand out of the car. “You okay to walk?”

“Just stiff. You guys were pretty careful not to break anything.” He’d realized that at some point during the night—they’d had a few opportunities to immobilize him with a well place kick or a bit too much pressure on a joint. And they hadn’t.

Oscar confirmed it. “I gave them strict orders, no more damage than necessary. Just in case.”

Just in case. In case he wasn’t really lunar? Or in case they could still find a use for him? “Thank you.” They were here, weren’t they?

It was probably both.

They flanked him once he was out of the car and marched him double-time through the night, over to the side door of the guardhouse. Whatever Oscar had done, the men just nodded at them as they blew through the door.

The hallway they followed ran along the front of the building, with doors leading into rooms on the enclave side. “This way.” Oscar stopped at one particular door and opened it. “You boys can wait outside,” he said. “There isn’t enough room in here for all of us.” He pushed Damian in ahead of him and shut the door firmly in the faces of the others.

Damian came to a halt just inside the room. Salem was at the window, the bright florescent lights picking out the golden-honey of his hair and the straight jaw, the dark shadows under his eyes. He’d been peering out between the slats of the blind when they came in, but let his hand fall and turned to face them at the sound of the door.

“Yes, that’s him,” Salem said in a cool voice. “Now what?” His belly bulged ahead of him and a rush of guilt sickened Damian’s stomach, while at the same time he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the evidence of the pup’s existence.

“Now we talk,” Oscar told him and took a seat at the head of the table. “Both of you, sit down.” He indicated the chairs on either side of him.

Salem pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it. Not too awkward yet; he seemed to be carrying the baby well. Damian watched him with a weird sort of hunger eating at his insides. The memory of the night that pup was conceived was branded into his mind and he regretted painfully having missed all the parts of this pregnancy that had happened since, and all the ways he’d failed to be a good alpha to this omega.

“Damian?” Oscar said pointedly and shoved a chair out at him.

Damian sat and stared across the table at Salem.

For the first time since they’d walked into the room, Salem looked up at him. “Damian? That’s your real name?”

He nodded.

The omega breathed out, long and slow, his nostrils pinching with it. “You look more like a Damian, I guess, than a David. That should have been my first clue.”

“I’m sorry,” Damian blurted.

Interestingly, Salem waved that off. “Things happen, I’ve come to terms with it.” He turned solemn eyes on Damian. “What do you want to do?”

Surprised into dumbness, Damian looked to Oscar, the back at Salem. “I don’t know.” He turned to Oscar. “What are our options?”

“Don’t talk to him, Damian. Talk to me. I’m the one with your pup in my belly.” Ah, there it was, the anger he’d expected Salem to be carrying.

Helplessly, he said, “I didn’t know,” though he was aware it wasn’t much of an excuse.

Salem made a small, frustrated noise and laid his hands flat on the table in front of him, so much tension in those joints and tendons the air should have crackled with it. “I need to speak to him alone. Please give us a moment,” he said, not looking at either of them.

“Me? Or…” Damian watched the omega closely for some clue.

But Oscar, it seemed, had read the other shifter more clearly than Damian had. “I’ll be right outside that door,” he said as he stood up.

“Listening, no doubt,” Salem bit back.

“Of course,” Oscar told him. “What else would I be doing?” He looked at Damian. “He’s got teeth, that one. Watch him.” But he patted Damian on the shoulder in something that felt weirdly like solidarity as he passed by.

Salem bared the aforementioned teeth at the human’s back as Oscar went out the door, then turned that same ferocious expression on Damian.