The next day, Damian came back from another trip to the store with a fat book for me and a stack of paper. “GED,” he said. “Like a human’s high school diploma.” He set them in front of me on the kitchen table, where I’d been sorting out all my belongings and trying to figure out where to put them.

I stared at it, then back up at him. “Uh, I have my high school diploma.”

He kissed my cheek and went to the cupboard for a mug. “Not puppy classes and home economics. Real high school courses.”

Oh, Montana Border, you did not just call me stupid, did you? “No, I mean English and Math and Accounting and two courses in Economics and a couple of history courses. And those boring science courses they made me take.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared in satisfaction at his flabbergasted face. “Yeah, we waste resources educating our omegas. You guys must have been a lot richer than us if you could afford to keep part of your population artificially stupid.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, took one look at my face, then shut it again.

Good alpha. Smart alpha.

Although, if he’d lived in Nevada Ashes, he’d have known that, while high school was open to all of us, only maybe half of the omegas actually bothered to finish it. You didn’t need calculus to keep house and have babies. And I wasn’t that kind of omega.

On second thought, maybe I should tell him that. But once we’ve gotten used to each other.

He turned back to the stove and filled the kettle, flipping the switch to heat the water. “If you already have your high school diploma, then that will speed things up,” he said, just a little too casually.

“Speed what things up?” I asked. He flinched—my voice hadn’t been at all casual.

“Most human families, both parents work,” he said apologetically. “I make enough that you don’t have to, but I thought you’d probably want to eventually. I didn’t want there to be anything stopping you when you made up your mind. And you’re kind of stuck in here until…” He nodded at the baby, currently trying to punch his or her way out through my side. “If anyone sees you like that, they’ll know what you are.”

Now, that I understood. “I’m fine here.”

“There’s only so much television you can watch.” He’d given me a quick lesson on working the big television in the living room before he’d left this morning to pick up a few more things I wanted for food and supplies. I’d happily killed about fifteen minutes flipping through channels before the urge to make this place my home had hit. He was probably right about the novelty wearing off quickly—I was used to having a job.

“So what do we do now?” I asked and walked over to get my own mug down. The pup stretched hard, almost painful, and I grimaced and put a hand to my side.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his words edged with sudden panic.

“Puppy’s stretching,” I soothed and put his palm over the place that our little brat had picked to attack. “See?”

His smile grew and, while I knew it was probably just the omega bond at work, I let his happiness build mine as well.

“We’ll have to think about what to do when your time comes.”

“We have a month yet.” I leaned in and kissed him. “I can make tea if you want to relax.”

“I’m okay,” he assured me. “I’ve been living on my own for ten years now. I won’t over boil it.”

I laughed, though it wasn’t terribly funny. But it was sweet, and kind of sad. “Well, I’m going to finish organizing here,” I told him. “There’s no need to have this out all over the place right now. Time enough when the puppy’s here.”

He followed me over to the table, eyes wide. “Is this all for the pup?”

I nodded. “I spent a lot of time getting things ready in between…” I paused—better not to remind him of the huge gap in our relationship. “We had a group that would get together in the mornings and trade patterns or handwork. Some of these are gifts, too.” I started refolding the blankets that I’d laid out on the table. “Always better to have more than less.” My fingers traced the patterns embroidered or quilted onto the fabric. Not knowing that my future path would take me entirely out of the enclave, I'd used pack patterns and symbols on pretty near all of them. “Is this going to be a problem? I mean, we’re pretending to be human, right?”

He put an arm around my waist. “Maybe. Maybe not. You are from Nevada. We can just say that you had a liking for wolves.” When I didn’t answer him, he added, “I can ask Oscar. We can probably save some of them. Keepsakes, right?”

I nodded and began folding again.

He picked up a little jacket made of denim. “They’re so small. Will the baby really only be that big?”

“They better be. I’m not birthing a teenager here.”

As I’d hoped, he laughed and put the jacket down again. "I have to leave tonight," he reminded me gently.

“I know“ I put down the sheet I'd just picked up and spun to face him. “I’ll be fine. But I don’t see why they can’t give you a couple of days. Even in the houses we always scheduled a mating moon for the newlyweds.”

He shook his head and I saw real regret in his eyes. "It's the job. And there are things I can do that none of the others can."

I hadn't truly considered that, but it made sense. Well, I'd made this leap off my comfortable path into the brush for his sake, I wasn't going to make it harder for him now. "I'll miss you," I told him and gave him a kiss. "How long will you be gone?"

He shrugged. "Three, four days. I don't know for sure." He put his hands on my shoulders and stared intently into my eyes. "Someone will check in on you every couple of days. Don't leave the apartment, okay? Not even at night. If you need something, one of the team will get it for you. There’ll be at least one of them upstairs all the time." He dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet to hand me a credit card. "Here, take this. You know how to use one, right?"

I eyed it doubtfully. "I'm sure I can figure it out." We either shopped with pack money in the enclave store, which was pretty well stocked, or just went in to Vegas and paid cash if we didn’t see anything in the enclave we liked.

Damian grinned at me. "I may regret this." He threw an arm over my shoulder and walked me over to the couch in the living room. "Watch and learn, pup."

I punched him and then smiled, because he obviously couldn't punch me back. "Be good, alpha. I'm washing your clothes, remember?"

"I know how to use a washing machine," he replied, then got his phone out and opened up an app on one of the back pages. "What size do you wear?"

I curled up against his side and hugged him while he introduced me to the many ways the human world was even stranger than I’d thought it was.