Chapter 360

"You should try to get some sleep." Renee wanders out to say sometime before dawn.

Virgil stops his pacing to cast her a worried glance. "You can't have gotten any sleep either if you keep coming out every half hour to check up on us."

Renee winces at this. "I hoped you wouldn't notice, besides I can always get some shut eye on the jet ride." She tries to bluster her way out, she was the only one with them, Dia and her daughter choosing to remain in her apartment, intimidated by the presence of both Alphas, Renee couldn't understand how, she felt like a big sister to them.

Dale scoffs from his position on a couch, wild, dark hair resting in his palms. "That's an obvious lie, Ren, you're not going to be able to sleep a wink."

"Well, I don't want to be left behind." She says sheepishly, knowing that they had all been against her tagging along because of how dangerous it was definitely going to be.

"We won't leave you behind, Ren." Virgil says with the patience of a long-suffering older sibling. "Or you're going to end up falling asleep just moments before and missing out on everything." He half threatens her.

Renee half panics at this, her worry for them still shining through. "But what about you two?"

"We'll be fine Renee." Dale is quick to reassure her, giving her a brief smile, it was best if Renee rested a bit so she didn't make herself sick with worrying so hard - they would do that for her.

"If you say so." She mutters reluctantly, knowing that she won't be getting any proper sleep, not till her babies are back home.

It hadn't even registered to either Alpha that they should have gotten some rest, Dale's sleep schedule was already screwed to shit after Dream left, sleep hadn't even crossed his mind.

Virgil was on another plane of existence, his soft and bubbly mate was somewhere dangerous and he was trapped in the confines of these four walls unable to do a thing.

Jaxie, Ian and Yanis had chased them both out of the Alpha's office, traumatized with how agitated they both constantly were, Virgil hadn't stopped pacing and Dale kept brooding so hard, hovering over them.

Their barely banked aggression was stirring up the other werewolves in the room too so there was that so had spent the rest of the night in the living room of Virgil's apartment, Renee coming to check up on them every now and then no matter how hard they complained.

"You know you're going to get your ass handed to you when we get them back right?" Virgil mutters, settling on a couch opposite Dale so he didn't wear out their carpet with his constant pacing.

Dale slowly lifts his head up to glare at Virgil. "You got something to say to me, V? Then say it directly." He says coldly.

Virgil doesn't even flinch or back down at his abrasive tone, well maybe he shouldn't pick at Dale when they were both in shitty moods but other than needing a distraction, most importantly he was worried about the other Alpha.

He had seen very little of him the past week but he hadn't really noticed anything off with him at least until the shitshow went down.

It had been so easy to get used to a truly happy Dale not the bubbly shell of a person he had become, hiding his aches behind a bright smile and a lively attitude but now, Virgil sees they're back to square one, hell even worse than while they were still at college.

Whatever had happened with Dream to make him leave Dale's Pack in such a hurry had to be behind it and now that the Omega turned out to be pregnant, well, the origin story wasn't so hard to put together.

"Yeah…" Virgil straightens up to pin the dark haired Alpha a steady look. "What did you do to Dream?"

Dale surprisingly doesn't go off on Virgil, falling backwards against the couch, all of the lights going out of his eyes. "I don't know."

Virgil does a double take at this, his eyes going wide, Dale wouldn't mess around with something as important as this. "Fuck." He curses under his breath, his brain working double time.

He glances at Dale, once, twice… then it hits, it's still there but it's faint… a mating mark.

He thinks back to the brief moments he had seen Dream for this morning and it clicks.

"Don't you think it has something to do with that fancy hickey you keep showing off?" He asks out of the blue, Dale looking more than a little lost.

"What?" Dale stares up at him, visibly confused.

"Your mating mark, I'm betting Dream did that." Virgil decides to explain it slowly, knowing Dale, it would go over his dense as fuck skull and Virgil would have to explain it again.

Dale's hand reflexively go up to touch the mark that was fast fading, sure it would leave a visible silver scar but he liked the dark-reddish hue it had to it, it lit him up from the inside, it took the cold and dark away, warming up his cold heart.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't see Dream sporting a matching one…"

"Yeah, because I didn't want to mark him while he was still in his heat…"

Virgil looks thoughtful at this. "What happened, you know, after?"

"Woke up and he was gone and my mom showed up, ruined my life."

Virgil winces at this. "What the hell was she looking for in Pine Creek?"

"I couldn't care less." Dale shrugs forlornly.

Out of the blue, Virgil grabs a throw pillow and yeets it at Dale smacking him straight up on the face, the other Alpha squawking in shock.

"Yo, V? What the fuck…"

He barely gets all of his words out before Virgil is throwing another pillow which goes the same way as the first one did.

"Dream mated you willfully didn't he?" Virgil asks with a blank expression.

Dale shrinks back a bit, expecting Virgil to throw another pillow at him, his friend had a really good throwing arm. "Yeah?" He repeats against, barely registering or comprehending what Virgil was trying to do.

Virgil gets up this time, armed with a couple pillows. "What kind of consent gets louder than that??!" He yells in a rare show of extra emotion, whacking Dale around with the pillows. "Do you have cotton wads for a brain??!"

"What? No I don't…"

Virgil doesn't relent, smacking him harder, Dale studiously trying to escape from the onslaught

"Do. You. Have. Any. Fucking, Idea. How. Much. That. Would. Hurt. Him?" Virgil asks, punctuating each word with a hit.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! How the hell does hitting me solve anything?" Dale complains, breaking away.

Virgil makes sure to add in a couple more hits before Dale gets away. "Who said it was to help?" He asks sarcastically, calming returning to his previous position. "Yeah… by the way, the fee will be $19,99.99, come again…" He's saying but Dale isn't listening anymore, he's curled up against the far wall, most like;y having an existential crisis.

A knock raps on this door at this point, Yanis peeking his head in. "We have just a couple minutes to daylight, we've located them, get your asses up…"

That's all the two Alpha's need to go on high alert, Virgil readying to ask rapid fire questions which his Head Beta had already anticipated.

"Jaxie said to tell you that yes, the Warriors are all aware of this new development and are getting ready to move, Leon and Darian keeping an eye on them."

They both absorb the information in a stride.

"Dale, could you get Renee?"

Yanis pauses his motion of leaving at this. "What? Get her? Why the fuck... don't tell me she's tagging along?"

"Yeah, let's get going..." Virgil places a heavy hand on Yanis' shoulder, practically pushing him out.

"She's just going to stay on the jet or we'll lock her in or are you interested in dealing with her when she finds out we left her behind?" He asks with a faux smile.

Yanis expression goes from livid to grim, "I'll pass."

"This shouldn't be hard..." Dale mutters to himself, still in the apartment. "I mean, I've woken Renee up before, this isn't any different."

He hurries down the hallway, knocking quietly out of propriety and pushing open the door when he gets no response.

Only to scream when he does, opening the door to Renee hovering menacingly at the door, shower head in hand.

He finally quietens down when she does nothing but glare at him suspiciously, her hair wild.

"Um..." Dale finally finds his voice, looking at Renee from her head to her toe. "I have a lot of questions." He says shakily, still pressed against the wall. "But the most important one is... what the fuck??"