Alpha Assignment (GL) Chapter 19 (Early Access) (Patreon)

"Fuck!" Quinn yelled, jumping half a foot into the air. "Assistant, lights on!"

Every light in the house came on, burning Quinn's pupils momentarily, and the possessed-plushie-looking-thing on her sofa morphed into Remi.

"Remi?! What the hell are you doing?" She didn't mean to shout, but her heart was racing and her ears were pounding and her brain was still coming to terms with the fact that Remi was not an intruder.

The wobbling ceased immediately, and it somehow unsettled Quinn even more, Remi's posture snapping rod-straight. She slipped off the sofa cushion, standing to attention beneath Quinn.

"A-Alpha, I-" She sounded breathless, her eyes welling. Confusion was clear in the creases of her brows.

"Hey, it's okay," Quinn whispered. She pushed gently at Remi's shoulders to seat her back on the sofa. Of course, Remi obliged. "You gave me a scare." She laughed awkwardly and Remi didn't join in. "I'm sorry for shouting, I didn't mean it."

"I'm sorry, Alpha!” Remi’s voice was hoarse, tears barely restrained. “I was trying to be good, I swear."

"By camping out in the living room?" Quinn asked, attempting to lighten the mood.

"I was waiting for my alpha."

"Remi." Quinn heard how gruff she sounded and took a slow breath before trying again. "Remi, I told you I would be home late, you did not need to wait for me."

"An omega must-"

"No." Something snapped, something deep in Quinn's mind. Maybe it was the after-effects of a great day spent with humans - normal people. Maybe it was the after-shock of the scare Remi had given her when she walked in. Or maybe this had been waiting for a trigger since Remi arrived. "I am sick of these rules and regulations," Quinn growled, low and slow. "And I can't ignore you playing them out under my roof anymore. Enough, Remi."

"I don't understand, Alpha."

"You don't understand? How do you think I feel? I came home to you hiding in the dark!"

"An omega should not use energy resources while their alpha is away unless for alpha-ordered activities,” Remi bleated before Quinn could stop her. “It is a waste!"

Quinn felt her eye twitch. The pause that held them for the next few seconds was filled entirely with Quinn fighting to keep any semblance of calm. "Remi, what have you been doing while I'm at work all day?"

"Cooking and cleaning and waiting, Alpha."

"And tonight? You cooked and cleaned and waited?"

"There was no cleaning I hadn't already done, Alpha, and I didn't need to cook since you wouldn’t be having dinner here."

"What about your dinner?"

Remi tilted her head with a pout, like a puppy confused at a command.

"What about lunch?"

The same look.

"Remi, I need an answer here." Her frustration was burning under her skin, as though her fur were threatening to show itself. "When I am not here, do you eat?"

"I eat the breakfast that Alpha leaves in the fridge," Remi answered proudly.

The words shot from Quinn's mouth without thought. "Go to bed, please." A quiet demand, for the quiet Quinn needed. She needed a moment, without big wet eyes staring up at her, to come to terms with their current situation.

Remi jolted, nodded, and hurried from the room, leaving Quinn bent at the waist where she had leant in without thinking. Forced herself into Remi's personal space, interrogated her, and then sent her to bed like she was her mother - worse, her alpha. Quinn dug her fingers into her hair and pulled to keep from exploding with expletives.

It was too late to call her back - that would only be another order anyway. Instead, she stomped to the kitchen, plated a simple dinner of a sandwich and chopped veggies, and delivered it to Remi’s bedroom door. The door didn’t open when she knocked, and Quinn was too overwhelmed to confront Remi again, so she left the dinner on the carpet and took herself to bed. They could talk it out again when they had both calmed down.

The plate hadn’t been touched when Quinn passed it on her way out to work. She ignored it. Her thoughts still weren’t in order. She hoped sleep would give her a solution, a way of explaining her feelings to Remi that she would understand. Instead, she woke up every hour feeling frustrated, and getting more annoyed the more often her sleep was interrupted.

Her foul mood was noticed immediately by Jordan, who spent the morning tiptoeing around her. Half the things she said Quinn missed, lost in her own problems, and had to keep asking her to repeat herself.

“I said, I’m worried about you, Quinn.”

“I’m fine.”

Jordan folded her arms over her chest and gave Quinn a scathing look over their computer screens.

Quinn sighed. “It’s personal stuff. Not office-appropriate.”

“Why don’t we go out for lunch? Somewhere with a bit more privacy?”

The thought of sharing her burden sounded freeing… maybe even productive… but Jordan was human. She could never understand or relate to the issues Quinn was facing.

“Come on, you’ll feel better - even if you keep the juicy details to yourself.”

Quinn scowled at her keyboard, sighed, and stood. “Okay.”

Jordan chose the restaurant, leading the way on a short walk from the office. In the awkward silences between arriving and ordering, Quinn’s brain was waging war over what to say, how to say it, how much to reveal. She wanted to talk about it, but there was so much she couldn’t say.

“So, what’s going on?”

Quinn’s brain fell silent. She struggled to form any words at all for a few moments.

“My friend and I had an argument last night.”

Jordan’s brows raised. “They’re staying over again?”

“She’s been staying for a while.” After a long and uncertain pause, Quinn added, “she’s got nowhere else to go.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Did she lose her job?”

Quinn fiddled with the cutlery on the table. “No…”

“You don’t have to tell me her business-”

“She was in a cult.” The sort-of-lie was out of her mouth before Quinn could weigh up the consequences.

Jordan’s brows somehow reached even higher up her head. “Oh.”

“And now… we keep getting into fights because she’s struggling to let go of that way of life.”

“Quick context question, and don’t feel forced to answer cause it’s kinda personal… “ Jordan dropped her eyes to the table for a moment before glancing up through her lashes, cautious. “But were you also in a cult?”

A long silence sat on the table between them. Quinn’s fight or flight response felt like it was whirring into action. Panic was going to completely overtake her if she didn’t find something, anything, to say now.

“Is it obvious?” Quinn breathed.

“No, I hadn’t considered it until you mentioned the cult just then.” Her kind expression had just a hint of pity. Quinn supposed she’d probably look the same way at such news. “But suddenly a lot of things make sense. Like, finally, a reasonable explanation for why you didn’t know who Claudia Winkleman is.”

“The one… with the fringe?”

Jordan nodded with a proud smile.

Quinn leant in closer across the small square table. “Do you think other people suspect there’s something wrong with me?”

“Nah. When people ask where you’re from you always say the countryside, and we all know people from the countryside can be a bit behind the trends and celebrities.” Jordan sipped her water and shrugged. “They think you’re sheltered, but there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Quinn stared down at her napkin and twiddled it between her fingers as she turned Jordan’s words over in her mind.

“So, what’s your friend struggling with? I mean, I’m sure there’s lots of traumatic shit she’s working through, but what are you guys fighting about specifically?”

As the human saying goes: in for a penny, in for a pound. And Quinn had already thrown in her penny by revealing the ‘cult’ of werewolf culture.

“It’s the way she treats me, like I’m her new… cult leader. She acts like she wants to still be in that position of someone else telling her what to do. I feel like I have to be so careful with anything I say to her because she takes advice as orders and suggestions as fact. I know that it’s difficult for her to transition away from that… lifestyle. But I won’t be forced into becoming the dictator of the house just because she feels more comfortable with that dynamic.”

Jordan nodded slowly. “I understand why that would be tough for you, but being an adult sucks, and having to learn to suddenly be responsible for yourself and your decisions with no prior experience must be a real brain fuck for your friend. How did you adapt so well?”

“My… family were higher up in the command chain, so to speak. I still had a lot of decisions made for me throughout my life, but nothing like the level that my friend would have faced.”

“And how long is she staying with you?”

“That’s a good question,” Quinn laughed to herself, shaking her head. “There’s a… government group that decides where people from these cults go, but it’s been heavily implied that they don’t expect to find anywhere else for her. I told them I can’t house her long-term but they don’t care now they’ve offloaded her onto me.” And now I wouldn’t want to give her back, she added in the safety of her own head.

“And she can’t be given somewhere to live by herself? Even like a hotel room or someth-”

“Oh, fuck no. She’s petrified of-” She almost said humans. “-people outside of the cult. Left to her own she’d probably starve.”

Jordan pinched her lips in a pitiful look.

“They grow all their own food,” Quinn added in unnecessary explanation. Unused to discussing her background, even under the protection of her self-appointed code words, with someone human. “So she’s never seen a supermarket.”

“Wow.” The ‘o’ sound was drawn out as Jordan slumped back in her seat, eyes unfocused as though trying to imagine a world without aisles and aisles of pre-packaged products.

“I want to take her to one. I want to show her so many things. Restaurants and cinemas and aquariums and all the cool things that exist outside of the cult. But it’s difficult when I feel like I can’t trust her to not draw attention to us outside of the house.”

“What kind of things does she do? You said she’s overly obedient to things you say but is that noticeable?”

“She’s… very sensitive to me as well. I think it’s all part of her waiting for orders or direction. If she thinks I’m upset with her she completely breaks down. She also can’t hide her shock at the outside world all that well. Deer in the headlights.”

“Sunglasses?”

“October is a few days away. We’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Get her a suit and pretend she’s a Blues Brother for Halloween.”

Quinn stared at her.

“You haven’t seen The Blues Brothers?”

Quinn scrunched her mouth and shook her head.

“Okay. And not to suggest the obvious, but you’ve tried having a frank conversation about this with her?”

“From the moment she arrived I made it clear I’m not comfortable with those… roles.”

“And what exactly happened last night?”

“I got home and all the lights were off. I figured she was in bed since it was late, but when I got in she was sat on the sofa in the dark.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Yeah, and she’s really small so she looks like a doll in the dark.”

Jordan shuddered. “That’s doubly creepy. Why was she sitting in the dark?”

“Without me there to decide when to go to bed, she just sat and waited for me.”

Jordan sucked an uncomfortable breath in through her teeth, but didn’t interrupt.

“She said her… leader didn’t let her turn on anything electronic without explicit orders. And then I just lost it because that meant every day I’ve come to the office she’s probably just sat on the sofa, completely still, waiting for me to come home and give her direction.”

“Quinn-”

“She didn’t eat, Jordan. I checked the fridge, the cupboards, the dishwasher, no sign that she’d eaten a thing all day. She’s only been eating the breakfasts I make for her and the dinners we cook together. No lunch - for weeks. And somehow she’s gained weight.”

The waitress awkwardly shuffled in with their plates, doing her best not to disrupt the tension of the conversation, and hurried away. Quinn stabbed a bunch of leaves and shoved them in her mouth, partly to shut herself up. She was revealing too much, yet, Jordan was right - she did feel a little better already.

Jordan paid her own lunch no mind. “And then you fought?”

“I snapped and sent her to bed like I was her mother.” Quinn’s face heated at the memory. “Then I stood in my living room feeling like a fucking fool. I wanted to tell her to come back, but that would be giving her another order. It was only after she went to bed that I checked the fridge and stuff. I took food up to her and left it on a tray outside her door, then I went to bed.”

“Did you see her before you left for work?”

“No, she’s not a morning person.”

“So she’s probably sat on that sofa, right now, stewing on this until you get back?”

“Shit,” Quinn muttered.

“Go home, make up, and lunch is on you next time.” She shooed Quinn with her fork. “Don’t judge me for finishing that entire salmon fillet left on your plate.”

“You deserve it,” Quinn chuckled as she pried herself from the tiny dining chair. “Thanks, Jordan, this really helped. And… it stays between us - the cult stuff, right?”

Jordan nodded through a mouthful of salmon, jabbing her fork in the direction of the door.