Peter was silent for just long enough that Damon could tell he was floundering. Unfortunately, Malachi stepped up onto the stage after a moment.

"All good points, Dr. Yang, but I will say that at the time this occurred, Mr. Harper was in an in-between period in his heat. He didn't smell like heat pheromones. In fact, I believe that you, yourself, can attest to this fact because moments after Mr. Harper and Mr. Anderson attacked me, Mr. Harper and Mr. Blackwell went to your office to sign their heat agreement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't allow an alpha to sign a heat agreement unless they are out of heat, right?"

Damon didn't know how Malachi knew all that. He probably had someone follow him and Jun after they left his house. But the sinking feeling in Damon's stomach said that Malachi had been saving that for exactly this moment.

Dr. Yang's face went stony. "No, I do not."

There was some tittering in the crowd. Peter, saved by his son, stepped back in. "Well, that confirms it. Mr. Harper was in complete control of himself when he attacked my son. And so, I ask the council once more, in light of this, who agrees that Jun Harper should be exiled?"

There was a long moment of silence before the hands raised again. Up went Peter and Hailey's hands, then Amy's, and then – two of the three that Damon didn't know.

Five out of nine. They still had the majority. Damnit. All that and they had only managed to sway one person?

...Damon wondered if it was worth it to pop out of the crowd and call out the tainted jury, but he had a feeling this decision was already set in stone no matter what the vote was today. If by some chance justice had managed to win out, Damon knew in his heart that Malachi would have set up some other way for Jun to be implicated in a crime.

There was only one thing Damon could think to do now. He had to get himself exiled.

Unfortunately, Damon didn't think leaving peaceably would be an option for him. His application to leave the pack would probably get torn up before it even crossed Peter Reyne's desk. He could try to sneak out of pack grounds, but he would still be considered a pack member for at least two weeks after leaving unless Peter decided to exile him before that, which means they would be able to bring him back if he was caught. And Damon had a feeling that sneaking out would be exponentially harder with all of Malachi's goons waiting around the corner to grab him.

Damon wasn't sure why Malachi would care if he left, but he did think Malachi would take any chance he could to make Damon's life just a little bit harder.

How did one go about getting exiled, then?

Damon stared blankly at Jun, still panting in pain on the stage, and it came to him what he had to do.

He was going to enjoy this next part.

Without stopping to think if now was really the best time to do this, Damon weaved through the crowd towards the stage. Peter waved a few betas up to the stage to grab Jun, likely to transport him to the edge of the pack territory so that the ritual to exile him from the pack could take place. All that really involved was some paperwork and giving Jun a swift kick in the ass to get him across the territory line. The ancient magic binding the curse of the Ganymede pack to Jun would dissolve once Peter, as the leader, declared that he was no longer a member of the pack. It sounded like a simple process, but Damon had never been exiled before, so he didn't know if it was actually as easy as it seemed.

Well, whatever. Damon had already decided on what he was going to do.

Malachi joined the betas that were grabbing Jun and hauling him up, leading them towards the edge of the stage, right where Damon suddenly popped up from the crowd. Malachi's eyebrows flew into his hairline. Clearly none of his goons had bothered to tell him that they hadn't managed to stop Damon. It didn't faze Malachi for long, however, and his signature smirk was back in place.

"You – " he began, but he never got to finish because Damon hopped up on the edge of the stage, cocked his fist back, and slammed it into Malachi's nose.

Damon may be an omega, but he didn't fuck around. Malachi went sailing back, knocking over a couple betas in the process. There were a few shrieks and gasps in the crowd, and two betas that hadn't been knocked over dropped Jun to restrain Damon, leaving one blocking Jun from Damon like a goalie. Damon darted out of their grasp, and contrary to the expectation that he would go straight for Jun to rescue him, Damon launched himself at Malachi again.

His goal was never to rescue Jun. His goal was to beat the shit out of Malachi and get himself exiled alongside Jun.

Before Malachi could get up, Damon slammed him back onto the ground and hit him in the face again. He managed to get in two more hits before he was pulled off, growling, more omega wolf than man. The betas wrestled him flat on the stage, so that Damon was staring at the gray sky. All around him were shouts, particularly Hailey's as she ran over to check on her son. Based on the crack Damon heard when he hit Malachi, and the pain in his knuckles, he probably broke the bastard's nose.

Nice.

Damon let the fight drain out of him. Surely bruising up Malachi's face in front of a crowd of people would be enough to get him exiled. Jun was being exiled for the exact same thing. To exile Jun and not Damon would be a pretty obvious double standard.

Damon's head lolled to the side, and he saw Jun, a few feet away, staring back at him, expression equal parts shocked and euphoric. Damon smiled, a weird giddiness floating through his chest. He let the betas drag him off the stage, leading him out of the town square, but not before he managed to glimpse Malachi's battered, bloody face. Serves the bitch right.

The betas walked Damon all the way around the other side of the square, to the car Malachi had driven him home in last night, except this time they shoved him in the back, one beta getting in next to him to keep him from trying anything funny while another got in the driver's seat.

This hadn't been part of the plan. Where were they taking him now?

His question was answered fifteen minutes later when the car pulled up in front of Peter and Hailey's house. What, were they going to interrogate him before exiling him? His motives were pretty clear. Even a child could figure it out.

The betas brought him inside, up to Peter's office. They pushed him into one of the chairs and then took positions near the window and door, as if Damon was going to jump through the glass from the second story.

He waited half an hour, and then when the door finally opened, it wasn't Peter and Hailey, but his parents. His mom's eyes were red, and neither of them said a word to him as they sat down on the couch to the side of the desk. And then he waited again, only this time the silence was doubly unbearable because his mom kept sniffling like one of her relatives had just died. Neither of them made any attempt to talk to him, or ask him why he'd beaten the pack leader's son to a pulp.

Excellent. Very supportive. Very parental.

Another hour passed before Hailey and Peter arrived, sans Malachi, which was probably a good choice because Damon couldn't promise that he wouldn't go back for more if he saw him.

Peter sat down behind the desk and heaved a heavy sigh, as if this was a personal tragedy for him. Yeah, his alpha son got his ass kicked by an omega, but Damon didn't think that was worth looking so tired. Hailey's eyes were as red as his mom's. She wouldn't even look at Damon.

"I'm very disappointed in you, today, Damon" Peter said, subdued. Damon restrained his urge to snort. They were going straight for the guilt trip, huh? Cute effort.

Damon expected this was Peter's way of trying to get him to express regret over his actions so that they could have some sliver of an excuse not to exile Damon, but it wasn't happening.

Except...it didn't really go that way.

"I think the best thing for you is to spend some time at home, with your parents. We'll have some betas watch your house until we think you've properly thought about what you've done wrong – "

"What?" Damon interrupted, sitting up from his slouch. "I – you're locking me in my house? I beat up your son. Shouldn't you be exiling me right now?"

Peter pursed his lips. It was Hailey that jumped in this time. "That's exactly what you want, right?" she said softly. "It wouldn't be a punishment at all if we exiled you to be with him."

Damon blinked slowly, dumbfounded. "Everyone saw me do it, though. They'll expect you to exile me."

Peter shook his head. "What they saw was a grief-stricken omega acting out. It would be expected for you to be upset after your heat partner was exiled."

"That's..." Damon trailed off. Unfair, he wanted to say. But they knew that. They didn't care. Damon clenched his jaw. "Where's Jun?"

Hailey and Peter shared glances, and Damon had his answer. They took so long to get here because they'd taken care of exiling Jun first. Who knows where he was now. Damon shot up from his seat and made a run for the door, hoping that the beta guarding it would jump out of the way on reflex. No such luck. The beta remained stock still in front of the door and grabbed Damon before he could slam into him. The beta by the window came over to help hold Damon. On the other side of the room, his mom let out a quiet sob and Damon wanted to scream at her – why are you crying? You don't deserve to cry right now.

If anyone deserved to cry it was Damon.

Just like that, all the fight went out of Damon, and he passively let the betas cart him out of the room and back into the car downstairs. The ride to his house was silent, and when the betas led him inside, he barely paid them any attention, locking himself in his room.

He had to figure out how to escape, but his brain wasn't working. All he could think was that Jun was gone, and he was locked inside his house, under 24/7 watch. Damon would rather be put in the prison.

He burrowed himself into his nesting corner, greedily sniffing anything that had the lingering remnants of Jun's scent. He curled himself around a pillow that had a decent amount of Jun's pheromones on it and briefly fooled his nesting omega into thinking it was really Jun he was snuggling. He fell asleep that way, quiet purrs of distress being swallowed into the pillow.

The next morning, Damon woke up to the smell of eggs cooking. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. If they were going to treat Damon like a child and ground him, then he was going to protest in the only way he could. Maybe if he starved himself long enough, they would have to take him to the doctor's office and he could get Dr. Yang to help him escape. It was the best plan Damon had going for him right now.

What felt like hours later, there was finally a knock at the door. Damon ignored it, but of course, his mom cracked the door open anyway, poking her head in tentatively.

"Damon, sweetie, you should eat something. There's also a friend downstairs who came to visit you."

Damon stirred reluctantly. He could count the number of friends he had on one hand. It couldn't be Mark. He was still hiding to avoid being exiled, though it seemed like the pack had pretty much breezed over his involvement in all this. That meant it was probably Ava. She was probably just here to check on him, but Damon remembered that she worked for Dr. Yang. There was the slimmest of chances that he could get her to take a message to him and Damon could coordinate an escape somehow through them. Who knows if Dr. Yang would bother to help Damon at all, but he seemed to the be the only other person on Damon's side, so Damon had to try.

So Damon rose up from his nest without bothering to change his clothes or brush his teeth. It was Ava. She'd seen him in worse states.

Damon brushed past his mom without looking at her and went down the stairs. But when he stepped into the living room, he paused, confused.

That...wasn't Ava. Actually, Damon didn't recognize her at all. She was sitting on the couch, chatting politely with Damon's dad. She had flawless caramel skin and long, black, braided hair. An omega. Yeah, no, Damon had never met this person before. So why would Damon's mom call her a friend?

Damon stood there and stared silently, aware of how rude it was, but not particularly caring. The girl noticed him and stood up. "Hi, Damon. Can we talk privately?"

Damon blinked once, twice. "Uh. Sure?" He turned slowly and led the girl up the stairs, back to his bedroom. His parents didn't say anything. In fact, his mom shared a look with his dad that Damon was intimately familiar with. It was the hopeful 'look, our son's making friends' face. Surreal.

He led the still-unnamed girl into his room and shut the door, not caring that his room was a pigsty. She didn't seem to care, either, sitting casually on the edge of Damon's bed.

Damon opened his mouth to ask who the hell she was and why she told his parents she was a friend, but she beat him to the punch.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Damon. I'm Elizabeth. But you probably know me as Jun's fiancé."

***