Hermes liked the stables. The animals were peaceful enough, trusted his presence, and it gave him a break from the dog who had clearly missed him the absolute most while he was gone. He'd missed her too, but there was something about the whole trip that sat ill with him. Yeah, he was totally jealous of the angel (who was now actually an angel and not someone whose head Hermes could just rifle around in,) but the deception Carrick orchestrated, the lengths he'd gone to in order to get the angel at all and then to cover it up... The fae was supposed to be the trickster here, not the Spartan.
Carrick bought Hermes a horse as well, not that the fae was supposed to know about it, but that was how it went in so many things when you tried to keep something a surprise from someone who made himself close to as many people as possible...and those people thought loudly. Aethon, a Rocky Mountain horse that suited Hermes rather well. He didn't know how to ride, but she seemed to like him all the same as he sat perched on the lower front wall of her stall running fingers through her stark white hair as though that might calm the both of them.
It was almost poetic that the horse being led in for Russell was a near reverse of Hermes' own. How far apart he and the alpha were indeed. IF he was lucky, the wolf wouldn't notice him. He hadn't been very lucky lately, and putting forth the effort to hide would only draw more attention to him. Rocks and hard places.