Page 3 of The Omega's Bloodline: Part One

Another thought occurred to me and made me cackle.

Caden looked up at me, head tilted.What?

I covered a snort with my hand. “I guess this means I won’t have to book your appointments to get neutered.”

Both cats tensed.

Please don’t steal my balls,said Seth.

That only made me laugh harder. Yep. Brain had definitely checked out.

We sat together, me giggling like a madwoman until my butt started to go numb and my stomach began its growly demands for food.

“I should make dinner.” Neither of my fuzzy anchors seemed interested in moving. “You guys, I'm hungry.”

Seth lifted a sleepy head and rubbed his cheek against mine. Caden yawned and slid off my lap. He stretched with his front legs long and his butt up in the air before transitioning to sticking each back leg out and giving himself a shake.

I fought down the urge to narrate with my usual“oooh, big stretch!”

When I have opposable thumbs again, I can make you dinner, Caden said.As many as you like for as long as you let me stay.

I hadn’t had anyone to cook for me regularly since my parents had passed. It sounded like heaven to have someone else take over that role.

“You can cook as much as your heart desires,” I said to Caden.

Except the idea of him turning into a person capable of cooking pushed me closer to the invisible edge, so I tucked the thought away under a heaping pile of denial to deal with later.

I slipped away into the kitchen. I still had a few hours of work to finish for the night, so dinner was going to have to be a quick affair. Seth looked longingly at the counter.

When do I get this thing off my leg?

“Tomorrow, probably. We have a vet appointment to make sure it’s all healed up.”

Hell yes. I’m sick of looking like a highlighter.

Caden hopped up—ignoring Seth’s plight over being trapped on the floor—and sat on the counter as I boiled water for some ramen. It was nice to have company I could talk to for a change. They watched me quietly while I sucked back my noodles, taking turns on my lap and desk while I worked, accompanying me on my kitten chores, and eventually following me to bed.

The past few nights they’d slept on the bed with me instead of staying in the nursery while they were healing, but tonight I was self-conscious, knowing they weren’t just cats. They turned away while I changed without my having to ask, and when I curled up to sleep they fought over the best spot in my arms. Seth had to settle for draping over my legs, at least until I got up for middle-of-the-night kitten feeding. They followed me withsleepy, squinty eyes and welcomed me back to bed with soft purrs and warm bodies.

In the morning things were stillweird, but I didn’t feel quite as fragile as yesterday. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask. I’d resolved to take my time with them and tend to my mental well-being by going slow. I took Seth to the vet for his check-up and they deemed him ready to have his cast removed. I sidestepped when they asked me about booking in for thebig snip, saying I would call and arrange when I had more spare cash for it. Seth thanked me profusely the entire trip home.

I spent most of the day working and watching Seth practice jumping to test his strength after his broken leg. He tired out quickly and wandered over for lap naps a lot.

We fell into a pattern over the next couple of weeks. The two of them kept me company at all hours, headbutting me when it was time to take a break from my work-from-home finance job, curling up in my bed at night with me, and singing me the song of their people when they got hungry. I suspected it was as much to lure me into the kitchen to feed myself as it was to feed them.

I worked each day at pulling questions from the denial pile. Sometimes the answers made me shove it right back in, but I was trying my best.

“How old are you guys?” I asked one night while we watched a game show in the living room, the two of them tucked on each side of me.

Ninety-six, said Caden.Seth’s seventy-six.

I tucked that fact into the denial pile for future-Logan to deal with when magic cats older than my grandparents didn’t hurt my brain quite so much.

For the sake of my own sanity, I left the concept alone most of the time and went about my regular day and treated them as typical kitties when they weren’t talking to me. It soothed the sharp edges of my new reality.

Getting out of the house once in a while helped a lot with pretending things were still normal. When I returned with the groceries, the house was suspiciously quiet.

“Where is everyone?” I called out.

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