Page 52 of The Omega's Alpha
“Always.” And then the door closed between them and Quin turned back to the everyday world of incident reports and financial spreadsheets.
Chapter Forty-Five
Later that evening, we took the pups to Bax’s and Abel’s for supper. I went over early while Quin took the rest of the afternoon off to play with the pups and get a sense of whether today would be a good day to broach the subject with them. I was nervous, Quin was nervous, but we knew we couldn’t put it off much longer. Our chat with the Green Moon Alpha had turned out as we had expected—neither and both of the families wanted the pups, the two groups fighting over whose fault it was and saying that the other group should pay to raise the pups. Green Moon had chuckled sardonically as he told us of the sudden silence when he’d broached our offer, and the equally abrupt cacophony of agreement and offers to come ‘help the babies settle in’ immediately after.
Right. Like Dorian hadn’t drawn a house surrounded by flowers on his walls the other day in crayon. And Agatha hadn’t just decided she wanted her room to be pink with purple spots. I didn’t think they needed more help settling in. What I worried about was them deciding this was home.
The episode with the therapist had been…interesting. I had no qualms about saying that he’d done wonderful things for Quin in terms of his naval service, but I wasn’t convinced he understood much about pack and what it meant. Two pups alone in a strange pack, even with former pack members all around them, would be lonely and scared. Agatha was still having nightmares and Dorian refused to go to bed without his bedtime songs and stories, as if he was afraid the fire would come for us too as soon as he closed his eyes. But trying to explain to this human that the pups felt lost without a family to their own was like trying to convince the Green Moon shifters that omegas were good for more than cooking and cleaning. He knew what he knew, and anything we said was met with a slightly raised eyebrow and a “I’m certain it feels that way…”. Afterward, Quin and I had agreed that we’d ask them anyway, our own instincts telling us that this was what the pups needed.
Over at Bax’s, we made something called sliders and talked about this whole modeling thing while everyone ate. The pups seemed to be enjoying their individual sized burgers and side of fries, making messes of themselves in the barbecue sauce and giggling gleefully while they did.
When everyone was nearly full, Bax and I served apple pie with ice cream. The pups’ eyes went wide as saucers and they cheered. Even Taden, at just barely more than a year, got a one-year-old sized portion of pie and ice cream. He was adorable, his gap-toothed grin covered in ice cream and pastry crumbs. At least until we declared supper finished and began the long process of cleaning the pups up while the alphas cleared the table.
We came back from our expedition to the bathroom with seven shiny-clean pups to find Quin and Abel standing at the kitchen sink. Quin was washing, Abel drying, and the dishes were disappearing into the cupboard with the speed and precision of a military operation. Bax laughed and wrapped himself around Abel from behind. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed the back of Abel’s neck.
“Thank you for supper,” Abel said with a glance back over his shoulder. His eyes flicked up to meet mine and I could tell he was as anxious for us as I was. I looked over at Quin, and he smiled and winked, making me feel instantly better. Everything would be fine.
The rattling sound of Lego being dumped out onto the floor filled the air.
“Let’s go build something,” Abel said as he put the last of the forks away. Bax threw him an amused glance that said something I didn’t quite get and led us into the living room.
We spent an hour playing with the pups, building an entire town and bemoaning our lack of foresight in leaving Dorian’s canvas town behind in the apartment.
“Maybe the next time we come to play,” Quin suggested. “And we can bring the cars too.”
“Yeah!” Dorian exclaimed, his face alight with excitement.
Agatha had wandered away with Beatrice to play with her collection of pony figures. They were galloping all over the couch, their little pastel creatures carrying on conversations in tiny, squeaky voices. I listened for a moment, then went to curl up on the couch with Bax, Taden, and Noah to watch the movie Teca had put in the DVD player. We settled in to watch some not-Disney movie about a bunch of zoo animals that end up shipwrecked on an island, and as the movie played, we attracted more and more bodies until everyone was crammed onto the couch.
I loved it.
When the movie ended, Quin looked over the pups’ heads at me with the question in his eyes. I shrugged, raised my eyebrows, and tilted my head to the side in anI’ll follow your leadkind of gesture.
He nodded and flicked his fingers through Dorian’s hair. “You guys having fun tonight?”
“Uh huh,” Dorian said, nodding his head enthusiastically.
“Yes,” Agatha said, and galloped her blue pony across Quin’s thigh. “Can we come back again?”
“Sure,” Quin said, and glanced over at me.
Guess that’s my cue. “Actually, that’s something we wanted to talk to you about.” The two pups looked up at me, and I could see the suspicion growing in Agatha’s face, though Dorian only looked curious. “Quin and I were wondering if you’d like to stay in Mercy Hills instead of going to live with your grandma and grandpa?”
“Grandma and grandpa?” Dorian asked, puzzled. “We don’t have any.”
“You do,” Quin said gently. “And if you want, you can go live with them. But Holland and I would like it very much if you stayed with us and made a family here. You like your rooms, right? And you’ve made friends.”
“And Teca and Fan would be your cousins,” I added, judging that the inclusion of age-mate family might help too.
“You would be our dads?” Dorian asked in a small voice.
“If you wanted,” I said cheerfully. “We won’t do anything you don’t want.”
“But what about our Ma and Da?” Agatha asked with a tremor in her voice. She clutched the pony to her chest and when Quin reached out to hug her, she pulled away.
I slipped out of my spot on the couch and kneeled in front of her. “Oh, Agatha, honey, we don’t want to replace your Ma and Da. They’ll always be your parents. We just want to be…extras,” I said, for want of a better word. “You have to live with someone. We’d like you to live with us.”
“And you’ll look after us?”
