Page 15 of Abel's Omega
Bax paused, then nodded. “Just after Patrick and I were mated.”
Yes, now Abel remembered him. He also remembered thinking that Patrick didn’t deserve the calm, elegant creature that waited on them hand-and-foot during his visit. “Turn right here. It’s at the third cross street.” He considered not asking, but he wondered how it was that Bax was so friendless, when he’d been mated to the Alpha of his pack. “It was a car accident, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” The light of a streetlamp glanced across Bax’s carefully neutral expression. “They’d been outside walls for something to do with welfare for the pack, and decided to have a few drinks on the way home. Which made them late, and they hit a turn too hard just outside the city.” His lips tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
Bax said nothing, but his hand began to move again on the baby’s back. Fan barked and jumped to look out the passenger window at a family playing in front of an apartment building.
“Fan, sit down,” Bax told him.
“I’ve got him. He seems ready to get out and play.”
“We’ve been in the car all day. He was really good, but you’re right. It’s too long for a little boy to be stuck in a car seat.”
“How old is he?” Abel was curious. Bax didn’t look that old, but with his clear skin and delicate bone structure, he could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty.
“He’s three and a half. He was born eight months after Patrick and I were mated.”
And obviously an unhappy mating, from the clenched jaw and the white knuckles. Some days, Abel despaired of his people. He’d taken over Mercy Hills just over six years ago, the youngest Alpha the pack had ever had. Arranged matings were already on their way out in Mercy Hills long before he came to power—even Abel’s parents had been allowed to choose, subject to consanguinity. But most of the other packs were still stuck back in the days of the Enclosure, when there was no contact between the enclaves, and the elders of the pack had to worry about too close relations breeding. “So, how did you and Patrick meet?” He should stop now, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Abel soothed the prickings of his conscience with the knowledge that he would need to know these things anyway. This was just a little earlier.
Bax threw him a strained glance, then focused on the road again. “He came to discuss matings with our Alpha. Jackson-Jellystone was alpha heavy and having bloodline problems. We were omega heavy and relatively unrelated. It made sense.”
“And he courted you?”
Bax said nothing.
Mac’s house was coming up, so Abel let the topic die.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was shaking by the time we arrived. The Alpha’s gentle questioning had shoved my heart up into my throat more than once, though he hadn’t seemed to be asking out of cruelty or uncaring. And, as much as I hated to think it, he was going to have to know all of it, in all its terrible glory, if I was going to get him on my side. I’d need him to make the application for me to stay, assuming he could be convinced.
The Alpha had me pull up in front of a long building that made me think of a row of houses squashed up next to each other, like a family with too many pups and too few beds. Ahead of us, Jason and Mac got out of their truck and walked back to my van.
I put the van in park, turned off the engine, and just sat there. I didn’t know what to do next. It was like, now that I was here, my brain was out of ideas.
The Alpha touched my arm, lightly, almost unfelt, as if he was worried he’d frighten me. Well, he wasn’t far wrong, but he wasn’t entirely right either. I’d never had an Alpha look at me like that—like I was someonehe wanted to know, not somethinghe wanted to own. Even I had never considered myself to be much more than a possession. I didn’t know how to handle it.
“Come on in,” he said. “We’ll get the kids settled, and then we can talk.” His face was pleasant, but his eyes were grim, and it seemed to me that he understood everything that had happened to me before I’d ever said a word. His attention was both exciting and unnerving; I’d have to think about it first before I’d have a chance to figure out my own responses to it.
I nodded and got out of the van.
Fan was wild, excited to be out of the vehicle and refusing to settle. He ran in circles, yipping and playing tug-of-war with the pantlegs of whoever stopped moving long enough for him to get his puppy teeth into them. Teca leaped for my arms, clinging like an exhausted limpet, and I was caught for a minute with my two babies while I tried to figure out how to get Beatrice into the house.
Jason appeared at my side. “I’ll take your other one. We’ll load the alphas up with your stuff. They might as well use all that testosterone for something.” He leaned in through the door and nipped Beatrice out of her seat, but stumbled backing out the car with his baby and Beatrice. “What the— You!” He shook his leg, dislodging Fan. “Into the house now, or no cookies.”
Fan stopped dead and looked up at me. “Don’t look at me,” I told him. “They’re not my cookies.” Fan turned his head and cocked his ears at Jason, then trotted toward the house.
“Thank you,” I said. “You don’t have to give him treats. He knows better.”
“It’s okay. I’m guessing a few treats for everyone wouldn’t go wrong.” He used his hip to slide the door of the van closed. “I know I desperately needed some when I arrived here. Come on, let’s get inside.”
I hurried after him. The adrenaline boost of my escape was fading, and even as stiff as I was from sitting down most of the day, I was tired and wouldn’t have minded a bit more sitting. I was hungry too, and it was only now that I realized how awkward it would be to ask for food the minute we got here.
This was definitely not a well designed plan.
Fan bounced around in front of the door, leaving tiny dirty paw prints on the steel. “Fan, stop it,” I hissed.
