Page 20 of Abel's Omega
Don’t be a fool.Yes, I needed a mate, but it would be stupid to set my hopes on someone so utterly out of my league. The most likely explanation for this silliness was that I was tired and scared and he looked like someone who would keep me safe if he took me for his. I was reading more into this situation than was actually there, is what was happening. With a sigh, I ran my hands through my hair in a vain attempt to bring order to my curls.Oh, never mind. It was just because he was kind. An Alpha is absolutely not what you need.
But in the back of my mind, I wondered. Would he be like the others? He didn’t seem to be. Not that my experience was extensive, but I’d met other Alphas after Patrick and I had been mated. Abel seemed…different.
Not that that meant anything. How long had I known him—an hour? Not much to base a life plan on. Best to stick with my original idea, though the satisfaction I’d once had in it seemed to have disappeared.
I came out of the bathroom to hear voices downstairs and I went to meet them. Jason and the Alpha stood in the entry, with a pile of blankets, a pillow, some towels, and I’m not certain what all else in a clothes basket on the floor between them.
“Hello.” The Alpha—Abel; In my head, I could think of him like that—grinned at me, obviously delighted in his offering. “I thought you might need a few other things too. And I’ve arranged the credit at the laundromat, and for extra food credit for Jason until we can get you into housing. Tomorrow, we can see about getting you work so you have your own credits to spend.”
I stared at him. “My own credits?” I’d thought I’d been daydreaming, hoping for that. Did they really let omegas have credits here?
He gave me an odd look and then understanding dawned. “I forgot. Well, not forgot. I guess I didn’t explain it that well. We do things a little differently here. Omegas can hold jobs, they can collect credit to spend around the enclave. It’s yours, even if your legal standing isn’t what that of another shifter would be. And it doesn’t hold outside the enclave, obviously. But my grandmother was an omega and my grandfather worked with the Alpha of the time to have things changed here.” He grinned suddenly, and his eyes took on a fond look. “She was quite the lady. There was nothing worse than disappointing Gramma, you’d feel like shit for days and grovel for forgiveness even after she’d forgiven you.” His gaze landed on me again. “I hope you’ll be happy here.” There was warmth in them that I thought went beyond the care an Alpha had for his pack.
“I will.” I wanted to please him, part omega neediness and as payment for the kindness he’d already shown, part knowing that to stay here I needed his approval. That prickling alertness to his attention urged me to make myself agreeable, especially as I wasn’t certain how real the interest I’d picked up on was, or what it meant. Maybe he just hoped that I’d play the merry widow, which would be stupid of me, but Patrick hadn’t been a month cremated before the alphas had come sniffing around when their mates weren’t aware, so what did I know?
That wasn’t what I was looking for, as much as my body was convinced there was something good to be had in a cock inside me. Frail flesh, I think was the term I’d heard once, that couldn’t stand to deny itself its small pleasures.
At least I didn’t have to worry about heats for another year. I’d kept nursing Noah far past the time that Patrick had ever let me nurse my other babies, and the time for my season to start had come and gone. I was safe now, but I had no interest in giving up these quiet, intimate moments with my youngest anyway, and I planned to nurse him until I absolutely couldn’t anymore.
Abel and I stood in the doorway, staring foolishly at each other until Jason coughed. “I’m going to bed. There’s tea in the cupboard if you two are still going to talk, and the last of the brownies in the fridge.” He touched my arm, a gentle squeeze of solidarity, and threw an unreadable look at Abel.
Abel cleared his throat. “I should get going. You’ll be tired, and there’s time tomorrow to talk about anything else.” Abel stayed there for a moment, like he was planning to say something else, then shook his head. “I’ll drop by about mid-morning, if that’s okay? I’d give you a time, but I’m not sure what I can clear off my schedule yet.”
“That’s fine,” I said in a soft voice. “Your time is important. I’m sure I’ll figure things out on my own.”
“I’d rather help.” The words came out rushed and I had a hint, the tiniest hint, that a merry widow wasn’t what he wanted.
My hands twitched with the urge to go to him, but history held me back. I didn’tknowhim, and I needed to. As much as I was tired, and wanted desperately for someone to take care of me and help me, as much as my body wanted what his seemed to promise, I didn’t dare surrender any freedom I had until I knew that giving an inch wouldn’t lose me all the road I’d traveled. So I nodded and wrapped my arms around myself to keep from reaching for the shelter he promised.
Not until I know.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Abel puttered around his apartment after leaving Mac’s and Jason’s, seeing it now with different eyes. Before, it had been convenient—exactly how he’d had it designed. Sure, he’d had extra bedrooms built into it when he’d talked to the architect. Even then, he’d figured that some day he’d mate and have pups. And if he didn’t, whatever Alpha came after him might have or want a family. Now, though, he wondered if it was big enough for six active shifters. He could imagine Fan and Teca sprawled on the floor watching television, while Beatrice and Noah played in the corner and Bax did…what? He didn’t know Bax well enough to even imagine how the man would spend his time. If Bax was even interested in another mate. Or a boyfriend.
Doubtful. But he’d need one, if he was to stay out of the hands of the shifter waiting for him back at Jackson-Jellystone.
Abel had always been good at reading people, even before he’d become Alpha, and the years since had honed that talent to a fine edge. The rest of Bax’s story had been laid out for him like a book, at least in the broad strokes. In the words he chose, the pauses as he thought about how to say something. The things he didn’t say out loud, but that screamed from the lines of his body.
Bax had no reason to trust Abel at all. And that would be a shame, because he was hitting Abel’s buttons pretty hard, even on this short an acquaintance.
It disgusted him, the way other packs viewed omegas. He’d done his best to make Mercy Hills different, following in his grandfather’s footsteps. Not that they had many omegas to make a difference with—there was Jason, and Mac’s teenaged cousin Bram. Bram was the only omega in the pack who’d been born in Mercy Hills in forty years. Abel knew better than to let the injustice of it eat at him, but sometimes he got so used to how things were here in Mercy Hills that when he was hit with some ancient, ridiculous tradition in another pack, it set him back on his heels.
He’d be willing to help Bax thwart Jackson-Jellystone’s plans for him, if only for the juvenile pleasure he took in showing up the older Alphas, the ones who’d said he was too young, who’d tried to take his pack from him in council. But there was more to it, too. Something about the omega, both strong and desperately in need of a champion, moved Abel in a way he’d never felt before. He’d never been one to believe in that fated mates crap that teenagers told each other during sleepovers and camp outs, but something in the exhausted form in front of him had felt so exactly right, he was starting to question himself.
He couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Abel gave up rearranging the things on his counter and went to the living room to slump onto his couch. His keyboard was there, calling to him to spend time with it like a neglected lover, and he pulled up the files for Alpha Hunt. After all, there was still Jason’s predicament to deal with. He firmly set Bax on the back burner, and turned his focus onto the lines and lines of computer commands scrolling across the wall in front of him.
Morning sunshine found him still on the couch. He’d fallen asleep with the keyboard on his lap, the cursor smirking at him from its place in the middle of a line.
Fuck.Abel rubbed his eyes, then checked the time.FUCK!He tossed the keyboard onto his beanbag chair and stomped his way into the bathroom to get cleaned up. Today was supposed to be clearing up the grant paperwork for the new storage warehouse that they desperately needed but now couldn’t afford. And he’d promised to take Bax down to the Labor Center to look for a job, and to fill out forms for his kids for the daycare.
Abel stared at himself in the mirror.You need to get a grip. There’s too many people who depend on you.
An hour later, still buried up to his chin in indecipherable paperwork, his phone rang. Grateful for any excuse to avoid the damned lines of check-boxes and instructions, he grabbed for it. “Hello?”
“You busy?” Mac said.
