Page 100 of Abel's Omega
I kept my composure until we were outside the gates, and then lost myself in tears. I tried to hide it from the pups, but Fan was seated beside me and you couldn’t hide anything from him.
“Don’t cry, Dabi. Do you want a hug?” He reached for me and I let him hug me and pretended it made everything better.
“Bax,” Abel said, and I flinched out of old instinct.
“I’m sorry, Abel. He just looked so needy, and I remember how that felt.”
“I know. You’ve got a heart as big as the sky.” His voice was soothing and when I looked up, he didn’t seem angry. “I told him that if Degan repudiates him, to call us, and we’ll give him a home.”
“Oh.” This time, I leaned forward, my head in my hands as the world spun around me. “I love you, Abel.”
“Love you too.” His palm was warm against the back of my hand. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. I told Roland I didn’t appreciate seeing abuse in his pack and gave him something to think about. I might have said that if his pack was so poor they couldn’t afford kindness, I’d pay for the food. So, cheer up. I have a surprise for you tonight.”
I laughed at his ‘might have’ comment, but then my brain caught up with the rest of his sentence. “A surprise?” I lifted my head and wiped the tears away from my cheeks. “What is it?”
Fan answered me. “You can’t know, silly. Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He giggled and he and Abel exchanged conspiratorial glances.
“I’m being ganged up on, am I?” I demanded in mock anger. “We’ll see about that!” And I tickled Fan until he had the hiccups, then we calmed down and read a storybook to pass the time until our next stop.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
We drove all day, with occasional stops to eat or stretch our legs, and finally pulled in at a tall human hotel in Kansas City at about seven in the evening.
“Abel, this is a human hotel.” I stopped short, and realized just how much I’d changed. Before Abel, I would have thought twice about saying something like that.
He laughed. “Happy honeymoon. They have a couple of rooms dedicated to shifters. And I’m taking you out for dinner.” The news left me absolutely speechless and he knew it, and laughed some more. “Come on. Let’s get in and get the pups fed so I can take you out and spoil you.”
I was going to faint; this was far too much. But he seemed so excited about it himself, and I realized that he hardly ever took time to do something fun and new, except now where it concerned my pups, so I decided to throw my cares to the wind and live in the moment with him.
We got in with little difficulty, though the woman manning the desk was stiff, and we got some hard stares from people hanging around in the lobby once they noticed the tabs on the collars of our jackets. This was the first time Fan was old enough to wear them, and I kept a wary eye on him in case he started to play with them, but after a brief first inspection, he seemed to understand that they weren’t toys and left them alone.
We rode in an elevator, a much shorter trip than at home but with an escort from the front desk, a different young woman who chatted amiably with Fan and Teca and didn’t seem disturbed by our status at all. She led us down the hall to a single door at the end, smiled, and opened it for us. “The restaurant is open until ten, and the bar until midnight. Room service ends at ten as well. My name’s Amy and I’m here until midnight if there’s anything you need, just call down to the desk and let me know.” She waited a moment for Abel to thank her and pass her some small denomination of human money, though I didn’t know enough about what they looked like to tell what it was, and then she left.
It was…a palace. Or it seemed so to me. The door we’d passed through opened onto a large living room, with furniture that belonged in a millionaire romance. On the far side, there was an opening in the wall. I wandered in, my pups, my mate, all forgotten, and spun in the middle of the room trying to take it all in.
Whispers behind me got my attention. I turned to find Abel herding the pups inside the room, bent over with his head at their level, and making a noise in between the words he spoke that would have been a giggle in anyone smaller and less imposing. The pups only made it ten feet inside the door before they broke, running full speed toward the opening that led, presumably, to the bedroom, their laughter echoing off the walls. Mac, Edmond, and Justin came through the door with our luggage on its cart.
Mac burst out laughing and shook his head. “You won’t get any sleep tonight. They’ll be up jumping on the beds.”
“Oh, I’ll get them to sleep.” I reached for my bag, and the one we’d packed for the boys, and Abel picked up his and the one for the girls. Edmond started to wheel the luggage back out into the hall.
“Where are they going?” I asked. There was more than enough space for everyone.
As we carried them after the pups, Abel said in a low voice, “I got them a room across the hall. Mac’s going to babysit for us so we can go out to dinner.”
I stopped and stared at him, appalled. “That’s so much money!”
He nudged me into a bedroom. “It’s not that bad.” He put the suitcases down and took mine from me. “I’ve been earning double credits since I took over as Alpha, and no time to spend them. I used a lot for pack things, but if we don’t have to pay out Montana Border anymore, I still have the equivalent of nearly sixty thousand human dollars.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Let me do this for you, to start making up for all the chances you never got.”
“Abel,” I breathed, and fell into his arms. I pressed my face against his chest and held him tight, my mind spinning.
“And I probably shouldn’t be planning to talk about business during a romantic dinner, but I want to do something about the way omegas are treated. I’m sorry, love, I never knew it was like that.”
“You’ve been sheltered,” I mumbled into his t-shirt.
His laugh rumbled. “I have. Will you teach me?”
I lifted my face so I could see him. “You’re my Alpha, and my mate. You only have to command.”
