Page 111 of Abel's Omega
“Howdy, Bax,” Usher drawled, putting on an East Texas accent. I knew it wasn’t his native one—he was as twangy as I was when we were younger.
“Good evening, Usher. May I present my mate, Abel Mercy Hills?”
“Hi,” he said, holding out his hand.
Abel shook it, though his eyebrows had risen a fraction of an inch at Usher’s casual manner.
I suppressed a sigh. This was going to be not so much fun. “Usher is my cousin, but a couple of years younger than me.” Cousin on my mother’s side, and a couple of generations back on my Dad’s, though he hadn’t inherited the curls I’d gotten. When I’d been younger, I’d envied the straight sheets of his hair and wished I’d had that instead of the wild curls that bounced around my head. But Abel loved my curls, which had kind of changed my view on them.
Usher grinned. “It’s so good to see you again.” He reached out to hug me and I reluctantly moved out from under Abel’s arm to return the gesture. Usher started as our fronts touched and he leaned back, staring down between us. “I thought it was just rumor and a trick of the light, but you really are pregnant.” His tone was amazed, and something else, some emotion I couldn’t identify. “Well, congratulations.”
Okay, that tone I could identify. He was angry.
I put a hand over my belly and stepped back to Abel’s side. “Yes. It was quite a surprise. The pups are terribly excited about it, except when they want into my lap.” We both laughed dutifully and Abel squeezed my shoulders, his eyes going back and forth between us as he followed the undertones of the conversation.
“I’ll bet they are,” Usher said. He turned his gaze back to Abel in a calculating manner. “I guess I shouldn’t have mated this winter after all. If that runs in the family, I could have gotten out of this rat trap of an enclave.”
“I think you would have known,” Abel said firmly, catching the drift of the conversation and not liking the direction it was going in any more than I did.
“Oh, but Bax, you didn’t know until just now, right? Or, did you keep it hidden from Patrick all those years? Maybe I’m doing something I don’t know about.” Hints of desperation colored his tone and I felt sorry for him. I was sure he’d mated well—how could he not, looking like he did? But mating well in Buffalo Gap was a whole different creature than mating well in Mercy Hills. Or just about anywhere else.
I turned to Abel and stood on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Why don’t you go drink with the alphas while Usher and I visit? This is going to get boring for you.” I stared intently at him, to let him know I’d fill him in later if there was anything he needed to know.
Abel smiled at me and nodded to Usher. “That sounds like a good idea. Where will you be, if anyone asks?”
I glanced at Usher, who shrugged. “Out front,” I said. “Not far.”
Abel kissed me quickly and sent us on our way.
I took Usher’s hand. “Come on, we can sneak around the side here and no one will notice, hopefully.” The space between the guest house and Uncle Mitchel’s was so narrow hardly anyone other than pups ever used it, so we could likely sneak out through there.
“So you’re going to tell me your secret?” Usher asked as soon as we were out of earshot.
I stopped us under a tree across the street from the guest house. “Oh, Usher, there is no secret. I was pregnant pretty much from the beginning, literally six months pregnant, then six months nursing, then six months pregnant again. If there’s some way to stop the spring heats, I don’t know it.” We sat down a big rock in front of the house, the top worn smooth by the friction of many bums coming in contact with it. “I was as surprised as anyone. I thought it was cancer at first, until Abel said I smelled like another omega who had spring heats. I’d never noticed it—our family has always scented differently.”
“Do I scent differently?” he asked hopefully.
Did he? Could I tell? I tried to think of what Bram smelled like, and what Jason smelled like, and what the other omegas in Buffalo Gap had smelled like. With that in mind, I bent in toward Usher’s neck, drawing in a deep breath through my mouth to take advantage of the tiny organ in the roof of my mouth that made smells so much brighter. Then I tried his underarm, but I couldn’t really decide. He did smell a bit like Jason, and a bit like Bram. “I don’t know,” I finally had to admit. “Your scent reminds me of Bram, who isn’t what I am”—I was still nervous of saying the words True Omega—“But there’s a little bit that’s like Jason. How long have you been having heats?”
“Since right after you left.” He sounded defeated.
“Oh.” There wasn’t much to say about that. “At least you mated, right?”
“Yeah.” He sighed and looked across the street at the party. “Boris.”
Boris was a jack-of-all-trades who was talented enough that he could get work outside walls, in Abilene. It was a good mating. “Wow. No wonder you can afford nice clothes.”
“Yeah,” he said again and looked down at his hands. “He’s okay. There wasn’t much to choose from and when he came to talk to Da about me, I thought having a mate who was well off would make up for it, even if I didn’t much care for him. But it doesn’t. I’m just a trophy.”
I put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “I know what you mean.”
He sat there silently for a moment, then stood, shaking my arm off. “Let’s go back to the party,” he said gaily, though the false note in it made me wince, and he dragged me to my feet. “Maybe we can get up a dance.”
They did, but I didn’t dance. Abel was off talking to Uncle Mitchel, his expression serious, and after my conversation with Usher, my mood had gone from cheery to unsettled. I watched with growing concern while Usher flirted with everything alpha, ignoring his mate, who didn’t seem to care. Usher didn’t seem to care, either, his behavior growing more and more reckless with every drink he downed.
That could have been me, if Patrick had been less controlling. Certainly I would have welcomed the temporary oblivion of alcohol if I could have gotten away with it. At least, if I hadn’t had the pups—they’d been an anchor and a reason to live. But if I hadn’t had them? I shuddered.
Usher disappeared into the crowd and I watched the party for another few moments, until my mother sat down beside me. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
