Page 73 of Abel's Omega
“So, betrothed,” he said, his grin shading from happy to goofy, which endeared him to me even more. “Now it’s really time to start planning our mating. Just don’t break my bank account.”
“Wait, what?” I stared at him, baffled. “It’s the omega’s pack who hosts the mating.”
“Part of the arrangement. And to be honest, it didn’t look like Buffalo Gap could handle the expense. It’s okay. It’ll be easier to have it at Mercy Hills, and that way you can keep control of it.”
“It doesn’t have to be big. I’m happy just to have you.”
He pressed my fingers and let go to sit back properly in his seat. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a huge budget, but if this court case goes our way, I may be able to add to it. And it’s not every day that the Alpha of a pack gets mated, as I’ve been reminded by several people. So we have to spend something on it. I’m afraid it’s not just about us.” He shot Duke a look that said Duke had been one of the ones pushing him to make a splash.
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about that. Sure, every omega I’d ever known had dreamed of an extravagant mating, but I hadn’t realized that when I mated the Alpha of Mercy Hills, my mating was going to become a public affair.
Oh dear.“I’ll make sure it looks more expensive than it is.”
He scratched at his beard and shook his head. “No, spend what you need. I’ll make it happen. There’s something else, and if you really don’t like it, I’ll tell them no, but I think it might be a good idea.”
“What?” I asked uneasily.
He twisted around in his seat again. “Laine, the lawyer who’s handling our case against Jason’s old pack, he called while you were still sick. Anyway, it came up while we were talking, where I was and why I was there.” Abel paused. “He has this journalist friend, and he thinks he can talk the guy into doing a story about us.”
“Why us?” That was what was puzzling me. Humans weren’t particularly well known for their kindly interest in shifters.
Abel went red. Not just a bit of pink on his cheeks, but bright, suspiciously red. I had to bite my tongue, literally, to keep from asking him what he’d done. An omega wasn’t supposed to challenge their mate, let alone their Alpha, but did I ever want to. I compromised by narrowing my eyes at him.
He cleared his throat, glanced over at Duke, then turned his attention back to me. “I, uh, sent him a picture.” He went, if possible, even redder. “I was bragging,” he finished in a smaller voice.
“Bragging?” I told myself firmly not to laugh.
Holland didn’t have that much self-control—I heard the tiniest of snickers from the seat behind me.
Abel’s eyes flicked briefly to the back of the van. “He didn’t think you were as attractive as I said you were.”
“You mean he thought you were head over heels in love and, therefore, not an objective judge.” Duke reached across the front of the van and landed a friendly punch on Abel’s shoulder.
Abel ignored him. “Since he didn’t believe me, I sent a picture. Then he did.”
“You sent a picture.” I was curious about that, but more curious about why he would agree to open our lives up to a journalist. “What would the story be about?”
“A love story. Ours. Romantic pictures, a bit of social and political commentary, lessen the misunderstandings humans have about shifters.”
That would be…good. But I still wasn’t sure I was comfortable with the idea. “How much time do we have to spend with him?”
“Enough so that he gets a story, or stories. It’ll depend—he may not want to do it, but Laine says he likes to pull the establishment’s tail, and that’s something we need.”
I didn’t understand how a story in a newspaper would help, but I was willing to believe that Abel understood it, and I trusted him. “Okay.” Now that the question about the reporter had been answered, I could solve the mystery of my other one. “I didn’t know you had a picture of me.”
“Cell phone. We had the pups out to the playground. It’s a nice picture.”
“Oh.” I held out my hand. “Let me see?”
He pulled out his phone and brought up a picture, then handed it back to me.
It was me and Teca by the climbing bars. She was standing at the top, holding her arms out to me, and I was waiting at the bottom to catch her when she jumped.
Itwasa good picture. I flashed him a flirtatious look, and began swiping through the rest of the pictures. “Apicture?” He had…I lost count. Pictures of me, pictures of the pups, pictures of Macy and Jason and Mac, pictures of pack members. I looked up at him. “When did you manage to take all of these? I didn’t even notice, you sneaky creature.”
He grinned. “I can’t have you with me all the time, so I take pictures.”
Hmmm. I considered the cell phone, and its capacity as a camera.
