Page 23 of Omega's Flight
"Oh, yeah," Cas said, though his expression looked a bit confused. "We got a couple of different sizes. And the pups are all set, though it's a mish-mash of girl and boy things."
"That's fine," Bax said. "I've met his pups. I don't think they'll care." There was a thread of amusement in his words that made Cas look up and grin.
"Oh, good," he said. "Assistants!"
Bax burst out laughing while I looked on, puzzled, and Abel shook his head at the two of them.
Cas glanced over at me and his expression turned a little self-conscious. "I like to keep things lively."
Immediately, I knew that lively was a code-word for mischief and a grin curved my lips in answer to his. Yes, I remembered being a mischievous pup. It seemed that, in Mercy Hills, a shifter could keep some of the puppyhood, even as an adult. It was...nice. A freeing thought. I remembered the silliness that I and the pups got up to and how much fun it had been, and how sad it always seemed that my mate couldn't bear to forget his dignity for a while and join us.
Yes, I was going to like Mercy Hills.
"I made sure there was tea," Cas said. He was speaking to Bax, but as soon as I heard the words, I was ready for tea. I hoped that meant my stomach was done torturing me.
"Then let's have tea," I said. I hugged Bax and whispered, "Thank you. What can I do to make this up to you all?"
He shook his head and whispered back, "We'll talk about that later, once you've had a chance to settle in. The Omega Council will be the one dealing with the situation, but we have help."
"The Omega Council?" I asked as he ushered me and Henry inside the little house. I was so intrigued —and baffled—by his words I almost didn't notice the house as we walked in, but Bax made sure to direct my attention to it. "Oh, it's so cute!"
It was. Not large like the alpha's house, but bigger than what I'd had back in Jackson-Jellystone. And in far better shape, as well as I could judge. Laine was there, and another shifter that Bax introduced as Garrick and the pack's lawyer. I thanked Laine again, but he waved my words away and promised me they'd make everything right. Bax took me on a tour, shooing the alphas into the kitchen to boil water and then laughing at my shocked expression. "We do things a little differently here," he said, and pulled me into a small bedroom the opened into the living room. "This will be Henry's room. I'm sorry it's at the far end from yours, but we set the middle room up for the girls because it was larger."
I wandered around the space, touching the dresser, the bed, the soft blanket on top of it. Henry followed me with wide eyes and a finger stuck in the corner of his mouth. When I offered to let him try out the bed, he hopped up without a word, curled up against the pillow, and examined the stuffed giraffe beside him for a moment before he rolled over and started snuggling down into the pillow.
"Henry-pup, you don't have to go to bed yet—" But his eyes were droopy, and when Bax spread a heavy knitted blanket over him and tucked it in, he smiled, made a tiny yawping noise, and in the next second he was asleep.
"That was unexpected," I muttered. Bax muffled a chuckle and we tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind us. We slipped into the girls' room and he let me explore the clothes in the dresser and closet, and sit on the bottom bunk to stroke the blanket covering it. I looked up at him as he sat beside me. "Thank you so much. It's more than I'd hoped for. I'd imagined us all in one room, or in a tent in someone's back yard."
Bax grimaced and reached to smooth out the blanket where I'd pinched it up between my fingers and I was reminded how he'd been nearly thrown out of his home, put out into the back porch of the alpha's house after his mate died. Him and all his pups, and how the rumors had gone around the pack about him.
Most had been how he was too proud to take a new mate, but there had been some after he'd gone, darker and dirtier, about how he had to have been bringing alphas and betas to his bed and satisfying them while his pups slept in order to make enough money to run away and sell himself to Mercy Hills. Though that last rumor hadn't made much sense—if he'd made money sleeping with the pack alphas, why had he and the pups had so little? Why would he do that, when he would have known it would forever bar him from finding a new mate to care for him?
And I remembered seeing him, not long before he'd disappeared with his pups, his eyes heavy-shadowed with exhaustion and his cheekbones standing out from his face like he hadn't had a good meal in weeks. I remembered wondering what I would do in that situation and the sick, sinking feeling of not having a clue.
And now I'd just reminded him of that bleak, hopeless time.
"You know, I'm glad to see you here, doing so well. Did they really put you in charge of a pack business? And make you talk to humans? I don't think I could have done that. I'd be too nervous of them." I babbled, I had to admit it. But Bax smiled and dragged me over to the closet to see the rows of puppy clothes hanging on the rod.
"Yes, they did, but I much prefer working in the office and being home for my pups. Let Holland handle the public relations, he's much better at it."
I didn't know Holland, though a vague memory of a casual conversation one full moon night surfaced. "Your cousin?"
"He's mated to Quin, the Alpha here. Abel's brother. You'll meet him later, he's waist deep in the preparations for Full Moon tonight."
Oh, that Holland. "I look forward to it," I said, and was only a little surprised to realize it was an honest answer. I wanted Mercy Hills to be like this, where an omega could make choices about their life. Even if I didn't know what I wanted to do it, it was reassuring to see that Bax could choose to spend his on his pups, and that Holland could choose to spend his on the pack.
"Come on," Bax said suddenly. "I'll show you the rest of the place, and then we'll leave you alone to rest. The girls are gone with my pups and Holland's to Jason's for now, so you don't need to worry about them. We'll feed them and if they want to play, we'll take them to Full Moon. And you, for that matter. We can scrounge up a teenager to sit with Henry if he isn't awake in time." He led me into the kitchen where his packbrother was setting mugs on the table and opened the refrigerator, full of more food than I'd seen in a normal family's storage in my life. It was so full that Bax had to move things out of the way to pull out a covered casserole dish. "You can just throw this in the oven, three-fifty for half an hour or so, until it's warm through. There's cookies in the cupboard, juice in the refrigerator for the pups, and I see Cas has made tea." He smiled over his shoulder, and Cas smiled back. I was warmed by the love they showed each other and then warmed again by a hot mug of tea thrust into my hands.
"Drink," Cas said. "You're still as white as Bax's fur."
"That would be pretty white," I said and raised the mug to my mouth. It wasn't the usual minty herbal blend that we drank in the pack, but a spicy sweet mix that I guessed had to have come from a store. A human store. I raised my eyes to Bax's and he winked, so I set aside my discomfort and allowed myself to enjoy my drink. It slipped into my stomach like a ray of sunshine, warming me from the inside out. I waited a moment before my next mouthful, just in case it wasn't going to stay down, but there was none of the nausea, none of the sudden certainty of illness, so I risked another sip, and then another, greedy in my relief.
"Sit down," Cas said, and pulled out one of the chairs that had been tucked in under the table, for all the world as if he were an alpha courting me. I stared blankly at him for a moment, until a touch on my arm from Bax's hand woke me from my surprise and I sank on the seat with unexpected gratitude.
"Thank you," I told him sincerely. "I hadn't realized how tired I was." Which was true. I supposed the adrenaline was wearing off.
"Not surprising," he said, falling into the seat to my right. Another mug steamed on the table in front of it and he picked it up to sniff at it. "Quin said you're looking for a divorce."
