Page 27 of Omega's Heart
“The brave soldier, the thank-you-for-your-service vote. The we-never-really-thought-of-you-as-self-sacrificing vote. We want you to go out there and remind the humans that we aren’t animals, that we aren’t monsters who are just waiting for a chance to eat them in their beds.” The baby on Quin’s shoulder lifted his head blearily and Quin shushed him, rocking back and forth in his chair. “Easy there, Madoc. No one’s upset. You just sleep.” Quin shook his head. “Has he always been this damn omega about everyone?”
“Lysoon, yes.” Cas gave an exasperated sigh and put his mug down. “Here, I’ll take him. Your heart rate’s probably too high for him now.” He got off the couch and came to take the baby. “Come to Tadu,” he crooned. Then he turned to Kaden. “I never really thought about it until I had him. But I stay up nights worrying about the choices he’ll make and the ones he won’t be allowed to make. Is his entire future going to be nothing but the enclave? I want him to have the same rights as Laine’s daughter, the same choices. If he wants to stay home and have pups and keep a house, I’m happy about that. But if he wants to be a doctor or a firefighter or an electrician or run a business, I want him to have that choice. And I want him to be able to do it outside walls, too, if he wants.” He sat down beside Kaden and held out the baby. “Look at him and tell me you don’t want more for him than we had.”
Kaden wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly he had an armful of grumpy, sleepy baby. He tried to give him back, but Cas was already gone, reaching for his coffee with that desperate for a stimulant expression Kaden remembered from patrol.
Foiled, Kaden glanced down at the baby and was caught by the tiny eyes and the fingers stuffed into the little mouth. Suddenly, it was like he could see the future of the pack stretching forward in the face of this little boy. It was an odd and almost frightening sensation, but staring at the pup, Kaden realized that the old sacrificing for your country saying that got pulled out in every Army speech he’d ever heard applied just as well here. This was what all that death and suffering had been for, so that this pup could live in safety and prosperity.
Evidently, his service to the country wasn’t quite as finished as he’d thought it was.
He looked up at Quin. “What would I have to do?”
C H A P T E R 1 8
I spent the morning puttering around the apartment, checking the phone that Holland had given me over and over, waiting for a summons to help with the Alpha’s brother. It was a pity job, to keep me busy and make me feel like I was contributing, I knew that. There’d probably been complaints from the other painters, uncomfortable with having an omega around who didn’t need them to be an alpha. It wouldn’t matter that I wanted them to be alphas to me, romantically anyway, just that my appearance made them feel unneeded. This wasn’t the first time, though it was possibly the cruelest.
But I was going to do my best, even if it was just for pity. I was going to show them that I could be useful. And a benefit to the pack.
I wanted to stay.
Kaden Salma Wood. I wondered why he had a different pack name.
Julius came through the door, back from his shift at the library. “What are you doing home? I thought you were helping the new alpha?”
“He’s gone on a tour with Alpha Quin.” I checked my phone again.
“You look like you’re waiting for a message from an alpha,” Julius teased.
“I sort of am,” I told him. “I don’t know if I need to make lunch for Kaden or not.”
“Why not make some sandwiches and leave them in the refrigerator for him?”
I could... “It just seems wrong. He’s a soldier. It doesn’t feel right not to make a hot meal for him.”
“He’s probably used to worse. My brother was a soldier for a while. He ate everything you put in front of him, said it was still better than rations.”
“That’s why I want it to be good.” I could make a stew or a soup, something easy to heat up or reheat. Biscuits? Or rolls? I didn’t have time for rolls, I realized, but I could put together a batch of biscuits in the time I had left. “I’m going to put something together. Are you going to be around for lunch?”
Julius shook his head. “Seosamh’s getting food for us at the restaurant and we’re going to eat in the park. I was just home to see if Cale wanted me to bring anything back. But you have fun.”
“I will.”
After a little investigation, I figured out that there was some leftover pork roast, and some ground chicken—they’d be good together. I could shred the pork and mix the two together into meatballs…
Ten minutes later, the meatballs were sizzling in the bottom of the pot and I was dicing old potatoes and new carrots and trimming string beans to go into the pot with the meat. Cheap bouillon cubes and what was left of that tomato from the back of the fridge made up the rest of it.
Dumplings. I could do dumplings instead of biscuits. My stomach grumbled at the thought of rich, tender dumplings, dotted with herbs and cooked in the pot with the stew itself. Enough to eat now and some for later. It could simmer all afternoon after I’d taken some over for Kaden and we’d have enough left for dinner tonight without anyone having to do any extra work.
Was Julius bringing back food for Cale? He hadn’t said anything and I’d assumed he was planning to because he made it part of his routine to keep the Mate’s brother from starving to death.
What did Cale do in there all day, anyway? He said he was studying, only that seemed to be a lot more time spent with his books than anyone I’d ever known. But what did I know about human college courses?
Nothing.
I’d made dumplings so often before that I could make them in my sleep, but it left my brain with too much time to wander. And today, it seemed to be wandering back to my injured alpha. I could see the resemblance between him and Abel and Cas. A little less to Quin, except something in the way they moved and how they seemed to be aware of the world around them no matter the distraction. But maybe that was the military background. Someone—Cale?—had mentioned that Alpha Quin had been in the military too, and had come home to take over the pack from his brother Abel.
My phone rang. I managed not to fumble it—I still wasn’t used to having one of my own. I’d never needed it back home and I’d been shocked when Holland had handed me one shortly after I’d arrived and walked me through how to use it.
“Hello?”
