Page 47 of Omega's Heart
Holland looked over with a smile when they arrived. “Hello, love,” he said and reached out to pull Quin to him. “This is Senator Johnson. I think you’ve heard Garrick talk about him.”
“All good, I hope,” the human said. His smile was that of a career politician—warm, friendly, and absolutely not a reason to drop your guard with him.
Kaden had had commanding officers like that. Lots of them.
Quin held out a hand in that human gesture of greeting. “Very,” he said and shook the human’s hand. “This is my brother, Kaden Salma Wood.”
“Salma Wood? I thought you were Mercy Hills?”
“We take our pack name from the pack we’ve made our home,” Holland put in smoothly. “I was born Buffalo Gap, but when I mated Quin I became Mercy Hills.”
“Ah. We do that as well, though it’s generally the women who change their names.” The senator appeared to dismiss the idea out of hand in favor of turning back to Kaden. “I understand you were injured overseas.” His eyes skated over the chair, the scars that edged the left side of Kaden’s face. The missing fingers that Kaden fiercely refused to hide. After all, if he could live with it, then so could they.
Kaden nodded briefly. “I was. Could have been worse. Some of my squadmates never made it home at all.” He still couldn’t bring himself to throw out the letter that Honisloonz’ mother had written, thanking him for going back for her son. Not that it had done anyone any good—Honisloonz was dead, and he was what he was.
He also couldn’t bring himself to visit that pack, though he’d already made plans to speak to some of the others.
The human nodded solemnly. “It’s a terrible thing, war. I’d like to see us focus within our own borders, myself. We have enough trouble here in our backyard, why are we wasting manpower in someone else’s country?”
“They don’t have the manpower themselves, sir. It’s much more complex than it seems on the surface,” Kaden said in an attempt at honesty, knowing even as he did so that he might be ruining whatever plan it was that the president was trying to set in motion.
“I’d be interested in sitting down with you and talking about it if you have a moment someday,” the senator said in the thoughtful voice. “I’ve heard everything the four-stars and three-stars have said about it, but I’ve never really thought about what the man on the ground might know or think. Sometimes the big guys need the little guys to help them see the forest for the trees.”
For a moment, Kaden thought the human was attempting—badly—to make a joke, some acknowledgment of their different species. But a moment of watching the small shifts in facial expression clued him in—the man was used to being in charge. Likely had never thought about the shifters eking out a living in his district. He wasn’t even aware of how encroaching his words had been.
Kaden smiled and nodded regardless, because even as someone who had zero interest in running a pack or the politics that went with it, he knew which side of the tree the best den was found on.
The rest of them seemed to be of the same mind—even Holland’s expression looked pained for a moment before he painted his cheerful Alpha’s Mate smile back over it again. “That would certainly be an interesting point of view,” Holland pointed out and leaned into Quin’s side in a way that communicated his desire to have Quin step in here as strongly as words would have.
Quin patted his mate’s hand and started a conversation with the senator about new interstate laws regulating how processed food could be transported and the extra costs associated with them. Kaden quickly checked out of the conversation—he didn’t know how Quin did it, but maybe that difference between them explained why Quin had retired at the highest rank open to shifters, while Kaden himself was still muddling around somewhere about halfway up the ladder. He glanced around, caught Abel’s eye, and excused himself to go talk to whoever his brother was monopolizing.
“Kaden, this is Mike Craig,” Abel explained. “Mike, this is my brother Kaden Salma Wood.”
“How are you?” Mike asked, holding out a hand, then pulling it halfway back. “I guess that’s not really how you folks say hi. Is it okay to use your greetings, or is that over-reaching?”
Abel raised an eyebrow at Kaden, who tilted his head ever so slightly as if to say I don’t know. Ask Quin.
Mike looked back and forth between them. “Oh, it is. That’s okay. Better to ask and know for sure, right?”
“Honestly? I don’t think anyone’s ever asked before,” Abel mused. He shrugged, shot a glance in Quin’s direction, then leaned forward a little and tipped his head to expose the side of his neck. “You know what to do?”
“Exchange of scent, right?”
“If the higher ranked person offers it, yes. Otherwise, it’s just the lower ranked one,” Kaden explained. “Family hardly ever does it.”
“Well, not our family,” Bax said with a laugh as he rejoined the group. “What are you three up to?”
“Cultural exchange,” Abel replied promptly.
“Uh huh,” Bax said with narrowed eyes before turning to Kaden. “Kade?”
“They’re teaching me to give a proper shifter greeting,” Mike said before Kaden could reply. “I’m gathering it’s more complex than I’d realized.”
“There’s a structure to it,” Abel told him, abandoning his pose in order to continue the lesson. “In a formal greeting, the lower ranked one always offers their scent. If the higher ranked one is feeling benevolent or wants to acknowledge the value of the lower ranked one, then they will offer theirs after. But they don’t have to. And if the lower ranked one refuses to offer, then it can be taken as a real insult. We mostly don’t fuss about it in the enclave. Everyone’s too busy.”
“A guest, even one that was higher ranked, would also offer scent first, to show that they’re there for peaceful purposes,” Kaden added, and Bax nodded in agreement.
Mike turned to Kaden. “I have so many questions,” the human told him. “Would you be okay with it if we sat down somewhere and you helped me understand how this all works?”
