Page 119 of Omega's Heart
I put a hand on Hunter’s neck to make sure he didn’t do anything he shouldn’t—he was good with me and Kaden and our family, and with the pups, but this was a strange territory and an unknown human, and he’d had a few incidents today on the road that had taught me caution.
Hunter gazed back at him warily but either he was distracted by the jerky in my hand or he’d decided that the young human wasn’t any sort of threat to him. I noticed Bax watching us intently, with an uncomfortably intense expression on his face.
“Can I touch him?” the human asked.
“I don’t know.” I crouched down beside Hunter and got his attention. “No snapping, you hear me? You treat him just like you would any guest.” I pinned him with the evil eye, then nodded at the human. “Move slowly. If he gets anxious, move slowly away. He’s usually good if you don’t move fast.” Which was true, though not all the story.
The human carefully stroked Hunter’s fur, finding the spots behind his ears that always made my adopted pup croon in contentment. Hunter didn’t go all limp and happy for this attention, but he did relax a little, accepting the caress.
“It might sound silly,” the human told him seriously, “but I want to thank you for your service. I can see it cost you and I’m glad you’ve got someone to help you through it.” He withdrew as carefully as he’d approached, getting to his feet and facing me with slow caution. “The jerky is on the house. We give military discounts here on store purchases. I don’t imagine he’s got a debit card, though,” he said and grinned.
“I can pay for it—” I began, but the human waved me off.
He reached carefully out to Hunter again for a last scratch before retreating behind his counter again. “You guys should get going or you’ll miss curfew. Take the straight road from here—it’s fastest.”
“Thank you,” I blurted, suddenly aware of the ticking of the clock. “And Hunter says thanks too.”
The human waved as we bolted out the door and threw ourselves into the van.
“I was just about to go looking for you,” Abel complained gently as he put the van in gear and sped out of the parking lot.
“Hunter got thanked for his service in the military,” Bax explained. “It was nice.”
I was busy opening the first package of jerky while Fan buckled the pup in. “You can share,” I reminded Hunter, and offered some to Fan and then, because it was only good manners, some to Veronica too.
“No, thank you,” she said, eyeing the gift like it was half rotten or had been picked out of the garbage.
“More for us,” Fan said in a cheerful tone, skillfully avoiding his bearer’s stern look. “Can I give it to him?”
“Sure. Watch your fingers. He gets greedy sometimes.”
“Like Noah,” Fan agreed, carefully piecing out the chunks of meat to feed to Hunter. Hunter settled down on the seat and happily gorged himself on the dried meat. I was glad to see that Fan had taken previous warnings to heart and wasn’t letting him eat too fast. We were still working on convincing Hunter he didn’t need to inhale every meal, but it was a tough job.
We finished the package between the three of us, and I put the leftover half of the other package in the cooler to give to Hunter later. By then, the walls of the enclave were rising high above us and the clock was ticking down—nine-fifty-six, nine fifty-seven.
We pulled up to the gatehouse at nine fifty-eight on the dot. Bax had our papers out, ready to hand over before we’d even come to a full stop. I’d given him our copy of Hunter’s papers too, to show that he was being fostered in Mercy Hills for rehabilitation, so I hoped we wouldn’t have any of the same trouble getting into White River as we’d had getting out of Mercy Hills.
“You folks are cutting it close,” one of the guards said. He glanced at the paperwork, stamped whatever he needed to stamp, then waved us in. “Get going, we have to close the gate.”
“Thank you,” Abel said, shoving the papers at Bax in a wild flurry and putting the van in drive. We squirted through the opening and, almost before the back of the van crossed into the pack proper, I could hear the hum and clunk of the gates being pulled into place.
“Let’s not do that again,” Abel muttered. Bax reached across the front of the vehicle to lay a calming hand on Abel’s knee and then we’d pulled into the shipping courtyard, where it looked at first glance like half the pack had come out to meet us. It wasn’t, but it was a lot more of my family than I’d expected to see when I arrived.
And then Kaden was there, pulling the side door of the van open and reaching in for my hand, and I totally forgot everyone around us. “Hi,” I said, suddenly shy.
“Hi yourself,” he replied and, careless of the crowd around us, he pulled me hard against him and kissed me.
I heard the whoops and titters from the crowd around us, but only faintly over the sound of the blood pounding in my ears as my heart raced with excitement. Tomorrow night, he could give me more than kisses. Lysoonka, I was so excited.
Warm pressure against my leg forced me to break this very pleasant greeting with my soon-to-be mate. I looked down to find Hunter hiding behind me, his eyes fixed on Kaden but his ears flicking anxiously back and forth with the noise of the unfamiliar shifters.
“We’ll have to remind them to be careful around him,” Kaden said. He still hadn’t let me go, and I wasn’t going to try to escape.
Hunter whined and leaned harder against me until Kaden kissed me briefly again and crouched to say hello to our foster pup. “Hey, missed you too, buddy.” His nostrils flared and he raised his eyebrows at me. “He smells like jerky.”
“I’ll explain that later. I think you’ll laugh.”
Kaden grinned at me, then turned back to Hunter. “You’re going to have to remember that this is your family now, okay? No biting, no growling. Got it?”
