Page 50 of Omega's Heart
Eventually, Quin broke the silence. “I need to know if this is your own free choice. This isn’t like going to school with the humans or working short term jobs with them. This is going to put you out in plain view, and in a job where they might see you as having more status than them.”
“I know,” Kaden said calmly.
Holland put a hand on Quin’s arm. “He wants to do it, love. But he also wants to know that we’re not going to meddle in his choices.”
A shiver ran down Kaden’s spine. “Stay out of my head,” he told his brother’s mate.
“It was just a stray thought. You practically tossed it in my lap,” Holland protested, mouth open to continue his argument. But he stopped immediately when Kaden shook his head.
“If you’re not going to accept my word on things without poking around inside my mind, I’m not going to do it. You need to trust me.”
“We do,” Holland said. “It isn’t you.” He bit his lip and looked away.
Quin picked up Holland’s hand and brought it to his lips. “It’s me,” he said, staring at Kaden over the rise of Holland’s knuckles. “We need this. The pack is content with the progress we’ve made, for now. But how long will that last before what we have inside walls isn’t enough anymore?” He kissed Holland’s fingers again. “I’m trying not to push, but the balancing act is hard. If we ever want more than to be charity cases, we need this, but I don’t want to sacrifice family for it. If you aren’t comfortable, we’ll find another way.”
Ah. “You are such a fucking white knight,” Kaden told him. “I would have told you if I’d felt anything really off about it. Now fuck off and pass the eggrolls. I’m hungry again.”
Abel and the omegas laughed, and even Quin let a smile curl his lips as he hooked the container with the eggrolls and dragged it across the table. “Eat up, hero,” he said and fended off a half-hearted chopstick attack by Kaden.
“You know,” Abel said in a thoughtful voice. “Mom’s going to shit.”
Bax let out a snort of laughter and he and Holland bumped fists, then Bax apologized to Kaden. He waved it off—just because he loved her didn’t mean he was blind to her faults. And he was, truthfully, uncertain of what her response would be. The omegas might not be so wrong in their attitude.
About this, anyway.
C H A P T E R 3 2
H e and Abel had dropped Quin and the omegas off at the airport and then gone straight to the hospital to check in for Kaden’s appointment.
It was funny how he’d known Felix had been mad at him for wanting to wear the leg here, despite none of the anger showing on the omega’s face or in his scent. It was in the way he’d fussed while Kaden was packing, when fussing wasn’t his usual manner. But he’d certainly fussed over Kaden the morning they’d left for Washington.
In someone else it might have been annoying, but he knew that it was just Felix’s way of being worried. Which touched some part of him he’d thought dead years ago and buried in the dry sand.
The early August morning was hot and the effort of grinning through the pain in his stump made him sweat, but the air conditioning in the hospital quickly took care of that. Within moments of having walked through the big front doors, the dampness that had broken out between Kaden’s shoulder blades and around his hairline chilled, then evaporated into the currents of air brushing over him, sucking away the heat of the day.
Kaden almost felt normal here, in among the staff and the patients, men and women with scars like his, the missing parts of their bodies compensated for with steel and vinyl and wood. Like coming home.
The waiting room was hospital standard, with sturdy, ugly as fuck chairs lined up against the walls and magazines that were either old as the hills or nothing that anyone would ever want to read. Kaden leaned back in the chair in the waiting room of the clinic he’d been directed to and stretched his leg out in front of him, loosening the prosthetic some even though it really didn’t help.
Abel looked up from his phone. “Leg sore?”
“My butt,” Kaden said sourly. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”
Abel shrugged and looked back down at his phone. “Like the omega pack would let that happen. I know which side of the tree my den is on.”
Kaden couldn’t help his snort of laughter. “It’s not like it’s my driving leg that’s missing.”
Abel shrugged again and put his phone away. “We don’t tend to go out on our own, not since that young fellow up north got beaten to death.”
“I didn’t think that it was that bad down here.”
“It’s worse, in some ways. We’ve worked hard to be useful and non-threatening, but that just lets us get closer to the edge of the pit trap before we notice it’s there. I don’t think the isolationists are right, but they’re at the least safer behind their walls.”
“Poor, though. Starving. That isn’t life, it’s survival.” Kaden put his magazine down and discreetly tried to adjust the leg so Abel wouldn’t have any more stories to tell when they got home. “It’s about time we had better than that.”
“That’s what we’re trying for.” Abel shook his head. “I’m not real comfortable with it, but that Mutch money couldn’t have come at a better time. The problem now is going to be to decide which of the other packs is the second guinea pig. Your problem, I guess. If you’re taking that job, you’re going to have to finish your evaluations pretty soon.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to talk to Quin and Holland about speeding that up.” He’d been lazy about it, knowing that it was just a pity job. Not that it didn’t need to be done, but it could just as easily have been done by phone as by sending him around to tour the different packs and talk to their Alphas. “I wouldn’t pick an isolationist.”
