Page 64 of Abel's Omega

“I want him to come back.”

And I was glad he was gone, but I wasn’t a three-year-old who’d just lost his moon and stars. “I know, baby, but you know he can’t. He’s up there in the Moonlands, watching over us. Making sure we’re safe.”

Fan rolled over and stared up at me, red eyed and teary. “Do you miss Pappuh, Dabi?”

How to answer that question without lying? “He was my mate for four years, sweetie, and he gave me you and Teca and Beatrice and Noah. I owe him a lot.” I picked him up and set him on my lap, rocking him gently with his head on my chest. It was almost like when he was a baby, and I smiled fondly at those memories.

“Do you think he knows that we aren’t home anymore? Do you think he’s mad ‘cause we left?”

Here was my chance. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

Abel peeked around the edge of the door, clearly wondering if there was anything he could do to help. I shook my head and waved him away, then turned my attention back to the little boy in my lap.

“I think that Pappuh sent us here, so that we’d be looked after. He wanted you to be happy and safe, and I think he sent us here to find Abel, because he wanted you to have another Alpha to teach you how to be a good one.” And Abel would sure as hell do a better job than Patrick would have.

Fan peered up at me. “Really?”

“I’m absolutely certain of it. He didn’t have time before the accident to set things up, so I think he had to do it from the Moonlands. And that’s why it took a while for us to figure out that we were supposed to be here. Because they don’t get mail there.”

Fan giggled at that, and snuggled back against my chest with a watery sniff. “Dabi, do you think he wants Abel to be my new Pappuh?”

“I think he wants you and Abel to be friends. Pappuh is Pappuh, but maybe Abel can be something else for you?”

“And he’ll look after you too?”

“Yes. He’s promised, he’ll look after me too. All of our family.”

Fan squirmed in my lap. His head thumped against my chest, but I knew he wasn’t fighting me now. He’d always needed to be moving in order to process anything, and the fact that he’d gotten this wiggly meant that he was doing some real thinking. “He’s not my Pappuh,” he blurted.

I rocked him and rubbed his back. “No, he’s not, and he doesn’t expect to be. But he does want to be your friend. And your mentor still. And you’ll grow up to be a big, strong alpha someday, and maybe you’ll have the chance to help someone else’s family too.”

That gave my little boy something to think about. He sat in my lap while I rocked him, swinging his feet and playing with my fingers while he figured out how all the change fit into his life.

Finally, his movements slowed. He tipped his head back to look up at me. “Do I have to call him Pappuh?”

“No!” I shook my head vigorously. “You can call him Abel. That’s who he is.”

“Oh.” Fan laid his head on my chest. “I like the blocks.”

“They look like good blocks.”

He nodded.

I rubbed his back. “You ready to come back out for a while? We’re going to have some breakfast and enjoy our presents, and then there’s a big dinner in the park. A ton of turkeys on a spit. And pie.”

“Pie?” Fan sat up.

“Pie,” I confirmed. “Come on, you can build something while I make breakfast.”

“Okay.”

I carried Fan out to the living room. There, I found Noah in wolf form dragging his sheep around by one soggy leg, Beatrice drawing on the floor with her new crayons, and Abel teaching Teca what looked like the steps of Run the River, a children’s pack dance.

I stared at the lines of wax on my floor, then looked around at my happy pups.Fuck it.Abel obviously didn’t mind.

Abel left Teca to practice her steps and came over to Fan and I. “I wonder if I could borrow Fan to help me bring something up from downstairs?”