Page 155 of Omega's Flight

"We'd better find him," Holland said in a worried tone and rushed out the door.

I started to go after him, but stopped just inside the door and turned back to Degan's mother. "Now, why did you bring that on yourself? You're not stupid. You know what we are." And then I left.

Bax and Holland were hiding behind a small cluster of trees in someone's yard three houses down. Laughing so hard they had tears running down their cheeks. "Did she believe it?" Bax demanded when I got there, clutching my arm and leaning his forehead against my shoulder as if he couldn't stand up straight. I started to giggle, then laugh, and soon all three of us had slid down to the ground in exhausted hilarity.

"Quin's going to have my hide," Holland wheezed.

"Abel too," Bax agreed, then grinned. "Worth every bit of the lecture. The best part is, it's all true right now."

He was right—Osberta was mean, cantankerous, never satisfied, and had to nag and threaten her pups to come visit her now. Bax's 'curse' had already come true. I started to laugh and snorted instead, which just set us all off again. I didn't even feel guilty for having helped Bax's little bit of revenge along.

We did eventually laugh ourselves out.

Holland sighed and then yawned widely. "We should go find Degan, Raleigh. We need to have a talk." He didn't make a move to get up, though.

"Yeah," I said lazily.

Holland poked my hip. "You first. He's yours, after all."

"Was, he was mine. And I can't wait to get home to my is mine." I giggled a little again, thinking of Osberta.

"Come on, then," Holland said, getting to his feet with the agility and energy of a ninety-year-old. "Let's get your contract torn up and the pups packed. Then we can fight about who gets to drive and who gets to nap."

"Not it," Bax said immediately and laughed as Holland pulled him to his feet.

"All right. But I'm napping as soon as we get home." Holland reached down for me and I let him help me up. "Which way from here?"

I glanced around and realized that the place was already strange to me; Mercy Hills was more home than this place had ever been. "This way," I said, leading off down the road. We'd find Degan and put my little family back together. And then we'd go home, to the person who had made me realize what home realize was.

C H A P T E R 1 0 7

I t wasn't the same without Raleigh around, even though he'd only been gone one day. Life was dull and Cas found himself sleeping on Raleigh's side of the bed, as if that could bring the omega closer to him. And the house was too quiet, especially with the pups gone.

So he worked. A lot.

He accidentally picked up the phone when his mother called on the morning of the second day. It should have been Garrick calling with an update, and so he hadn’t checked the screen before answering.

“Casimir, what is this I’m hearing about you picking up with a mated omega?” was her opening salvo. “Have you all run lunar over there?”

He hung up on her and, when she called back again immediately after, he blocked her and texted his brothers to warn them of the incoming storm.

Halfway through the afternoon of the second day, Cas hung up the phone after Garrick's weekly update and it rang again immediately. He stared at it a moment with his teeth bared, figuring it for another of his maternal cousins calling to guilt him about how he treated his mother, then sighed and answered the damn thing. "Cas."

"Hello.” Raleigh's voice. "Did I call at a bad time?"

"Never," Cas declared, his mood brightening. "How's the trip going?"

"I have so much to tell you," Raleigh said. "I don't know if you're going to be spitting mad or if you're going to laugh until you cry, but I think this one will make you happy."

"Oh? What mischief have you been up to?"

"That's the thing that's probably going to make you spitting mad," Raleigh admitted. "But I'm bringing home that contract, it's in my bag right now. I thought you might like to give up your apartment and move the last of your things into the house."

Cas sat up, all else forgotten. "He agreed?"

"Gave the contract to me this afternoon. Said he was going to tear it up himself, but he thought that in Mercy Hills the omega probably had just as much right to end the mating as he did. He's changed, Cas, or maybe he's just had a chance to become the person he should have been. I don't know, but it's wonderful!"

A sharp pain settled in Cas's chest. "Then, he's coming back with you?" He'd hoped—selfishly— Degan would stay in the other enclave so he could try to forget him.