Page 160 of Omega's Flight

"Breakfast will be ready soon." I prodded the ham and reached for the bowl of raw egg and the clean soup can I'd cut both ends off to make a form to fry the eggs in. "Go see what's under the tree and I'll call you when it's ready."

She nodded obediently, came over to give a sleepy hug to both myself and Cas, then disappeared into the living room with the other two, who were already whooping over their gifts.

Ann came running into the kitchen with her ballerina outfit waving from one hand. "Papa, look what Midwinter Wolf brought! Do you think he was listening?"

"I'm sure he was," I said gravely. "Do you want help putting that on?"

"Please," she begged.

"I'll look after breakfast," Cas said, taking the egg flipper from me.

I wandered off after Ann, stopping to peep into the living room to see Henry with his new trucks scattered all over the floor, and Pip scowling thoughtfully as she carefully tucked a slide under the little clips on the platform of her new puppy microscope. Ann was already out of her pajamas and trying to figure out which end of the ballerina dress was up. I laughed and untangled it so she could climb in, then held her hand so she could pirouette out to the living room to show off the gauzy skirt.

"I'm gonna get my princess crown," she announced and dropped my hand, disappearing back into their bedroom.

A faint ringing sound caught my attention, coming from mine and Cas's bedroom. It might have been Degan, but it didn't sound like his ring. Maybe one of the brothers calling Cas. I swung by the bedroom and picked up his phone just as the ringing stopped.

It started again before I'd made it back to the kitchen.

Silently, I handed it to Cas and waited while he answered. I think he caught some hint from my expression, because he answered the call from Holland with unusual wariness. "Hi." And I watched as the color drained out of his face. "How bad?" He listened some more, then, "Does he want me to go with him?" He took a deep breath and reached out for me and I let him gather me in, close enough I could hear Holland's last words as he said, "We'll know more once he gets there, and you know as well as I do that he talks that talk better than any of the rest of us. If he needs you, we'll send you, but for now we—"

"He's my brother too. Both of them are. You're going to let him go out there by himself?"

The line was silent for long enough I thought the call must have dropped, then Holland said quietly, "All right. You're right. We're arranging the paperwork now, I'll add your name." And then, softer still, "Thank you, Cas."

Cas cleared his throat. "It's okay. Who's taking over in the meantime?"

"Me." Holland laughed. "And Abel, but he's got the release of the project management software coming up, so he's really only there to deal with people who refuse to talk to an omega."

"I'll let Garrick know I won't be able to play law student for him for a bit. He should be okay, though, it's just preliminaries right now."

“Julius has to go for this part of the trial. We’re going to send Seosamh back with him, I guess. I was planning to go with him, but we don’t know how long Quin and now you will be gone.”

"Were you talking to Garrick already?"

"Yeah, he was going to fly home today, but this possibility opened up yesterday. He's presenting arguments as soon as courts open again after the holidays."

Cas pressed a kiss to my temple and mouthed, I'm sorry. I scowled at him. Don't be ridiculous, I mouthed back.

The smell of singing ham drifted past my nose. "Shit," I spat and twisted out of Cas's arms to go try to rescue breakfast. "Find out when you're leaving," I told him. "Do I have time to feed you?"

"They're still doing up the emergency paperwork. Relax, we're probably not going until tomorrow, if then."

I couldn't hear Holland anymore, but he must have said something because Cas grinned and ran his fingers down my spine. "Yeah, he's getting all omega-y on me." I raised a hand over my shoulder and lifted the middle finger while I set the tin cans on the frying pan with my free one, and Cas laughed.

"Yeah, he just flipped me off. Call me if you hear anything more, okay?" He went quiet for a moment, then said, "I'll ask." He held the phone away from his mouth and asked, "You want to go to Abel's for Christmas Dinner? I know we were going to do something with Degan and Connie..."

"I can let him know when I take the pups up," I said, loud enough for the words to carry to Holland I hoped. I heard a faint laugh, tight and strained but a valiant effort, and turned back to the frying pan. Cas would fill me in on the details once he was off the phone.

Which ended up being about thirty seconds later. "Thank you," he said, hugging me from behind. I got the impression that it was a hug for comfort more than his usual hug because usually he liked to molest me subtly whenever he did it.

"What happened?" I asked, tentatively picking the first tin up off the surface of the frying pan and poking the eggs to see if they were done yet.

Cas's grip tightened on my waist and he let his chin rest on top of my head. "We don't have the whole story yet, but it looks like Kaden's going to be home earlier than we'd expected."

"That's good, though, isn't it?" Then it hit me—there weren't too many reasons for a soldier to be discharged early. And Cas had gone white, like Holland's fur. "Oh, no, what happened?" I turned off the stove and spun around catch Cas's hands in mine.

"He's lost his left leg below the knee, and part of his left hand. We don't know about his eye or his hearing on that side yet, there's still too much swelling."