Page 166 of Omega's Flight

That was a novel idea—a gift for the other pups. I'd have to mention it to Cas.

Zane rubbed his eyes and turned toward Holland, as if he'd go to sleep again. "Are Aggie and Dori coming too?"

"Uh huh. Da's probably gone to get them from school already." Holland grimaced and said in a low voice, "Da better already be gone." He put a hand to his side and smiled reassuringly at Zane. "Do you want to take a stuffed animal with you? Maybe Raleigh can help you pick one out, or your Uncle Bax."

"I'll take him down," Bax said. "Raleigh, Ori was going to come over too and he and Cale were going to try to coax Julius into joining us. I was expecting them before this."

"I'll run over and knock on Cale's door," I said, with a glance at Holland for permission to leave, just in case his contractions were harder than he was letting anyone see.

He nodded at me and I made my ponderous way to the door and down the hallway to what had used to be the guest quarters.

I heard voices indistinctly through the door and knocked. Silence fell, and then I heard the soft pad of feet and Cale opened the door. "Hey, what's up?"

"Your brother's wondering what's taking so long," I said and peered past him into the big living-kitchen-dining room that made up this end of the apartment. Felix—Lysoonka but he was big!—was leaning against the end of the cupboards, arms crossed and a look on his face like he wanted to take the other two and hose them down in the park. Julius was just barely in sight, but he looked to me like he'd gotten a grip on the handle of the refrigerator door and was refusing to go anywhere. And Cale, for all his friendly smile, smelled like a wolf who was ready to grab a pup by the scruff and drag him off to wherever.

"You go see to your brother," I told him. "Take Felix with you."

"What about you?"

"I'll be along in a minute."

"Holland wants Julius there."

I nodded. "And he might get him, or he might not." I thought I knew what Holland was up to, but that didn't mean that Julius had to make himself uncomfortable for it. I took a step forward and Cale fell back to keep my belly from ramming into him. "You and Felix go, I'll talk to him. I know you want to be there."

"Yeah, I do." He grinned at me and let out a breath that might or might not have been a sigh. "Okay. Thanks." He twisted to look back over his shoulder. "You coming Felix?"

"We're going?" The tall, burly omega's voice sounded more like a beta's, but his scent was all omega. "Jules, you coming?"

"I'd rather stay here," the young blond said in a small voice. "You go."

"I'll stay with him," I said, and Felix nodded and left with Cale.

"I don't need a babysitter," Julius said with only a hint of petulance in his voice.

I hauled my ready-to-be-done-with-it body over and thumped down into a chair at the kitchen table to look him over. He really was a pretty one, in that pale interesting Wuthering Heights kind of way. Fragile looking. The alphas would be falling all over themselves, once we'd talked him out of the apartment. "I know," I told him. "But I'm fat and it's been a long day and Holland's in labor, so it's not like I'm going home to put my feet up. And I really haven't met you, except for that first night you came in. How are you doing?" I laced my fingers together over my belly and sat back as if I was settling in for a nice gossip.

He gave me a strange look, and stuck even closer to the refrigerator. "My sister's still in jail."

I nodded. "I know. They'll get her out. But it's complicated."

"What's complicated about bringing her here to be in jail?" He nearly wailed the words and slumped down onto the floor.

I could have gotten up and gone to him, but I'd just sat down. "Well, you know how complicated humans can make things."

"No, I don't!"

"Very," I said in my driest, most Holland-y tone. "I know you're upset, but Mercy Hills is spending a household's entire yearly budget every day on your sister, I'd think the least you could do is try to pay back some of that. At the very least, be pleasant and make friends." And then something else occurred to me. "You know, you're allowed to go on with your life, even while she's in prison. If she put herself at that kind of risk to bring you here, that's what she wanted. Seems to me she saw your happiness and future as being worth more than her own. It would be a shame to waste that sacrifice."

Julius looked up at me in shock, his mouth agape, like he had never considered that hiding himself dramatically away in his den might be just a little bit disrespectful to all the people trying to help him. But looking like him, he'd probably never had anyone tell him that. I'd bet he'd had alphas lined up for miles as soon as his first heat hit. Lady of Wolves, I could just imagine how anxious his parents had been when they'd realized what a lunar beauty they had on their hands.

And thinking back to both Nevada Ashes and Jackson-Jellystone, the kinds of expectations that would have been put on him. His family were poor, and he was the kind of beauty that poets wrote about—of course they'd try to secure their retirement with him.

Interestingly enough, I wasn't the least bit jealous. He didn't seem resilient, despite his cross-country escape. Not like Ori. Not like Bax, or Holland, or Bram, or Jason. If anything, I thought he seemed as if he didn't really know how to do things for himself. "Come, be kind to Holland. Birth isn't easy, and while he's worrying about you, he's not focusing on the child of his body." I held out a hand. "Besides, I think I need help getting out of this chair."

He giggled, and I was reminded forcefully that he was only seventeen. "Okay," he said and came over to help me to my feet. "Are you due soon?"

"Couple of weeks. It's a boy." I rubbed my womb with satisfaction.