Page 22 of Omega's Flight

"Yes," I said weakly. "It'll pass."

Bax came close, Henry perched on his hip. "How long has this been going on?"

I shrugged. "Just now. Since last night."

"It should pass soon then." A small frown stitched his brow, and he laid his hand against my forehead. "You don't feel warm."

I shook my head. "It's just puppy sickness, I'm sure. I didn't have it with the first three—guess this one's going to be different." I tried to play it off as no big deal, but the hair of my ruff said otherwise.

He chuckled, but his eyes were concerned and I knew we were both thinking the same thing, that it was too strong for normal puppy sickness. And in the back of my mind, I wondered if it was too much of a coincidence that this nausea had suddenly worsened at the same time that Degan had beaten me around the living room. "You okay to walk, or do you want us to get a wagon to carry you in?" Bax asked slowly, as if thinking hard. "Or Abel could carry you—it's not far."

How humiliating would that be? Let alone being carried by someone's mate. Someone's handsome, kind mate, who had been the subject of a couple of my guilty fantasies before I grew a spine and threw myself into making my mating the best it could be. I still carried a bit of guilt from that, though it had mostly faded by now, but that didn't stop the situation from being more than a little awkward. At least on my side.

Somehow, knowing Bax, I thought he wouldn't have minded. I'd been lonely and disappointed with my life at the time. Later, I'd come to realize it wasn't Abel I'd wanted, but what he represented—a mate that saw me as a person. I still hadn't quite convinced Degan that I was one.

Which was, at the heart of it, why I was here now, trying to start a new life.

"I'll walk. I need to." Hard to explain that the smell of Mercy Hills was becoming inextricably mixed into this new start. I wanted to breath the enclave in, let it become a part of me. And Henry was squirming to get down off Bax's hip, so it wouldn't do him any harm either. And maybe the fresh air and the exercise would ease that near constant cramp in my belly that I wanted to ignore.

Abel watched me with worried eyes. "Then come on," he said gently. "But if you start to feel dizzy, say something, okay?"

"I will," I said, because I owed him at least that. "I promise."

Henry slithered down Bax's body and came to hang off my hand. "Where go, Papa?"

"Home, Henry-boy," I told him. "New home."

Abel snorted and made a face. "It's not exactly new. We're still just barely keeping up with population and Quin was planning to knock these houses down."

"Oh." Well, I should have expected that. They owed me nothing—the fact that I was getting a house at all was a miracle. "You're very generous."

"The houses aren't that bad," Bax put in. He looped his arm through my free one and we began walking off through a small grove of trees. "Quin wants something modern and efficient and he thinks the amount of money that will be needed to make the houses modern would be better spent on new houses. Abel," he tipped his head merrily toward his mate, pacing quietly a step behind us, "thinks we need to preserve our heritage."

"What do you think?" I asked, then bit my lip for an idiot. Throw him in the pit trap, why not?

"I think they're both silly, but this isn't my personal heritage, so I'm keeping my muzzle out of it."

Abel's low chuckle behind us startled me, but Bax's answering one woke up the part of me that remembered when my relationship had been young and new and we hadn't yet gotten into the habit of disappointing each other. Could they still be like that, even four years along?

We broke through the trees just as I was desperately trying to come up with something else to say to redirect the conversation onto a topic less controversial, and surprise and awe brought me to a dead stop. "They're gorgeous!"

"They need repair," someone said. The voice sounded a little like Abel's, but younger, and where Abel's sounded like that of an Alpha, this one was sharp and nimble and yet full of good humor.

A slim figure appeared from the gloom of the covered porch on the front of the house. "Everything's done." He walked out into the light and I realized he had to be related to Abel—there was no way that kind of resemblance was coincidental.

"My brother, Cas," Abel said, confirming my guess. "This is Raleigh, Cas. And Henry."

"Hi," Cas said, and held out his hand.

I stared at it in confusion, then realized it was a human gesture. He didn't smell human though.

"Oh, shit, yeah. I forget that some of the packs don't mix as much. Sorry, I was in school with the humans for seven years, the habits rub off." He leaned in and offered the side of his neck to me, for all the world as if I was another alpha.

I paused, startled, then leaned forward and accepted the offered scent. It was nice and if I hadn't been mated, I thought I would have found it attractive. As it was, all I could do was appreciate the surprising wildness of him while I offered my own more homely scent. Henry hung off my arm and hid behind my leg, until Cas crouched and offered my little boy the same polite consideration. Henry looked up at me in worry, but I nodded and nudged him forward. The look of determination on his face both broke my heart and made me want to laugh at the silliness of it, but he shared a credible greeting with the strange alpha, then hid himself behind my legs again.

Thank you, I mouthed to Cas. He shrugged nonchalantly and quirked a smile in my direction and I felt the tightness in my neck and back ease off another notch.

Bax cleared his throat, breaking up our exchange. "Let's get him inside and settled. Were you able to find any clothes?"