Page 48 of Omega's Flight

"I just like Christmas," Bram muttered, but he was smiling so it looked like there were no Bram tantrums in the foreseeable future. Though Cas had to admit the young omega had made up for lost time in the growing up department since he and Duke had mated and had their pups.

"I know," Duke told him. "But we have our own Christmas waiting for us at home." He ran a hand down his mate's back and looked over at the rest of the crowd. "What would you like to do, Raleigh?"

Cas was pleased to notice how Duke kept his tone of voice easy and casual. He was less pleased to scent the sharp smell of anxiety rising off the skin of the omega on the couch beside him. But how to stop that in its tracks?

As per his usual modus operandi if the situation was serious, he poked it with sharp humor. Bounding off the arm of the couch, he swept a wide, over-exaggerated bow in Raleigh's direction and intoned in an accent pulled straight from Fawlty Towers, "We are entirely at your service, sir."

The rest of the crowd went silent in frozen hilarity. Raleigh's jaw dropped for an instant, then he closed it with a snap. His eyes were wide, incredulous.

"No?" Cas said casually. "Maybe you have to be British to get the humor."

Raleigh swallowed and looked around the room. "You're not British," he ventured slowly.

Cas nodded, as if this was a serious discussion. "And a shame that is. Imagine how wonderful I'd be in a courtroom if I sounded like I'd just come from having tea with the Queen."

Mac pulled Cas into a headlock and dragged him away. "I'm telling your brother you've lost your mind."

"It's a hazard of being part of this family," Cas informed him. He let Mac drag him another two feet, then expertly dislodged his head from the crook of Mac's arm. Long practice as the youngest of four brothers—he could squirm out of just about any hold.

Then a tentative voice said, "I'd like to walk over to get the pups. I haven't seen anything of the enclave, except the park and...." Raleigh's voice trailed off.

Cas and Mac looked back toward the couch. Raleigh had stood up and was carefully looping the strands of Christmas lights around his forearm. "If it's not too much trouble. I can probably find my way over myself. Just follow the wall, right?" He set the coil of wire carefully on the couch and peered diffidently over at them from under his lashes.

"No trouble at all," Cas said. "You should put a sweater on, though, if we're walking. Unless Bram can talk that big lug of a mate of his into carrying you."

"Only if you carry me," Duke said dryly. "Do you want to go swimming again?" He grinned, a baring of teeth, daring Cas to keep teasing.

"Swimming?" Jason asked, obviously intrigued.

"Duke and I were in the same grade," Cas informed him. "He was as big a lout then as he is now."

"I used to dump him in the pond every time he booby-trapped my desk, or my door, or my projects. You'd think he'd learn after the fourteenth time, but it took the Alpha talking to him to put a stop to it."

Cas shrugged and held his hands out in a what-would-you-do gesture. "Class was boring. You liked the breaks too." Then he noticed Raleigh's wide, anxious eyes. "Hey, it wasn't like that. He did actually start it."

Bram squinted up at his mate. "Did you?"

"I might have," Duke said smugly.

"I want to hear that story," Bram said, delighted.

"What do I get for it?" Duke laughed and dodged his mate, then trapped him in a bear hug, baby and all. "Let's discuss this when we get home."

"I'm holding you to that," Bram told him. "Let me go so I can track down the other two forces of destruction."

Cas touched Raleigh cautiously on the arm. "So, after all that, have I terrified you to the point that you won't walk across the enclave with me?"

Raleigh looked him up and down, like he was reading Cas's intentions.

"You're fine," Jason said to him, before putting a hand on his mate's arm. "Cas is the trickster of the family, if you know any of the old legends."

"Thought you didn't get to study any of that," Mac commented, leaning back to look down his nose at his mate.

Jason shrugged. "Picked up a bit here and there. I don't remember much about it, except that there's more than one kind of wolf. And Cas is the trickster."

"Don't pay any attention to him," Cas protested.

Raleigh shot him a sharp look. "Even when he says you're harmless?"