Page 50 of Omega's Flight

Yes, I thought I could make a home here.

C H A P T E R 3 6

C as could hear the pups rampaging around even before they'd made it in the door. The air was filled with the storming of feet through the halls, and Abel's voice rose above it all in what sounded like a vain attempt to corral them into some semblance of organization. He made a face at Raleigh, coaxing another uncertain laugh out of the omega, then bravely opened the front door. "Is it safe, or should we go and come back with body armor?"

"Cas!" one of the pups yelled, and then Pip came barreling around the corner to throw herself at him. "I have a joke."

"Oh?" he said warily. He caught a glimpse of Bax's did you really? expression through the door, and Abel's unrepentant grin. "What is it?"

She took a breath and composed herself, just as if she was giving a speech in front of her classmates. "What do you call two thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?"

Like he hadn't heard that one a hundred times already. But this was a five-year-old, he couldn't scorch her the way he would anyone else. "What?"

"A good start!" she yelled and ran away giggling.

Cas glanced up and caught Abel's eye. "Don't think I don't know where that came from," he warned his brother.

"Quin does have a strange sense of humor," Abel said affably. "Are you coming inside, or not?"

"Just for a minute." He stepped aside to let Raleigh go first, only to find the omega hanging behind him as if he were afraid to go through the door.

"Come in, Raleigh," came Bax's voice around the corner from the kitchen. "He's being polite. You're a guest."

Raleigh flicked a glance at Cas, still waiting. Cas held out a hand as if to usher Raleigh in and tried to put himself in the other shifter's shoes. He'd learned from his packbrothers that he had a certain sort of privilege he'd never considered, but here, faced with this foreign omega's anxiety and watchfulness, he felt it like being plunged underwater and unable to come up, his lungs burning in his chest for just one more chance at the air above him. "He's right, you know," Cas told Raleigh. "You're still a guest to us. Give it a few weeks, though, and we'll be treating you like family."

"Which usually means having to fight for the biggest piece of cake," Abel said. "Come in, you're letting the heat out." A pup in wolf form darted out of the living room and attached itself to Abel's pant leg. He ignored it magnificently as he led Cas and Raleigh through into the kitchen, dragging the pup along on the floor.

"Oh, good, you've swept the floor," Bax said as they entered the room. "I've been meaning to do that."

"This new broom is kind of awkward," Abel told him and headed for the cupboard where they kept the mugs.

Bax laughed and set aside the pie whose crust he'd been pinching. "Tea? Coffee? Raleigh, you sit down. You shouldn't be on your feet." He moved to the sink and began to wash his hands.

Cas leaped in to pull out a chair. "I thought about going to get one of the cars, but Raleigh wanted to see a little of the enclave."

"There's plenty of time for that," Abel reminded him. "You should have used one of the cars." There was a hint of the old Alpha in his voice and Cas felt his skin twitch as he fought not to bow down before it. Abel cocked an eyebrow at him. "You want to set out some cookies? Bax and Holland made those jam shortbreads you like so much."

As apologies went, it was a decent one, though it wasn't going to stop Cas from kicking himself for not going for the car. "Sure."

"There's some fruit in the refrigerator that can be put out for the pups," Bax said, hinting heavily.

"I can get that," Raleigh said in a tentative voice.

The words popped out of his mouth before he even realized. "No, you sit," Cas told him. "Bax is right." He got out a couple of plates, as familiar with this kitchen as he was with his own tiny one and laid out the fruit for the pups first.

Bax leaned in around him to pluck the carton of milk out off the shelf on the door. "There's a cream dip to go with the fruit in the blue dish," he said in a low voice. "If you put some of that out, they won't bother us at all until it's all gone."

"This is why Abel mated you, isn't it? You're a genius." He grabbed the blue plastic container and set it on the counter.

"He's mine," Abel said, dropping a kiss on the side of Bax's neck. "Get your own."

Cas and Bax both snorted at the same time, then grinned at each other. "You want coffee?" Bax asked. "And there's a yellow plastic bowl on the second shelf there that's good for the fruit dip."

"Love some." Cas found the yellow bowl and poured the dip into it. "Be right back."

He found the pups in Fan's bedroom upstairs, piled on the bed and on the floor with a movie being mostly ignored on the laptop on his dresser. "Hey, Dabi sent me up with snacks," he said.

Fan and Pip looked up from the pile of Lego they were building with. "Oh, sauce!" Fan exclaimed and turned to Pip. "It's awesome!"