Page 101 of Omega's Heart

Hunter whined again, a little louder, and Kaden’s arm around my shoulders twitched. “Oh, for… Get up here then.” He opened one eye and stared balefully at me while Hunter gleefully burrowed under the sheets and made himself comfortable pressed up against Kaden’s other side. “What are we going to do next spring when we have two of them?”

“Get a bigger bed?” I suggested.

He closed his eye again. “You are in so much trouble.”

I grinned and suppressed a laugh, jamming a knuckle into my mouth to keep my amusement from escaping. “I’ll take my lumps.”

He grumbled but the corner of his mouth turned up and then the rise and fall of his chest steadied and I knew he’d gone back to sleep.

But the smile stayed.

C H A P T E R 5 9

Someone had to pick his mom up from the airport and it only made sense that Kaden be the one to do it. After all, he was the alpha getting mated. And likely the only one that wouldn’t end up in an argument with her on the way home.

So he’d made arrangements with the senator to get off a little early and be her drive.

There’d been a fair amount of teasing from the staff and advice for Felix for dealing with ‘mother-in-law’ issues. Enough that he started to wonder if they knew the history of his mother in Mercy Hills.

Kaden found himself a quiet corner of Arrivals to park the chair in, not too far from the gate his mother was supposed to be coming through. There was still some time left, so he amused himself by texting scandalous comments to Felix in between answering questions from the office and trying to read the dense, difficult text of the Segregation Laws on the tiny screen of his phone. His left ear suddenly shrieked, the tinnitus drowning out everything on that side. Stress, probably. He was being pulled in twenty different directions right now, trying to get ahead of work so he could take a few days after the mating.

The distant rumbling hum of feet and voices crept into the space, subtly announcing the arrival of his mother’s flight. He glanced up and saw the leading edge of the wave—men, women children, carrying bags and dragging suitcases behind them. His mother would likely be in this crowd simply because she’d be anxious about being surrounded by humans and would want to get off as quickly as possible. He put the phone away, though not before he sent another slightly off-color text to Felix, who responded with a picture of Hunter sitting in his chair at the table.

Saucy omega. Like Hunter was any kind of competition for a real alpha.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to remind his betrothed just what Kaden had to offer, as soon as he had a chance.

A gap appeared in the crowd and then she was there, right where he’d predicted. She had a big, pack-style bag hanging over her shoulder and despite her straight spine and determined, confident appearance, he could read her tension in the set of her shoulders and the slight jerkiness in her walk.

“Hey, Mom,” he said when she was close enough to hear and reached out to pull her into a hug.

“Oh, Kaden.” She put a hand up to touch the scars that edged his cheek, then ran her hand over the arm of his chair. “I should have come when you told me about the problems with the leg. I’m sorry. I should be a better mother.”

“You’re a fine mother. And I was perfectly capable of looking after myself after I got out of the hospital. Do you have a bag too?” She nodded and clung to him and he had to actually start moving to force her to let go. “Let’s go get it, then, and get you back to Mercy Hills. You’ll hardly recognize the place, it’s changed so much.”

“I haven’t been away that long,” she said sharply and Kaden winced a little. Her last visit had ended on an unhappy note when she couldn’t come to terms with either of her omega packsons.

Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen with his omega. Felix had an odd strength to him that Kaden would absolutely bet on in a fight against his mother. The question was whether Felix would use it against the alpha he was obviously already halfway to considering the matriarch of their little pack. And if there was one thing Kaden understood implicitly about his mother, it was that she respected strength, but only recognized certain kinds of strength.

It had actually surprised him that she hadn’t gotten along better with Holland, who seemed half an alpha to Kaden on any given occasion. But then again, she was raised in a family that held to the old ways harder than most of the families in Salma. She would see Holland first as an omega, and likely not look beyond that.

There was a pretty slim likelihood that she’d recognize the kind of strength that life as an omega had fused into his betrothed’s bones. Not without a lot of guidance.

Well, if it got to the point that Felix was threatening to throw her out the window, he’d know he’d screwed up badly somewhere.

“Baggage is down that way. Let’s get out of here,” he suggested and knew by her eager acceptance that she was reaching the end of her tolerance for strange humans.

Her suitcase rattled down the conveyor at the baggage claim and he rolled up beside it, snatching it out of the moving line with a small grunt of effort.

“You should have let me get that,” she scolded him.

“I’m good. You can pull it, though. The chair really needs both hands.” He passed it over to her without argument and led her out of the airport and into the parking as quickly as he could.

“I thought they’d given you a false leg,” she asked once they were in the car and heading north out of town.

“They did. I had complications, but it should be fixed now. The rest of me is the part that’s slow getting used to it, so I’m easing into it. Being in the chair makes you flabby in all the wrong places. I ache today.” Ache was a mild word for it. He’d had his first dancing lesson with Bax last night, letting Felix believe the white lie that he was working late so they’d had a good hour to take him through his paces. “I’ll put the leg back on when we get home so you can see it.”

Kaden took a fast turn and her knuckles turned white where she was holding onto the door handle. He kicked himself for forgetting that she was also nervous in cars, especially at speed. “Haven’t let it stop me yet,” he added, to distract and reassure her.