Page 106 of Omega's Heart

Just at that moment, Agatha pranced out of the hallway, carrying a stuffed cow in her arms and followed closely by Hunter, who seemed to be very interested in whatever it was that Aggie had in her pocket. “Do you have food hidden on you?” Kaden asked her.

“I have a cookie,” she said proudly. “I’m hungry.”

“We’re going to be eating soon,” Quin told her and got to his feet. “How many of those have you had this afternoon?”

“This is my emergency stash,” she stated firmly and clapped a hand over her pocket. “In case of emergencies.”

“What emergencies?” Quin asked calmly and started to search her.

“Hungry emergencies!” She took the cookie out and waved it around above her head.

Kaden hid a grin behind his hand. “It’ll be Hunter’s supper if you aren’t careful. Hunter, come here.” He reached out and tapped the pup with a finger’s worth of power and Hunter slunk over to climb up on the couch beside him.

“Maybe it’s just as well that you’re not interested in pack politics,” his mother said sharply. “That dog does make you look odd.”

“That dog is a fellow retired soldier and deserves as much respect as I do. Maybe more, since he was conscripted and still did his job, right up to losing a leg. I at least had a choice. Drop it, Mom.” He saw Quin glance over his shoulder in their direction.

“I don’t know why you’re over there looking after the pups, anyway, Tarquin. Where’s this mate you’ve chosen over me? Off swanning around with his humans, I suppose.”

“If you’d been listening instead of judging when you came in, you’d know he was feeding our youngest.” Quin looked like he might actually say something more, but then he shook his head and shooed Agatha over to give her grandmother a hug.

I’m not sure I’d reward her like that, but it’s your pups. Kaden wondered briefly what he’d been thinking when he encouraged her to come for the mating and made the decision there and then to talk to Felix about this tonight. If she made Felix uncomfortable, he had no trouble sending her home again.

Assuming she’d go.

He sighed and Hunter cast a concerned glance in his direction. “It’s okay, bud,” Kaden told him, burying his fingers in Hunter’s ruff and massaging until the pup relaxed.

I supervised the pups washing their hands, convinced Zane to change back to human and get dressed, then sent them back one by one to harass the alphas so I could drop in on Holland, still nursing Lonnie in his bedroom.

Or hiding. I figured it was even odds.

I found him in the rocking chair over by the window that looked out over the woods at the north end of the enclave, the same view that we omegas had in our apartment down the hall. Abel had planned well when he’d had this place built—calm, soothing landscapes in the guest apartment and the family rooms of this one, a view out over part of the town from the public entertaining spaces.

“How are things out there?” Holland asked, looking up from the sleeping pup in his arms.

“About what you’d expect,” I told him and perched on the end of his bed.

He glanced down at Lonnie. “I’m hiding.”

“I figured.”

“I’ll go out in a minute.”

“Take your time. She won’t miss us. And both our mates are annoyed with her. I think we should let her build on that.”

Holland let out a snort of laughter that died a quick death. “I told myself I could do this, just let her barbs roll off my back and be Alpha’s Mate, but…” He sighed and let his head fall back against the back of the rocking chair. “Reminds me too much of when I was younger.”

“When you were in Perseguir.” I knew that story.

He shook his head. “Before. In Buffalo Gap.”

I let that pass, figuring this wasn’t the time to dig into any bad memories. Not that they were any of my business, anyway, but just knowing that he had them made some more parts of Holland come clear. “Do you want me to tell them that Lonnie is fussy and you’re going to lie down with him?”

His expression said he was tempted, but then he shook his head regretfully. “No. That would be letting her win, wouldn’t it?”

Letting her win. Something about that seemed important, though I wasn’t sure what. I stuck it in the corner of my brain to mull over later when I wasn’t completely occupied with avoiding having my future packmother make a fool of me.

I might have been omega, and unwanted in my own pack, but I had family who loved me, and her son reminded me every night of how determined he was to mate me and take me as his own. As far as I was concerned, she was no better than the alphas back home in White River who’d passed me over without really looking at me.