Page 111 of Omega's Heart

“I heard. Getting mated on Friday?”

“Yes, sir. I have to be back to work with the senator on Monday and we wanted a few days to enjoy being mated before we came home and got back to our routine.”

“Congratulations.” The Alpha turned toward the front of the airport. “You have another bag or just that one?”

“Just this one. Felix has the one with my mating outfit.” It was packed in his other bag with the rest of his clothes, carefully wrapped in some special tissue paper that Holland said was meant to protect old cloth and leather.

He still had no idea what Felix would be wearing for the first part of the ceremony, other than that it would be red. Every time he’d tried to worm even a hint out of the omega, Felix had only smiled like he’d caught the fattest rabbit and said, “Something nice.” Which hadn’t been illuminating at all.

The Alpha chuckled softly. “I remember that look. The last couple of days before I mated my Lucy, you couldn’t get any sense out of me at all.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I promise, I can be more focused than this.”

The Alpha waved a negligent hand. “Only to be expected. Come on, we have a bit of a drive ahead of us. The family would like to see you, too.”

There wasn’t any question about whom the Alpha was referring to—Honisloonz’s family. “How are they?”

“As well as can be expected.”

They stepped out into the summer heat, sweat breaking out on Kaden’s forehead despite it being at least two degrees cooler here than it had been in Mercy Hills. “I’m glad.”

The Alpha put a friendly hand on Kaden’s shoulder. “You did what you could, which is more than the rest of them can say. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Except if he’d gone for Honisloonz first, he likely could have gotten them both out.

Maybe. He knew where second-guessing battle decisions usually led and it was never anywhere he wanted to be. Better to think of Felix and hope there was no fur flying or blood being spilled back in Mercy Hills.

The Alpha didn’t waste any time getting to the itch that was bothering him. They were barely on the I-65, still merging into traffic, when he started with his questions. “So what’s the deal with you working with this senator? Why does he think we’ll turn out and vote for another human? It doesn’t make any difference to us. Nothing changes inside our walls when they change things outside them.”

Kaden had an answer ready for that. “It might with this one. Not to be spoken of outside you and your advisers because if it gets out, the plan’s dead before it’s even born.”

“Who would we tell?”

Kaden shrugged. “You know how gossip runs in the packs.”

The Alpha grunted, but he looked intrigued. “So there is something?”

“Yes, sir. There is. Whether anything will come of it in the end, it’s hard to say. But this senator plans to run for president. And if he gets in, he’s promised to go after the Segregation Laws, have them struck down.”

The car swerved to the right and Kaden grabbed instinctively for the dash.

“Is he insane?” the Alpha demanded as he brought them back into their lane.

“I don’t think so. He has data, studies, to back him up. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, or that it’ll even happen the first time he tries, but I can see the path he’s planning to take and it’s not as rough as it looks at first. If certain things happen.”

“Things like what?”

Kaden shrugged. “The support of the packs, for a start. Primarily, I’m here to drum up political interest and get the packs to actually vote in this election. Given our population and how few of us actually bother to vote, if we could put the weight of our numbers behind him, it’ll likely be enough to slide him into office with a healthy margin. That much we do know. The rest is hard to predict, but when the opportunities arrive, we’ll have to be quick to jump on them. Which means the packs need to be on board. That’s part two of what I’m here for.”

“You’ll have trouble with Montana and a few of the others.”

“I know. It’s not going to be an easy hunt, and we’re coming up against some deadlines. He’s going to declare his intention in the spring, we’re going to start campaigning hard in the fall.” This might be the time to talk about the Mutch funding as well. “The third thing I’m here for has to do with the Mutch trusts. Holland and Quin are sitting in on that decision, but I’m their man on the ground, so to speak. This spring, there’s going to be another pack receiving one of those trusts and with the election coming up, we’re treading carefully.”

“And where I come down on the presidential race will affect our ranking in the competition for that money.” It was a statement rather than a question.

Kaden shrugged. “Not exactly. We’re not using it as a bribe. The main goal of these trusts is to be certain that the first couple of packs receiving them use them to the best of their ability. It’s not just about making pack life easier, but also showing that we don’t need to be kept poor to be kept in line. It’s the narrative we’re after with the trusts, not the votes. The money needs to be spent responsibly, benefit the pack as a whole, and the pack has to show that they’re no threat to the humans around them. As far as the trusts go, we don’t really care whether you agree to vote for him or not. We do care that we come out of this looking like responsible, upstanding citizens that will be a credit to the country. So some of the things we’re looking at are integration with the surrounding human communities and willingness to adapt.”

“So we make him look good, he smooths our path out of the enclaves.”