Page 116 of Omega's Heart

“What the fuck?” one of them said as they opened the door. “Who—? Oh, it’s the dog.” He looked up and saw me coming. “Hello. You’re Kaden’s promised mate, right?”

I nodded. “I am.”

He paused there, still blocking the doorway, staring at Hunter. I saw his jaw work a couple of times as he tried to come up with something to say. Hunter sat like the good pup he was, practically vibrating with the urge to get outside. I was surprised he wasn’t growling, but the three boys were two deltas and a beta—he evidently didn’t see them as a threat or a challenge.

Finally, the young beta shook his head and said, “Have a good night.” His buddies came through the door behind him, skirting Hunter carefully while at the same time staring at him like they expected him to stand up and do a song and dance. They disappeared toward the elevator, and I was able to take Hunter outside.

“Phew,” I muttered under my breath, then remembered the phone in my hand when I heard a soft, tinny, “Felix?”

I opened the door and let Hunter outside. “Yeah, sorry, it’s okay. I worry a little that someone’s not going to be polite to him.”

“I trust you,” Kaden said softly. “You know that. I know he’s safe with you.”

Yeah, but I was an omega. What could I do if we’d met up with a crowd of betas, let alone alphas? Still, it was sweet of him. “Thank you.”

He huffed into the phone, not quite a laugh, more like the sound he made in his wolf form when he thought something was funny, or ridiculous. “Has Hunter found his stick yet? I hide it in the same place all the time, but you never know when someone will clean it up.”

I glanced around to find Hunter marking probably his fourth tree of the evening in the park across the road. “Hunter, where’s your stick?” I called and watched as he bounded back over the road and then right past me, into the small clump of bushes around the corner of the building. “Is it in the bushes?” I asked as I wandered over after him.

“Yeah, under some leaves.”

Hunter came racing out with it in his mouth and nearly knocked me over in his enthusiasm. “Slow down, Hunter! Here, give it to me.” I took it from him and then threw it as hard as I could in the direction of the playground. “Are all you soldier boys nothing more than pups? I’ve never seen him play this hard.”

“We all like to play. And we’re used to walking miles every day. Sitting around on a couch makes us antsy. He won’t last long, but he’s all out until he runs out of gas.”

“Good to know.” About both of them—it sounded like half a description of Kaden too. I’d have to have a plan to keep him busy when he wasn’t working. Not that he didn’t still have physio and stuff, but a bored alpha was an alpha into mischief. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

Hunter found the stick, savaged it briefly, then loped toward me looking as pleased as punch.

“Well, it is actually about these trips I’m going to have to take.” For the first time in a long time, he sounded uncertain.

“I know you can’t really take me,” I hastened to assure him. Hunter dropped the stick at my feet and I threw it again for him.

“Why not?” Kaden asked, his surprise evident in his tone. “No, that’s not it. I’m sure there wouldn’t be any problem. But I was serious about people making assumptions about why I mated you. There’ll be talk, no matter what, there’s nothing I can do about that. But I got thinking about it, especially because Avery assumed I knew and had courted you for that. If I take you with me, people are going to be convinced that’s the only reason we mated. And I don’t want them thinking that about you.”

Hunter came back with the stick and dropped it on top of my foot then bounced away a couple of feet before coming back to bark at me for being slow. “I don’t care.” Off flew the stick, with Hunter bounding after it.

“You’re not bothered by it?”

“You learn to shrug these things off. It’s just easier because I know you weren’t aware of who my family is related to. And now you know that being mated to me isn’t going to get you any special treatment,” I said dryly. “They’re going to talk. I don’t care--I’m not going to be there to hear them. I’m going to be here with you.”

“So,” Kaden said in a slow and thoughtful voice. “Would you like to go with me? I’m going to hit Los Padres at the end of September and maybe Perseguir on the way back, possibly Montana Border too while I’m out there. Then Winter Moon, Rathburn and Jordan’s Bay in October if I can, since I canceled on them. I’m probably not going to be going anywhere else until January unless I can fit in another pack in early December. It’s a lot of traveling in a short block of time because we can’t go anywhere in November.”

My heat. “You can go without me, though,” I reasoned. After all, heats usually lasted a week.

He huffed something that was almost a sigh. “Felix, it takes two to make a pup.”

I went scarlet, so hot I should have set the grass around me on fire. “I know that.”

“It’s not going to work over the phone,” he said evenly, but I could hear the laughter struggling to escape from behind his words.

“Okay, fine, we’re not going anywhere in November. Either of us. The senator won’t be mad?” This time, when Hunter brought the stick back, I tried to be tricky and threw it in a different direction. He caught on almost immediately though and took a sharp right to follow the stick’s trajectory.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s why I want to hit at least two packs in September and the other three in October. I can report back to the senator and give him some early intel, discuss some strategy, then we take the month off to give Hunter a little brother or sister.” He paused for a moment. “A month off from traveling. I don’t think I can get the entire month off completely, as much fun as that would be.”

“Goof,” I scolded fondly. “As long as you’re here some of the time.”

“As much as I can.” The bed creaked again and I thought he’d laid down on it. “You know, it feels really lonely here, knowing that you’re not right across the hall. I even miss that crazy pup. I think I’ve been domesticated. Please don’t tell the other alphas.”