Page 12 of Omega's Heart

“You should,” I told him. “I mean, you’re an omega. Omegas always get together for each other’s births. Otherwise, how will you know what to expect?”

“Maybe I don’t want to have pups,” Julius snapped back, but it sounded more petulant than anything else.

“You can’t sit here and pretend it doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Cale said in a voice that I thought he’d intended to make sound reasonable and logical. But I’d already figured out that Cale could be a bit of a battering ram if you got in his way. He was a lot like Holland, without Holland’s political understanding.

“Why not?” Julius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You forget that I’m a criminal?” He stuck his leg out and pulled up his jeans, showing off the black ankle monitor and its blocky receiver.

“Oh, for the love of—Julius, you’re not a criminal!” Cale shoved his chair back and stared at Julius in disbelief.

I went back to browning the meat in the frying pan and trying to remember what was in the refrigerator that I could stir fry with it. Cale was the Mercy Hills shifter, and Holland’s brother. I’d let him deal with this.

“You need to go,” Cale continued. “It’s not just about being with other omegas, it’s about finding out what birth is all about and being the first to see the new baby and helping out if the bearer needs it. Holland’s inviting you, which is a very big deal.”

“This wasn’t my idea!” Julius’ voice had become almost shrill, a grating whine against my eardrums.

“Nobody says it was,” Cale insisted. “But you’ve been in the enclave a year now. Yes, it’s a long time. Yes, it’s not fair. But it’s not helping anything either. Come to the birthing and meet a few people.”

“Cale,” I said, breaking into the argument before it got any worse. “There’s probably going to be a crowd in there if it’s anything like at home. Maybe it’s too quick—”

“He’s come out for Full Moon,” Cale was quick to counter before turning back to Julius and saying in a coaxing voice, “It’ll be fun. No alphas except for Quin. No betas or gammas or deltas. Just us omegas.”

“I can’t,” Julius cried and his face crumpled.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered and turned the stove off. “Julius, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” I went over to him and pulled him into a hug, which must have looked funny, me being me and him being the little pipsqueak that he was. “You should. It’s time you started to make a life here—it’s what you came for.”

“It was supposed to be Minnie and me!” He pushed me away and stormed into the kitchen to slam around in the cupboards. Probably looking for the chocolate cookies that he’d discovered one day when I made him go shopping with me. The day of the panic attack that had scared me half to death.

Well, he wasn’t going to find them anywhere he could reach. At least, not without a chair. But two boxes in a week was too much. He’d get fat, or sick, and it worried me that he was eating instead of dealing with whatever crazy emotions were bouncing around in his head.

“This is ridiculous,” Cale said and threw up his hands. “You’ve been invited to the birthing of your Alpha’s Mate. And you’ve barely left the apartment since you got here a year ago. You need to go to see the baby being born.”

“I don’t,” Julius said mutinously. “I don’t care about the baby. I don’t want any!”

“It’s not about the baby. It’s about being a part of the pack. It’s about letting Holland know you appreciate what he’s done for you, what he’s doing for Minnie. It’s about not worrying him half to death, wondering what he’s doing wrong that you act like you hate us all!”

I winced and wondered what I could do to get Cale out of the apartment while I calmed Julius down.

Then someone knocked on the door, just when I thought I was going to have to physically restrain Cale to keep him from dragging Julius out of the apartment. Cale made a snarling noise and spun on his heel to answer the door. Julius, in a move that nearly made me laugh out loud, grabbed the handle of the refrigerator and held on as if he’d come to the same conclusion about Cale’s intentions as I had.

Cale spoke to someone out the door of the apartment, and then to my amusement took a startled step back. The extremely pregnant omega in the doorway sailed through with the grace of a spring wind, heavy and bringing with it the promise of change. “You and Felix go,” the stranger said calmly. “I’ll talk to him. I know you want to be there.”

Cale grinned. “Yeah, I do. Okay, thanks.” He looked over at me. “You coming, Felix?”

“We’re going?” I didn’t quite believe him, but I thought I’d have another try at Julius. “Jules,” I asked him, a little more gently than Cale. “You coming?”

“I’d rather stay here,” he said in a voice so small I wanted to hug him. “You go.”

“I’ll stay with him,” the pregnant omega said and it hit me then that this was Raleigh, who I’d been told about but had never met. He was mated to another of the Alpha’s brothers. Or not actually mated—at least, he hadn’t had a contract signed. And, in fact, he’d left his alpha to come here, and then his alpha had followed him and… My head was going to spin right off my shoulders. But maybe someone more mature, who’d already made the transition to Mercy Hills, would have more of an effect.

I nodded and followed Cale out of the apartment.

When the door had closed safely behind us, I touched Cale’s arm. “That was Raleigh, right?”

He nodded. “You haven’t met yet?”

I shook my head.

“He lost a pup right after he came here,” Cale said quietly and moved me away from the door. “We thought we might lose him too, but Holland did something…” He bit down on whatever he was about to say next and shook his head. “Speaking of my brother, let’s go see if I’m an uncle again already.” He led the way down the hallway and I got the sense that he wanted to get away from the subject he’d almost broached with me. What was it that Holland had done that Cale didn’t want to talk to me about? Did it have something to do with the rumors that were creeping around the enclaves?