Page 120 of Omega's Heart

“That many people might be a bit complex for him,” I said, amused.

“It’s complex for me too,” he confessed, looking up at me with a rueful expression. “They’re a bit…” He frowned, searching for the right word.

“Over the top?” I suggested. “Nuts? You could go for stoned, but that’s actually less common than most people like to believe.” I’d warned my family within an inch of their life about getting him smoked up and prying into his past and I’d put my size to good use on anyone who tried it. Give the alpha a few months to get used to his packfamily first, please, before the pranks start had been my exact words. But, yeah, they were all very interested in this alpha that had stormed into my life and swept me along with him. “You haven’t been rude, have you?”

“Not yet,” he said, standing up. “But I’m reserving that option.”

“Kaden,” I whispered, with a glance over to where my family was patiently waiting for us to say our hellos. “You can’t really tell them you think they’re idiots.” It had been funny and very good for my ego for a while, but I’d slowly realized that he thought it was true, in his straightforward soldier’s assessment. Which was even better for my ego, but given Kaden’s tendency to avoid polite social graces and roll through a conversation like a Panzer, I was worried about the fallout with my family. “They don’t mean it that way.”

He gave me that look, the one I was starting to recognize as his alpha-slash-commanding officer look that meant essentially that he’d take it ‘under advisement’. “I like your Alpha,” was all he said.

I’d have to talk to Bax or Holland to see if one of the older brothers could rein him in. In the meantime, the rest of my traveling companions had gotten out of the van and my parents were crossing the open space that had been left around us, followed by both my Alpha and Kaden’s.

The Alphas made a beeline for Abel and Bax and Veronica, which I was grateful for. I knew that Kaden would have had a couple of hours to visit with my parents before I got here—I would have preferred to have been here to introduce them, but it was the only way to bring Hunter and deal with Honisloonz without someone getting left behind at the enclave.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, bending down to get my hug, then repeated the greeting with my father.

“And this is your foster pup?” Mom asked, watching Hunter with caution.

“He is.” I put a hand in his ruff and coaxed him forward. “Say hi to Grandma, Hunter.” Her eyes widened—I guessed she hadn’t considered the implications.

Hunter reached forward to sniff her hand, then other parts, before his tail started to wag slowly behind him. He settled down on his haunches and looked expectantly up at me and Kaden.

“Well,” Kaden muttered under his breath. “Let’s go greet the rest of the family.” He slung his arm over my shoulders and jerked his head at Quin and Holland, who had moved over to help unload the back of the van. “Come on, I’ll get your things.”

We got everyone where they were supposed to go. Quin and Holland, as Alpha and Alpha’s Mate of Mercy Hills, were of course staying with the Alpha in his guest suite. Bax’s family, including Veronica and Cale, took over half a duplex set in the little cul-de-sac behind the shipping warehouses. Usually, it was shipping workers who lived there, but the owner had been renovating it for the past couple of months and the Alpha had arranged to keep it empty until after my mating, which was kind of him. Cas and Raleigh were in the other half with all their pups and Seosamh, who’d decided to come after all when Julius had gotten into a snit over us not trusting him to run the office.

My soon-to-be mate was staying in a guesthouse close by the Alpha’s, one of the tiny apartments where we housed humans on the occasions one had to stay over. It was a bit of a trip from my parents’ house but well within walking distance from the clearing where the mating ceremony would be going on. Hardly a five-minute walk, really.

One more day.

For now, though, we were all gathered in my parents’ garden, in a rough circle around the firepit Dad and I had built three years ago. Kaden said he’d actually only arrived about half an hour before me, so it was our first chance to all sit down together, and my family’s first chance to meet him in person, instead of just through the stories I told. My brothers and their mates, most of the Mercy Hills shifters—even an uncharacteristically quiet Veronica—were sitting on chairs borrowed from our neighbors, drinking tea or coffee or—in a few cases—some of my cousin’s wine. I’d forbidden them from bringing out any of the samples from the greenhouses.

“So, Kaden,” Dad said. “I understand that you were in the Army until recently.”

Not very stealthy, Dad. I made a face in his direction but he ignored me.

Kaden, however, didn’t seem particularly bothered. “Yes sir, I was overseas working at clearing territory and maintaining the lands that we had recaptured for most of my career, in one country or another for pretty close to twenty years.” He reached down beside him and scratched Hunter behind the ears. I suspected it was for both their comfort, not just for Hunter.

“That’s a tough line of work.” Dad sipped at his tea and I could see him making up his mind how to approach his next question. I hoped he wouldn’t probe deeper—what Kaden had told him was correct, as far as it went, but it wasn’t even maybe ten percent of what he’d actually been doing over there.

I put my hand on Kaden’s knee and squeezed. He smiled at me and covered my hand with his damaged one. I saw Dad’s eyes drift down to Kaden’s missing fingers and deliberately turned my hand over so I could twine my fingers through his remaining ones.

“I’ll admit,” my mother began cautiously. “When Felix told us you’d been injured in the fighting, we hadn’t expected it was so severe.”

“Mom!” I snapped and started to get to my feet. I hadn’t even thought about it when the time had come to tell her about him. By that point, he was just Kaden, and the scars and the missing parts weren’t anything special, at least in my mind. Stupid of me, though, not to think it might mean something to my family.

Kaden pulled me back down onto my chair and pressed the index finger of his maimed hand to my lips. “They just want to know that I can support you the way they want you looked after. I expect you’ll be like that with our pups.”

I sat, my heart in a tumult of emotions, though I couldn’t have said what they were. He had a way of putting things that turned ideas right on their head.

“So you are planning on pups, then?” my mother asked doubtfully.

“This November,” Kaden said cheerfully, while I turned scarlet and avoided my brothers’ eyes.

“Oh,” she said and looked worriedly over at my father.

Kaden let out a huff that might have been a laugh if it had been louder. “You’re dancing all around whatever it is you want to ask me and you might as well know now that I prefer straight dealing. Ask what you want, I won’t be offended. Unless it hurts Felix.”