Page 121 of Omega's Heart

“I’m tougher than that!” I protested, only slightly stung.

“I know, love. But allow me this, that it’s an alpha’s job to smooth his omega’s path, so you can focus on the things that make you happy.” He stroked my cheek in an uncharacteristically tender movement, then reached for my hand again.

“Felix,” my mother said suddenly. “Can you come into the kitchen and help me bring out some more crackers? We’re almost out of cheese as well.”

“Can’t Augusta help you?” I asked, startled by her sudden need to add even more to the plates of food scattered around us.

“Felix, do as your mother says,” Dad told me, with a tone in his voice that I hadn’t heard in years.

Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. Tomorrow night, I’d be a mated omega and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

At least, there was, but I hoped they wouldn’t.

“I don’t see what the problem is. You were all fine with this mating before.” I stood up and ignored Kaden’s attempt to get me to sit down again. “No, Kaden, I won’t sit here and let them imply whatever it is that they’re implying.” I didn’t really even know what it was, just that something inside me was growling and upset about it.

Kaden barked out a short laugh and leaned back in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, his arms folded over his chest. “They want to be sure that you haven’t settled out of desperation. They thought they were getting an Alpha’s brother, not a cripple.”

“You are not a cripple!” I snapped and whirled on my parents to tear a strip off them, but I was so mad all I could do was sputter and look like Moon Moon on a bender.

Kaden looked past me to Quin and grinned. “Guess you were right, old wolf.”

“Right about what?” I demanded.

“That omegas only look harmless on the outside. Sit down, Felix. I’ll let you know when it isn’t okay anymore.”

“I didn’t settle,” I muttered, but let myself be pulled back down onto my chair. I refused to look at my family anymore, dismayed at these uncomfortable truths being dragged out into the open.

Kaden patted my leg and Hunter came over to lay his head on my knee, his brown eyes worried. “I’m fine, Hunter,” I told him, and rubbed behind his ears. I avoided Kaden’s eyes when I noticed his grin and remembered our conversation of the night before, but the blush stealing into my cheeks gave me away.

He squeezed my knee, then pulled my head down to his so he could whisper, “I’m sorry,” to me.

I sighed and shook my head, suspecting what was coming and already resigned. “Don’t let this end in blood, okay?”

He just laughed and got to his feet, standing at a parade rest that was somehow even more threatening for the very casualness of it. And it left me wondering exactly how inappropriate it was to be lusting after him right now, in my parents’ garden, with my family all around me. But Lysoonka, he was what Bram called ‘smoking’, and I was a blessed omega.

Kaden grinned. His soldier’s grin, the one that only came out when he saw a challenge he was about to chew right through. I almost felt sorry for my family.

Almost.

I did not settle.

The garden went silent, waiting on him. He let it stretch until I could tell that nerves were going to snap, then he nodded briskly to my father and began.

“I was a soldier for nearly twenty years. I’ll have pretty close to a full pension after my medical discharge processes, plus a wage from a job working in Memphis for our senator. He will never want for anything, even if I have to go without. His value in my eyes is beyond any that your pack seems to have placed on him.” He paused and took a moment to stare down each of my family members. “What baffles me is that you’re all suddenly so protective, when for years you had him here under your noses, and not a single one of you recognized what you had.” His eyes fell upon me, fierce and dark with something my body read as desire and a warrior’s demand after victory. “You are all fools, blind idiots, not to see the truth at the heart of him. Well, you’ve lost it now. Whatever happens tomorrow, he comes home with me.” He turned to look back at my father. “I have fought my way across enemy territory, over deserts, and through enemy fire. I have used guns and teeth and claws to end the lives of our enemies. I will do worse for him, so that he may finally have all things ordered to his liking.”

I didn’t know he had those kinds of words in him, though having heard his brothers talk, I should have guessed that this poetry lurked somewhere inside his heart too. Without needing to think about it, I got up and moved to stand beside him, letting him gather me into the protection of his arms. Hunter went to sit on his other side, watching my family intently.

It wasn’t my Dad that I looked at, but my Mom. “Do you trust me?” I asked softly.

“You know I do,” she said, but she still looked worried.

“I want him,” I stated, still in that soft voice. “He’s mine. I’m his. I’m sorry if you think there’s some ulterior motive here, but there isn’t. I’ve never asked you for anything in my life. Let me have this.”

Mom glanced back and forth between us a couple of times before she nodded and turned to Dad. “Everything’s already planned, and he’s old enough to know his own mind. He’s never settled before. Why would he now?” She stepped around the firepit and held out her hands to Kaden. “I’m sorry if we came off a bit over-protective. We do love him so much and we just want to be sure he’ll be happy.”

“Ma’am, I have every intention of it,” Kaden said gravely and tipped his head to offer his scent as if he was the less dominant of the two of them.

And if there was anything that could have convinced my family of his good intentions, it was that offering up of himself as a son in the family, rather than a foreign alpha come to rule over them. He could have just steamrolled them—yes, we were related to the Alpha, and to several other Alphas through blood or mating, but his line was a strong one and he could have flattened any of my family members without even breaking a sweat.