Page 130 of Omega's Heart

“It’s traditional,” Kaden finished for him. He frowned down at his plate. “Is this about appearances again? I’m not—” He broke off because the crowd had noticed his half-empty plate, which apparently was the signal to start dropping by their chairs with congratulations and—to his amusement and eventual irritation—lots of mating advice, mostly for Felix. His mate took it with equanimity, but it rubbed Kaden’s fur the wrong way a little. Why should it be Felix’s job to adapt to Kaden? Shouldn’t they both be making changes? Hell, Kaden didn’t even know what he wanted for sure right now, except Felix. “You want me to set them right?” he asked in the gap between visitors.

“What? Why?” Felix appeared truly puzzled. “Do you want more food? Or I can bring you dessert.”

“Eat your food first, then we can go up together,” Kaden said, pointing at his mate’s still mostly full plate with his fork. “No, I mean, everyone talking about how your life is going to change, and mine’s going to get better.”

The hazel eyes met his in confusion, then widened. “Oh, that stuff? No, don’t worry. It’s just what you say, you know? Didn’t you ever say that to your friends when they got mated, teasing them about what it would be like? I don’t take it seriously.”

“They seem to,” Kaden said sourly.

“I’m not mated to them.” Felix calmly ate his buttered carrots. “You might want to unmate me when I tell you this, though.”

“What?” Kaden asked, the hair on his neck standing straight up.

“I introduced your mom to the Alpha’s older brother and they seem to have hit it off.”

Kaden paused with his mouth hanging open and stared at Felix, who was eating his food and watching the crowd with a contented expression on his face. “You sneaky...omega.” He laughed and went back to his food. “Some of the stuff my brothers have been saying makes complete sense now.” He leaned over and kissed Felix on the cheek, to a chorus of giggles from some younger teenagers clustered at the side of the clearing. A glance around the space showed him that most of the guests had already moved on to dessert. He supposed that was his fault, for coaxing Felix back into the bed for a second round of the best cardio he’d ever had.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another determined looking group headed their way. Probably more mating advice. He’d chew off a foot to stay out of that leg trap. Another foot, anyway. “You want to dance?”

Felix’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I, uh, talked to Bax about that. I thought I might dance with my Dad, and then you wouldn’t have to be on your feet if you didn’t want to be.”

“Naw.” This was as fun as he’d thought it would be. “Come on.” He caught Quin’s eye and nodded, then stood up and put his plate down on the chair’s seat. “Unless you’re still hungry?”

“No, not really,” Felix said weakly. His mate got reluctantly to his feet and left his plate behind to follow Kaden out to the area Kaden had scoped out earlier as being the least bumpy of the grassy circle.

The hum of the crowd grew and people began to gather around. Kaden pulled Felix to him in the first form of Making of Fire. It was a fairly slow dance for newly-mated couples, without a lot of the complicated turns or fast changes of direction that other dances had. He saw when Felix realized what he was doing and grinned when his mate laughed in appreciation of the joke being played on him.

The music began to play, seeping out from speakers hidden in the trees around them. Kaden took his mate’s hand and began to dance. It was a close dance, and as the movement warmed their bodies, hints of Felix’s scent drifted into the air from Kaden’s body, and stronger hints of Kaden’s scent from Felix. It struck him in an oddly logical way that this was why the mated couple consummated the ceremony in the middle of it, and he suppressed the fierce grin of satisfaction that wanted to break out on his face at the thought that every shifter that came near Felix that night would know for certain they were too late—Kaden had been the first to recognize Felix’s value, and they could all go suck a grenade launcher now.

Their dance came to its slow, intimate end, the two of them face to face with their bodies pressed together. Felix blushed and stared at the ground awkwardly. “That was nice,” he said. Their scents rose into the air, intermingled, unmistakably mated.

“It was,” Kaden agreed and used one gentle finger to turn Felix’s face back to him. “I’m not done with you yet, mate.” He kissed Felix, there in the open for both packs to see, in case the smell of his body painted over Felix’s wasn’t enough evidence. It hadn’t occurred to him how possessive he’d feel, how much he wanted to take Felix back to their room and keep him just for Kaden’s own enjoyment. He thought if anyone made Felix unhappy on this, his night to be the center of attention, even his missing leg wouldn’t be able to keep him from tearing the other shifter limb from limb. After all, he was a soldier. He knew more than one or two dirty fighting tricks. And between Quin and Abel, he knew how to fight like a wolf as well.

Felix smiled at him. “You don’t need to be so fierce.”

“No?”

“No.” Felix brought a hand up to stroke the hair back from Kaden’s forehead. “I can tell you’re thinking alpha-ish thoughts.”

“Hah,” Kaden growled. “You tell me if anyone says anything you don’t like tonight. Or anytime, come to think of it,” he added thoughtfully. “I’ll go have a discussion with them.”

“What kind of discussion?” Felix asked in a knowing way. Music for the next dance started up. “You want to go sit?”

“Do you want to dance?” Kaden countered, unwilling to admit defeat.

“I haven’t finished eating yet.” Felix winked, which made Kaden laugh.

“Fine. But we’ll dance again later, I promise.” He kissed Felix again, ignoring the bodies setting up around them for the next dance, then led his mate back to their chairs to finish their first meal as a mated couple.

C H A P T E R 7 2

M y mate was true to his word. I’d never danced so much in one evening as I did on my mating night. It seemed everyone there wanted to dance with me, even my new packbrothers. Kaden would come and claim me every few dances, grinning fiercely and daring my current partner to try to tell him no. It was like something out of an old grannie’s tale of romance. And then, when the bonfire had burned down almost to nothing, and the dishes from the meal had been gathered up and taken home, Kaden led me back to our apartment and taught me again just how much he loved me before we curled into each other’s bodies and drifted to sleep in a haze of happiness.

Until early the next morning, when someone knocked on our door like thunder. Kaden came flailing out from under the covers and I caught him just in time to keep him from throwing himself across the tiny apartment to rip the throat out of whoever had startled him so.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, over and over, until his shoulders relaxed under my hands. The drunken laughter and off-color commentary from the other side of the door probably helped too. My brothers. A class act, all three of them.

“Yeah.” He fumbled for his phone and made a face. “They weren’t supposed to be here for another half an hour.” He glanced down and appeared to consider the state of his body, smeared with inky green from our efforts last night to make sure the sheets told of a good future, then grinned like a mad wolf and kissed me. “I’ll go deal with that foolishness.”