Page 131 of Omega's Heart

“They’re just coming to take you for the mating hunt,” I reminded him. I leaned against his back and trailed my fingers up his arm. “You know they’re really, really happy for us. That’s all it is. And they may be still a little stoned.” One of my brothers had liberated some of the stocks that hadn’t passed muster for medicinal use last night. Thankfully, they’d only managed to talk a few of the Mercy Hills shifters into trying it.

Bax was funny stoned. Poor Abel—I didn’t imagine he’d gotten much more sleep last night than I had.

My mate snorted a laugh and patted my hand. “Yeah, been there, done that.” I sat back as he shoved his stub into his leg and strode toward the door, a steely glint in his eye. This would be too good to miss, so I pulled the sheets around me and sat there in plain sight, to add my own tiny extra bit of awkwardness to the coming confrontation.

Kaden glanced back at me when he reached the door, still as naked as the day the Lady made him, and gave me a thumbs-up when he saw what I was doing. Like two ears on the same wolf, the pair of us. He nodded at me and I nodded back, then I settled in to watch the show.

Kaden opened the door, reached out and twisted his fist into my youngest brother’s shirt. With casual strength, he tugged, sending Aston staggering into the room. “Sit,” Kaden told him, but there was a snap of command in his words and my brother sat, probably before he even realized he had. With infinite grace, my mate took a step back and opened the door wider, gesturing the rest of the suddenly uncertain crew into the room. “No, if you’re going to stand out there and make all that noise, you might as well come in.”

They had the good manners to look embarrassed, especially when they saw me through the bedroom door wearing nothing but a well-stained sheet and several rashes raised by the scruff that Kaden had grown in the course of the night.

I smiled and waved at them, mightily entertained by the sight of my mate staring them all down like the complete alpha he was.

“Did it not occur to you all,” Kaden began, entirely reasonable. “that I might have been busy?” His voice was mild until that last word, when it suddenly reached drill sergeant levels and I had to stifle a laugh in a fistful of sheet. “It is, after all,” Kaden continued in that affable tone that fooled no one, “the morning after my mating.” He raised his eyebrows and while I didn’t think they’d noticed his lack of clothing before, they most certainly noticed it now. All three of them went beet red and hung their heads once the implication hit. Aleksander went so far as to scuff his foot on the floor as if he was still five years old and I watched, nearly suffocating on my laughter, as he tried awkwardly to shuffle himself back out of the apartment before Kaden noticed him.

The other two seemed to think that was a great idea, drifting super-casually toward the street. Kaden followed them right to the exit and tossed Aston out with a gentle kick to his backside, which nearly made me howl. By this point, I was wiping tears from my cheeks and gasping with the effort not to give it all away.

My mate closed the door with a shouted, “Half an hour. Then I might consider opening this door again,” before he strolled back to lean against the frame of the bedroom door. “That was fun. I haven’t had the joy of whipping young soldiers into shape in a long time.”

I wiped my face again and gazed up at him like he’d hung the moon. “You know they think we were...?” I let my voice trail off delicately.

He nodded solemnly, but with that wicked gleam in his eye. “Gonna make a liar of me?”

I threw the sheets off. “Fine mate I’d be then. Get in here.”

He grinned and pounced.

Half an hour later a much more subdued pack of brothers showed up at our door, this time with Kaden’s own brothers in tow. We’d just gotten out of the shower, so Kaden answered the door naked but for his leg again. Quin walked in without even a glance. “Is this the kind of punctuality the Army teaches?”

“What? I’m up.”

I closed the bedroom door and left them to it while I pulled on my clothes. Brand new jeans and shirt, the shirt’s fabric woven by one of the old mum’s in the pack who had a knack for these things, in green and blue with flashes of red. It felt like silk, though I thought it was probably only cotton--we weren’t that rich. I found Kaden’s mating clothes and piled them up neatly before opening the bedroom door and stepping into the living room. “Do you want to get dressed or go to the hunt like that?”

“Which would you prefer?” he asked with that look on his face.

“Clothed,” I told him prudishly—he was mine and I wasn’t sharing even a look at his body--and the brothers all laughed. I ignored them and handed over his everyday clothing. He took the pile with a brush of fingers over mine that sent tingles up my arm and made me wish that our brothers had been later than they were.

Kaden dressed quickly, without bothering to disappear into the bedroom to do it, then dropped a kiss on my cheek and left with all the brothers. I heard them joking and teasing him all the way down the street, and Kaden’s sarcastic replies in return made me snort and lean against the wall and wish we’d set the mating hunt for later in the day. Mated only twelve hours and already I missed him when he wasn’t right there.

With a sigh, I closed the door and went back to the bedroom to strip the sheets and replace them with ordinary ones, making the bed up nice and tidy once again. My rozvennya would be here any minute now and we’d drink tea and eat toasted pastries while we pored over the sheets and tried to figure out what my future had in store for me. I folded the mating sheets carefully and set them on the end of the bed, then went to put tea on.

An hour later, the teapot was empty and I was on my second pastry too many and I thought Julius was going to die of embarrassment at the same time as he couldn’t stop asking questions that got him teased. I was convinced that he’d learned more about alphas and betas and mating today than he’d learned ever before in his life.

“Time for the sheets,” Ori said gaily and I could have sworn he scampered off to the bedroom in his excitement.

“Does this remind you of yours?” Holland asked Bax.

“It brings back memories. Not that it was our first night together, but there’s something special about your mating sheets.” Bax set his tea on the counter and helped Ori spread the sheet out over the table. I blushed a little as the scent of our bodies rose off the cloth, then blushed some more as the omegas complimented us on ‘the obvious effort’ we’d made to make sure the paint ended up on the sheets.

We gathered around the table and started hunting the patterns in the messy streaks and smears.

“I see a pup here,” Raleigh said and pointed to a spot near the center where two curved lines seemed to grow down from a third one.

“Money?” Ori asked, his finger tracing a zigzag down the edge of the sheet.

Bax nodded and tilted his head to one side. “Here’s a heart and a moon right next to it. I’d guess that means a long and happy mating. With money.”

Ori hooted and elbowed me and I blushed. Laughter bubbled up around the table.