Page 150 of Omega's Heart

“Huh. That’ll make for a good story someday. When the pups are older.”

He huffed a laugh. “Maybe.”

Between the two of us, we managed to have the apartment ready before Saffron and her grandmother were brought over by Security. Kaden hadn’t gotten home yet and I desperately wished he was there with me, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that now. All I could do was straighten my clothes and have a quick discussion with Hunter about manners before the door opened and a tall, blond, beautiful alpha stepped hesitantly through the opening.

I stepped forward with a smile and said, “You must be Saffron. Hi, I’m Felix.”

C H A P T E R 8 1

K aden pulled up behind the gray van still parked outside the new shifters’ apartment. It was a ground floor two-bedroom in one of the older northern neighborhoods. They’d traded with the couple originally assigned to it and moved that couple and their toddler to the three-bedroom that Kaden had put his name down for. It had resulted in some juggling of construction schedules and a delay in him getting Felix settled into his very own home, but as Holland put it, “We need our damn visitor housing back.”

The front door of the apartment was closed. Kaden paused to listen, old habits kicking in as he made sure he wasn’t going into a firefight. Of course, it was Felix here—assuming he was still here. The likelihood of any sort of conflict was so low it was nearly non-existent.

When his ears didn’t turn up anything except the low murmur of conversation, he knocked.

A Mercy Hills alpha opened the door. Carden, if Kaden’s memory wasn’t playing tricks. “Your mate said you’d be by.” He stepped out of the way, opening the door wider.

“Everything okay here?” Kaden asked, fishing for information.

“Fine. They’re in the kitchen having tea.” Carden closed the door behind them and followed Kaden into the kitchen.

The smell of tea and toast teased his nose as he walked into the tiny room. An older woman sat in the far chair at the little table, Felix beside her, and a tall female alpha in the chair closest to Kaden.

“There he is,” Felix said with a smile and got to his feet to come give Kaden a kiss of welcome. “Kaden, you know Carden already, right? And this is Carolina Green Moon, and her granddaughter Saffron.” His scent was bright with relief—Kaden didn’t even need to ask. Hunter was staying with them.

Kaden offered scent to Carolina, as she was the elder of the two, then to Saffron. “Welcome to Mercy Hills.”

“Thank you so much for having us,” Saffron said. “And thank you for taking Jaime’s dog.”

“Ours, now, I think, judging by how happy my mate is,” Kaden said with a smile. “I hope Jaime doesn’t mind.”

“I think he’ll be happy as long as it has a good home. Marines stick together, he says. I’ll talk to him when he’s back from deployment to make sure.”

She was very pretty, Kaden decided. Not gorgeous like Felix, but before Felix he might have made a play for her. “I’m glad. We’ve gotten kind of fond of the little brat. Speaking of—” Kaden turned back to his mate. “Where is our little brat?”

“He’s not a brat. And Pip made Cas bring her by to take him to the movie tonight. Jason’s pups wanted to take him too. Something about dogs? He’s well on his way to being spoiled.”

“Lysoon save us. We’re going to end up with Pip living with us, aren’t we?”

“Not a chance,” Felix told him with a smile. “We should probably go and let them rest. Saffron, I’ve asked them to put grab-bars in the bathroom for your grandmother, they’ll be coming in a few days to do that. I can drop by tomorrow to take you to get anything that we missed when we were stocking the apartment and introduce you to the Personnel office.”

“If it’s any trouble—” Saffron began.

Felix shook his head. “No trouble at all, really. My schedule is pretty open.”

She smiled weakly up at both of them. Kaden could see the fatigue of a long day’s travel starting to hit. She cast an occasional glance at the suitcases still unpacked in the living room, but never mentioned them at all.

“We should go,” he murmured to his mate again. It occurred to him that Hunter would be gone for another hour at least, if not more. He had his mate and the apartment all to himself. Subtly, he let his hand drift from the small of Felix’s back, down far enough that he could get in an unmistakable squeeze, then moved it back to Felix’s waist. “We’ll let you rest. Felix will check in on you in the morning like he said, and if there’s anything else you need, he knows how to get it.” He nodded to both of them and started to step back, toward the front door and the alluring prospect of having uninterrupted time with his mate.

Felix sent him a look that said he’d picked up on Kaden’s plans for the evening, but he slipped out Kaden’s grasp regardless, going to Saffron to give her a hug, then stopped by Carolina to whisper something in her ear that made the old shifter laugh and pull him down to say something in reply that turned Felix’s cheeks bright pink. To Kaden’s surprise, Felix gave the old shifter a hug before coming back to him.

“Let’s go home, mate,” he said in a low voice. Then over his shoulder as they were leaving, he called, “I’ll drop back by around nine tomorrow morning and we’ll finish getting you set up.”

Kaden saw Felix into the passenger seat of the car, then got in himself and started to drive. “That went well,” he stated.

Felix nodded, smiling contentedly. “They seem very nice. Saffron was relieved to find out that Hunter had a place to stay—I don’t think Jaime really mentioned Hunter to her in all the rest of the fuss of moving them here. They’re very much in love. She gets this look on her face whenever she talks about him…” He shook his head and his smile grew fonder. “Granny seems nice too. She’s very independent. Still bakes and does what she can for housework. And she does some very nice embroidery, but her eyes get tired quickly. I think she needs glasses.”

Kaden pulled the car into the garage’s yard and parked, hiding his smile. It looked to him as if Felix was adopting the newcomers. So very typical of his mate, who wanted to wrap the entire world up in his heart. Good to know that Felix wouldn’t have to give up this first pup of his heart, either.