Page 17 of Omega's Heart

“Go ahead,” Cale told him slowly. “We’re listening.” He crouched down on his haunches, putting himself on the same level as Julius. “Just what?”

Julius took a huge breath, almost a sob. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, if I’m going back to Winter Moon or staying here. I don’t want to do anything… If I have to go back…” He rocked harder. “I need to be able to mate. I can’t take anything that makes me less desirable.”

I stared at him. Pretty sure my mouth fell open too. I couldn’t imagine anyone more desirable than Julius. He could lose half the things that made him so lovely and he’d still be miles above me on the omega desirability scale. “Like, what kinds of things?” I asked cautiously, my brain still spinning.

He sniffed and shrugged. “Like, smart things. Or alpha things. Or... I don’t know. What kinds of courses can you take? I can’t do anything that means I can’t get mated. I don’t want to be poor all my life.”

I heard Cale suck in a huge lungful of air. It shook all the way in, but when I scented him he smelled stunned and confused. Upset certainly, but not angry. Not with Julius, anyway. And when he spoke, his voice was as kind and compassionate as I’d ever heard come out of an omega in my life. “Don’t you worry about that. If you want to mate, you can look a lot higher than Winter Moon. We’ll make sure you get skills that will attract the right sort of mate, not just any old alpha.” It almost didn’t sound like him, particularly the vaguely snobbish wording about Winter Moon. But it was smart, too, because he’d zeroed in on the real source Julius’s fear and panic—losing the only value he thought he had—and neatly punctured it with a few well-chosen words.

This was why he would make a good doctor for the pack. Even if he could be stubborn and hard to redirect, he cared. The drive he had was based on a natural talent for healing, not just the body, but the mind too. I had to admit, it rattled me, realizing that I’d misjudged him so far, but he didn’t show this side of his personality too often. I wondered if this sensitivity to the needs of others was a part of why he kept himself so removed from the rest of the pack, so he wouldn’t get distracted by all those unfed hungers. I knew it would be harder for him to become a doctor than it would be for a human.

I hoped he could keep that part of him alive through it all.

Julius had stopped rocking and the desperate grip he had on his knees had loosened. “Better?” he asked timidly.

Cale nodded. “Much better. Younger and handsomer too, I’d bet.” His eyes danced with humor and I wondered which of the local alphas with good prospects he was going to aim in Julius’s direction now.

“And well off,” I insisted, getting in on the game. “But respectful. I don’t want to have to—what do the humans call it? Put a smack-down on?—any of Julius’s suitors.” I puffed myself up like an alpha, making Julius giggle. Then Cale finished it all off with an offhand, “No, I don’t think I want Quin feeling like he has to do that either.” He got to his feet and held a hand out to Julius. “Come on. I have a biochemistry assignment to finish. Let’s find you some mate-catching programs, then we can figure out what high school ones you’ll need to take so they’ll let you in.”

Julius glanced over at me and when I nodded, he let Cale pull him to his feet.

“Grab a chair and bring it with you, Jules. I’m going to get my coffee,” Cale told him, then when Julius had disappeared down the hallway, Cale caught my eye and sighed. “I forget. I’ve only been here a few years, and already I’m forgetting what my own damn life was like before.” He thrust his hand through his hair, creating even more of a bird’s nest than it already was, and shook his head. “I need more coffee before I tackle this.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do it alone. You know that.”

Cale smiled distractedly at me. “Thanks.” He shook himself and glanced toward the hallway, then turned back toward our kitchen. “Want a coffee?”

C H A P T E R 1 3

B y the time his hand had healed from the second surgery, the humans in the rehab center had decided that Kaden was one of their more harmless patients and treated him just like they treated any other new amputee. Not that he didn’t know which side of the tree the best den would be found on—the more agreeable he was, the better the human technicians could help him.

Now that they didn’t need to be careful about that mangled middle finger, they’d moved him right into a program to get him walking, get him set up with a new leg, teach him how to live with the missing pieces.

He spent a lot of time learning to manipulate things with only the thumb and one finger remaining on his left hand. The laces on his single sneaker got tied a lot, until it was as second-nature as it had been before the explosion. He tied more ties than he’d ever worn, and he pretended to eat more meals than he thought he might have eaten in his entire life.

The walking was harder.

It was like his body couldn’t believe that he was missing the bottom half of his leg. And he was only allowed on it for so much time each day because of the damage his knee had taken.

But he’d gotten damn good in a wheelchair, and not so bad on crutches.

Today was his last day with the big inflatable leg. It was what they used in the beginning to teach you how to walk with something that felt like a stick hanging from the bottom of your leg. Kaden humped his way along between the support bars and tried not to feel a flush of pleasure as the physical therapists cheered him on.

“Tomorrow’s the big day,” the younger of the two, the female, said to him after, when they were undoing all the straps that held the thing on and deflating the balloon parts. “The new leg came today. Want a sneak peek?”

He did. And then he didn’t. And then he did again. “Sure,” he told her and knew it was the right choice by the way she smiled at him. They were expected to be excited about their legs here, he thought, though the whole time they’d been fitting him for it, he couldn’t help wondering what he’d do on full moon nights. He was already getting restless, missing running as a wolf, the way the world just seemed to move right up and press itself against your eyes and ears and nose. But he put on the act for the humans and just... didn’t think about it. Maybe it would have to be enough to walk as a human. He could always learn to hop—he’d seen videos of dogs running around with three legs.

How far had he fallen, comparing himself to a dog?

She disappeared into one of the little rooms where they did the adjustments on the legs and arms —he’d watch them sometimes, through the window between the therapy room and their workspace. It was a distraction from the reality of his new limitations.

The therapist popped back out the door with a prosthetic in her hand. A wide dark cup sat on top of a steel shank, and at the end of the shank was a foot modeled in some hard plastic. It wiggled slightly as she brought it over—creepily, Kaden thought with dark humor.

“It’s a good leg,” she said, holding it out to him. “The bit of flex in the ankle will make your steps more natural and it’s designed so you should be able to buy shoes relatively inexpensively. Even some off the shelf ones, but you’ll want to check with the manufacturer before you spend the money and make sure it’s the right brand and model. You can even get a casing for it later that can be matched to your natural skin tone to camouflage it further if you like wearing shorts.”

Kaden hefted the leg carefully. Quin had refused to talk about how much the fancier model had cost, above and beyond what Kaden’s insurance would cover, but he suspected it hadn’t been cheap. The prosthetic itself was lighter than he’d expected and the morbid thought crept through his brain that it felt lighter than his own original leg and could he claim now that he’d lost weight the hard way? Probably not a good joke to make around Quin. Cas might get it, though. “It’s nice.” The expected response.

She laughed at him. “You have no idea if it’s nice or not. I can tell you that if I lost a leg, this would be near the top of my list.” She tilted it in his grasp and explained how it would work. “Tomorrow we’ll do a final fitting and show you how to wear it, you’ll get a few days here so we can make sure everything’s good, and then, soldier, you’re free to muster out and take your medical leave. You must be looking forward to it.”