Page 186 of Omega's Heart

Maybe Buffalo Gap had potential as a contender for the next trust disbursement after all. Let’s see where this takes us.

Kaden reached for a cookie. “The big thing Mercy Hills saw, right from the start, was the need for infrastructure. Better schools, more business with the potential for selling outside walls. Housing. The hospital. Abel was about panting over that one. And buildings are something the packmembers can see. Something real, to give them hope and make them enthusiastic about all the changes. And ninety percent of it was a great idea. Small businesses are popping up all over the pack. Quin says it’s making a hash of the credit system but they’re figuring it out.” He took a bite of the cookie and followed it with a sip of tea. “These are good.”

“My mate made them.” Mitchel watched him with narrowed eyes. “Everyone needs better infrastructure. You haven’t mentioned the mistakes yet.”

He wasn’t stupid, and he seemed very focused on the pack’s well-being. Still, Kaden couldn’t really put a paw on the right word to describe him. Like trying to smoke out an opponent who was too well camouflaged, he’d just keep lobbing rocks and other shit around the place until something spooked the other guy into moving. And it wasn’t like any of it was a huge secret. Not the way he’d been sharing it around the enclaves.

“Staff. It takes a couple of years to build a hospital. It takes four to make a nurse. Eight or ten to make a doctor. One or two to make the technicians we need. And a couple of decades to find enough spaces in training programs to get them all through and ready to come home to work.”

“You’ve worked it out before, courses built entirely around Mercy Hills. So have we. What’s the problem with these?”

“Demand mostly, but most of those programs have some sort of internship or job experience component and it’s finding those positions that’s the bottleneck. The humans are short on places for their own trainees—they don’t want to cut back on training for their own hospitals just we can staff ours. It’s easier with construction because we already have people who can do those jobs. Trying to get our people into hospitals is a hunt of a different sort and a much more elusive prey. Abel says they’ve had people go through all the coursework but they can’t get the hands-on work they need to get their certification, so we can’t employ them. We make use of them, but any formal employment in those roles runs us afoul of regulatory agencies if we actually want to have a hospital. A real hospital.”

“So what are your plans, then? Doesn’t sound to me like this is going to change anything.” Mitchel reached for another cookie. “Myself, I figure to spend it on housing and transportation instead of a hospital. Seems like a waste of money if you can’t staff it.”

Kaden made a face. “Like I said, there have been mistakes made, places where we jumped the gun. Getting access to markets outside the enclaves isn’t easy. We’ll make up the path we lost—we’ve already started. And we figure it’ll be exponential, especially if we can seed the workforce with humans willing to work with us.”

Mitchel scoffed at that. “I wouldn’t have them inside walls, myself.”

Yes, and that’s why you live the way you do. Maybe not so good a candidate after all. Integration was going to be key to their progress—the isolationists wouldn’t help with that at all. “I’d like to have a look around the enclave while I’m here. It’s a part of the information gathering process.”

“Of course.” Mitchel sipped at his tea and regarded Kaden over the rim of the cup.

Something about the way the Alpha watched him made Kaden’s ruff stand on end, or would have if he’d been in wolf form. There was something here he was missing. But what?

Lysoon, this was going to be a long afternoon.

C H A P T E R 9 8

B uffalo Gap was very different from home. Either of my homes. Where White River and Mercy Hills were both very green and lush looking, Buffalo Gap was made of shades of brown and gray, with occasional surprising blotches of green that jumped out and startled you. It was hot too, or maybe that was just the baby.

Lysoonka, I wouldn’t want to be here at the end of my pregnancy.

“Denise lives over here,” Jacob said, pointing down a side street. “The warehouse is just a bit further on.”

“Will she be home at this time of day?” I’d forgotten to ask Bax what his mother worked as. If she worked. Not everyone in a pack did, I’d learned, especially in the poorer ones where there just weren’t enough jobs to go around.

“She should be. Not much doing around here.” Jacob led me down the side street for a good ten minutes before he stopped in front of a small, two-story house. A few patches of paint showed that it had once been a dark blue, but most of that was faded or peeled away now. The shingles on the roof were curled and missing in spots.

Jacob mounted the uneven stairs leading up to the front door and knocked. Footsteps pounded from inside and the door was wrenched open by an older teenager with Bax’s dark curls and high cheekbones. I caught a whiff of alpha just as the excitement drained out of his face. “Oh, it’s just you,” the young alpha said tonelessly. “What can I do for you, Jacob?”

“Hi, Ned. Your Ma around?”

“Yeah, hang on.” The young alpha twisted to look over his shoulder. “Ma! One of the omegas is looking for you.” He glanced back outside, took Felix in, then did a double take. “Holy shit, are you omega too?”

“Ned! Where are your manners?” A dark-haired woman with an even stronger resemblance to Bax came up the hallway behind him. “Get back inside and finish your homework.” She sent him on his way before turning back to us. “I’m so sorry about that, teenaged alphas don’t always stop to think before they speak.”

“That’s okay, ma’am,” I said gently. “Are you Bax’s mother?”

“I am. And you are?”

Jacob cleared his throat. “Denise, this is Felix Mercy Hills.”

“I’m mated to one of Abel’s brothers,” I added to clarify. “It’s good to meet you, ma’am. Bax sent me with a few little things for you from the pups.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! Do you have time to come in for tea?” She took a step back in unspoken invitation.

I glanced at Jacob since I didn’t know what other duties he might have had.