Page 199 of Omega's Heart

Quin took the chair and sat down, arms braced on his knees. “He’s…asking us for a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” Though he was already pretty sure it was the kind of favor that you didn’t want to be involved in.

“I need to go to Nevada Ashes. I need a cover, as well. Have you been to Nevada Ashes?”

“Shit. No.” He hadn’t even remembered them. Not at all. Fuck, that was going to be awkward.

“I know you weren’t planning to travel anymore until after the baby came, but can I ask this of you, to make arrangements to approach Nevada Ashes about your senator’s plan?”

That was a bit out of the blue. “What else? You know I’m not going to do this unless you tell me everything. I’m not a damned mushroom.”

Quin shook his head. “No, I know. I wanted to stay out of this kind of crap when I got out. I don’t want my family pulled into this. I don’t want me pulled into this.”

“Is he threatening us?”

Quin rubbed his hands over his face. “No, that’s the worst part. It’s about an omega.” He looked down at the floor, then up at Felix before raising an eyebrow at Kaden.

“I know what Nevada Ashes is,” Felix said evenly. “You don’t have to watch what you say.” He ran a hand over his belly, deliberately, Kaden thought. “I don’t think this came from the moon, either. Unless that was a really vivid dream.”

“Series of dreams,” Kaden added wickedly, drawing a laugh and a blush out of his mate. “I think those dreams kept you up all night.”

Quin shook his head with a pained look. “You don’t need to embarrass him about it.”

“He’s not embarrassed,” Kaden said and accepted Felix’s revenge elbow like a good alpha mate. “There, see? I’m living under the omega’s paw, there’s no saving me now.”

“You don’t want to be saved,” Felix told him, then pointedly turned back to Quin. “So it’s one of the omegas from the houses who doesn’t want to do that anymore?”

Quin gave Kaden’s mate a hard look, hard enough that Kaden sat up and got ready to say something because it was the right of no alpha to look that hard at the mate of another one. But Quin shook his head and frowned as if trying to piece together a puzzle. Or maybe tease one apart. “Some of what I’m going to say can’t leave this room.” His eyes met Felix’s again, and Kaden’s mate nodded.

“Top secret,” Felix said. “Okay.” He laced his fingers together over his belly and looked expectantly at Kaden’s brother. “Go on.”

Kaden shot Quin a glance that said, Suck on that brother. I got him first.

Quin ignored him. “Back before I retired and moved home, I was in charge of a specialized troop of Marines. And one day, one of them got pulled for some solo thing. Command wouldn’t tell me what it was, above my pay grade, you know?” He shook his head and squinted up at them. “Of course, he never came back. Killed in action. Or so they told me.” He rubbed the nape of his neck and leaned uncomfortably back in his chair. “He called me tonight.”

Kaden sat up straight in shock. “He called you?”

Quin nodded. “Not so dead, right? And he wants a favor.”

“Don’t do it.” Nothing good ever came of getting mixed up in black ops. Or with dead men. Especially the living ones.

Felix put a hand out and took Kaden’s. “It’s not that simple, Kaden.” He turned back to Quin. “What does this have to do with the omega?”

“They have a shifter already tangled up with them. He got one of the Nevada Ashes omegas pregnant. The deal Oscar wants is for us to claim the alpha as ours.”

“They’re going to let him go?”

Quin shook his head. “You know better than that. He’s outside the pack structure, living as a human. The omega will go with him, and we’ll pretend we came to offer the omega a place to live without a mate. It’s going to take some undercover work and some storytelling.” Quin turned his gaze back to Felix. “Can you help us with this? Both of you? We don’t have much time and I’ll admit, I’m not coming up with much in the way of ideas.”

“What are we getting out of it?” Kaden demanded. “If I’m supposed to let you put my mate in the military’s sights, it better be good.”

Quin shrugged. “Good will? Favors? It’s not as much for us. The alpha, Damian. He’s been cut off from pack and family for a decade. Oscar says he sent him to Nevada Ashes to try to keep him from going lunar, but it only made him worse. Of course, if he mated an omega while he was there, it’s no wonder he went a little wild after.” He nodded at Kaden’s hand, possessively on Felix’s thigh. “We don’t like to be separated from them for too long. Especially those of us with…issues.”

Delicately put, brother. “How does us claiming the alpha fix this? You’re not telling the whole story.”

“I’m trying. My head’s still spinning.” Quin got up and began to pace about the room as if the jarring of each step might knock ideas loose in his brain. “We’ll take the omega with us when we go, pretend we’re adopting him to the enclave. The humans will provide paperwork—pack papers and human identification. We give the omega to the humans and this alpha, then go our merry way. Abel can set them up with pack emails so that the omega can continue to talk to his family. We might have to do some work here to provide them with information or pictures to make their story hold together—I gather they’ll let us know when they need something.”

There was still something missing. But then Felix asked, “How does Holland feel about this?”