Page 216 of Omega's Heart

“How were you never court-martialed?”

Kaden lifted an eyebrow. “I couldn’t honestly say.”

The senator leaned back in his chair, his hands resting on the arms of the big leather monstrosity. “You may have overstepped your position here.”

“I’m pretty sure I did,” Kaden said frankly. “But she was eighteen and she’s already been attacked twice. If they send her to Sterling, she won’t last a year, alpha or not. Or if she does, she won’t be the kind of shifter we want coming back to society after. There is no pack there, and until your people understand that, it’s down to those of us who do to keep our shifters out of that little slice of the Barrens.” Kaden took a breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes until he’d tamped those emotions down again. This was a battle of wits and words, not a challenge cried. “She’s just as well supervised in Mercy Hills, and we don’t lose her labor. Plus it puts Winter Moon in the position of owing you a favor. That’s one pack down.” His phone chimed in his pocket and his fingers itched to answer it because it was the ringtone he’d set all the Alphas to. Hopefully, they’d call back when he wasn’t facing down the firing squad.

“Can you guarantee that?” the senator demanded. “Because if you can’t, you’ve just weakened my position with every other party member in the country, who I now have to convince to vote for me in the next six months.”

“I can’t guarantee it, but it gives me a lot more leverage. I’ve already had Garrick call his family to have them spread the news. They’re going to keep their ears to the ground and take the temperature of the pack.”

Kaden’s phone chimed again. He pretended not to hear it. “Sir, if you can’t intervene for the life and safety of even one of your constituents, then probably I shouldn’t be working for you anyway. You wanted something to bring the packs together for you. Well, I’ve given it to you. A seed, anyway, to start with. It’s up to you to make something of it.” His Barrens-damned phone chimed again and he ripped it out of his pocket and answered. “Yes,” he barked.

“Easy there, pup, is that any way to talk to your packcousin?” said Logan White River. “I heard a rumor from my sister’s packsister today. Is it true that your senator pulled strings to keep that Winter Moon girl out of Sterling?”

“Didn’t take long for gossip to get around,” Kaden said dryly. He glanced over at the senator then, deliberately, put the phone on speaker. “The senator’s right here, sir, if you want to ask him yourself.”

Logan’s voice boomed from the phone. “You need to start calling me by name, now that we’re family. I’ll have to have a talk to your mate. I hear he’s really the one that rules the den there.”

“Well, sir, if any of you White River boys had been smart enough to recognize what he was worth, it could have been you living under the omega’s paw. Which, I might add, is a very comfortable place to be when the omega is Felix.”

Logan laughed. “I suppose you’re right, pup. So where’s this senator of yours? I need to talk to him.”

“Right here, listening to my packcousin call me names. Senator, this is Logan White River, Alpha of the Colorado pack and cousin to my mate.” He laid the phone down on the desk between them and waited to see what happened next.

“Alpha White River, Lije Johnson here. How are things in Colorado?”

“Greening up. Won’t be long before we’re planting outside.” Logan’s cheerful tone became more serious. “I understand we’ve got something to thank you for.”

“The girl?” The senator’s eyes met Kaden’s. “Well, she’s just barely over eighteen, isn’t she? And I’ve heard bad things about Sterling.” He made a face at Kaden, while Kaden struggled to keep the I told you so off his.

“It’s not a good place. You might be a normal shifter when you go in, but when you come out, it’s even odds that you’ll be too lunar to make it in the pack again. So we appreciate that you put yourself out to keep us from having to try to undo that damage.”

“No trouble at all. I can’t be president if I’m going to ignore a good chunk of the population.” He sent an unreadable look in Kaden’s direction. “If there’s anything else we can help with, please speak to Kaden and he’ll get it in front of me. He’s going to be my point man with the packs.”

“That’s good to know. To be honest, I thought that boy was a fool, putting himself in a vulnerable position with humans, but I may have been wrong about that. He was smart enough to see past that omega’s size to the heart inside him, maybe he’s smart enough to pick a politician who actually means what he says.”

Kaden had to wonder if Logan had figured out that Kaden had gone behind the senator’s back. Or if Felix had told him. The White River Alpha couldn’t have hit the senator’s nail on the head more accurately if he and Kaden had sat down and planned this.

“I like to think,” the senator said, with only a hint of dryness in his voice, “that I have a good eye for personnel. I think Kaden has a future in politics.” The look he sent Kaden said, We’re going to talk after this.

Kaden nodded acceptance. He’d figured he wasn’t getting out of the senator’s office without losing a least a little bit of hide.

Logan laughed. “He’s sharp enough. Don’t let that blow your ego up, pup, or I’ll tell that mate to put a thorn in your path.” He laughed, but there was something dark underneath it. A reminder that he was Alpha for a reason. “But now, senator, we shifters don’t bother much with politics outside the packs. It doesn’t really make any difference to us, you see. Gets a little harder, sometimes, with some governments, but then the pendulum always swings back the other way. But if you’re promising something real, like what you did for that poor Winter Moon girl, then it might be that the packs could start taking an interest in politics. So long as we’re certain this is the real deal for us. Because we’ve been fucked over a lot by your kind, and if we back you and you do it again, there’ll never be trust between our peoples again.” A hint of a growl underscored those last words, something Kaden wished he could have warned the Alpha against.

“I don’t plan to fuck anyone over, as you so bluntly put it. Do you understand that I have to work within the system and that I’m not going to be able to hand anything over to you on demand? We got lucky with the girl. There’s no saying the next problem will be that easily solved.”

“We don’t expect easy. We do demand honesty.” Logan’s voice was firm. “Can you be honest with us?”

There was a pause in the conversation that stretched far enough that Kaden’s nerves began to sing. Then the senator said gravely, “As far as it is in my power to do so, I will not lie to you. Will you accept my promise on that?”

“For as long as you keep it.”

The senator paused again. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for, given our history.”

“I suppose it is.” This time, it was Logan who led the pause. “I’ll do what I can to bring the packs into line for you. There’s a lot of talk going around right now. Be careful where you put your paws. And a few more things like the young Winter Moon alpha that I could remind the packs about wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’ll do what I can, but you understand that I have to tread as carefully as you do in this.”