Page 22 of Omega's Heart

“You want shotgun?” Holland asked, backing out of the open door with a relieved expression on his face. “Your legs are longer.” He froze and a look of near-comical dismay appeared on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Kaden laughed at him. “Now I definitely want shotgun. Don’t worry about it. I bet your mate will have a half-dozen jokes about legs ready to go for the drive home.”

“Don’t tease him, pup,” Quin said in mock severity. “Or we’re stopping for chicken.”

“And getting a barrel of legs?” Kaden asked slyly.

“You always were a leg man,” Quin reminded him, which was true. Kaden squinted up at Holland, who still looked horrified at his gaff, and held out a hand. “It’s fine, it really is. I’m not happy about it, but there’s no point tiptoeing around the fact that I have a few pieces missing. I’d rather you talked to me like you did—it makes me feel normal.”

After a moment, Holland held out a hand to grasp Kaden’s. “Still, I should try to be more thoughtful.”

He didn’t know what to say to that and instead looked over at his brother. “We ready?”

“Just waiting for the slow wolf.”

“Jerk.” Kaden opened the car door and let it swing wide, popped off the left arm of the wheelchair and got himself into place, then levered himself into the front seat with his arms and the one leg. It wasn’t so bad and Quin had the wheelchair broken down in no time and stowed in the trunk with his bags, then they were all packed into the car and heading for Mercy Hills.

But first, he made them stop for hamburgers. And a bucket of chicken, because he was suddenly really, really hungry.

C H A P T E R 1 6

H is first morning in Mercy Hills, Kaden woke to bright sunshine slanting across his bed and the smell of...bacon? Was someone cooking bacon in his apartment? Carefully, he pushed himself to sitting and swung his leg over the side. His real one—the fake one was propped up against the headboard, for lack of anyplace better to put it. Quin had promised a hook or something custom built for it once Kaden decided what he wanted, but he needed to get settled in before he’d know what would work best for him.

Kaden reached for the hearing aid in its little case on the bedside table and twisted it in; his lifeline to the real world, since the blast had taken so much of his hearing. The tinnitus was a screaming banshee in his left ear this morning and he turned up the hearing aid in his right ear just a little to try to overwhelm it, then grimaced and turned it back down again when he remembered the doctors talking about not making what hearing he had left any worse by abusing his eardrums.

He should be grateful. Instead, he was just frustrated, like he was every morning when he woke from dreams of wholeness to…this. He shot the leg a baleful glance and decided to just hop to the main room of the apartment to investigate.

The bacon smell was coming from inside his apartment. And now that he was in the same room as the tiny kitchen, he could smell the toast and the eggs and the—shit, steak that the man at the stove was cooking.

At first glance it looked like one of the local alphas and his hackles rose automatically, except the scent weaving in and out between the food smells wasn’t heavy like an alpha’s would be, but lighter. More like Holland’s had been... Kaden narrowed his eyes. No way that was an omega.

“Who are you?” he barked in his best battlefield voice.

The stranger froze and twisted to peer at Kaden. “Oh, you’re up already. I wanted to have breakfast ready before I woke you.”

“Who are you?”

The other man’s cheeks turned pink. “Sorry. I’m Felix. Holland asked me to hang around, lend you a hand with anything you needed, help get you oriented to the enclave.” He turned back to the frying pan for a moment, then looked back up at Kaden with sudden shyness. “They don’t really know what to do with me yet.”

Quin had mentioned something about this last night, but they’d talked about so many different things, and he’d been so tired from the effort of just getting himself there, he’d forgotten. And then Kaden realized with a blush that he was standing in a closed apartment wearing nothing but a pair of worn army boxers, having a conversation with a strange omega without a sniff of a chaperone. “I’m going to get dressed,” he snapped and tried to turn around in the doorway, lost his balance and fell against the doorframe. “Damn!” Getting his center of gravity back over his remaining foot proved more complicated than he’d expected, until a pair of strong arms hooked themselves under his and steadied him until he could hop his foot over where it needed to be. Embarrassed, he shook the omega off—the other shifter was definitely an omega, now that Kaden was close enough to really scent him —and stormed into the bedroom as well as a man with one leg could storm.

It wasn’t until he’d been in the shower for ten minutes that he started to feel bad about what he’d done out there. He sighed and slumped onto the stool someone had kindly put in the corner of the shower stall, letting the hot water run over his body, hopefully taking all the fear and frustration with it. Lysoon knew he’d done enough bleeding on the people around him, physical or otherwise. It was time to figure out what he was going to make of what was left of his life.

And so they gave him an omega as a helper, as if he needed another complication in his life. A good looking one, if startlingly large. It didn’t look bad on the man, though.

Kaden shook his head and reached for the soap. Too many complications, soldier. Get your mind on the mission. Which was, right now, figuring out how to work with that damn fake leg.

And finding some purpose for his life as whatever he was now.

He finished up his shower and made his halting way back out to the bedroom to get dressed. He didn’t have much in the way of civvies, so he just pulled on an old khaki t-shirt and cargo pants, one sock to keep his foot warm, and a safety pin so he wouldn’t trip over the half-empty leg on the other side of the pants. Then he grabbed his crutches and hopped out to the kitchen because he just didn’t feel up to fighting with the prosthesis.

Felix was just setting a plate on the table and Kaden paused in shock for a moment to take it in. A full breakfast of steak and eggs and bacon, with a plate of toast and a glass of orange juice. The omega looked up and smiled awkwardly. “The Alpha said you should have good food and lots of it, because of how much energy it takes to heal. And if you’re up to it, he’d like to join you for breakfast.”

“Uh, thanks,” Kaden muttered and swung over to the table. He was pretty good on the crutches now and landed easily in the chair, the crutches themselves getting tucked away against the wall where they wouldn’t trip anyone up.

“Should I call the Alpha?” Felix asked, pausing in his puttering around the kitchen.

“I can call him.” There was an empty mug beside the orange juice. “Is there coffee?”