Page 55 of Omega's Heart

“Don’t go far.” Bax patted his shoulder and watched him trot off, then took his place leaning against the chair. “He’s getting to that age now where I’m not allowed to kiss him or hug him in public.”

“He’s growing up.”

“Yeah. I keep thinking I should have Abel have that alpha talk with him, but it’s so hard to believe it’s almost that time.”

Kaden laughed. “If he’s anything like the alphas I grew up with, he’s just going to stand around and stare at the girls like a cat got his tongue for the next five or six years. You’re probably safe.”

Bax smiled at him, but it was obvious that older brother Abel was going to be tasked with the unenviable job of having a ‘puppies and bunnies’ talk with young Fan in the very near future. Enjoy. He wished he could be there to watch.

“Oh, there’s Jason,” Bax said and straightened. “You okay here or do you want me to stick around? I don’t know what Full Moon was like at Salma, but I’m told it can be a little overwhelming here.”

“Duke’s around somewhere.” Kaden twisted to look for him. “Ah, planning his attack. He should know better—no battle plan ever survives first contact with opposing forces.”

“You think the food is going to rise up in rebellion?” Bax asked with his surprisingly dry humor. “If you’re okay, though, I needed to talk to Jason about something.”

“Go, I’m fine.” Unlike Fan, though, he was perfectly okay with the kiss his packbrother pressed to his temple before he left. As he watched Bax disappear into the crowd, he wondered again, but in a not-too-serious way, if there were any unmated brothers or sisters still left in that family. Ones with a bit more meat on their bones than either Bax or Holland. Not Cale, though. He’d already been on the wrong end of that sharp tongue. Shrapnel belonged on the battlefield, not in the dining room.

Movement from the far side of the park caught his eye. Felix, walking across the clearing in the company of that young blond omega from Perseguir and the beta the young man had mated out of hand. That had been ballsy on both their parts but they seemed happy together. Cas and Raleigh, pup free, brought up the rear of the little group. Beside them was the omega who had started the whole legal issue that had Quin tearing his hair out and Cas working as many hours as there were in the day. He was still, in Kaden’s opinion, the prettiest little thing he’d ever seen, with his hair shining like gold in the last rays of the sun.

And absolutely the opposite of anything that would interest Kaden himself.

“There’s Julius,” one of his companions said. “I’d take him on, even with the legal problems. I mean, he’s an omega, how long would they put him in jail for?”

“Would he have you?” one of the others said.

“You think I can’t get that?” They fell to bickering and Kaden ignored them, planning his escape until his ears pricked up at the words, “He looks like a midget next to the other one.”

“Oh, the giant? Yeah. Too bad, he’s not ugly, but who wants to spend their whole life explaining to strangers that no, he’s not the alpha in the mating?”

Kaden’s eyes fixed on Felix, approaching the tables with his offerings for the evening meal, Julius now beside him looking easily as tiny as the other alphas had commented, and something about it all just—bothered him. “You think his size is a problem?” Kaden asked, trying to keep the snap out of his voice.

The young alpha, no more than nineteen or twenty if Kaden was any judge, turned to him in surprise. “Well, he’s just huge. If I told him to do something and he didn’t want to...” The alpha left the rest of the sentence to the group’s imagination.

Another quickly filled in, “And who wants to have to get a step-stool to kiss your mate? Or, imagine, you know, more than kissing.” The others quickly agreed that it would be entirely too awkward to have a mate that big, especially in the bedroom, and that a mate that size wouldn’t look up to their alpha the way an omega was supposed to.

“He’s just too tall,” they all agreed.

Kaden squinted into the encroaching dusk, watching the flex of muscle as Felix set his dish down, then helped Julius move some others to make room for the platter in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said in a deliberately meditative tone. “Looks worth the climb to me.” Then he unlocked his wheels and pushed himself across the grass to the food table and, more importantly, Felix.

Yep. Fools, every single one of them.

C H A P T E R 3 5

Something nudged my leg and I looked up to find Kaden beside me. “Scoping out the tables?” I asked. Casually, I pulled my bowl of roasted bacon Brussels sprouts closer to the edge where he could see them.

“Planning my attack,” he informed me, rubbing his hands together and peering down the rows of bowls and plates and casseroles. “Those smell good. Not a fan of sprouts, but I’d eat that.”

I felt my heart sink at his words and wished now that I’d done a potato scallop or something else less risky. “Don’t eat anything you don’t like. There’s going to be plenty.”

He gave me a strange look, then peeked around me at Julius. “How are you, Julius? What did you bring?”

Should have guessed. Well, it was only to be expected.

Julius twitched. “Jason gave me the last of the hard squash, so I did a mash and cubes and some skewers with different things mixed in.”

“It smells delicious. I’ll have to remember to get some.”

I reminded myself not to sigh and instead got out of the way so they could look at each other. I wasn’t going to deny Julius a chance at a high-status mate like the Alpha’s brother, even though I worried that Kaden on his bad days might be too much for fragile Julius. But it might help Kaden, having to consider his mate before he snapped. They’d probably end up being good for each other.