Page 58 of Omega's Heart

“Are you planning to go back to the Winter Moon enclave and fall in line with what your parents demand?”

“Noooo,” Julius said slowly. “I mean, I’d like to go home someday. There’s—” His words broke off and he looked down at the ground. “There’s reasons,” he said firmly.

Oho, there’s a boy. Or a girl, maybe. “Then you need to learn how to set those boundaries. And part of that is learning how to tell a boy or girl you don’t want to dance with them. Whether you’re polite about it or not is up to you to decide. I will say, polite often reaps greater benefits down the path, but it does take more effort in the present.” And that was enough paternal advice from him for the day. He twisted in his chair, looking for Felix or Cale or someone to pass on his charge to, but didn’t see either of them. “Where is everyone?”

Julius shrugged. “Around. Bax and Abel are dancing, Cale said nothing on earth could convince him to stay after the meal was done, Ori said he was going to check on Rose.”

“Felix?”

“Went home. He says he’s too big to dance.”

Too big? Hardly. “Idiot,” Kaden muttered under his breath and spun his chair around. “Go dance, Julius. Live your life.”

Advice he could really give himself.

They were all fools here, to not see what was right under their noses. Time he pulled his head out and did what all his instincts were telling him to.

Kaden made a stop at the drinks table to steal a couple of bottles of the pack’s homebrew, then rolled off the grass and onto the flattened, hard-packed dirt of the track that ran in front of the pack building. Laughter and shouting from the dancers echoed back to him off the tall building, then a second weaker one from the walls that separated the enclave from the surrounding human territories. It struck him as ironic that the happy sounds of laughter and music should be reflected back at them by the walls that so often held them back from things that would make them happy. Which, he realized with some humor, was a remarkably philosophical thought for him.

No one noticed him leaving except Holland, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Coming to Mercy Hills was an education in a lot of things he’d never even considered before. The biggest being in how different omegas here were from omegas in Salma, despite coming from all over the country. Or maybe it was because they had to choose to come here, that Mercy Hills got the best of them. Or, maybe it was the explanation that his family kept pushing at him, that the other packs held their omegas back, and paid for it. It made him uneasy to think that perhaps the other packs were just missing out because of how they raised them.

He nodded when Holland caught his eye and pointed up toward the top floor to let his packbrother he was done for the evening. Holland nodded back and waved, then someone else came up to talk to him and he had to turn away, once more the Alpha’s Mate.

Kaden waited impatiently through the elevator ride, tapping his fingers restlessly against the arms of the chair. He had no plan once he got upstairs, wasn’t entirely certain what he wanted, except to convince Felix that not everyone in Mercy Hills was an idiot.

Rolling down the hallway, he had no better ideas, until he was sitting in front of Felix’s doorway. It didn’t really hit him, what his gut was pushing him to do until he caught himself thinking it was a relief that Felix wasn’t like Julius. As soon as he had that thought, he realized why he was there.

It occurred to him that he didn’t have the first clue how an alpha went about courting someone, let alone when that someone was an omega.

He knocked. It was quiet on the other side and he wondered if Felix had gone someplace else, or already gone to bed despite the early hour, and then he heard footsteps and the door opened.

“Hi,” Felix said, looking surprised.

“Hi, yourself,” Kaden replied. “You left the party.”

Felix shrugged. “I get bored at the dances.”

“Me too.”

It took a moment for the joke to make it’s way home, then Felix grinned. “Funny alpha. Want some coffee? I think Cale’s finished the pot, but I can put a new one on.”

“Is Cale home?” Not what he had hoped for at all.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s not disturb him. You can make coffee at my place as well as here.”

Felix appeared to consider it while Kaden held his breath, then nodded. “Sure. I’ll just tell him I’m going to be across the hall.”

While Felix padded down the apartment’s hallway to talk to Cale, Kaden rolled back over to his door, propped it open with one wheel, and waited.

C H A P T E R 3 7

I was already bored with the movies I’d picked out when I heard the knock on the door. With a sense of relief I should have been embarrassed by, I paused the DVD player and went to answer it.

And then I opened the apartment door and stared, frozen, at Kaden on the other side. He raised his eyebrows at me and I croaked, “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself. You left the party.”