Page 61 of Omega's Heart

“Yes, come in, grab a chair. Kaden, this is John Gillingham, we go way back. In fact, he’s the one who drives this whole bus, and if it wasn’t for him, we’d all be sitting in Witchita or wherever right now, wondering where we took a wrong turn. John, this is Kaden Salma Wood.”

“Ah, I was hoping that was you when I saw your tabs. My brother served with yours in the Marines, a long time ago.” The human strode into the room and took Kaden’s hand to shake it without so much as a by-your-leave. “He can’t say enough good things about him. Owes him his life, he says, though when I ask him about it, I get that old saw about ‘if I told you, I’d have to kill you’.” He looked over at the senator. “Mike was on the phone when I went by his office, do you want me to get Jilly to tell him to hurry it up?”

The senator, already deep into some official-looking bound document waved his hand negligently. “You fellows can start without him, Mike’s pretty good at catching up.”

One of the other men laughed. “He’d have to be.”

“He’s Public Policy,” John reminded the other two. “You know, busy. Unlike you two cretins. Kaden, grab a chair and let’s get to know each other. How’s the leg?”

“Fine.” A lie. Kaden took the offered chair and sat thankfully. His leg was already shooting pain up his spine and into his back—he was going to get an earful from Felix tonight when the omega found out. “I’m going in for more surgery on it pretty soon. Nothing major, they tell me, but I’m supposed to stay off it except for special circumstances until then.”

He missed Felix, here among all these humans again. Funny how quick you got used to having your own people around, to not having to watch what you said and what you did because the people near you all spoke that same language.

The senator looked up from his papers. “John, make sure the office is compliant, okay?”

John nodded as if redesigning the inside of the cramped space was all in a day’s work. “I heard they decorated you for that,” he commented in Kaden’s direction.

Kaden shrugged. “Who knows why the Army does anything?”

John frowned. “You should make more of that. Your people need all the good press you can get.” He turned away to say something to Ben, leaving Kaden’s brain stuck going around and around with those words. Your people need all the good press they can get. Yes, he knew that. But hearing it from the human—something about the words in that man’s voice rang so loud and hard in his head it brought a new truth to them, something he could feel but couldn’t quite articulate. And a feeling of respect, a real one, began to grow in him for this man with his abrupt tongue and quick wit.

While he was still chewing on those words, John turned back to him. “So, Kaden, what kinds of things did you do in the army?”

Something about how John asked told Kaden that the human already knew as much about Kaden’s MOSs as could be released to the public. “The usual. They didn’t have me doing anything special.”

“Uh huh.” John began rattling off the list of Kaden’s deployments, right from his first one as a raw recruit to the last one that had cost him his leg. Barring the ones that were still hidden away in those special folders that only a few people got to see. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, sir,” Kaden said automatically.

“It’s John, Kaden. We’re all on a first name basis here.”

“Okay, John. I’m surprised you remembered all that.”

“Oh, John’s a smart man,” the senator said in a tone like he wasn’t really paying attention, though Kaden guessed he was hearing every word and tucking it away to be discussed later. “If you ever decide to go into politics for yourself, find yourself someone smarter than you and hire them to run your campaign and your office. That’s how John and I ended up working together.”

“Now, senator—” John began, but the politician waved him off.

Adam leaned forward. “Kaden, what have you been doing with yourself since you came home? Aside from healing, that is.”

That was an easy question. “Getting settled in, mostly. Getting the leg sorted. Doing some preliminary evaluations for the Mutch project, if you’re familiar with that?” The human nodded, so Kaden continued, “And a renewal project for my Alpha to salvage some of the original houses that were built in the early nineteen hundreds and replace the other ones with newer builds.”

“Are you having much trouble with the Heritage Society?” John asked with what smelled to Kaden like real curiosity.

“Not really. Not yet, anyway. They don’t seem to care, and most of those houses would have been condemned if they were outside the enclaves. There’s one gentleman in the department who’s been very helpful in terms of finding the construction standards of the time period they would have been built in.” He didn’t mention that most of the houses wouldn’t have been constructed to any code but the one of simple necessity, having simply been the pack’s first foray into providing small territories for the sub-packs of families. “By the time they’re done, though, I should have them up to modern code with a lot of the original look, then we’ll use them for guest housing.”

“I’d like to come see that when you’re done,” John said. “And I’d bet my brother wouldn’t say no to a chance to drop in on an old Marine friend.”

“I’ll mention it to Quin,” Kaden told him, but was careful to keep his voice non-committal. These humans would run right over you, it seemed, and he knew better than to volunteer his Alpha for anything, brother or no.

“Good, that would be great. Tell me, Kaden, how do you feel about working a little farther from home than Memphis?”

It almost hurt to suppress the sarcastic laughter that bubbled up inside him. “I don’t know if you can get much farther from home than where I’ve been the last eighteen years.”

John laughed, Ben and Adam chuckled, even the senator snorted lightly at that one. “You got me. Okay, I understand that it’s already been mentioned, but we were still getting our ducks in a row. What I’m thinking now that we’ve had a chance to figure out where you’re best put to use is that we can start you out here, with the idea that eventually you’re going to end up in Washington. One way or another. You’ll work in this office until you’re more familiar with the job, then we move you to the Washington office later. After the primaries maybe, or possibly before, to get people there used to you. It’ll mostly be scutwork until you get your feet under you—” John paused and for the first time, Kaden saw him look unbalanced. “Sorry, my tongue got away on me there.”

Kaden shook his head and knocked on the leg, a bright, almost hollow sound. “It’s no worry. I got off lightly, all things considered. Not even many nightmares.” And this leg, maybe, was bringing him closer to an omega entirely unlike any who had ever bored him before. Felix definitely wasn’t boring.

Going to D.C. would take him away from that, before he even had a chance to think about what he wanted.