Page 62 of Omega's Heart

Back on topic. “Scutwork I can do. But if all I am is a token, then we might be walking two different trails here. If I’m going to take a healthy alpha out of the workforce in Mercy Hills, it needs to be for something that will benefit us more than the labor I’m currently doing.” Not that he was all that healthy, but he wanted to push them a little, get them to set their cards out on the table.

John glanced over at the senator, who put down his report and sat back in his chair. “You don’t think striking down the Segregation Laws would be considered to be of more benefit than your current housing project?” he asked in a calm voice that somehow still rang out across the room like a speech.

Now was his chance to pry for information. “You’ve said that before. I’d say you’re telling dog stories to a wolf,” he answered smoothly. “You’re not going to find them an easy target. What’s in it for us if you fail?”

“I won’t fail,” the senator said, closing the folder over the top of the paperwork and sitting back in his chair. “The time has come. You maybe don’t realize it, but the president has been laying the groundwork for this move for a couple of years now. There have been studies, particularly focusing on how much it costs the government to keep your people inside the enclaves. Comparatives between crime rates. Access to education, access to services.” He lifted the folder and shook it in Kaden’s direction. “It won’t be fast. It won’t be easy. But we’ve been polling and if it’s going to happen, then this is the time to start working that lever under the rock that’s keeping you trapped in your cave.” He flipped the report around and laid it on the edge of the desk where Kaden could clearly see the title.

Public Opinion on the Current Crisis in the Shifter Population.

Kaden sat back in his chair. “I’m listening.”

C H A P T E R 3 9

H e was late getting home that night—not quite late enough to risk breaking the curfew, but he was going to be disrupting a lot of bedtime routines. He made his first stop at Cas’s and found his brother on the couch with the three older pups, reading them a story. Soft clinking noises in the kitchen announced Raleigh’s presence at the back of the townhouse.

“I’m almost done here,” Cas said, then immediately continued in a high squeaky voice. “Not by the hair of my chinny-chinny-chin.” He paused and squinted at the book.

“We know it’s specist, Cas,” Pip said, bored. “We don’t care. Just read it.”

“I don’t know why you wanted this one in the first place,” he complained.

Raleigh stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Just read it, Cas,” he said in a stern voice, then smiled at Kaden. “Are you staying long?”

“Just want to have five minutes with your mate,” Kaden began, when he heard Cas start to sputter with laughter. Raleigh’s usual smile widened into a grin with a Cas-level amount of mischief in it.

In a booming voice, Cas read, “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blowwwww your house down with my C4 explosive and some scientific ingenuity!” The pups all howled and thrust their little fists in the air and Cas let his head fall onto the back of the couch and laughed until the tears streaked his cheeks.

Raleigh leaned against the side of the kitchen door and grinned. “Thought you’d like that,” he said. “Now, finish the last page and then it’s bedtime.”

“Aw, Papa,” the pups whined half-heartedly, but settled down quickly enough when Cas turned the page to read, “And then he had bacon and pork chops and pork stew for months, all cooked over the roaring fire left behind by his explosives. The End.” Cas closed the book, random chuckles still bursting out of him and kissed the pups. “Okay, story time’s over. Up the stairs to brush your teeth!”

Raleigh crossed the room and Cas pulled him in for a short kiss. “If you’ll keep an eye on the baby, I’ll get them to bed so you can talk to Kaden,” Raleigh told him, one hand smoothing over the planes of Cas’s chest. Was that an omega thing? Kaden wondered idly. He’d seen his other packbrothers do it too. For an instant, the vision of Felix making the exact same motion rose in his brain, and he had to literally shake his head to make it go away. His mother had always said he’d know when he found the right one—she was going to have kittens when she saw who he was planning to bring home. Assuming Felix would have him, though Kaden thought the chances were good. Decent anyway. They got along well, and occasionally, Felix had done something or said something that, in retrospect, gave Kaden hope. Hard to say if Felix might value his independence more than he’d value having a mate, though, or if he even saw Kaden as a potential mate, but they’d have to see. Tonight.

Cas jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Thought you were supposed to be off the leg until the surgery?”

Kaden followed him through and took one of the mismatched chairs at the table, falling into it with a thump. Across the table, little Madoc grinned at him from his high chair, an empty bowl in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other. “I wasn’t sure the wheelchair would get me everywhere I needed to go. I was fine.”

Cas ran a damp cloth over the baby’s face and hands while the little pup yelped and did his best to escape. “Want something to eat or drink?” Cas asked once he was done.

“Naw, I just want to get back to my apartment and I’ll have to stop twice more before I do.” He was tired. So much new, so many new humans. So much to think about. “I think I’m going to like the job. This could be good for us. The collective us. They’ve been preparing for a while.”

Cas came back to the table with another small plastic bowl, this one filled with what looked like mashed strawberries. He set it in front of the baby and took the other bowl away. “What do they want you to do?”

“Immediately? Whatever they can fit me into. Eventually?” Kaden took a deep breath. “He says if he gets into the White House, he’s taking me with him. And they’re serious about having the Segregation Laws struck down.”

Cas froze with a hand just out of the baby’s reach, his mouth hanging open. Madoc squealed and banged on the chair’s tray, waking his sire up with a start. “You mean declaring it unconstitutional?” he demanded and guided the baby’s spoon into the bowl with one finger.

Kaden shook his head. “They’re not going to leave themselves open to a lawsuit. But he says he can argue that it’s creating artificial inequalities, that we’ve shown no evidence of being more violent than humans, and that in a multi-cultural society like ours, we should be able to embrace and make use of the differences to further enrich the country as a whole. That it’ll be cheaper for the country to give us equality than to keep us behind walls.” He’d practically quoted the man, not knowing how else to get across the sense of what had gone on there—not just the words, because there was a depth of meaning to everything that had been said that went beyond just the definitions of the words strung together. And there was that other thing. “He wants to send me to Washington once they’ve got me trained. And once the campaign starts, I’ll be in charge of bringing the packs in line. He’s going to look into getting me an exemption from the curfew rules to make that easier.”

Cas dropped the cereal bowl.

“You’ve made a mess,” Kaden observed mildly, but neither of them cared.

Cas fell into his chair and stared at Kaden for a moment, then Kaden almost heard the clunk as Cas’s lawyer’s brain started working. “What do you need from us?”

“For now, not much. But I won’t be able to work the housing project anymore. And I have no fucking clue how to get all the packs hunting in the same direction on this.” He tapped his fingers against the tabletop, watching them to give his body something to do while his brain worked. “I might need some help from the omegas. And maybe a prize to dangle in front of some muzzles. A more immediate prize than just the possibility of getting outside of these walls permanently.” He raised his eyes to Cas’s and quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I’d talk to Quin and Holland,” Cas said thoughtfully. “You can include this in the evaluations of the packs for the Mutch funding in the spring, and there’ll be another round of that in a couple of years. Faster, if all goes well. Barrens, that’s going to make the decision even harder.” He rubbed at his chin and absently bent down to retrieve the spoon his pup had just tossed on the floor. “I dunno. Leave it with me, I’ll do some thinking.”