Page 85 of Omega's Heart

Holland was busy in the kitchen when we got there, the air thick with the smell of tomatoes and onions and garlic. I saw Quin’s head and shoulders rising over the back of the couch, Lonnie hanging over his shoulder with his little puppy eyes fixed on Holland in the kitchen. I didn’t know where the other pups were—it was too late for them to be sleeping, but too early for them to be gone off to school.

Maybe it was the human sitting in the chair across from the Alpha. I had to admit I stared—I’d never seen one with skin so dark in real life. The movies always muted the complex variation in skin tone to something flat and far less beautiful.

But I thought the more likely reason for the pups to be tucked away wherever they were was the other stranger lying on the floor beside Quin’s old Marine friend.

No, not a stranger, as my nose pieced the scent out from between all the other ones. It was a… dog? I’d never smelled one before, only ever seen one in movies, but for some reason that was the word that came to mind. “Kaden?” I whispered.

He put a hand in the small of my back and pushed me gently in the direction of the kitchen. “Holland might be glad for some help,” he said softly, as if it was no matter at all, except for that little push both with his hand and the power that made him alpha instead of beta.

I went, but not all the way to the kitchen. Instead, I hung in the space in between the rooms and watched, curious.

“What is this?” Kaden asked as he rolled around the back of the couch, stopping at the end farthest from the dog.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped, but it was only Holland. “It’s okay,” he said with a low voice. “Help me bring the food out?”

“Sure.” He’d made some sort of omelet in a dish—eggs, tomato, mushroom, what I thought was spinach—that he was just pulling out of the oven.

“Watch out, it’s hot,” Holland told me as he turned to put it on the counter beside me. “Could you get plates down? They’re in the third cupboard there from the fridge.”

I did as I was told, but hesitated over the last one. “Do we get one down for the…dog?” I whispered, uncertain.

Holland flicked a glance in the direction of the living room, then nodded. “Get one down. We won’t put out food for it, but if it looks like we’re being insulting, then we can dish something out quick enough.”

I nodded and set an extra plate aside. It was weird, like having another child in the room, but one with some serious disabilities. Like the inability to shift back to human. I didn’t think that had ever happened to anyone, but even imagining it made a shiver run down my spine. I loved my human form, and I loved my wolf form. If someone tried to make me choose between them? I didn’t think I could.

We carried the food out and set it on the table, then went back to the kitchen to bring breakfast to the pups. The other three were curled up in the tangled sheets of their parents’ bed watching something on Holland’s laptop.

“Hey, guys,” Holland said. “Get your backs up against the headboard, okay? And try not to spill anything in the bed.” He handed down the plates and then took the little one I was holding to give it to Zane. “Watch your brother,” he told the older two and headed back to the living room. “I don’t know what’s going to happen here—Quin trusts this human but he brought the dog with him and he wants us to keep it.”

“Keep the dog?” I clapped a hand over my mouth—that had been far too loud. With my size, it happened more often than I liked.

Holland froze and cast his eyes up toward the ceiling before shaking his head and continuing on down the hallway. “Obviously, we can’t do that. Imagine the old ones’ reactions? It’s an insult.” He said the last bit almost under his breath because we were back in the living room. “Breakfast is ready,” he announced quietly and led the way back to the table.

Holland took Lonnie away, back to stay with the other pups, I imagined. Then we all took our seats. The dog stayed by the chair where it had been lying on the floor. It seemed to have good manners for something you couldn’t really communicate with. In color, it was mostly brown and black, with only the vaguest resemblance to a wolf. I couldn’t help stealing glances at it during the meal until Kaden reached over to squeeze my knee under the table in concern.

I patted his hand and went back to my meal, trying to ignore the dog.

“This is really good,” Harris said, grinning around the table. “I’m not much of a cook, but Saffron is fantastic. And the Sarge here knows, food in the field was more about keeping you alive and not poisoning you than anything else.”

“Saffron is the young alpha from Green Moon?” Kaden asked.

Harris nodded. “I was looking after Granny some while we were there helping the Sarge out, then I helped get them to Salma and it kind of snowballed from there. Granny invited me to visit after and, well…” He shrugged. “Saffron says the Lady blesses where she wills. I’m guessing that’s kind of your way of saying love happens.”

“Or shit,” Quin said dryly. He ate the last forkful of his eggs, then reached for another piece of toast and the strawberry jam in the middle of the table. “How did you end up with the dog?”

C H A P T E R 5 1

T hank you, Quin. I was curious about the dog. Painfully so. It only had three legs.

I hadn’t noticed it when we first came in, under the shock of meeting the human and seeing the dog. But the dog had moved when Harris had gotten up to come to the table and that was when I saw it. In the place of one hind leg, he had a shining curved steel thing and it reminded me of some of the legs that humans wore when they’d been injured the way that Kaden had been.

“Hunter,” the human said and snapped his fingers.

I winced, and I wasn’t the only one to do so, but I didn’t think Harris noticed.

The dog got to its feet and walked over to us. It was wary, particularly of the alphas, and clung to Harris’s side. I noticed a slight hitch in its step, but nothing that looked like it would interfere with it getting around.

“One of the slower bomb dogs?” Quin asked dryly.