Page 92 of Omega's Heart

“It’ll be fine, I’m sure,” he said doubtfully and reached for Rose.

Reluctantly, I gave her back, and mused wistfully about next spring, when I hoped I’d have my own little bundle to carry around and worry about. “We should get going. Holland’s expecting us,” I said and tickled Rose’s cheek to make her laugh.

“Okay.” Then, in a brave and generous gesture, Ori reached down to scratch at the back of Hunter’s ruff, soothing the pup instinctively the way Kaden and I did. “Let’s go, then.”

Sometime between the lobby of the building and when we got to the top floor, Willie Rose had a blowout of incredible proportions. So the first thing we did when we arrived was dig out a change of clothing for her so Ori could wash her off in the bathroom and change her into something clean.

Holland had set out the piles of cloth on his kitchen table. I sent Hunter to lie on the rug in front of the big window, next to the fenced-in corner with Holland’s two youngest in it, and took a chair at the table to run the beautiful fabric through my fingers again. It wasn’t silk, but something that felt like it, soft and fluid, but not as expensive as it looked. Something which had made me happy, because Holland had insisted on paying for it.

“Are you sure about these colors?” I asked, for probably the fifteenth time.

“Yes,” he said, coming over to the table with a handful of pens and some paper. “It’ll be beautiful on you.” He set the paper in front of me. “Draw me the kinds of designs your pack puts on mating clothing, or even just fancy stuff.”

I picked up one of the pens and stared doubtfully at it. “Shouldn’t I be putting Mercy Hills on the mating tunic?” I asked.

“We haven’t processed the paperwork for it yet. And this is the last time you’ll wear White River patterns. You should enjoy it.”

I was pretty sure already that I was going to enjoy my mating, whatever we embroidered on the tunic, but this was my Alpha’s Mate and packbrother, so I dutifully began to sketch the different images we used back home.

The door opened again and Cale and Raleigh came through, with Julius and Bax right behind them. “We brought snacks,” Raleigh announced and set a bag bulging with food on the kitchen counter.

“Help yourself to the cupboards,” Holland said casually. He’d disappeared and reappeared with a couple of pairs of scissors and two sewing machines I recognized from when we made the curtains for the new houses earlier in the year. “I borrowed these from the grannies, so we have to take care of them,” he warned us all.

“Don’t let me touch them,” Cale declared and blew past us all to go see his nephews. “Hey, guys. You know, I don’t think that’s actually edible.” He stood up with something unrecognizable but very much baby chewed in his hand. “I don’t think you want this back.”

Holland glanced at it and shook his head. “No, you can throw it out.”

“Mom again?” Cale tossed the whatever-it-was at the open garbage can in the kitchen and wandered over to the table.

Holland shrugged. “Now that I have a pup that might be an alpha, she’s putting in an effort.” He seemed to catch himself then and I realized he hadn’t intended for the rest of us to hear it. “Let’s get started before we gossip the whole day away?” he asked in a bright voice. “Felix, we need to measure you. Are you almost done there?”

“Pretty much,” I told him and pushed the paper toward him. “It’s as many as I can think of, anyway.”

He picked up the paper and nodded. “We can do stuff with these.” He passed it over to Bax and waved his hand at me. “Up! We need measurements!” Then he laughed gaily and if I hadn’t heard the discontent in his voice earlier, I might have thought he was as carefree as he sounded.

Julius dragged me up from the chair, chattering and giggling the whole time. They measured every part of me it felt like, pushing me this way and that, arms up, arms down, crouched and standing. Even my feet, from which I gathered that they had something other than just a simple pair of leather slippers in mind for me.

And then the cutting and the sewing began. I winced at the first crisp notes of the scissors cutting through the fabric but soon lost myself in the pattern that the other omegas had come up with. The fabric was a brilliant red, like blood only brighter. Holland and I had gone through a good half-dozen fabric stores before we’d settled on this. I’d been a little nervous at how bright the color was, but Holland had held it up by my face and nodded approvingly. “You should stand out at your mating. No one will be able to take their eyes off you in this,” he’d said, so I’d given way as gracefully as I could.

As soon as the pieces were cut out, Julius and Raleigh whisked them away to pin them together and run them through the sewing machine.

“I was thinking of knotting the hem,” Holland said thoughtfully. “But I’m not sure if we shouldn’t embroider the hem and I’ll see if I can get some leather cord to make a fringe.”

“You don’t think a fringe might be too busy?” Bax asked, frowning at the deliberately uneven hem of the main part of the tunic.

“Around the bottom?” Holland frowned. “You might be right.”

“Maybe ask Felix what he’d like?” Raleigh put an arm around my waist and grinned. “After all, he’s the one who’s got to wear it.”

For a little while,” Ori said, adding his two cents and making me blush. “Here, hold the baby.” He passed me Willie Rose and went over to run the fabric through his fingers. “It’s very light. I’m not sure it’ll carry the weight of a leather fringe. Maybe a ribbon?”

“What about a braid?” Raleigh asked from his seat behind the sewing machine.

Ori tilted his head to the side in an approving manner. “A braid would work.”

“Do we have any ribbon?”

“Kaden can bring some back,” I offered. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”