She glances up from her crossword puzzle when he walks in, her forehead wrinkling. “You’ve been gone a while.”
“Yeah.”
“I was hoping for you to get the tea, but I drove out and bought it myself.”
He notices the teacup by her side then, and the tea tag dangling over its rim. Tea...? He had been going out for tea. He’d gone to the store for tea, and found Felix in the baby clothes section instead. Felix is pregnant. It’s not his child.
He swallows the ache in his throat, turning away. “Sorry. Things happened.”
His mom watches him carefully. “Is it Felix?”
He flinches. Is he that obvious? “How did you know?”
“Is he doing fine?”
How the fuck would I know? Kade pulls the fridge open, looking over the yogurt cups, the rice in plastic boxes, the jug of filtered water. He’s not hungry, but he should eat. It’s 8 PM. “He’s fine.”
It hurts again, Felix keeping secrets from him, Felix with someone else’s baby.
“He’s pregnant,” he says, cutting the words off before his voice breaks. His mom frowns, leaning closer. But she doesn’t seem surprised, and it rankles. “You knew?”
“Yes,” she says slowly. “But I felt it wasn’t my news to share.”
Kade sighs, shoving the fridge door shut. She’s only seen Felix once since he’s been back. “Am I the last fucking person to know?”
“There are signs and smells I recognize, Kade. It’s not something I would expect you to pick up on.”
He closes his eyes, wishing things were somehow different. Wishing he asked Felix why he isn’t good enough, why he left five years ago. But Felix has someone else’s baby, and that says everything, doesn’t it? He doesn’t need Kade around.
“Congrats?” His mom eyes him as though he’s a feral dog.
“It’s not mine,” Kade snarls, and the humiliation burns through his cheeks, all through his face. He stalks out the kitchen. He doesn’t know how to face his mom, or anyone who knows. No one else should. Felix has been hiding it.
But it doesn’t erase the fact that Felix is his omega, that Felix should be carrying his child, and he isn’t because Kade wasn’t good enough to keep him.
“Kade,” his mom says. He pauses in the painting-lined hallway, his back to her. “Have you considered that Felix may still... need you?”
“Why the hell would he?”
“Because you’re still his alpha. That’s not a bond you can erase.”
He wants Felix to need him, and the thought sends hope unfurling through his chest. Kade glances down at his own wrist, a faint scar left from a hesitant bite.
I don’t want to hurt you, Felix had said, twenty years ago.
Kade clenches his fist, turning his wrist away. “He doesn’t want the bond.”
“And that’s why you’re still carrying that ring? You know we don’t reuse rings for a second mate.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” he says, looking at the glass cabinet with all her miniature teapots. “It’s over.”
She falls silent, and he takes the few steps to his bedroom. Before he shuts the door, she asks gently, “Do you remember your oath?”
Kade shuts the door with a click, pressing his forehead against it.
Yes. Of course he does.
29
Kade 20 Years Ago
“Now, Dad had to work early, so listen up in class. And that boy, Felix? Don’t get him in trouble,” Mom says, kissing Kade on the cheek. The car engine purrs softly around them. “If I get another note about you and him sneaking out again...”
“It was just for ice cream, Mom,” Kade says, scowling at Chris and Sam in the back seat. “And it was only four times.”
“Four times is four times too many,” Mom says, looking stern.
Kade’s brothers wink at him. They’re the ones always getting into shit, and Mom scolds him for buying ice cream with Felix. He’s ten years old; he’d rather not play with his brothers’ third-grade friends. “I’ll be good,” Kade sighs.
She leans toward the back, so Chris and Sam can kiss her too. Kade’s brothers push their door open, scooting out of the car, and a medley of voices from the school courtyard drift in.
Mom settles back in her seat, her left hand cradling the steering wheel.
There’s a faint scar on her wrist, that Kade notices when she drives them to school. “Where’s that from?” he asks, pointing.
“This?” Mom traces her finger over the silvery line.
Kade has patches on his knees from falling down, but the one on his mom’s wrist looks different, like tooth marks. Did someone bite her? A surge of fury wells in his chest, suddenly.
“It’s not something to be angry about,” Mom says, a smile twitching at her mouth. “It’s a bonding mark. A gift.”
“A gift? How can a scar be a gift?”
“From your dad.” The look in her eyes softens, as though she’s remembering something precious. “He left it as a promise, to protect me no matter what. I gave him one, too.”
“Oh.” Kade scrunches his face up, trying to imagine his parents biting each other as a promise. It doesn’t seem right. Only animals bite people.
“Now, this isn’t something you need to know yet,” his mother says, leaning in, her eyes warm. “Most people exchange their bonding oaths when they’re sixteen, or twenty, or some even older than that. Usually, it’s between an alpha and an omega.”
“What am I?”
His mom leans back, studying him. “Probably an alpha. You’re still young, so you haven’t presented as either in particular... but you do have a temper.”
“I do not have a temper!”
His mother glances at the digital clock on the dashboard. 7:18 AM. “We’ll talk more about this when we get home, okay?”
Kade sighs, wriggling around in his seat. “Fine. See you later.”
He slams the car door behind him, then the one his brothers left open, and trudges to the courtyard.
In the midst of pop quizzes and lab experiments about boiling water, Kade forgets about the conversation in the
