Page 3 of These Little Heirs
My first official job was going to be the death of me. Medwin Moonscale asked for me personally to come and watch over his great grandson. His FIRST great grandson as far as I knew. I didn’t keep up with all their lives but none of the guards mentioned any great grandkids running around but I probably missed something. Either way, Medwin Moonscale never asked for new guards. He liked the seasoned old scale backs.
“It’s because we’re big and fierce,”my cat sounded off in my head.“And because the rest of them don’t know we’re an omega.”
I chose to ignore the last part of that sentence. As an omega, I was fiercer than my alpha counterpart. My bulk was made to nourish children and hunt for my own food. Now my job was to keep this tiny baby safe. He was tiny and as much as I hated to admit it – adorable. Guards didn’t say babies were adorable but wasn’t there like some universal rule about babies being adorable?
“Maybe we’ve been on call because Medwin knows we know that all babies are freaking adorable,”my liger countered.
I’d been on call for the last two weeks. Sure, I’d been on a few jobs with older guards, but this one was mine. Just mine. I finally had a job. No,thejob. This was the job everyone wanted. Money. Glamor. Honor. I got the job everyone wanted, and it was going to fucking kill me. Thank Juda and all his little babies for those damn berries that were eventually made intopheromone blocker spray. People didn’t take omegas foaming at the mouths for their mates seriously. It was a huge societal problem and one I wasn’t going to solve today. Later, when I had my phone back, I’d text Medwin and tell him to send me more pheromone blocker spray. He’d probably ask if I was drinking the damn stuff, but Teal Moonscale could NOT smell me until the job was done. Maybe he’d never forgive me. Hell, by then maybe he'd hate me, but I finally found my calling and I wasn’t about to give that up for a green-haired dragon boy.
“He’s one hunky green-haired dragon boy, though,”my cat purred.“Hunky. Tall. Packing like his life depends on it. Did you see how he looked at us? Thought he might pounce on us right here in the nesting room.”
Teal Moonscale didn’t almost pounce us in the nesting room or anywhere else. At best he tolerated my presence because he knew Clarence was right. At worst he was tolerating my presence until he found a good reason to fire me. So, I’d have to be careful not to give him one.
Medwin and Clarence wanted to put a guard or twelve on their grandsons as soon as that journalist died after spying on Cobalt and Odie in the field. The law restricted their access to the private lives of the Moonscales and any other ‘celebrity’ but a lot of people walk right through the law and shrug it off unless you catch them in the act.
“Don’t mind Teal,” Odie said, bringing me back to the present moment.
We hadn’t known each other well in school but we were forced into the same support group senior year for omega childhood survivors of the war. So we knew each other that way. We knew who died and how. We knew how it affected each other but we didn’t know each other. Still, those of us in the group could and occasionally did call on each other from time to time. It was some unspoken rule with us. We survived the war andsome of us had no one. So, if you needed a couch to crash on, one of us usually had one.
My parents taught at Moonscale Academy before taking up the cause and fighting against Mundanes Before Magic. They died fighting. Sometimes that smoothed out my cat’s rough edges. Other times it made him sharpen his claws on the nearest thing. It was hit or miss. Even training to be a Moonscale guard hadn’t stamped that out of us.
“He means well,” Odie continued once he had my attention. “He’s a good guy.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. Teal was a good guy by the accounts I heard. Half the guards believed he was the seed bomber. The other half believed he was working hard to save us work. I hadn’t met him before and oh how I wished I had. If I had met him before now, I wouldn’t be sitting here, with my legs crossed trying to hide a boner from those I was meant to protect.
“So, I’ve heard,” I nodded and took a sip of the bottled tea Cobalt had passed me before sitting back down next to his mate with coffee. Odie eyed the coffee jealously and I flashed him a knowing smile. No coffee for pregnant men. I bit the inside of my cheeks. He and Ambry knew I was an omega and all I could do was hold my silence and hope they held theirs.
Cobalt arched a brow in my direction as if he picked up on my thoughts over the group link.
“Can I help you?” I asked when he held eye contact for too long to be comfortable.
“Do you want some clothes?” he asked, and I swallowed down a sigh of relief. He held eye contact not to be accused of checking me out later. Most shifters didn’t care about clothes but with Cobalt’s reputation he was being extra careful to keep his mate comfortable. “Shirts on the rack over there. You’re broad,” he gestured at my shoulders. “You still might drown in our clothes because you’re not as tall as us but it might make youfeel more official. You don’t have to, though. You can be however you want to be. You’re probably not thrilled with this posting anyway. Middle of nowhere. No one to really guard. Guardie already doing your job and all of that.”
The shadow dog wagged his tail. I’d been warned of the spaniel looking dog. Trauma come to cheerful life.
“This is a good post,” I shrugged. “Keep my eyes and ears open. Mostly, I’m here to keep anyone out of the tower who annoys Ambry or you, Odie.”
“As I said, a glorified babysitter,” Cobalt shrugged and Odie shot him a dirty look. “We can take care of Baby Robin just fine.”
“Cobalt!” Odie scolded. “Stop it. Be nice. He’s only here so you and Indigo can relax with us and enjoy becoming parents too.”
“How well did you two know each other?” Cobalt asked, unphased by his mate’s scolding.
“Well,” Odie said. “Same support group and all that back in the day. Medwin and Clarence didn’t have to pick someone we knew but they did. They’re thinking ahead. Now, come over here.”
“I am here,” Cobalt laughed.
“Not close enough. Bring the coffee too. Maybe if I sniff it, I’ll wake up,” Odie said, shooting him a look filled with more longing than anger. I’d have disemboweled an army to have someone look at me like that. Someone aching for me to scoot even just a little closer.
“You can get some sleep if you want,” I said, pushing myself upright and glancing over at the rack of shirts. “I’ll sit outside the door. I can even sit outside if that’s better. I’d be able to see the landing’s door too and –”
“You can sit wherever you want,” Odie said. “Well, not too close to the baby. Ambry’s not in the mood for social visitors but wherever is comfy.” He yawned and Cobalt started stackingup pillows for him to lay down. Would Teal be like Cobalt and Indigo when it came to me? Did I even want him to?
“I’ll give you some privacy,” I said and grabbed a band tee from the rack. It was the first black shirt without buttons that I spotted. Outside the door, I shrugged it on and wished my bag was with me. I could use a shot of something strong and another spray down of the pheromone blocker. If Teal got one whiff of me everything would blow up and I’d be off the job. Medwin would replace me because he’d figure getting my brains screwed out was more important to me than protecting my charge.
“The charge we’ve barely laid eyes on. If we get close to that baby we’re going to get scalped,”my cat yawned and stretched his back out in a long swooping shape inside his inner sanctum.
I almost shifted to block the doorway. If I did that, I could probably get by with a cat nap while the others rested. Only I didn’t want Teal climbing over me when he came back. The closer he was, the more likely he was to smell me. So, I didn’t shift. I closed the door and leaned against it.
