Mads
Relegated to sit prettily with the omegas once again. Mads waited off to the side, hands stiff in his lap as they all waited.
The tense mood and silence broke only by the occasional child’s laughter or cry until Sailor returned, Caspian in his arms stinking to high heavens.
“Not it!” Several people shouted at once as Sailor grumbled, but Mads, realizing he’d not called out, stood to volunteer.
“It’s alright. It’s been a long while since I’ve changed a diaper, but I don’t mind.” Mads smiled as Sailor dropped a fresh cloth diaper, wipes, and a liner down.
Between the child’s wiggling, flailing, and the complicated arrangement of snaps, it took several minutes to get the new diaper on. Sailor, thankfully, ferried the used diaper away, tossing it and the full liner two separate ways into their respective bins.
Caspian, clean once more, stood and shimmied along the edge of a table, scooting his little footied feet before falling to his padded bottom and crawling off eagerly toward Vince and Sheila. Ordinarily, older kids would shun the smaller ones—at least that was how it was when Mads was little. When there were more children, at least, it was feasible. Despite this, the little ones welcomed Caspian in with gentle ease despite the little child’s baby growl of joy and excitement.
Watching them play was its own reward, sending a pang of pain through Mads’s chest. He wondered if Rex played like that, if he had others to play with, if he had joy without him.
In his stupor, watching the babes play, he barely noticed when the others returned, a hand rested on his shoulder, andthe mood dropped to a sad baseline. It became abundantly clear when Nite shuffled in, head hung, Rex at his side.
Mads was aware of the purpose of the visit—to wipe their memories. The reunion had to have given Nite hope, a glimpse of what could have been that ultimately had to be parted with. Mads knew a lot about having part of himself disappear, breaking away from a family.
Perhaps the kinship between omegas was strong, or Mads knew his pain. Mads wasn’t sure, so he rose to his feet and strode forward to pull Nite from Rex into a tight hug, letting the shorter male rest his head against his chest. Mads patted his back. “What do you mourn the most?”
“I don’t want any pity. It was something that needed to be done. Something that needed to happen.” Nite tensed but Mads didn’t pull away.
“I’m not giving you any pity. I’m mourning with you. It’s hard to be ripped away from your family. You’ve lived three lives that I know of, mortal, imp, and mage. You’ve had to turn your back on the first two, and today, we buried the only one that might have held anything pleasant for you before you found Rex.” Mads took a deep breath and squeezed as tight as he could. Nite gave a sharp squeak. “But if you had it to do all over again, would you do it any differently?”
Nite huffed and shook his head. “Nah.”
“Now, do you feel like going out to eat? Marquis promised us Outback Steakhouse.” Mads released Nite as he pulled away and glared. “Want to buy one of those awful-sounding onions and give it a Viking funeral?”
Nite blinked in surprise. “That would make me feel better, but I really want fish.”
Mads frowned in thought. “Fish does sound good.”
“Instead of going out, how about I order a buttload of it catered here? We can give Mer the evening off?” Rex grinned,and Marquis started to say something but silenced when Nite gasped hard.
“Oh, for the spirits’ sake, yes! I get to eat raw tuna as a cat!” Nite threw his arms up and cried out with joy as Mads blinked in surprise. He would have dearly loved to have gone out to eat, but eating in his raccoon form… “You have to, Mads! Your sense of taste goes through the roof!”
“We get to have dinner as kitties?” Vince’s voice ripped through the silence, and Mads knew the pain of what had just happened wasn’t healed, but it would be a balm on what was to come.
***
When Rex returned sometime later with several coolers full of plastic trays of prepared fish, Nite and Vince shifted excitedly, winding around people’s ankles, crying out in their cat voices.
Fish! Fiiiiiiiish.Nite could reach pitches that made the ears ring, and Rex picked both familiars up with a single arm and gave them hugs and nuzzles, eagerly opening a tray to hand-feed his mate slices of raw, pink fish.
Vince, for his part, didn’t participate in the hand-feeding. He shoved his face into a tray and stuffed as many thin slices of raw fish as he could in his mouth before running off with them to hide somewhere and eat. Sheila joined him, though her larger size made it easier for her to drag a whole plate of food over to share. And she did so with grace and delight, even if she frequently paced from her playmate to Warring to make sure his needs were met. The omega seemed a little lost there, alone in the way a male could get without their mate. He was a silver, too, like Mads, a mage trait. One that often came from having shifter blood somewhere in their line and thus was synonymous with poverty. Warring didn’t carry himself that way, though.
He carried himself with confidence. Confidence that Mads would have loved to have.
But, in moments, none of it mattered. Mads forgot to be ashamed of himself, forgot to learn his place. It was easy to forget being inferior when everyone welcomed you so well. Nobody had welcomed him so sweetly when he’d first wed Marquis.
When he shifted and sat in Marquis’s lap, figuring out how to eat came naturally and his bodycravedfood. Flavors came alive, sweetness he didn’t know existed blossomed over his tongue. Mads was thankful his little trills of delight didn’t sound like what they did in human form, or else the whole coven would have heard him moaning loudly in delight.
One thing he’d heard was that raccoons didn’t make nearly enough saliva, so when offered a cup, he drank a few sips before surreptitiously dunking his food into the water and eating it that way. Turns out, that was a myth. He made plenty of drool; he just had a driving urge to dip his food and feel it like an old lady at the grocery store squeezing avocados and apples. It gave him far more sensory feedback.
Grandpeep eats funny!Vince’s kitten-self cried out with delight before running by, another slice of fish stuffed in his maw. Nite had claimed that his taste was for more expensive fish and that eating in cat form meant that less fish could fill him faster.
“Even if you wanted to eat in human form, babe, we can easily afford that much sushi.” Rex laughed it off, and it reminded Mads of a time in his youth when he fought for pennies. Though, that was a long time ago, and he’d not lived for long enough at Marquis’s side to be confident with money. Spirits knew that Baron never allowed him his own. Though, he couldn’t precisely recall ever asking for any.
