A pout. Darius woke up with a pout after realizing that he would have to meet Nicholai again for breakfast. The words exchanged between them last night echoed in his head a lot, and for a moment, it was too warm for Darius to accept. A paradise that was built for him, huh.
Darius couldn't help but have a faint blush on his face when he was changing into a new set of clothes. He was sweating so much last night that he didn't want anyone to find his smell offensive. Also, he had to wake up Dylan when Sancho came with clothes for the child.
"Daddy, don't you like Uncle? He's really nice…" Dylan suddenly asked when Darius was fitting him into the wheelchair Sancho delivered.
"He's an okay person…" Darius didn't think that was a lie. If anything, Nicholai was indeed very generous. It's just that he kept on asking Darius to honor their destiny as mates. Aside from pride, Darius did have other reservations about that.
"He said you're his mate. Is that true?" Dylan asked again, making Darius pause in his movements.
The father then darted his eyes at the servant next to him, Sancho bowing down as if receiving the unsaid command. With a strange smile, Darius only hummed as if trying not to shudder visibly around the boy. "Is it important to Dylan?"
A chuckle answered him. When Darius took a look at the boy, Dylan had a big smile. "I want to know if Daddy's lonely because he has no mate. Some other people in the house talk about having mates and a ritual. They also said that they feel very happy and complete because they already met their mates."
Since Darius thought hard enough, he remembered that one of the medics would be having the ceremony with her mate during the coming full moon. Perhaps, when they were patching Dylan, they were chattering about it. He just didn't know how come Nicholai would say such a thing to Dylan.
"…did you ask him who his mate is, Dylan?"
"Yes, Daddy. They said that wolves that reached a certain level of maturity will have mates. Daddy is alone, so I think Daddy should have a mate. Uncle is the same, so I ask him, too." The kid gave honest answers, making Darius caress his head. "Daddy, you said you don't want to marry Uncle, but you're his mate. You can do that?"
"Uhm, it's not really something I think I can discuss with you without thinking about my answers properly." Darius laughed. He knew that Dylan was far more intelligent than his two siblings. It would be bad if the child mistakenly regarded the matter as something he understood from what Darius told him. "Can you leave Daddy and Uncle to sort that matter out on their own?"
"Won't Daddy be sad? He has no mate…" Dylan didn't stop. However, when Darius smiled at him with an expression that begged for understanding, the child's eyes only flickered.
Soon enough, the customized wheelchair was ready. There were some drip stands installed on the arms, so Dylan could still go around with his IV drips. He still couldn't eat physical food, so he only stuck to what he received through the tubes.
The only good news, for now, was that his tubes were down to four.
Darius eyed Sancho as if reminding him not to tell anyone about what he heard. He just felt it would be scandalous. Moreover, everyone in the house was probably aware that he was a low-born Alpha who once received an aristocratic female as his first mate. This time, he was being given to a more powerful aristocrat in the world of the werewolves.
If he wouldn't be probed, he would be insulted and slandered for selling himself to the high nobility or to the Moon Goddess herself. Else, how would he have that luck?
…
Today was rather special for the Omega children. Instead of sticking to their classes that morning, they were being toured in one of the distant places that were outside the estate itself. A few meters from the estate stood a small farm that was supplying the wolves with their own food. Since it was a farm for the pack, the workers there were Omega wolves as well.
The students were here to watch a few things that happened here: milking the cows in particular. They didn't have to do such things, but as a creature that would exist in the world, it would be a shame if they didn't know how milk was produced from the cows. They already had a farm; why wouldn't they see it for free? Moreover, some of them might work here instead.
For some reason, Darius understood how Nicholai was seemingly trying to lessen the costs of having a huge pack. He was generating livelihood for the wolves to bring in money to spend. The farm was too productive not to sell to the hidden markets for other races.
When he was just a child, Gilbert had been taking him around the other non-human territories to show him how they all lived compared to the wolf pack that the Gillard Mansion was housing. With other races not keen on mixing with humans in supermarkets and the like, they had their own sources of commercial goods. What a way to take advantage of this.
"Daddy, he's not an Omega…" Dylan blinked his eyes and watched the man that was presenting the farm to the children. The more Dylan stared at the man, the more he could ascertain that the man was not like the ones that worked in the background.
"Hm? Does that bother you?" Even if it was quite strange, Darius didn't question it. After all, Deltas were not considered combatants in a pack. They might have special abilities, but their services were still rendered whenever the Alpha asked for them. They wouldn't train with the Gammas if their abilities were not dependent on their fighting skills.
Dylan stared at the man's green eyes as he spoke about the farm and what they did there. When the children heard that they would be going to see the cows, the teacher had them follow another Omega worker to guide them. The Delta supervisor of the farm left behind and smiled in Darius's direction.
The smile deepened when Darius pushed Dylan closer to speak with the man. He then chuckled as he realized that the boy was also a Delta. "Hello, Second Master Darius, Second Young Master Dylan. I was told that you'd be joining the children today for the studies. It's a good day to meet another Delta. I thought Nick would never find anyone else."