Being an Alpha, Cade had the ability to smell the change in his scent and know that he was pregnant, but he hadn’t said anything, and he wondered if this was a new form of punishment. He couldn’t reconcile the Cade who was courting him with the Cade who was punishing him, but then anger made people behave bizarrely.
Brogan had to know if he was pregnant, and he could make a trip to the closest drugstore and pick up a pregnancy test, but would he have to explain his trip to Cade? There were times when cade would look at him in anger and Brogan knew that he was remembering what Brogan had done; he didn’t blame Cade, but he had to know
He knew if he asked Cade would allow him to use the Omega car service for a trip to the store, but Brogan didn’t want to use them. Even though he was settling into his new life as Cades Omega, giving up the right to drive equaled giving up the last of his status as an Alpha and he wasn’t ready to do that.
His stubbornness not to call the car service was causing him to have a huge dilemma, he thought that he might be pregnant, and he had entrusted Cade to tell him, but the Alpha had said nothing. Yes, Cade had the right to hold it from him, but if whatever God who was still looking out for him allowed him the have a pup, then he wanted to know.
Today his mind was going in a million different directions so he couldn’t concentrate on a recipe with a million different ingredients, so he kept it simple with a steak, potato and salad and waited until Cade was passing out compliments for the meal before he asked to go shopping.
Clearing his throat, Brogan said, “Um I need to go to the store can you -will you take me?
Swallowing his last piece of meat, Cade said, “Of course I can if you’d have mentioned it earlier then we could have eaten out.”
When they reached the parking lot of the local superstore Cade stopped him before he got out of the car and pulled his wallet out, “I ordered a card for you so that it doesn’t feel like I’m intruding in another aspect of your life.”
With shaking hands Brogan took the card and put it in his wallet alongside the cash Cade had given him a couple of weeks ago. He’d had nothing to spend it on, but it felt good to have it. He knew that he was going to give away his secret, so he closed off his end of the bond letting Cade think it was about the card.
Once inside the store he expected Cade to shadow him, but he didn’t, and Brogan let out a shaky breath as he walked away. Once Cade was out of sight, he made a beeline for the pharmacy section and found the test. He looked at the lone item in his cart and knew that there would be a confrontation if Cade saw it.
He really didn’t need anything else, but he bought some fruit and a small amount of groceries in the event that he ran into Cade that would be what he saw. Instead of waiting for Cade, Brogan quickly checked out and with the test inside his jacket pocket, he waited for Cade to join him.
He was nervous on the ride back home as he kept waiting for Cade to ask him what he’d purchased; if he was Alpha, he would check. Fuck who was he kidding he wouldn’t have let Cade go to the store. When they reached the house, Brogan put away his things as he still waited for Cade to check his bags, but the Alpha did nothing.
“I’ve got to make a couple of calls when I finish, we can watch a movie, you choose,” Cade told him before disappearing down the hall. It would be so easy to run upstairs to the guest bedroom and take the test, but he would be a mess if it was positive. He had to wait for Cade to tell him, therefore he delayed taking the test.
As soon as he heard the car pull out of the driveway Brogan went to the jacket hanging on the hook near the front door. He quickly read the instructions before peeing on the stick. The results would be simple, a plus sign meant he was pregnant, and an equal sign meant he wasn’t.
The instructions said to wait ten minutes, but Brogan was scared and waited fifteen because he was terrified of the results. Sucking in his breath, he looked at the results and thanked a god he no longer believed in.
He was pregnant.
The conversation he’d had with his mother opened his eyes to a lot of things and he knew that Brogan was going to take his cruel treatment because he believed he deserved it. Maybe he did maybe he didn’t, but Cade didn’t like what exacting his revenge was making him become. He didn’t want to wake up in ten years and find that he’d become Robert Ford.
Picking up his phone he called his assistant, “Keisha do I have any appointments scheduled for this afternoon?”
“No,” she confirmed.
“Good, I’m leaving an hour early today if anything important comes up then call or text me.”
And with that he was gone. He wasn’t sure how he was going to fix the problem he created but the answer came to him a few blocks from home.
An adoption fair.
Around the corner from his office the local animal shelter was having an adoption fair and Cade thought that he had found the perfect answer for Brogan’s loneliness, a dog. He remembered that Lara and Brogan had had a small dog and Brogan had seemed to love the animal, so maybe another being would help ease the loneliness.
Looking in all the cages Cade didn’t see a dog that he thought would be perfect for Brogan. Hell, after an hour looking, he’d be satisfied with one that would be half way acceptable but there weren’t any. He wanted a large dog but all they had they were either a teacup something or the other that Brogan could crush with his hand or a big bruiser that was bred for fighting or guarding. He just wanted a pet.
He was about to give up when he saw a pair huddled in a cage together that Cade couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began and when they dared look up, they looked terrified that someone would take them home.
“That’s Itchy and Scratchy,” a feminine voice volunteered the information when he stopped in front of the cage.
“Itchy and Scratchy? Either someone is a Simpsons fan, or they really suck at naming dogs?” Cade chuckled. “May I see the Sheppard looking one?”
“They had bad case of demodectic mange when they were rescued, so it was fitting at the time,” she explained. “Look, I’m going to save you some trouble. That pair is bonded, and they must be adopted together because they’d die if they were separated. That’s why they’re huddled together like that; fear that someone is going to separate them.”
Nodding his head, Cade understood how that felt, to be ripped apart from someone your soul was tied to. And when they were gone it took everything you had to keep functioning until you had them back.
“Can I take them into the play area?” He asked garnering a huge smile from the volunteer.
“Sure!”
As she scurried to put a leash on the larger male dog the smaller female became anxious and whiny, so Cade kneeled before her and stroked her and promised,” Don’t worry girl, I won’t take him from you.”
Once they were reunited in the play area the dogs greeted on another as though they had been separated for months, not just a few minutes. After watching them play Cade gave them some simple commands and was amazed at how well they obeyed.
How could anyone let their health get so bad he didn’t understand because they were wonderful, and Brogan would love them.
“I’ll take them,” he told the surprised girl who surprised him with a powerful hug coming from someone so small.
“Please forgive my outburst, but we’ve been bringing them out for months and no one wanted them both, they were going to be put down next week, so thank you. Because you chose them, a sponsored pair, you get food, a leash and collars for them.”
“They are going to save a life-and a relationship so we both win.”
By the time Cade left the adoption fair he also had a huge bed, bowls, several toys and a huge dog drooling down the back dog his neck as he drove home.
The perfect scenario would have been to sneak into the house with the dogs, but Brogan was in the front yard talking to Issa and the dogs seemed to sense that they were his and as soon as the car door opened both dogs ran straight to him.
“Su
rprise,” Cade smirked as he watched Brogan wrestle with the two large animals.
On the drive home Cade wasn’t sure if this was what Brogan needed, but the smile on his Omega’s face told him that it was. Even as they lugged in the dog contraband not once did Brogan stop smiling and because Brogan was smiling, Cade was smiling. A real smile not one of those fake ones he painted on every day when he had to face to world.
Once everything was in the house Brogan sat on the floor and played with the dogs rubbing their bellies and talking to them and after a few minutes, the female picked up one of their toys and placed it at Cade’s feet as though to say thank you for saving us.
And Cade like Brogan, fell to his knees and hugged the girl and rubbed her belly.
“You’re going to have to name them because there’s no way I’m calling them Itchy and Scratchy,” Cade told Brogan.
“I totally agree. Dad. Dad wouldn’t let us have dogs, but I’ve always had names picked- She’s Princess and he’s Butch.”
“Butch and Princess it is,” Cade agreed. “We’ll have to find a vet to have them checked out, but they seem to be in great spirits and health to me.”
The dogs made a huge change in the house. There were more smiles and less silence. There were still days when Cade had the baby on his mind and he had to drink those memories away, but even those were fewer.
Today was one of those days.
Simon and Elias were showing their latest ultrasounds and Cade knew that he should have been showing baby pictures and it hurt. So instead of going home and taking out his frustration on Brogan, Cade asked Keisha to drive him to the closest bar so that he could get shit faced.
The problem was that he once at the bar all he did was nurse a beer for a couple of hours before calling an Omega Car for Keisha and driving himself home. Whatever alcohol was in his system was gone and he sobered immediately when he walked into the house and smelled that his Omega was in heat.
Cade took a huge lungful and savored the scent and had to keep from howling. They were civilized wolves now and you only howled while running through the woods, not in the middle of suburbia.
Kicking off his shoes, first, as he moved towards the stairs and Brogan divesting his clothes along the way. When he reached the door to bedroom the dogs were lying there, guarding his treasure but when he gave a little growl they ran away, and he closed that door behind them.
Cade was the Alpha of this pack.
Standing by the bed Cade took a deep inhale and reveled in Brogan’s scent. Sweet. Ripe. Gravid.
Despite hat that doctor had told him, Brogan was going to give him a child. He didn’t have a medical degree but then his wolf didn’t need one. He could smell the ripeness in his mate, eggs ready to be fertilized and produce progeny. Fuck that doctor and his fancy degree, Cade would trust his wolf over a piece of paper any time.
He watched as Brogan writhed on the bed the heat producing a sheen of sweat making him glisten, naked and beautiful. The sweat clung to his body, delineating each muscle, that beautiful cock swollen and red and proudly flushed with his stomach oozing precome. Those beautiful toned thighs were wet with slick that was dripping from his hole and Cade couldn’t wait to bury himself inside.
Quickly he turned Brogan over and positioned him into the traditional mating position-on his knees and ass up.
“Please Cade,” Brogan begged.
His mate was so out of it he probably wasn’t sure what he was begging for but if it was for making love or gentleness, then Brogan was shut out of luck because this wasn’t about him.
This night was not about love or finesse, it was about breeding, replacing what had been taken from him. There was no prep or care, that’s why Luna provided Omegas with slick, so Cade lined himself to Brogan’s hole and sank into the warm willing body.
He did give Brogan’s body time to adjust to his invasion before he began to move, it was slow at first, then the feel of the wet heat and Brogan’s pleas sweetly begging for more and faster had Cade speeding up and slamming into Brogan at a punishing rate. Tomorrow Brogan would be walking bowlegged.
It didn’t take long before Cade was spilling his seed into Brogan, and as they lay there tired and sleepy, Cade’s last thought that when he woke up it would be to a pregnant Brogan, except he didn’t.
What he did wake up to was a slight cold and Brogan begging to be fucked because he hurt from the heat. The Alpha in Cade couldn’t deny his Omega what he needed even if he was angry that he wasn’t pregnant. A heat lasted five days and they had four more for a pregnancy to take.
Except that it didn’t.
Brogan’s heat ended, Cade’s cold was worse, but there was no pregnancy.
Days after Brogan’s heat, Cade couldn’t stand to look at the other man. He was supposed to be breaking out cigars and celebrating with his friends but that’s not going to happen. Instead he started staying out late drinking. One night he came home to find that Brogan had moved back to his old bedroom down the hall.
As if Cade gave a fuck.
He’d protected Brogan through all the shit that Brogan had put them through, and you’d think that the fucker could give him the one thing he asked for, but he couldn’t do that because he’s fucked up his body when he aborted their child.
Liam and the others wanted to go to dinner tonight and all Cade wanted to do was drink away his problems, but he couldn’t do that. In the week since Brogan’s heat had ended, the two of them barely spoke and he’d had Keisha call and tell him about their evening out.
He had arrived home later than anticipated because of a client and then traffic, so the first thing he wanted was a shower, but Brogan was showering in theirs and today Cade just couldn’t take the intimacy of their bedroom once they were out of bed. There was no touching, teasing or small talk between them, so he walked back down the hall to the room that Brogan had been using when he found it.
A positive pregnancy tests.
It was buried under a mound of napkins in the trashcan in the guest bedroom. It was quite accidental that he found it at all.
Cade had dropped his watch in the trash can and went in to fish it out when he found the test. That he found out that his Omega was pregnant by a thrown away test showed how off they were. The moment the embryo planted into Brogan’s womb Cade should have been able to scent the subtle difference in Brogan’s sweet smell.
But he hadn’t, and he couldn’t completely blame it on his cold. He should have known.
He’d been too caught up in everything that was wrong with them that he didn’t realize that they had done something right. They had made a baby.
Instead of continuing to prepare for their evening out, Cade san down to the floor with his back against the cold porcelain tub and stared at the white plastic stick with the glaring pink plus symbol. The doctor had told him that because of the damage caused by the doctor who’d aborted their baby, Brogan couldn’t- wouldn’t conceive again, but this stick proved them wrong.
Brogan was pregnant and hadn’t mentioned it to Cade.
As he sat there and stared at the proof that he was going to be a father, he wondered why Brogan hadn’t told him. It was true that they didn’t talk much, but this was something Brogan should have told him…unless.
Jumping up from the floor with the white stick clutched in his hand, Cade went down the hall to the bedroom he’d once shared with Brogan. Once he was there, Cade walked up to Brogan and thrust the test at him, “Something you wanna tell me?” He asked in a voice shaking with anger.
Cade watched as Brogan realized what Cade had tossed to him. His mate didn’t say anything, he just stared at it, ran his hands through his hair before looking at Cade and he’d be damned if the son of a bitch didn’t have the audacity to look hurt.
“Well?” Cade barked. “Were you gonna kill this one too so there was no need to tell me?”
“No,” Brogan said softly before clearing his throat and saying a little louder, “No. I know that you have every reason n
ot to trust me, but I promise that the thought of killing this baby never crossed my mind. I kept waiting for you to say something. I can’t smell the changes like you can, so when you didn’t say anything, I thought that you just didn’t care.”
“Oh, so now this is my fault…?” Cade demanded.
“No, Cade- it’s just that it seemed that you didn’t care anymore. The tenuous connection that our bond had seemed to be gone and besides that the only thing that you seemed to want from me was sex.”
“Sex was all you’ve been willing to give me!” Cade fired back. The accusation made him angry, while he’d tried everything to get their mating to work, Brogan fought him. If he’d known that he would be facing the possibility of having another child snatched from him, he would have let the Omega center give Brogan the shot the break their bond and left him there. “I took what you were offering hoping and praying that you would come around, but you never did.”
From Alpha to Omega Page 29