Duke's Baby Deal (MM Mpreg Shifter Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 3)

by Ann-Katrin Byrde

  The room was quiet for a moment, and I almost forgot why we were there. Until Abel looked up from Taden and said, “What happened?”

  I bit my lip and glanced at Bax, hoping he could do something. Weren’t mates supposed to listen to each other?

  Abel looked at Bax. “He’s pregnant, right?”

  Bax’s expression was blandly neutral. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because he was in heat yesterday.”

  “It could be medical.”

  Abel raised an eyebrow and gave Bax a “Really?” kind of look.

  Bax opened his mouth, and suddenly I was convinced that there was going to be a fight, and Bax’s history came rushing back to me, reminding me that he expected to get in trouble for covering for me. “I am,” I said. Before he could risk making Abel angry. Not that I thought he would, but he was an alpha, and they were touchy. Weirdly, where I’d been upset telling Holland and Bax, I was as calm as still water telling Abel. “Justin found me last night in the back yard.”

  I felt the brush of his power and huddled a little in place until I felt it fade away again.

  Abel was angry. He handed the baby off to Bax, who quietly took Taden, and just as quietly put a calming hand on Abel’s arm. Abel patted him and sent him a strained smile.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  How to explain that? I looked to Bax again.

  “He wouldn’t have needed to,” Bax said, picking up on my silent plea. “You remember the spring.” A flush of pink colored his cheeks, turning deep rose when Abel shot him a loving glance. Bax looked down at the baby, though he never moved his hand from Abel’s arm. “It could have been anyone. What bothers me is that Justin went looking for him.”

  “Well, I don’t want him in Mercy Hills,” was Abel’s response, then he caught himself. “I doubt Quin would want him in Mercy Hills either.” He turned back to me. “If you want him, I’ll ask Quin to negotiate for you. Montana Border isn’t Mercy Hills, but we can make sure you’re comfortable.”

  “I don’t want him!” What a horrible, horrible thought! Tears began to run down my face as I pleaded, “Please don’t make me mate him! I only flirted with him because I wanted…” I sucked in my breath, pulling that name back inside before it could escape and shame me further. I buried my face in my hands and slumped into the rocking chair, because the possibility of being mated to Justin suddenly became real to me in way it hadn’t before, and it scared me.

  Abel’s voice broke through my panicked thoughts. “Then you won’t mate him. We’ll have to talk to your parents and see about getting a bigger house if you’re going to stay with them…” His voice trailed off and he glanced back and forth between myself and Bax. I had raised my head in protest when he mentioned my parents, but the rest of his sentence made Bax and I stare at him, mouths open in bafflement.

  Finally, Bax said, “Love, he can’t just have the baby. He’d be a scandal, and he and the baby would be made fun of for the rest of their lives. They’d be looked down on, the pup would be bullied. They become unpaid help to their families for their entire lives because no one will agree to mate them.”

  “What? No! Not here. Why would you think…?” He glanced between the two of us again, then looked back at Bax. “This isn’t Buffalo Gap. Or Jackson-Jellystone.”

  “Test it,” Bax told him. “Go find a random pack member, and drop a story about some omega in another pack, pregnant and unmated. See what happens.”

  “Do you really… No, we’re better than that here.”

  “Try it.” Bax leaned back, his face drawn and exhausted looking. “I’m not willing to risk his future.”

  From the door, Holland said, “He’s not lying to you, Abel. My mated pack threw me out, repudiated me, because I couldn’t have pups. Things that would be forgivable, even in a delta wolf, are a life sentence for us. I’ll never have a mate, never have my own home. I’ll always have to come to you and Bax for what I need. Would you wish that on him?”

  At any other time, I would have been ecstatic to finally know Holland’s secret. But his words cut deep, leaving behind a sharp, icy fear as they painted a picture of my future with this pup.

  Abel stared at me for a long moment, his expression going from frustration, to sadness, to uncomfortable realization. “Then he’ll have to mate Justin.” He didn’t sound any happier about it than I was.

  I held my breath, my chest hurting with fear, waiting and hoping that Bax would put a stop to that.

  Bax stared at Abel for a moment, then patted his arm and pulled him close for a kiss. “Would you really do that to him? How would they treat him in Montana Border, coming from here?”

  “We can work it into the contract.” But the tone of Abel’s voice told me that, thankfully, he was starting to see the problems with his idea. “Okay, so what do we do then? Should I start looking around to find someone willing to mate him quickly? Can a heat be faked?” Then, in a low, frustrated tone, “I hate doing that to someone.”

  That would be hard. Maybe one of the younger ones? I tried to think who I might be able to get along with for the rest of my life, but none of the ones that I thought might jump at the chance to have their own omega were ones I wanted to spend more than the duration of a dance with.

  “There are things that can be done. Will you trust me to handle this?” Bax looked somber, and I watched as understanding dawned in Abel’s eyes.

  I thought for a moment he was going to forbid it, and he would have been within his rights, because an omega’s mate was his guardian, and he could have his brother Quin, Alpha of Mercy Hills, stand in for my parents for me. But instead, he drew in a long breath, shaky and painful sounding. “All right. I trust you.” Then he turned to me. “I’m sorry, Bram. I’d have thrown him out if I’d guessed he’d care that little about the rules.”

  I nodded, and sniffed—my nose always ran when I cried.

  Abel turned to Adelaide. “You’re going to do it now?”

  She stood and picked up her bag. “We’re going to talk about options. This is only one.”

  Abel got up, then paused, looking down at us all. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me. Or anything.” He leaned down and dropped a distracted kiss on Bax’s curls. “The pups will want to come in soon and see the baby.”

  “I know. Give us fifteen minutes?”

  “I can do that.” He looked like he was going to apologize again, but instead, he turned and walked out the door, moving like a man who’d been punched in the gut.

  That was my fault. What a stupid fucking kid I was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After Abel left, the atmosphere in the room got easier, and harder. Now there was no avoiding what was happening.

  Adelaide stepped around the end of the bed to come sit on the edge beside me. “It’s still early enough, we can stop this pregnancy without you getting too sick. If you want more time to think about it, we can probably go another week before I can see any problems. Even then, we can still do it, but it would be a different procedure, and much more risky and uncomfortable.”

  I shook my head numbly. What choice did I have? “No, I have to.”

  She leaned forward and gave me a hug. “I know how hard this is,” she murmured, and rubbed my back before letting go so she could dig in her bag. “I have a tube of cream here. You’ll have to put it on your omega line every day, morning and night, so it won’t open. The things I’m going to give you will essentially convince your body that you’re six months along, and it’ll pinch off the placenta and try to go into labor.” She handed me the tube. It was cold, like I was starting to feel cold. “This will keep your omega line from separating. Half an inch of ointment at a time. Go put some on now, so it can start working.”

  I did as I was told, walking blindly into the bathroom. The cream was a pale beige, and it glistened in the light of the lamps over the sink.

  As I turned to go back out to the bedroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was white as a ghost,
and my eyes stared spookily dark out of my face. I looked like something out of the cradle stories my Granmum used to tell me when I was small. A dead lover come back to haunt the man who’d abandoned him.

  I turned away from the mirror and shambled back into the bedroom. By the looks Adelaide, Bax, and Holland gave me, I looked as bad to them as I did to myself.

  Doesn’t matter. Keep moving. It’ll all be over soon.

  Adelaide rubbed my arm as I passed her, and even Holland came to sit beside me on the bed. Bax laid his hand on my back, his touch light, though the support I felt behind it was strong.

  “I have to give you a shot,” Adelaide told me in a quiet voice. “It’ll start the process off. Then I have some pills for you to take.” She filled a syringe from a small bottle containing a crystal clear liquid, and set it on the bedside table. Then she shook two pills out of a bottle, and held them out for me to take.

  I stared at the pills in my hand and at the syringe sitting on the table beside Adelaide. The cream on my omega line felt slimy and gross and I wanted to wipe it off more than anything.

  She reached out to put a hand on my arm. “There’s still time if you want to think about it some more.”

  Did I want to? Should I? I had a feeling that if I thought about this much more, I’d chicken out, and then where would I be? Bax’s words came back to me, and I felt a surge of nausea. It was better this way, better to never have been born than to live a life like that.

  My hand went to my belly, and I found myself apologizing to the little bundle of cells. I’m sorry I have to do this to you. But you wouldn’t like the life you’d have anyway. With tears blurring my vision, I put the pills in my mouth and swallowed.

  Bax’s hand on my back began stroking slowly, as if he could take away my misery. I sobbed and clamped my hand over my mouth.

  When Adelaide came toward me with the syringe, I cringed away from her. The cold of the alcohol on my shoulder felt like death, like I was death, coming for my baby.

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t. Just couldn’t.

  “No!” I pushed her away and ran for the bathroom, shoving my fingers down my throat as I went. I fell to my knees beside the toilet and gagged and choked myself until the pills plipped and plopped into the water, floating lazily down to the bottom.

  I sagged to one side and rested my head against the cold wall. Sobs shook my shoulders, small and weak, and I sniffed and wiped my eyes.

  Someone came through the door behind me, awkward shuffling footsteps. “Are you okay?” Bax said. He sat down in stages, his breath puffing out between his lips with each change of position.

  He smiled at my horrified expression. “Just tired, sweetheart. That’s all.” He pulled me into a hug. “I sent Adelaide home. You don’t have to decide today.”

  “No,” I told him. “I can’t do it, it’s not fair.” It wasn’t the baby’s fault. There had to be another way.

  He stroked my hair and smiled in sympathy. “It’s a hard choice.”

  “I don’t know what to do!” I wailed and really began to cry then. Bax made soothing noises and rocked me back and forth while I blubbered.

  “Bax?” Abel’s voice, a deep rumble coming from the door, made me breath catch in my throat. I sat up with a start and began trying to wipe away the evidence of my disaster.

  Abel was frowning when he entered the room. “What are you doing out of bed?” he asked Bax.

  Bax held his arms up to him. “Give me a hand up?”

  Abel’s mouth tightened and he bent and lifted Bax in his arms. “I’m taking you back to bed.”

  “I can walk, you know.” But Bax sounded amused.

  “You don’t need to, though. And you’re not supposed to.” They traded a kiss that gave me a pang of jealousy. I wondered if I’d ever have that, now that I’d made the decision to become a pariah.

  Abel cast a glance at me as he sidled out the bathroom door, one full of curiosity and suspicion. I bowed my head and leaned against the wall again.

  Dammit.

  The door darkened again and I looked up to see Abel watching me with a much less sympathetic expression than Bax had worn. “What have you done, Bram?” he said in a low, sad voice.

  I’d expected anger. Anger I could deal with—it was only what I deserved. But this sadness from the man who’d been my Alpha and who the entire pack still respected as one—I hid my head in my arms and let the tears flow.

  I was so, so stupid.

  “Come on, get up. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on and Bax is as stubborn a man as I’ve ever met.” His fingers on my shoulder weren’t entirely patient, and I could tell he was upset with me, because I’d upset Bax.

  Well, might as well let the world know what an idiot I was.

  I got to my feet and let Abel herd me out into the bedroom. Holland and Adelaide were gone. Bax was tucked back into the bed, and Abel must have gotten the baby for him, because Taden was sleeping soundly beside him. Bax looked exasperated and a little apprehensive. At a small gesture from him, I crawled into the bed beside him and let him enfold me in a protective arm.

  Abel sat at the foot of the bed. “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Bax’s arm closed tighter around me. “He couldn’t do it.” Then, softer. “We’re going to have to find some other way.”

  I watched the muscles in Abel’s jaw work as he digested that. Then he took a huge, shaky breath and said, “What do you need?” I marveled at the trust in his mate that those words showed. Not that I knew much, but talking to the omegas from the other packs, I’d learned that an omega’s opinion didn’t count for much.

  Bax sighed, and his body loosened. “I need someplace he can go where no one knows him, where he can have the pup, and we can find a home for it. Maybe someone living outside walls.”

  Abel raised his eyebrows. “You plan to keep him sequestered for the whole time? He won’t be able to go run on full moon with that belly—it’s going to get out. And he’ll be stuck inside all the time, or the humans will notice. They’ll have to. I trust myself and Quin and any other Alpha to protect him inside walls, but outside? There’d be nothing I could do.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have to let people see him? Jason didn’t. He stayed in the apartment most of the time.”

  Abel looked thoughtful. “It’s an option. I can look into it. In the meantime,” he pinned me with a glare. “You stay inside. No work, no socializing. We don’t want people knowing what happened, you got it?”

  I nodded dumbly. What else could I do?

  Abel got to his feet. “Bram, I’m going to do my best to see that this doesn’t hurt you, but you know there’s probably going to be some unpleasantness, right?”

  I nodded again. “I know. I’ll deal with it—it’s not your problem.”

  “No,” Abel said wryly. “You’re right, it’s not. It’s Quin’s.” He looked over at Bax. “Can the rampaging monsters come in, or do you want to let him sleep a little longer?”

  Bax shook his head. “Let them in. He’ll be waking up soon, anyway.” Then, as Abel opened the bedroom door, Bax said, “Thank you, love.”

  Abel threw him an indecipherable look, and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Duke was playing dinosaurs in the living room with Fan while Beatrice rode on his back. Quin was on the couch with Teca and Noah, reading one of Teca’s princess books. Tension rode in the air, though the pups didn’t seem to have noticed it. The adults certainly had, and he and Quin had exchanged uneasy glances after Abel came back from visiting with Bax.

  When Abel came back this time, the emotion was rolling off in in waves so big even the pups noticed it. Fan stopped in the middle of ravaging Duke’s triceratops with his tyrannosaurus rex to stare at his Pap. Beatrice went tense and laid down flat on Duke’s back.

  “Abel,” Duke said, in a tone meant to convey the message, “Tone it down.”

  Abel let out a long breath, and the emotiona
l tension faded, and then—and it must have taken a huge effort—happy, fun emotions filled the room. He had to be projecting them, because alphas didn’t often display that side of their power.

  “Did you want to go see Taden?” Abel asked the pups.

  Fan nodded and scrambled to his feet, the previous tension forgotten. “I want to show him my t-rex,” he said.

  “I don’t know if he’s old enough to really appreciate it, but as long as you’re careful around him, I don’t see why not.” He paused, and then added, “Unless Dabi says to keep it away. Dabi’s the expert here.”

  “Yep. Dabi knows everything,” Fan agreed and started off down the hall.

  Abel shot a glance at Duke and mouthed, “How long will that last?”

  Duke mouthed back, “Ask Dabi.”

  As he ushered the rest of the pups out of the room, Abel put a hand behind his back and shot Duke the bird without looking.

  Duke chuckled and got up to go sit by Quin. “What do you think’s going on?”

  Quin shrugged. “We’ll find out, though.” And the way he said it, Duke could tell he was speaking as Alpha, not as Abel’s older brother.

  They waited, drinking tea, and Duke thought about the whole ridiculous situation that had ended up with Abel as Alpha. It had never been supposed to be Abel, though he’d been just as well suited to it. No, Quin had been the one who was supposed to take over when the old Alpha gave up his position. But Quin had been away, in the army, and when he’d applied to come home to compete for the position, he’d been denied. He was too important. Too necessary.

  Ha.

  Duke thought they just liked screwing with the shifters, and maybe having someone in the squad that was both good at what they did, and—to human ways of thinking—expendable. Seven-tenths of a human, or whatever the phrase was. Quin never said anything about it one way or another, but he’d ended his enlistment the next chance he got and came home, despite not having a job to come home to at the time. Not that the pack would kick him out—pack was pack. But in all packs, everyone had to pull their weight.