“Gonna give me a boy this time?”
I froze. Something in Patrick’s tone made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “I don’t know.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Patrick that we could have had an ultrasound done in Jackson, but I bit the words off before they could tumble irresponsibly from my lips.
Patrick licked the back of my neck, and I suppressed a shiver of disgust.
“Better be, or I’ll be looking for a new mate. One that can give me sons.” His hand squeezed, and then he rolled over and put his back to me.
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, praying that I’d have a son.
CHAPTER THREE
Patrick was gone all day again, doing whatever it was outside walls. I put the pups to bed, then put them to bed again, then curled up on the couch with Fan’s head on what was left of my lap and Teca pressed against my other thigh.
They’d been clingy and whiny all day. I suppose that was my fault—my mood had been off, my thoughts constantly circling around to Patrick’s threat the night before. I’d seen him off to work with a kiss and wish for a good day, but after he was gone, depression had set in, and I’d spent most of the time hoping something would happen to keep him from coming home that night. I wanted a break, just a short one, to build up my reserves and come up with a plan of action in case this baby was a girl.
Being trapped on the couch with my grouchy darlings, I pulled my secret pleasure out from its hiding place under the cushions and spent a moment admiring the muscular physique of the cover model before diving back in. While the pups snored and yipped softly in their sleep beside me, I lost myself in a story of lust and limousines and a man that would move heaven and earth for the one he loved.
Time passed, and a knock on the door broke the silence. Quickly, I closed the book and stuffed it down inside the couch, then looked up to see Carl and Salvodoro, entering the house like it was theirs and not the Alpha’s. I glanced up at the clock and realized curfew had come and gone hours ago.
He’s dead. I didn’t know where the knowledge came from, but the truth rang through me like the tolling of a bell. I gently moved Fan off my leg and levered myself to my feet. Emotion overwhelmed me—joy at the thought that I’d never need to deal with Patrick again, laced with the bone-grinding fear of the unknown future, and a sick feeling that I wasn’t prepared for this at all.
“Baxter,” Carl said.
“What happened?” I asked. The baby inside me squirmed as my emotions leaked over into his. I put a hand on my belly, though who I thought I was reassuring I didn’t know.
Carl gave me a sympathetic stare. “Maybe you should be sitting down for this.”
My belly panged and I pressed against the sudden tension in my womb. “No. Tell me now.” When Carl remained quiet, I said, “Please. I just need to know.”
“There was an accident on the way back from the meeting. They were running late and they hit a curve wrong, going too fast.” His voice was low and there was a wealth of sorrow in it.
I felt no sorrow—I just needed to know. “And?” The pain grew to a peak and I stood there, deaf to everything except the call of my body. When the contraction faded, I glanced at the two shifters. “I’m sorry, I…missed that.”
“Are you okay?” Salvodoro asked. He reached awkwardly for me, understanding growing in his face.
“Please. Just tell me what happened.” I had time. I needed to get the pups into their beds and call the midwife. I was early, though I hoped not too early. It was less than two weeks to my due date—surely that was okay? Please don’t let my baby die.
“He’s having the baby.” Hands gripped me, and I shook them off.
“Fan and Teca. They need to be put to bed.” I bent to pick them up, but Salvodoro shouldered me aside.
“Go call the midwife. I’ll look after them.”
Call the midwife? How? I stared back and forth between them in confusion.
Carl was the first to break the stasis. “Stupid omegas.” He shook me, but gently. “Go get your phone and call the midwife.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
He and Salvodoro looked at each other as if their estimation of my IQ had just dropped twenty points, which would be hard considering that they spoke to me like I was a five-year-old some days. They thought he hadn’t given me a phone because I was too stupid to look after one. I knew it was because he didn’t see the point, since all I needed to do was look after the house and drop pups for him. Oh, and ease his cock whenever he felt like it.
Carl pulled his out and placed the call, while Salvadoro carefully picked up the pups and followed me down the hall to their rooms.
My birthing kit was in the large closed porch on the back of the house. Once I was certain Fan and Teca were going to stay asleep, I retrieved it and set it up on the floor out there. Even though Patrick was dead, I couldn’t bring myself to risk staining the mattress with the messy side-effects of birth. So I spread everything out, like I had for the last three, on a heavy layer of foam that covered the floor at one end of the porch. Blankets and towels, a bowl for water, the faded receiving blanket that I had used for each of my precious babies. Salve to ease the aches and tenderness around my Omega line afterward and a long strip of cloth to cover it until my body sealed itself again. The cradle would have to wait—Beatrice was still in it, and I had thought to set up her new bed this week. The newborn could sleep out here with me for the three days I would need to recover, anyway. I rather enjoyed the excuse to keep my baby close by me. It was something that hadn’t been possible when Patrick was around.
The midwife’s footsteps sounded inside the house. I laid down on the foam and prepared to bring my new baby into the world.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the end, the baby didn’t come that night, but the midwife put me on bed rest, which of course I couldn’t do. Still, Noah manged to hang on for another week, and then he came in an almost painless rush, and so quickly I’d washed and wrapped him even before the midwife arrived. He was the first one I’d been allowed to name, and I chose a name that would have been a source of contention with Patrick. Yes, it was a strong name, from one of the human religions, but it meant Comfort. And he was a comfort to me, as I held him close and dreamed of a better future.
I told no one about his Omega line.
It would have been a joyful occasion, except for the limbo I found myself in. I was still in Patrick’s house—the Alpha’s house. But I wouldn’t be allowed to stay there. The new Alpha would live here now and I and my babies would go…where? I had no family here to claim me. No one had come forward to claim guardianship, which told me Patrick had never thought about what might happen to his family if he died. I could go back to Buffalo Gap, but the babies belonged to the pack—I’d have to leave them, and that was something I absolutely wasn’t going to do.
Which left finding a new mate. I spent that week after Noah’s birth making list after list of all the single shifters in Jackson-Jellystone, male and female alike. I didn’t much care for sex, considering how little it seemed to be about me, so it made little difference to me where I mated. Maybe some day I’d discover a preference, but not now. I thought I was prepared when Salvodoro came to see me.
“Baxter,” he said. His eyes were sad as he gestured me to a seat in the living room. I sat on the couch, in the very seat where I’d first learned the news of Patrick’s death. Salvodoro sat across from me, in the chair I rocked my babies in when they had trouble sleeping.
“The new Alpha has been decided. It’s time to speak about your future.”
I composed myself and did my best to look open and cooperative. “Yes?”
He glanced away and cleared his throat. His hands twitched upon his knees, and he made a visible effort to still them. “The Alpha and I have spoken at length about you and your situation. You’re an attractive young male. Obviously fertile, a hard worker, and pleasant to all around you.”
I nodded. He wasn’t telling me anyth
ing I didn’t know. I’d worked hard at the second two and had been blessed—or cursed, depending on your point of view—with the first two.
He looked me in the eye and a terrible suspicion began to grow in me, confirmed by his next words.
“Patrick, obviously, wasn’t expecting to die so young. He made no provision for you, appointed no pack member to be guardian to you and your pups.”
Nothing I didn’t already know. I lowered my eyes and waited to hear what he had to say.
He took one of my hands in his and held it. “Baxter, an omega on his own, or with only one child, would have no trouble finding a home. But four…” He shook his head. “No one wants to take on that responsibility.”
A rage like I’d never experienced swept through me. Damn Patrick and his forced weanings of my babies, bringing me back into heat so he could get another pup on me. How dare he? I hated him even more now than I ever had, and if he hadn’t been burned as the human laws demanded, I would have pissed on his grave in hopes of passing my own curse on to him.
I don’t know what Salvodoro saw in my face, but years of hiding my anger behind a mask of submission or regret must have held. He moved to sit beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. “It’ll be okay. They’ll go to families who will look after them. They’ll be cared for just like you would care for them. And you can have more. Your new mate will want pups, so it’s not like you’ll never have children again.”
The pain his words brought robbed me of breath, left me curled over my knees while I wished I’d never been born. I couldn’t lose my babies! They were all I had. I loved them so much… I looked up and saw the concern in his face, and something else…desire. I’d always known he enjoyed looking at me. He’d more than once complimented me on the bright green of my eyes, the fairness of my skin, the silky blackness of my hair. “Salvodoro, please, there must be some other way. Please don’t take my babies away, they’re all I have left…” I let my voice trail off, and hoped he’d take it as the desire to keep something of Patrick’s. His expression wavered between firmness and his innate need to care for the members of his pack.
I needed to fan the flames of that need, or of any other need he had. As much as it sickened me to do it, I put a hand on his chest, just enough pressure to indicate willingness, and spread my legs slightly, though my Omega line was only barely sealed. Sex now would hurt, but I could fake it. I had, for most of my mating—I could do it again for my babies. And again, if need be. However many times it took.
His head dipped and for a moment I thought I’d won, but I had miscalculated, badly.
Salvodoro’s expression hardened and he reared away from me. “How dare you? Your mate only two weeks dead and you’re throwing yourself at another man?” He stood up, shoving me backwards on the couch. “You don’t deserve any consideration.”
“No, Salvodoro, wait!” I stumbled after him, falling to my knees in front of the door to keep him from leaving. “Please, listen!” I was bawling, and there was no way anyone could say I was pretty now, but I didn’t care. “Please, they’re my life. Everything has been for them and for Patrick. I’ll do anything to stay with them. Please, help me. I don’t know what to do.” And I collapsed on the floor at his feet.
The back door slammed and Fan came running in. He stopped dead at the sight of his bearer on the floor at a man’s feet, and I hastily wiped my cheeks and did my best to hide my distress. “Hello, sweetheart. Are you looking for something?”
“What’s wrong, Dabi?” He gave Salvodoro a suspicious look and came to pat me on the shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Don’t cry.”
I smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. “I know, sweetie.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Are you hungry? Where’s your sister?”
“In the yard.” He still looked uncertain, a not-quite-four-year-old trying to understand an adult’s world.
Salvodoro sighed. I looked up to find him watching us, and I thought he maybe understood some of my pain.
“I’ll talk to Roland. There may be a way to sort this out. At least for now.”
I nodded, and blinked back tears of gratitude. “Thank you.” I hugged my baby closer and repeated, “Thank you.”
That evening, he came back to see me. He found me in the kitchen, feeding Beatrice mashed up carrots while the older two ate sandwiches at the table and the baby slept against my chest. “Roland has agreed to stand guardian for you and your babies, at least until you’ve had a chance to mourn Patrick. He agrees with me that it’s too quick, and we can revisit it later, once you’ve recovered and the baby is older.”
I doubted very much that that was how Roland had put it, but I appreciated Salvodoro’s care for my feelings. “I am so very grateful.”
“He wants to move in here tomorrow, get the business of the pack back on even footing.”
“I’ll pack tonight. Where am I going?”
Salvodoro started to look uncomfortable, but I didn’t care, as long I was with my babies. “There are no homes to put you in.”
I paused in scraping carrot off Beatrice’s chin. “Then where will we go?”
He glanced away and muttered, “He’s asked that you move your personal possessions into the porch at the back of the house. He says also that he’ll feed you out of his allotment, but in exchange you’ll take care of the house for him. The credit in Patrick’s account is Fan’s, and Noah’s, but he’s agreed that you should have access for necessities for the pups.”
The porch? They were moving the children of the late Alpha into a porch to live? I might have hated Patrick, but he would never have done something like that. Still, I had no rights, and no one to argue for me. I was lucky they’d let me keep the credit. “What can I take from the house in the way of furniture?”
“He says you can have the cradle, and the baby bed, since he won’t need them. Anything you need for the baby, you can take. You can have the extra dresser in the smallest bedroom, and he’ll allot you blankets and sheets from the house supply.”
The edges of my vision went dark for a moment, and only an effort so ugly it would have scared small children kept me from bursting into tears. I pushed my emotions away, telling myself that it was just the change in hormones after Noah’s birth, but I didn’t really believe myself.
This was going to be horrible.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Baxter!”
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I set down the pot I was scrubbing and scurried into the living room. “Yes, sir?”
“Get me another beer, and something to eat.” Roland, Alpha of the Jackson-Jellystone Pack, turned back to the TV. I paused in the doorway to see what had set the Alpha’s temper on edge. It looked like a special news program, showing a trial going on in another shifter enclave. Mercy Hills—I’d heard that name before. When I was young, I used to wish I’d been born there.
I lingered in the doorway as long as I thought it was safe, drinking in the details of the trial, and the people involved until nerves and a healthy sense of self-preservation kicked in. With a last wistful glance at the TV screen, I ducked back into the kitchen to pull together a thick roast beef sandwich with a side of potato chips, and a beer dripping with condensation.
“Took you long enough,” muttered the Alpha, but he picked up one half of the sandwich and began to chew without further comment.
The program was still on, so I looked for things to do around the room, an excuse to remain and listen in. The name Jason Mercy Hills came up a couple of times, and it hit me with a blinding flash that he was an omega, and that Mercy Hills was fighting with his birth pack over rights to him. The camera zoomed in on a young omega, heavily pregnant, leaning on the arm of an attractive red-haired man the newscaster called Mac. Then it moved to show a human male who spoke on their behalf. Behind him stood the young and handsome Alpha, Abel Mercy Hills. I’d actually seen him once in real life, when he’d traveled here to discuss something with Patrick. All I remembered of that visit was Patri
ck’s displeasure, and the Mercy Hills Alpha’s quiet intensity.
“What are you doing fussing around in the corner over there?” Roland snapped.
“Just tidying up. I thought I’d dust tomorrow and having things tidy makes it all go quicker.” That had been the deal—mending, cleaning, cooking. Nothing else. I didn’t think I wanted another alpha to touch me again, ever.
The Alpha’s mate, a beta female named Miranda who ran the Housing Commission, was very happy with the arrangement, as it left her free to pursue other interests once her pack duties were done. That didn’t mean she was kind, or welcoming, but she let me stay, and didn’t much care what I did as long as the house was clean and the meals cooked.
Roland grunted and waved at me to keep on doing whatever I was doing.
I kept puttering around the room until I was able to piece together the whole story. The omega had run away from his own pack and landed in Mercy Hills, where he’d promptly ended up mated. Which was fine, and made total sense. It also made sense that his pack would want him back if Mercy Hills hadn’t paid anything for him—and Mercy Hills was rich, so there had to be something else going on there. What I was having a problem with was that the omega really seemed to want to stay with the shifter who’d so abruptly mated him. Of course, coming from a dirt-poor enclave like Montana Border, ending up mated to a stranger in Mercy Hills might seem okay. No, actually, it definitely seemed okay. I’d do it, if I could be sure they’d take my babies.
But there was something off about that omega’s story. What omega, if he’d managed to live on his own for six years—would willingly go to a pack and ask to be mated? It made no sense at all.
Damn. I was running out of stuff to tidy, and the program seemed nowhere near over. Maybe Roland wouldn’t mind too much if I hung around to watch the rest? I padded silently over to the old chair next to the door into the kitchen and sat, watching Roland for signs that he’d noticed that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, or cared that I wasn’t. He appeared engrossed in the program, though, and I thought I might have gotten away with it, until I heard the first disjointed mumbles of the baby as he started to wake up. Roland hated it when the baby cried—not so different from Patrick, after all—so I cast one last longing glance at the television and hurried into the kitchen.
Abel's Omega(Gay Paranomal MM Mpreg Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 2) Page 2