Page 79 of His Surrogate Omega

“None… of my business?” He looked between them before eyeing Vaughn. “I’ll give you a free pass on the next idiotic thing you do and not reprimand you for it—if you tell me what’s going on here.”

Vaughn sat back, one brow rising. “No matter how badly I behave?”

Jamie glared at Vaughn, who only shrugged. “He’s going to find out eventually. I might as well get something out of it.” He turned to their papa. “Rohan marked their surrogate. They apparently did thingsthe old-fashioned way.”

Papa gasped.

His father looked up from his plate, finally deciding to join the gathering. “He didwhat?”

The entire table glared at Rohan.

Jamie could sense his alpha tensing beside him. It was time to help let him off the hook.Not that it worked well the last time.“I insisted it be done that way. It was my choice. Not his.”

“Why ever for?” Papa demanded.

“For many reasons…” He was about to run down the same list he’d used on Rohan and Gray but thought better of it. He was tired of fighting to have his voice heard. It’s not like they’d listen either way. “You know what? I don’t owe anyone at this table an explanation,” Jamie said before turning to glance at Rohan. His alpha sat there, eyes closed and jaw tense. “What happens between me and my alpha is no one’s business. It was done. And now we have a babe on the way. Already Gray grows swollen with Rohan’s baby.”

“Ourbaby,” Rohan murmured lowly beside him.

Jamie eyed his alpha, an ache coming to his chest.

“But it’s not his, now is it?” Papa said. “It’s your child with another omega. Now you’ll bring this child into our home and expect us to treat it as if it was your own? It will never be a Jaymes.Never.”

“Can you not just be happy for me once in your life?” Jamie asked his papa.

“Is it not bad enough that you’ve shamed this family by being barren? Now you let your alpha have his way with another omega—marking this other man? If word gets out, do you know how the gossip mill will churn?” Papa asked. “Could you not think of the family?”

“Justhowdid he already shame this family? By getting sick? By nearly dying?” Rohan demanded, viciousness in his tone. “My gods—just how terrible of a personareyou?”

“You don’t speak to me like that, Rohan,” his papa snarled.

“Shut up!” Jamie screamed, rising to his feet. “I have exhausted myself trying to win your favor and your love—but I give up. Nothing I will ever do will be good enough for you. So, I no longer care. I don’t care if you don’t love me or never approve of me. Nor do I care to lay eyes on you ever again.”

I’m dying.

The words were on the tip of his tongue… and he wondered if they would hurt his parents at all.Likely not.

They would only hurt the people he least wanted to hurt—Rohan and Wilder.

His parents? Vaughn? They wouldn’t care.

He was an omega. Worthless in their eyes.

Maybe a little part of him had also hoped, for once, he’d find the love and support he should’ve had all along.

It would never be.

Never.

He spun and headed for the door. Jamie sensed Rohan following.

But as he hit the foyer, the world went sideways. For a moment, he felt weightless. Crashing to the marbled tiles, his vision went blurry. Darkness hit him seconds after he heard Rohan’s muffled, desperate cry echoing around him.

* * * *

A deadly truth…

Rohan sat beside Jamie’s hospital bed, reeling. A quick trip to the ER had suddenly become an admission. No one had given him any information as to why. Nurses had come, taking vials and vials of blood. They’d set up machines, listening to his heart, his lungs… the gods knew what else. Jamie had slept through it all. Whispered voices and the slow, steady pulse of Jamie’s heartbeat being monitored filtered in around him as he awaited news.

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