Page 18 of Unable Omega
“I appreciate the compliment, but I am concerned if this is an ongoing situation. Maybe we should go tomorrow and speak to Markus. He’ll know if there are other cases of whatever you’ve got going around.”
“You think it’s a bug?” He shrugged. “That would be a good explanation. If so, I just have to wait it out.”
The next morning, we set out to chat with the healer before breakfast, but he was not in, seeing a patient somewhere, and his omega suggested we come back after lunch. Dandling their baby, he yawned. “And our little Cody kept me up most of the night. You two are lucky to still be in the honeymoon phase with no baby yet.”
Baby? I turned to my mate and arched a brow. Could that be why his stomach was upset? We’d never discussed trying, but we’d been doing all the right things. “Sam, do you suppose Markus has a pregnancy test we can take?”
“Really?” He bounced, and the baby giggled. “Do you think you might be…”
Sage looked so stunned. “I-I don’t know.”
Sam opened a cabinet and pulled out a box. “These are OTC, so I don’t feel bad about giving it to you without getting permission.” He held the package out. “But I expect to be the first to know after the two of you.”
We hurried home, and Sage took the box into the bathroom and then came out again. “Now we wait.”
“You don’t look very happy at the prospect of being pregnant.”
“Are you? I mean happy.”
I hesitated, considering my words carefully. “I would love to have a family with you, but if you aren’t pregnant, and if you never get pregnant, that’s all right, too. I want to be with you, and I don’t see you only as a means to a family. We are already a family.”
He sniffed, wiping at his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want children, it’s that I don’t have any way of knowing for sure what I was injected with, what those pills were they gave me. And the machines… What if I can’t carry a child all the way or if they suffer horribly their whole life because I took a chance.”
“I’ll tell you this. If you are not and you decide you don’t want to be, for those reasons, we’ll use a suppressor and make our play safer. But you know I’m in the same boat, right?” I led him to the couch and pulled him to sit next to me. “I was in there, too.”
“You never talk about it, and I figured that was your preference.”
“In general, yes, but I told you I’d tell you all about it and then we just never got back to it. I was also the subject of cruel medical experiments, but unlike you, I didn’t break out in a blaze of glory. I was assisted by someone in a mask who strapped me to a table and rolled me all the way out the gate late at night. We know there’s someone in there on our side, but we’ve never been able to figure out who.”
“I’m so glad you got out all right.”
“That’s the point. I’m not all right. Not any more than you are. I don’t feel great some of the time and until you showed up, I was a real grouch. I don’t know what happened to my genes or any other part of me.”
“Oh no, now I feel worse. What do we do?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Little Cody and baby Elise are also product of dads just like us. They didn’t know either what might have happened to them. And those babies are great. If you’repregnant, Markus will monitor you throughout. There is no guarantee that our baby will not be affected, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let those white coats steal our lives.”
He flung his arms around me and kissed me on the lips. “For a guy with a reputation as a grouch, you sure lift my spirits.” He bounced to his feet and darted toward the bathroom.
I held my breath.
A few seconds later, he came out holding up the stick. I couldn’t tell from his expression at first, then a smile, the biggest I’d ever see him wear, told me the answer.
We had no guarantees, but what we did have was a positive pregnancy test. And if Fate was kind, a healthy baby. But no matter if the baby had challenges, they would be born into a family that understood challenges. Their dads and all the rest of the sleuth. For now, I was going to be very grateful for the changes my life had taken since I’d escaped from that place.
Chapter Sixteen
Sage
I eyed the last pumpkin pancake. Everyone in the sleuth made jokes about taking the last of anything as we ate, but lately, that person was me. I was eating for three, after all.
“Just take it, Sage. I’m getting uncomfortable with you eye-fucking the last pancake.”
Rob growled at Zenith’s statement, but I laughed. Zenith and I had become good friends over the last few months, and he considered me his backup for the security watches. If something happened or Zenith wasn’t around, I could manage the systems and make sure they were up and running. “Don’t say eye-fucking to my mate ever again.” Ever the growly mate. I loved it—soaked up every second of it. “Don’t even say fucking in that context.”
I stabbed the last pancake with my fork and lathered it with peanut butter before pouring honey on top. “That’s a crime,” Locke said, laughing while tickling Elise.
“There is no crime when it comes to pregnancy cravings,” Sam pointed out. “Right, Markus?”
