Page 11 of Slow Heat
“I trust you.”
“Good,” Xan said. “Because we need each other.”
Before Jason could ask what he meant by that, two police officers entered the room, notepads in hand, and noses twitching at Pater’s lingering post-heat scent. Jason watched his father place an arm around Pater’s shoulders, shielding and announcing at the same time. He yearned to be that man for Vale. He hoped he’d get the chance.
If only he could remember what Vale looked like. If only he knew for sure Vale wanted it, too.
Then the questions started. Jason had to relive his humiliation, his near-assault of the man he hoped would bear his children, and to make it worse, he was fully aware that it was only the first recitation of many to come.
He’d have to tell the police, then tell the attorneys, then add a description in their contract, and in addition, he hoped to have a chance to tell Vale to his face what it had been like for him. So he could beg his forgiveness.
With any luck, Vale would grant it and fall to his knees in willing submission.
CHAPTER FOUR
Vale stirred thefire with a brass poker.
It was early in the season to need additional warmth, but the study he’d created from his pater’s old gardening room was poorly insulated and drafty. It was also crowded with books, loose papers, sketches, and notes he’d made over the years, and which he never knew how to file away. The furniture was all fairly new, purchased by his own earnings with his first check after making professor at Mont Nessadare. The floor was carefully laid polished brick, and the windows along the back of the room looked out on the overgrown garden, abandoned to nature since his pater’s death.
Vale loved his study. But he couldn’t bring himself to sit on the leather couch or to collapse at his wide, wooden desk. Instead, he paced by the fire, leaning against the mantle now and again to peer into the flames. He glanced toward Urho, who sank into the leather wingback chair they both preferred, swirling a tumbler of bourbon with a thoughtful expression. He couldn’t be more opposite of the boy who’d grabbed Vale in the library: dark skin to Jason’s pale, gray-dusted black curls where Jason’s hair was straight and blond, and older than Vale by five years while Jason must be fifteen years younger.
“What are you thinking now?” Vale asked, though he was sure he’d regret it.
“He’s too young for you,” Urho said gently, rubbing a hand over the fuzz on his cheeks. Vale remembered Urho’s taut ass as he’d stood naked at Vale’s bathroom sink that morning, scraping away his salt-and-pepper stubble with the sharp razor blade he carried back and forth between their houses as needed.
Vale sighed. He was going to miss seeing that ass.
“Did you hear me?” Urho asked.
“You said he’s too young. Since when does that matter withÉrosgápe?”
“It’s always mattered. It’s why they created surrogates in the first place.”
Vale poked at the wood hard enough that a few logs shifted, sending up a whirl of sparks. “Not really. The original surrogates were alphas like you—left uncontracted through death or other circumstances. They were brought in to help likewise uncontracted omegas through the pain of heat.”
Vale hated to bring up Riki, Urho’s long-dead omega, even in a roundabout way, but he also couldn’t allow Urho to deny what had happened today. Even if he did it out of a misguided fear for Vale, or a realistic sense of loss for what they’d shared for almost ten years now, they couldn’t avoid the truth.
But Urho seemed unaffected, only saying, “Or when an omega suffers from nymphomania.”
“Interminable heat,” Vale corrected. “Nymphomania is an outdated term these days.”
Urho grunted.
Vale took that as acknowledgement and went on. “It was only later that omegas were taken as surrogates when an ‘unsuitable’ social match occurred withÉrosgápe.” He sniffed in disdain.
“Or when a contracted omega proves to be infertile,” Urho corrected, obviously determined to paint surrogacy in a positive light.
“Yes, well, all of that began at a much later date. The courts simply referred to the precedent set by alpha surrogates to approve it.”
Though, really, despite Urho’s resistance to the situation, what was his alternative to accepting Jason as his alpha? An accusation of assault? Easily overcome with all the witnesses and the lack of actual harm or rape. Throwing himself into the arms of one of the omega freedom groups? Possibly, but he’d have to give up his life, and he rather liked his home and his job and his friends. Suicide? No.
Vale had seen kindness in his alpha’s eyes, deep beneath the wild lust and possessive rage. Perhaps that was something he might rely on. And perhaps it wasn’t. Only time would tell. And maybe it would all come to nothing. He wasn’t unattractive, but he was older, well past the time to be a good or reliable breeder. He wasn’t going to contract for a live birth anyway, come hell or high water. So it was possible, even likely, that his young alphawouldchoose a surrogate, and Vale would be fine with that.
A pang hit him, and he took a sharp breath.
It was ridiculous how the imprint dictated everything, against all logic or intelligent interrogation of the situation. His attachment wasn’t real, not based on affinity or commonalities like what he shared with Urho, and yet he couldn’t deny the ball of pain in his gut, weighty and burning, at the very thought of his absurdly young alpha claiming a surrogate in his stead.
“You’ll have another heat coming in six weeks,” Urho said, his kind brown eyes shining. They’d both been looking forward to it and had even planned to go out to Urho’s vacation house in the country for extra privacy. “Who will help you through it? The boy’s unfit. Too young, too wild. At the very least he’d hurt you, and, in the worst-case scenario, he’d impregnate you against your will.”
