Page 34 of Slow Heat
“Two-fold: to show that he’s been a healthy child all through his life, but also to whet your appetite for babies of your own. ‘Look how cute your alpha was! Don’t you want to make one of these with him?’”
Vale chewed on his bottom lip. Truth be told, if circumstances were different, then yes, he’d like to have one of these of his own—to carry on his parents’ genes and to satisfy his own yearnings, and presumably, the yearnings of his alpha. But…
“Is it working?” Yosef asked quietly, reading through more papers and laying them out in some order Vale didn’t understand.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Vale shrugged and put the photos aside. “What else is there?”
“A letter from his parents.” He passed it to Vale. “For the most part, it states the usual: their hopes and dreams for a good pairing with their son, desire for grandchildren, and a confidence that the families can be joined amicably. But the second page is interesting. It outlines Miner Hoff’s biological condition, potentially heritable, that made carrying to term nearly impossible for him. It’s relevant only in that your own offspring with Jason could carry the gene. If there’s to be any offspring.”
Vale’s gut knotted up, anxiety-laced sadness trotting through his heart along with the memories of pain and blood. He closed his eyes. Urho’s initial assessment and a subsequent visit to another physician to examine why Vale sometimes experienced pain on Urho’s knot hadn’t brought good news. Scar tissue had formed, and it was unlikely he’d survive a birth.
What’d seemed formlessly sad when the doctor delivered the initial diagnosis now had a shape and a name: Jason. How terrible to have a beautiful young alpha to wound and disappoint with his past mistakes. How horrible to take away the boy’s chances at a life with hisÉrosgápe.
Shame twisted inside.
“Do you want children, Vale?” Yosef asked gently.
“We both know that isn’t going to happen,” he whispered. Yosef quietly accepted his response, and they let the sadness hang in the air between them. Finally, voice quivering, Vale asked, “How do we handle that?”
“Miner Hoff’s disclosure gives us the perfect card to play, actually.” Yosef squeezed Vale’s knee. “An omega who’s suffered like he has—and likely suffers still given the laws around surgical remedies—won’t insist that another omega submit to an unwanted, painful, and potentially deadly experience. Not unless he’s a terrible person, and that seems unlikely. Just put your foot down, make it clear that it’s against your wishes, and either they’ll cave and agree to always employ alpha condoms for contraception or they’ll look for a surrogate. It’ll be up to Jason at that point, I imagine.”
“He’s so young, it’ll really be up to his parents. They’ll be able to persuade him.”
“What do you want to have happen?”
“I don’t know.” Vale ran an anxious hand through his hair. “As Jason put it to me today, there’s the me that’s me, and there’s the me that he’s awakened, and they don’t want the same things. Twenty-four hours ago I was happy, content with my life. Tonight, I can’t truthfully say I wish this had never happened. It’d be a lie to claim that I don’t want him to choose me.” Vale scoffed, stood up, and headed over to the liquor cabinet, where he poured scotch for them both. “I know nothing about him and I’m already moping at the idea that he’d make the smart choice. Heshouldchoose a young surrogate with years of breeding ahead. What do I have to offer him?”
“Yourself. And you’re nothing to sneeze at.”
“I’m much older and won’t provide him with a child. I know the union ofÉrosgápeis supposed to be near bliss, but can it really be worth the rest of the hassle? The social ostracization he’ll have to face when the others of his cohort all have appropriately aged omegas? When they’re having wild bashes and I’m more interested in a dinner party for a select few? When they’re popping out babies and making families? Will he think, ‘Well, at least I knotted Vale until we both couldn’t see straight, at least I shot my condom full of massive amounts of jizz during our brilliant and fruitless coupling?’ I think not.”
“You’reÉrosgápe. No one else will ever satisfy him the way you can. That’s the way it is and will always be. He’ll choose you, Vale.”
“I don’t want him to!” He threw his drink back and poured a second as the liquor scorched his throat.
“You just said you did.”
Vale groaned and filled a glass for Yosef, too. “I know that. I mean I want him to have a good life. When he came over this morning…” He handed Yosef the drink.
Yosef tossed his back as well, and his voice came out hoarse when he said, “Go on. When he came over this morning what?”
Sitting beside his friend on the sofa again the papers mocked Vale with a promise of a family he’d never make. “He’s a good kid, with a soft heart, and he deserves a family and a good, normal, solid life.”
“Wah, wah, wah.”
“What?”
“You must stop punishing yourself for the rebound heat you suffered and what happened after.” Yosef’s eyes glowed with bare truth, the way they always did when he drank. It’d probably been a mistake to give him the scotch. “You deserve to be happy, Vale. If you’re going to refuse to contract with him, at least do it because you genuinely believe you’d be happier alone.”
“I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have you and Rosen and Urho.”
“You’ll have us anyway. Maybe Urho won’t be your lover anymore, but he’ll always be in your life. You can have all of us and this thing with Jason, too. You aren’t required to give us up. And you don’t need to punish yourself for suppressing that heat years ago when you didn’t have Urho to help you and you didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’d endured a rebound before, though,” Vale whispered. “I should have known.”
“Vale, desperate people do desperate things, and it’s not your fault.”
“I could have had the baby.”
