Page 17 of Slow Birth
“I’m sorry for all you’ve been through.”
Miner exchanged his toothpick for a new one. “I have Jason. He was worth everything.”
Vale touched Miner’s knee. “I agree.”
Miner laughed. “I know.” Then he sobered again. “I also know we should focus on the positive and not allow negative thoughts to cloud our minds. It’s the traditional omega way of dealing with pregnancy. But just for now, let’s be frank with each other: how good are the odds?”
“I don’t know. But Urho would never have given me hope if he didn’t feel they were very good odds. He’d have told me I couldn’t sustain the pregnancy and insisted I…” Vale trailed off.
“And would you have gone along with his suggestion?”
Trying to think of what he would have done, Vale finally nodded. “I would have accepted his assessment.”
“And terminated.”
Superstitious anxiety settled on Vale, and he shrugged, refusing to entertain the thought. “It doesn’t matter now. I don’t have to. I get to try.”
Miner nodded, understanding in his glimmering eyes. He took hold of Vale’s hand and squeezed. “This baby is wonderful news, Vale.Wonderful.”
“It’s awful,” Jasonsaid, miserably, staring up at the clouds drifting in front of the pale sun and across the flat, blue sky. “Awful.”
The slanted roof beneath his old bedroom window had always been his safe place, and so he hadn’t been surprised when someone had followed him out onto the slates. The fact that it was his father instead of Vale had been a bit unexpected, though.
Father tilted his head back and gazed up at the clouds, too. “I know.”
“Vale won’t budge. I know he won’t. He’s made up his mind, and I already know what happens when he does that.”
Father shrugged. “He’d made up his mind not to contract with you, but you convinced him anyway.”
Jason sighed. “Did I? Or did he go into heat and by the time it was over, he just didn’t have it in him to reject me anymore?”
Father chuckled. “I suppose we’ll never know. Omegas are hard to understand. That heat was well-timed for what you wanted. It made him realize that he couldn’t stand living without you.”
Jason nodded, deciding not to bring up how vigorously his father had fought against Jason’s contract with Vale, wanting him to take a younger, more fertile surrogate, and live without hisÉrosgápeforever in favor of an heir.
“It was significantly less well-timed for what he claimed to want at the time. But omegas want their alphas.Érosgápeare notoriously hard to keep apart.” Father sobered. “But one thing’s for sure… This last heat was not well-timed at all. Obviously.”
“I was so scared,” Jason whispered. There weren’t many people in this world he was willing to admit that to. He was an alpha and had his pride. Everyone mightknowhe was scared, but he hated saying it, which was idiotic because even stoic Urho had declared himself frightened.
But here with his father, knowing that he understood this particular type of terror, he could let it out. “I’m really fucking scared, Father.”
Yule put his arm around Jason’s shoulders and sat there in silence, letting him soak in his support.
“What do I do?”
“You have to love him. You must support him. He’s an omega, and he’ll need your care, your tenderness, and affection. He’ll need your confidence in him, too. You must come to see this as wonderful.”
“Wonderful? It’s a mistake.”
“Vale is making the right choice, son. He—”
“How can you say that!” Jason knocked his father’s arm off his shoulder. “He’s putting his life at risk because he thinks I want this baby.”
“And don’t you?”
“Not more than I want Vale.”
Yule clucked. “Vale is smart, Jason. Very smart. He isn’t going to make this choice lightly. He knows Dr. Chase well. If he heard him say things that warrant hope, then I believe he knows he has a very good chance. No omega is completely safe—”
