Page 67 of The Omega's Alpha
Chapter Fifty-Five
Quin wasout of the office when I got home, so Mac, Edmond, and I dragged everything up to the apartment, and then the two alphas left me to settle back in.
And to think. I had a lot of thinking to do.
I was sitting in the living room of our apartment, surrounded by all the things I’d bought in the city, when Quin stepped through the door from his office.
“How did it go?” he asked, sitting down beside me and peering at all my packages.
“Good. He wants me back again in two weeks, and then again in a month, and a show in June. I need an agency, but Freddy said he knew a couple in New York and he’d trade that for a chance to do some art photos, whatever those are.”
“The one here didn’t work out?”
I shook my head, no. They’d been nice enough, but just a little too aggressive with me. I’d asked for a chance to look over the contract but they wouldn’t give me a copy to take with me, so I’d called Freddy up and asked him for an introduction to the New York agencies. I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of.
“I think we need to start getting Garrick involved. This is getting too complicated.” Quin leaned over and kissed my cheek. “And how are you?”
I avoided his gaze and began organizing my packages. “I think I spent too much.”
“You know that my money is yours.”
“Yes, but I’m not bringing in any more than my basic pack credits right now.” The extra credits allotted for my work as Quin’s assistant would be going to Seosamh instead of me, and until I started earning money from the modeling—if I did—I would have my living allowance and that was it. In other packs that was acceptable, but Mercy Hills was weird in this way as well. I turned to Quin. “I don’t want to be a drain on your resources. I’ve already been that and it was unpleasant.” To put things mildly.
He put two fingers under my chin and turned me back to face him. “You’ve brought me more than I ever imagined. It was your idea about the Internet therapist that kept me from going lunar when I first got here. The hope I had every time I caught your eye on me in the year after, even though I thought I was too broken for a mate. Your constant interest that made me brave enough for that first kiss.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You don’t need me to be brave. You were a soldier.”
“I’ve discovered that regular life is a lot more scary sometimes,” he said and leaned in for another, longer kiss.
Something about that confession made me brave too. So when the kiss ended, I said, “Bram thinks I should go see his human doctor.”
“Why?”
I looked back at the packages and reached for the heavy bag with the gift I’d bought for Bram. “He thinks that something can be done about my…problem.” I glanced up at Quin, who wore an expression of complete bafflement. “Can’t have pups, right? He thinks I should see his doctor, that there might be something that could be done.” Quin’s eyes widened and I was caught between hope and apprehension. “I know you weren’t expecting to have pups with me…”
“Do you want pups?”
I looked away again. My arms ached to hold my baby, mine and Quin’s. “I don’t want Agatha and Dorian to feel like I don’t want them.”
“They’ll adapt. I did.” He tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear. “What do you want?”
Oh, I knew what I wanted, but I was afraid that reaching for it would destroy what I had, so I went back to sorting through my purchases.
“Holland?” Quin tugged at my hair and I smiled at him distractedly, but continued with my busy-work. And then I felt him reach out to me through the alpha side of him, joining with my omega—the only time I really felt like an omega, felt whatever it was that Jason and Bax talked about when we snuck off to talk about our experiences. I’d never had this with my first mate, and had taken it as just another way that I was broken, but Quin had woken something in me.
I let him turn me back to face him and, when he asked me again, “What is it thatyouwant?” I said, “I’d like to know, at least. I want to know why I was left childless. I want to hold your son in my arms and watch him become as good a man as his sire. I want—” I took a breath that shook like aspen leaves before a storm. “I want to give you something as huge and wonderful as what you’ve given me.” And that was the crux of it, that as an omega it was my place to receive and never have anything of worth to give except for the continuation of my alpha’s line and I hadn’t even done that. And yes, I wanted to grow a child myself, to experience that gradual connection and the hope of the future, but only if Quin wanted it. He’d mated me without any expectation of pups from me, and here I was, turning the tables and upending things almost before the ink had dried on our mating contract.
The next thing I knew, I was on my back in the mess of shopping bags with Quin planted firmly on top of me, being kissed within an inch of my life. I wrapped my arms and legs around him and held on tight, as if his weight could keep my heart from floating up and away through the ceiling.
“I love you,” he whispered in the space between one kiss and the next. And, “Whatever you want. Pups or not. I don’t care. But if you want a pup, I’ll help.” And then, after another searing kiss, “Maybe we should practice making one.”
I laughed and moaned as he worked his way down my neck. “It’ll have to be quick, the pups will be home soon.”
“I haven’t seen you in three days. I’m sorry, my love, but I’m primed to go off.” He pulled me to my feet and threw me over his shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you this evening.” And he carried me, laughing the whole while, down the hallway to our bedroom and made promises to me with his body that I knew he would keep. Because he was alpha, and he was mine.
* * *
“Ishould go getthe pups,” Quin said, running his hand over the sleek flank of his mate. Someday, maybe, Holland’s stomach wouldn’t be quite so flat. He thought Holland was excited about the prospect, but Quin recognized that Holland’s relationship with his fertility and his responsibilities to his family was complex and that this wouldn’t be a straight and easy path. Still, he was perfectly willing to follow his mate whichever way he chose. And if Holland chose not to have pups in the end, or couldn’t, Quin knew it wouldn’t matter. He’d mated Holland for the purely selfish reason of being absolutely certain he couldn’t live without him. As long as they were together, the rest of it didn’t matter.
