Page 46 of Mating the Omega
There wasn’t time to yell, or warn anyone, or anything. Just to stare, startled, as a huge old Lincoln came barreling at us from a side road, heading straight for Mac’s door.
I didn’t remember the impact. I didn’t remember the car spinning, throwing me first across Mac’s lap, then onto the floor because I’d been too stubborn and uncomfortable to wear my seat belt. The next memory I had was lying on the floor, Mac unconscious and bleeding above me, and my belly hurting like I was dying.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I struggled up and checked Mac’s pulse. Yes, it was there, strong, but fast. The blood wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, mostly cuts from broken glass I thought, but he had a lump on the side of his head that I didn’t like the look of. My belly cramped up again and when I touched the front of my pants, my fingers came back red with blood, but not blood—it smelled different.Shit, the baby’s coming.Mac had a cell phone. I undid his seatbelt and was trying to make him comfortable and search for his phone when someone wrenched open the car door and dragged me out by my hair.
“Fuck, what the fuck?” I yelled, and my womb tightened into a screaming ball of pain. I looked up as well as I could with that hand in my hair, and felt my blood go cold. It was Orvin.
“Hello, omega. Understand, you’re going to pay for all this, right?”
Like fuck I was. “I doubt it.” I’d learned a lot those six years on the run. True to my omega nature, I’d rather run and hide than fight, but I’d learned how to do that too. I swung my arms in a circle in front of me, twisting them around Orvin’s with all the force I could manage in my adrenaline-fueled state. It ripped his fingers out of my hair, taking a clump with them, but I was free. I kicked him in the balls and slammed my arms down on the back of his neck, then bolted for the trees that lined the side of the road before any of the others could react.
I ran, and ran, and ran, crying so hard I could barely see, stumbling over rocks and tree roots. A stream cut across my path and I jumped into it, following the direction of the water until I found some rocks I could climb out on. All those years of watching adventure shows and documentaries were paying off.I’m sorry, Mac.I didn’t want to leave him behind, but there was the baby, and he’d want me to protect the baby first. It was a part of the alpha personality, and it was a part of Mac too.
The next contraction sent me to my knees and I keened with the pain, my blood thundering in my ears.Please don’t let Orvin find me.I hoped they were searching in the wrong direction. I hoped they’d lost me in the stream. I hoped they’d all fallen off a cliff and died.
A huge pine had fallen over on the edge of a small hill. It made a nice little hollow, mostly hidden from random passers-by. It wouldn’t hide me from Orvin or anyone, but the contractions were coming on hard and fast now. The front of my pants was soaked and instinct drove me to find a den for myself and my baby.
This would do.
I dragged some broken branches into the hollow under the tree’s giant shelf of roots, trying my best to make a layer between myself and the ground. Then I took my pants off and settled in, my mind already going under to the pressure of thousands of years of biology.
My belly bulged, pear-shaped, and I let my head fall back, focusing both on not screaming and on not dying or passing out. Fuck, this hurt more than I’d expected.You’ll never remember it, my ass.This was going to be imprinted on my brain forever, and somebody was getting a stern talking to when I got back to Mercy Hills.
I wanted Mac.
The demon in my belly let go and I collapsed against the wall of my den, practicing my breathing. A few tears escaped as I considered how alone I was, then more as a wave of longing for Mac’s arms hit, just before another contraction caught me off guard. I lost awareness of anything but my body, the pressure of the baby forcing its way through layers of muscle toward the now-open gap in my belly.
I thought I was hallucinating from the pain, then Mac touched my ankle and I yelped.
“Jason? Did I hurt you?” He crawled the rest of the way into my den and reached out for my face.
“It’s you! You’re real!” I started to say something else, I don’t know what, but the next contraction hit and I grabbed for Mac, holding on with all my might while our baby tried to tear me apart.
“Breathe,” he told me, moving behind me so I could lean on him.
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but the next contraction followed hard on the heels of the last one, and I felt a weird stretching between my hips. “He’s here,” I gasped. “You have to catch him!”
“Shit.” But Mac moved me gently up against the wall and slipped in between my legs. “I can see him!”
The contractions were never-ending now, going from one, straight into the next. I caught sight of the top of our baby’s head, then a glimpse of shoulder, and moments later, Mac was holding her. Her.
We had a daughter. And fuck, could she wail.
He laid her on my pants, filthy as they were, and that’s when I noticed. “You’re naked!”
He grinned up at me, still wiping the blood and other fluids from our daughter. “I tracked you in wolf form. Duke and Abel took both sides upstream.”
“Downstream was easier.” I lay back and closed my eyes for a moment.
“That’s what I figured. They’ll probably be along when they don’t find you.” It was quiet for a moment, except for the sound of the baby’s cries. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” I opened my eyes and lifted my head. “Lighter. Happy.”
Mac smiled and brought the baby up to me. “Here she is. We’ll have to come up with a new name—can’t keep calling her Little Mac.”
“Why not?” I cradled her in my arm and fell absolutely, entirely in love. Not that I hadn’t loved her before, but until now, she’d just been an idea. Now she was real, and she had my heart wrapped around her little finger as surely as Mac did. I smiled up at him as he sat beside me and pulled me close to the warmth of his body, but it wasn’t long before both our gazes were drawn back to the now sleepy baby in my arms.
This. This was everything, and worth all that had come before.
