Page 80 of Abel's Omega
It was Abel, and right after him, Mac. Now I knew who Jason had called while I was at the clinic, and I shot him a look that did all but shout, “Traitor!” He shrugged, and dragged me off to the bathroom.
“Do you have menthol rub?”
“I’m not sick. Not that way.”
“No, but you’ve got the two most alpha alphas in the pack out there, and you smell like Harvest Moon dinner come calling. Put it on all your pulse points—all of them. Then you can come out and we can try to sort this out.”
“There’s nothing to sort.” But I kind of wondered. Or hoped. “Jason, where did your family come from?”
He paused in the doorway. “I don’t know. But I can ask. Or you can get Abel to check the database.” He left, and I turned to the medicine cabinet in search of something to hide my scent.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
When I came out of the bathroom, smelling like a eucalyptus forest, all three of them were sitting in my living room wearing tense expressions. Abel had drawn up his favorite chair, and was sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, saying something low-voiced to Mac. I stood behind the couch and braced my hands on the back of it.
“What about the fall? Just say we couldn’t organize it in time, something happened, whatever,” Jason said.
Abel looked thoughtful. “It’s a possibility. What would be a good enough reason?”
“Illness? Like, the flu running through the pack? Bax came home with it in January, what’s to say it hasn’t come up again?” Jason looked up at me. “What do you think?”
“But everything’s ready, except for the last of the gifts. I really don’t want to wait.” Especially if this turned out to be serious. And I didn’t want to wait until the tests came back and I could go for an ultrasound to find out. I turned to Abel.I don’t want to spend any longer not being yours and not having a real claim on you. Or you having a real claim on me.Especially if this turned out to be serious.
I think he understood the sentiment, if not my exact words. “I can’t risk taking you out in public like this.”
“You really want to put it off? We can’t find any other way around this?” I glanced around the room, a weird, crazy idea blooming in my mind. There was one way that I could think of to tell almost immediately if this was a heat or not. “No, I don’t want to give up. Jason and Mac, can I ask you to look after the pups tonight? If not, I’ll ask Duke if he and a couple of his friends can.”
“Bax,” Abel said, getting to his feet. “It’s okay. We’ll do it in the fall. Or maybe in the middle of the summer.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to tell you all something and you,” I pointed at Abel, “have to promise not to get mad. It’s the past, it’s over and done with, got it?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, but I just stared back and refused to say another word until he nodded reluctantly. Mac and Jason stared at me mutely, though Jason had a look on his face like he was running through all the stories in his head, trying to figure out which one was likely mine. I felt a moment of—superiority, I guess. I’d heard all the stories you get told once your friends start going into heat and the really gruesome stuff comes out. I could shock your socks off with some of them. A few were even true.
Mine wasn’t so bad.
I held Abel’s gaze as I spoke. “You all know I was mated early. I was restless and troublesome, at least in part because I was late, really late, coming into heat.” I stared harder at Abel. “Really late. I hadn’t had my first heat yet when I was mated that summer—my first was that fall, and I got pregnant right away.” I looked down at the deep rust of the material bending under my fingers. “I never had a spring where I wasn’t giving birth, and never had a fall where I wasn’t getting pregnant.” My lips curled in frustration with Patrick, and then I let it go, and looked up at Abel. “Let’s try. Adelaide says I smell like Jason, and Jason has heats in the spring. If it is a heat, we’ll know in about a day.”
Abel jumped to his feet. “I didn’t want you to start out this mating pregnant. I thought, even if it happened, it would be in May, and I could move out for a couple of days at a time.”
I stared at him. “You knew?”
He nodded. “Suspected anyway. Like you said, your scent is similar to Jason’s, though a little more identifiable.” He reached for me, then froze and jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned. “Let’s just say it’s not a surprise to me, though I am sorry for it.”
“Why?” When he looked puzzled, I elaborated. “Why would you be sorry? I thought True Omega’s were special?”
He sighed and sat down again. “They are.” He smiled. “You are, certainly. But our history is so fragmented…Garrick’s been researching, and a lot of the stories contradict each other. You’ve been typing up the recordings—you didn’t realize that’s what they were about?”
Were they? They were, but I just thought they were old stories, myths, fairy tales. I came around the couch and sat on the arm, as far away from everyone as I could get, to think. “I…guess I wasn’t paying much attention. I was more interested in finding programs to access…” Suddenly, I looked up at Abel. “You mean you think those stories are real? That’s crazy. Even if it was real, there’s no way any living person could do the kinds of stuff they tell in the stories.”
“There’s no way a person could change their shape into a wolf, either, right?” Abel’s eyes were serious, though his mouth smiled.
“Shit,” I said, careless of propriety. I thought about it a moment, then looked at Mac and Jason. “Out. Take the pups’ stuff and leave us alone.”
Jason grinned, though Mac’s eyes went wide with indignation.
“Come on, Mac,” Jason said, pulling his mate to his feet with him. “Let’s leave the lovebirds alone.” He dragged Mac down the hall to the pups’ bedrooms, and Abel and I stared at each other in a frozen silence of lust, love, and fear. This would change everything.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him.
