Omega For The Dragon: 3 Book Bundle (M/M Gay Shifter Mpreg Paranormal Romance)

by TJ Cross

  Shyly, I glanced down to the lavish Persian carpet that covered the room -- taking more surface area than any I had ever seen. "I don't know how to say this easily, but, ah... it's just like I said on the phone to you, really. When you finally picked up after the tenth time or so."

  "The Copperwinds are very busy people, as I imagine you'd understand, and as a result I'm a very busy person as well," Francis interrupted, explaining himself just short of a sneer in my direction. "I'm aware of what you said over the phone, but indulge me, I'd like to hear you say it to me again."

  Inhale. Exhale. I tried to compose myself as my hands dipped down to my belly, still showing no signs of my pregnancy, of course. "Well, Everett and I hooked up on New Year's Eve. The party at the Pacifica."

  "Yes, I was there too," Francis nodded without looking up to me as he scribbled notes with an extravagant Montblanc fountain pen, the clipboard lying on his lap.

  "He invited me to his suite afterwards and then we, well, we resumed what we were doing. All night. Most of the day, too, really," I said, embarrassed to be admitting it in front of such a corporate suit -- I got the vibe Francis was a lawyer, actually -- while struggling to keep away the vivid memories of our night together.

  Everett had been so good to me that night. When I finally surmounted that wall of distance and dominance he put up, I found he was as sexy as a passionate, contributing partner in bed as he was the authoritative, dominant man who demanded only to receive pleasure from me. By the time the sun rose, he was indulging himself in playing with me more than I played with him -- he had a reservoir of energy that seemed to require zero refractory period, zero recovery time. His cock wanted me bad that night. Even as he marked the bed with his sweat and the unusually intense heat of his body, he was ready for more as soon as I could get in position again.

  "I see."

  "And I'm pregnant now," I said, looking straight at him. My stare was perhaps unnecessarily accusatory, like I blamed Francis for holding me up, hindering me from meeting the man I had a one-night stand with.

  Francis himself had one of those forgettable faces with too-short hair that reminded me of war photos from the past, of bureaucrats with thin glasses and upper-class accents. "I don't mean to doubt what you're telling me, but you're a human male. Men don't get pregnant."

  "They do under very specific circumstances when they're with shifter alphas," I corrected him, knowing he was just playing dumb.

  "I see. But you don't have the physiology to support carrying a pregnancy to term, is that correct? In fact, if I may be so bold: you don't even have the physiology to support fertilization inside you to begin with, correct?"

  The lawyering tone he gave me was frustrating me. "You can cut the act," I said, feeling tears of frustration well in my eyes. "It's magic, okay? Shifter magic or something. I don't pretend to understand any of the details... but I know when I'm pregnant. I can feel it in my body."

  "Then you'll have no problem with us requiring further evidence from you. Scientific, solid evidence. Proof that you're pregnant, before we even consider the scenario that it might be affiliated with my client," Francis immediately countered.

  I fished in my bag for my backpack, sitting by the seat I had been offered. I took the four pregnancy tests I had taken since I had found out -- all positive. "Here, take this," I said, handing them all over to Francis, piling them on his clipboard.

  Yes, I had to admit there was a definite sense of satisfaction as he reeled away from the pregnancy tests, flinching from the pee-soaked evidence.

  "Anyone can bring a completed pregnancy test," he said slowly, repositioning his tie in his bid for composure.

  "Which is why I brought a new, unopened test if you'd like me to whip it out right now and prove it to you again," I said through my teeth, knowing that this would be my ace in the hole.

  I had predicted correctly that I would be stonewalled in this manner. It took me the better part of a day calling the enquiry phone lines of the various Copperwind businesses before I managed to get a name out of them: to contact Everett, I would need to get through Francis Foster.

  It took another few hours of trying him from various office phone numbers I found online before he finally picked up, his tone already curious about my insistence at trying him.

  At first I had thought it was a good sign that he had me come to his office at Copperwind HQ; that was going to be a good sign, surely, a mark that my case had some legitimacy that he was willing to hear out.

  But instead, I was here now wondering if all this had been a waste of time.

  Now I was glad to have prepared appropriately. The pregnancy test was only one of the solutions I had at the ready. I was going to offer to see a doctor, or -- based on the quickfire research I had done online -- see a shifter shaman who could psychically sense out my pregnancy situation.

  Either way, either I was some sort of freak male Virgin Mary in 2016 or I was bearing Everett's magical shifter child.

  They were going to have to accept that, regardless.

  "I appreciate your preparedness," Francis smoothly said, standing up. "I'll have my secretary lead you to the bathroom, and then you can, ah... perform your test."

  With a nod, I stood up as well, but my eyes jolted towards the door as someone knocked and entered.

  A woman. She had to be in her middle years, maybe 50. She looked surprised to see me in the room, glancing over to Francis for explanation.

  "Mrs Copperwind, we were just finished. I wasn't aware you were in the building," Francis said.

  Mrs Copperwind? A wife? Sister? Could it even be his mother? I turned to see Francis, and I immediately saw the warning in his eyes -- I was not to speak to her, I was not to alarm her.

  So of course I did the opposite.

  "Mrs Copperwind, my name is Finn Graystone. I don't mean to surprise you in this manner, but I'm here because I need to speak to Everett. This is an extremely urgent matter!" I said, my eyes pleading to her.

  She paused, lifting a hand to silence Francis as she scrutinized me. "What sort of trouble is my only son in now, Francis?"

  "Ah, Mrs Copperwind, this is a delicate matter -- one that needs verification before being brought to your attention," Francis said, his eyes turning cold with icy rage as he glanced to me. "I do think the timing is poor, and I'll have Finn escorted out immediately."

  "You," the older woman said, looking at me. "Speak with honesty."

  "Mrs Copperwind, I'm pregnant. I'm bearing your son's child, and I need to tell him about it. I understand how this might look to you, but I assure you this isn't about money. This is about Everett knowing about what happened after our night together," I said, my mouth dry as I worried whether the revelation would result in me being kicked out... or worse.

  "That simply isn't possible," Mrs Copperwind dismissed, shaking her head. But I could tell she was intrigued and unwilling to leave the office just yet. Francis was of no concern to her either now, nor to me, as I had managed to successfully make contact with one of these shifter bigwigs.

  "I have the proof and right before you came in, I was about to pee on yet another stick to prove I'm pregnant," I said.

  "How can this be?" Mrs Copperwind asked Francis. "I had never been briefed that my son prefers men."

  Francis nodded, gulping as he stood straighter. "That's because he doesn't, ma'am."

  "There's no shame in it, he does not need to hide anything from me. And you are specifically paid to make sure I know about all these matters," my baby daddy's mother chastised. "Instead I'm being told now by someone I've never met before that he's pregnant with my son? How could a Chosen spring forth without me knowing a thing about their relationship?"

  "I'll see to it at once that you have all the information that I do," Francis said, bowing his head. "But I've heard this man out and I honestly am not convinced that he's speaking the truth."

  "That it's Everett's?"

  Francis cleared his throat. "No, ma'am, of course it isn't. I
would know, if it were the case. I mean that he's pregnant at all."

  "But of course he is!" Mrs Copperwind boomed. "Just one look at him and I could tell that. You've been fire-bound to us for generations now, Francis, and you may think you know everything there is about the powers of the dragon -- but you truly know nothing at all if you think he's not pregnant with a Chosen child."

  I looked up. This was about as conclusive evidence as I needed -- no pregnancy test could speak as authoritatively as the psychic detection by Everett's own mother that I was pregnant. "Please, Mrs Copperwind, if you can sense that I'm pregnant even though I've been in this position for a few days... surely you can sense that it's your son's."

  The shifter looked at me, the air of arrogance that surrounded her never quite lifting. I tried to will myself to express this truth to her, but I was only a human -- I had no powers, no talents. All I could do was try to convince her with my words, with my sincerity.

  "I cannot," Mrs Copperwind eventually said, her tone sounding more defeated than I would have thought. Looking to Francis, she added, "does his story check out?"

  "He's claiming they, ahem, had an encounter together at the Pacifica Hotel on the night of the New Year's Eve party," Francis said sheepishly.

  "An encounter?" Mrs Copperwind said, outraged.

  This was the reaction I was dreading. I had no doubt that the older woman was conservative enough that the thought of her son fucking strangers during party nights was something she would never approve of, let alone resulting in some goddamn miracle male pregnancy.

  "Mr Graystone here claims this was a one-off encounter, and there was no underlying relationship," Francis said, for some reason reluctant to say this.

  "But... that's impossible, then!" Mrs Copperwind retorted. She was shaking her head now, like she had finally decided I was lying to her.

  "Impossible why?" I shouted back. "Is it really that hard to imagine your rich, entitled son could be the kind of guy who takes a stranger he has a liking for right back to bed in his suite, which, by the way, was room 1301? Do you honestly think it's impossible that someone as wealthy as your son wouldn't indulge in this sort of sexual antics?"

  Stunned silence was what I got from the two of them from my outburst, which was perfect as it now provided me with fuel to continue.

  "Or is it impossible because you think that because I'm a man, Everett wouldn't be interested? I think the image of Everett in your head is deeply inaccurate, Mrs Copperwind. Your son's not bicurious or anything, I can tell you this. Everything I've experienced with him clearly tells me his true orientation, even if he thinks to tell you that he's straight, is that he's gay. He's absolutely, one hundred percent gay."

  Francis cleared his throat again. "I think you should apologize for taking on that tone to Mrs Copperwind. This is her premises, and you will show her the proper courtesy owed to her."

  "I'm just telling the damn truth," I said, fed up of all this upper-class niceties.

  Mrs Copperwind laughed once, cruelly. But I instantly sensed that it wasn't a laugh at my expense. "You're so incredibly ignorant if you think I'm telling you your pregnancy by Everett is impossible -- because you think I'm shocked he's gay, or because you think I'm homophobic. I assure you that is not the case."

  I listened, choosing not to reply.

  "We as a family are of grand shifter stock, whose lifespans stretch through the ages. Sexuality as you humans understand it is miserably interpreted, seen only in labels. We are not bound by these preferences. Our kind are fluid in our sexuality, if you would have me say it in terms you would understand. It doesn't matter to me in the least if Everett preferred to have sex with men, or to have sex with women."

  "Then why is it impossible?"

  "Because that's not how it works. Male pregnancy, Chosen pregnancy, is an area governed by great, powerful magic. Not blood magic or fire magic my heritage has mastered... but love magic. How can my son sire a child with you, if he doesn't love you?" Mrs Copperwind said, with decisiveness taking over her every word.

  Now it was my turn to be concede defeat. I had no possible response to that. Was she just lying to me? My instincts told me she was somehow telling the truth, hiding behind a concrete belief that filtered how she was going to respond to my claim of being pregnant with her grandchild. Yet I knew that to accept her words as is meant I would lose all chance of getting to see Everett again.

  "I'm pregnant with Everett's child," I said once again, the confidence of my truth ringing clear, even if I felt demoralized by this meeting.

  "In which case Everett can tell me himself. Francis, is he in the building? I want him to come down to this floor immediately and examine Finn properly. If he is the father, he will know at once. If not... well, this scam was elaborately performed, but it was never going to work anyway," Mrs Copperwind said.

  "Ah, ma'am," Francis interjected. "Are you sure it's wise for me to interrupt Everett with this sort of matter? Surely I can have a third party confirm Finn's claim without having to embarrass your son."

  "No. He's the one who got himself in this mess, so he can sort it out himself," Mrs Copperwind dictated.

  "I'll see to it immediately," Francis said, as his employer swiftly left the room, leaving me with the bureaucrat.

  Confidence had returned to me. I was going to see Everett again! I had absolutely no expectation that I was going to get anything out of him, of course, but I knew that it was important for him to know.

  A few minutes later, he arrived, knocking on the door with sturdy, dominant authority -- and poking his head in right now.

  Before he even glanced to Francis he saw me, and his jaw dropped.

  I could tell in his eyes. He knew.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Finn, right?" was the first thing he said to me, as we adjourned to another office on the same floor Francis worked. There was something executive about this room -- plush, like the interior of a private office that was just as often the base for play as well as work.

  My heart soared at the sound of him saying my name. I had taken him for a playboy who swapped people in bed every night, treating everyone as interchangeable, but the simple act of him remembering my name -- shared only once during a brief interlude between sessions of gloriously untamed sex -- gave me hope.

  He had whispered in my ear that he wanted to know what name he should moan when he was deep inside me again. Just a few minutes ago, he had been his most possessive: everything was about making me his.

  "Mine," he growled to me, laying me flat as he began pressing his hands down to the small of my back, holding me in place as he began fucking me again.

  Everett was insatiable, wanting only to fuck me until he was completely satisfied... and no matter how many times he came, he never seemed to ever once find that point of satisfaction.

  "I'm Finn," I said to him, moaning it as he slid his cock deep inside my ass to celebrate him learning my name. It meant I had said something closer to I'm Finn-oh!, or Finn-ahhhhh..., the moan as much part of my name in that instance.

  Of course this hunk of a man took full advantage of my name, moaning it in increasingly deep, increasingly low sounds of great passion and desire... stretching the sound of my name when he withdrew his cock, then exclaiming, "Finn!" with the jolt-forward thrust that saw him challenge every inch of my ass that he could claim.

  Claim.

  That was exactly how he wanted me. I was to be his: I knew that turned him on more than anything, the dominant nature of the alpha shifter in him giving him the undying hunger to conquer. I was his to own, I was his to claim.

  He stoked such a fire in me as our bodies collided right then, until I felt my muscles exhaust themselves from holding myself in the position he fucked me in, feeling the weight of him press down on me until I was trapped under the shifter.