Through it all, Tristan just stood and waited. Eventually, the outpour of panic fell away and all the wolves looked to their leader for guidance.
“We are not going to let that happen!” he cried out, suddenly feeling very fierce and protective of everyone, not just Jack. “You are my pack, and we are strong! We will face anything that comes our way! We have before, and we will do it again. When the bears come, we’ll be ready to fight them. And we will win! I promise you!” He paused to take a deep breath. “We won’t let anyone push us around! We are wolves, and we are wild and free!”
More howls rang out, but these ones were proud and defiant, a celebration of their individuality. Tristan couldn’t help it. Before he knew what was happening, he had burst out of his clothes and had his head thrown back, a howl shooting out of his thick-furred throat to crash against the sky.
Before him, every other shifter turned into their wolf form and raised their voices to the sky. None were as powerful alone as Tristan, but when their voices combined, he knew that they were strongest together.
A small thrill ran through his body as he heard Jack join in as well, his little, thin howl splitting through the chaos.
As the chaos slowly fell away, Tristan padded down from the front and returned to his cabin to get dressed for the third time that day.
For the rest of the day, there was very little in the way of outbursts. And that night, as Jack went into his cabin to go to bed, he followed.
The omega glanced back over his shoulder and gave a little growl. “What do you want? I...I don’t need anything else from you, you know!”
“Calm down,” Tristan snorted. He could smell Jack’s perpetual, heated arousal, but that really wasn’t the reason he was following him. “I’m not going to do anything to you, I swear. I just...” He searched for an excuse and said lamely, “It’s cold outside tonight.”
Jack gave him a skeptical glare and then trotted inside with his nose in the air, sniffing haughtily. “Fine, then. Sleep on the couch.”
“But this is my house,” Tristan growled, threatening teasingly. “I can sleep anywhere I want.”
The omega tossed his hands in the air. “Then I’ll sleep on the couch! But I’m not sharing a bed with a pervert like you.”
As much as he enjoyed teasing the smaller man, Tristan suddenly felt very tired of all of this arguing. “Look, can we drop all this pretending stuff for just one night? You’re in heat and I’m your mate. I just want to sleep in the same bed with you for one night, to feel close to you. Is that really too much to ask of you?”
Jack bristled, but then the omega man yawned and rubbed his tired eyes. Exhaustion was written across his face. He still looked moody, but parts of him were still healing and he didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. Tristan could sense that.
“Fine,” he growled crankily, “but I’m not much of a snuggler, okay? Keep your paws off me.”
Tristan grunted in agreement and they filed down the hallway to get to the bed. Jack crawled in first and turned his face towards the wall, curling up into a little ball to ensure that Tristan had plenty of room. For a moment, the alpha just stood there and looked down at the boy in his bed. Then he shook his head and climbed in, lying down with his back to the omega.
It felt strange to be back in bed, but also somehow good. Relaxing down against the mattress, Tristan murmured, “Good night.”
Jack gave no answer, just a grumpy huff.
They fell asleep in that position, but that wasn’t how they woke up in the morning.
When Tristan opened his eyes, he saw brown fluff obscuring much of his vision. Lifting his head up slightly, he looked down and realized that sometime in the middle of the night, Jack had rolled over and was now practically sprawled across his chest.
His heart gave a little squeeze, and he inhaled deeply to breathe in the omega’s intoxicating scent. The normally-uptight omega looked so sweet and relaxed that he couldn’t help but to raise one hand to stroke Jack’s back.
Their sex had been so rough and impersonal that he hadn’t had time to really feel the other man beneath him. Now, he relished in the touch and felt his fingertips tingle.
Jack stirred slightly and turned his face. “Pervert,” he muttered, mostly asleep.
Tristan grinned.
Chapter 13
Yet another week went by. Jack was distinctly aware of the time passing by, but at the same time he was also slightly unnerved at how easy it was to relax into the rhythm of pack life. He had never felt that way before in his own pack, so maybe that was just a weird side effect of having a mate and “belonging.”
Although it was terrible and frustrating, he managed to get through the remainder of his time of being in heat with only one more quick, rough round of sex with Tristan. When they parted after that time, he felt the best that he ever had somehow. The alpha looked incredibly pleased with himself, and Jack couldn’t deny how good it had been. He hadn’t felt like a virgin having sex at all. He had felt like they belonged together since the very beginning.
He still didn’t like that, but maybe he was slowly becoming acclimated to the idea because the notion just didn’t bother him like it used to. It felt less like an affront to him personally and more like a constant annoyance.
Near the end of the week, Agatha checked him over and then looked up at him with an encouraging smile. “Well, I didn’t think I would be saying this when I first saw you, but you are fully healed.”
“Really?” Jack said, surprised.
Agatha nodded seriously. “You probably still don’t feel a hundred percent at the moment, but eventually you’ll get there. You might even start to feel a difference tomorrow. Now that your body isn’t using energy to heal, it can focus on getting you back in shape again.” The serious look faded almost immediately, and she smiled once more. “I’m so proud of your progress. You’ve been such a fighter.”
Jack blushed and looked down a little bit. “Well, I guess without you, I wouldn’t be able to fight at all. Thanks, Aggy. I know I’ve been an ass at times...”
“You have,” the doctor said kindly, and wrapped her arms around him.
Unable to help himself, he hugged back just as tight. Then, he pulled back a little bit. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything at all, Jack.” Agatha peered closely at him. “Is something bothering you? Is it a man thing?”
“No!” he said, flustered. He quickly saw that she was just teasing him, and he scowled. “But you said I’m fully healed, right?”
She nodded.
“But I’ve been feeling a little weird lately. Is that just because of the healing?”
Her gaze sharpened with worry and clinical interest. “Weird, how? Pain? Sickness?”
Jack thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. He was a little worried about Agatha’s intensity, but he figured she had a right to be concerned; he was just recovering from being badly hurt, so his body might have a hard time fighting off an infection or something. Now he was concerned, as well. “I didn’t think it was really anything like that. Not really. Just weird.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” she said impatiently. “Tell me where.”
“My stomach,” he said, and patted it lightly. “I feel kind of bloated and even more sluggish than usual.”
Agatha’s interest suddenly seemed to sharpen even further, to the point where it almost felt like he was going to cut himself on it. “When did this start happening?”
Jack shrugged. He had never been one of those people who took great pains to remember every single detail of his life. He simply did things without pondering over what difference they might make, or the impact that might be caused. So, even in a situation like this where he should have been paying attention, he really wasn’t.
“A few days ago, I guess?”
“Be more specific,” Agatha said sharply.
Jack sighed at her and tried to think back, but it was useless. His days of leisure here
pretty much ensured that one day was the same as the next, and he could hardly tell them apart. Hell, he didn’t even know what day of the week it was right now. “I guess the day after I went out of heat?”
The doctor pulled in a sharp breath through her nostrils, the sound itself piercing enough to puncture. “I see. You went out of heat that quickly?”
Jack eyed her suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”
For some reason, Agatha seemed particularly disturbed by this bit of news. It didn’t seem to be distress, so much as it seemed that the information was throwing her for a loop. “I’m not sure yet, Jack. Just let me ask my questions, and you answer them.” From her pocket, she pulled out a pair of glasses and settled them on the tip of her nose. “Take your shirt off, please.”
Mystified and a little grumpy at having to undress when he had just gotten dressed in the first place, Jack pulled his shirt up over his head. Agatha motioned for him to sit down on the bed, and he did so. As she bent over him and reached out to feel his stomach with one hand, he said, “I guess I did go out of it pretty quickly. Normally, it lasts me the whole week, but it was just three or four days this time. Do you think that’s because I’m getting older?”
Agatha let out a chuckle. “You’re still a bit young yet to be having your heat time reduced like that.”
A short silence fell between them as she rubbed her hand lightly all over Jack’s stomach. She seemed to focus on his very lower abdomen, somehow knowing without even being told that that was where the discomfort was located. Jack winced when she prodded him. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling made him want to lash out and bite her.
Finally, she withdrew her hand and shook her head in amazement. “The good news here is that this is perfectly normal. It’s also exactly what I thought it was, so I can treat it easily.”
A quiver of fear shook through him. He had only just recovered, and now he was being told that he still had more to go through? That wasn’t fair at all!
“What’s wrong with me, Aggy?”
The doctor lay her hand on his stomach again and smiled up into his eyes, but her smile wasn’t entirely happy. It also held within it a bit of sadness. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re only going through something that many omegas before you have gone through. It’s completely natural.”
“So is cancer,” Jack muttered. His stomach lurched at the thought. “That’s not what this is, is it?”
“No!” she scolded. “Quit scaring yourself with silly guesses like that. You’re still perfectly healthy, and I said so earlier that this is easily treated.”
Jack shook his head. The fear wouldn’t leave him, and now it was mingled with nausea. “So, what it is? If it’s not that bad, why aren’t you telling me what it is?”
Agatha sighed. “Fine. I suppose you have a right to know. And if you didn’t figure it out yet, I have quite a bit of educating to do with you. You’re pregnant.”
Jack stared at her, and then he shook his head. “No, really. What’s wrong with me?”
Agatha gave a small smile but sighed again. “I’m not lying to you. That’s what the problem is, my dear. You’re pregnant.”
“No!” he practically shouted. “I didn’t want this! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t told Tristan to bite me...”
“What was I supposed to do?” the doctor replied angrily. “Let you die? This is about much more than you, and it’s about time that you embraced the situation. You can’t escape from what’s already happened. If you would let yourself love Tristan, he—”
Jack waved his hands in front of her face. “I’m not talking about that with you. That’s not what this is about. This is about the fact that you’re telling me I have a baby inside me. Is that why I went out of heat so fast? I got impregnated? From Tristan?”
Her shoulders tense, Agatha glared at him but finally nodded. “Yes. That’s what it is. Your body got what it was wanting from going into heat, so it saw no further need to continue.”
Jack sat up straighter and shook his head. “I knew that omegas were the ones to get pregnant,” he said softly, “but I never really thought about it happening to a male.”
Because of the way they went hand-in-hand, balancing each other out, alphas and omegas complimented each other biologically. The alphas were usually male, though not always, and omegas tended to be female. The opposite was occasionally true, although that was rare.
Because an alpha was dominant, they would always impregnate the omega and never the other way around. If it happened, as it did once in a blue moon, that two omegas or two alphas were mated, the chances of being able to have a child plummeted to astronomically low levels.
“It’s biology,” Agatha explained quietly. She did something she had never done before and sat down on the bed with Jack. “It’s science, and it’s nature. Many less-complex animals than ourselves will change their sex to make up for a deficiency in the population. This is a great deal more complicated, and I don’t even pretend to fully understand it. No one does.”
Jack growled when she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, but he really didn’t feel in the mood to fight back at her. He was so tired of all these things happening outside of his control. “But, how can there be anything inside me? I’m not equipped for that.”
“You are now,” Agatha said, her voice low and serious. “That’s the part that everyone has their own guesses about. Somehow, when we are shifters, our bodies can shift around to accommodate what we need from it. Usually, this means transforming into our animal counterparts. In the case of an impregnated male omega, your body adapts itself to make room for the baby and gives it everything it needs to survive. After the birth, you will go back to normal.”
Jack trembled with fear. “Giving birth? Can’t you just cut it out of me?”
Agatha smiled bitterly. “Haven’t you gotten tired of having big stitched-up gashes on your body, yet?”
He laughed, but the sound trembled with his fear. “So, what I’m feeling now... Is that...a baby...or my organs wiggling around inside me?”
Agatha shrugged. “Both, presumably. I won’t be able to give you very much information right now. I don’t have the complicated exam tools here that I do in the city.”
“So, go get them!”
“I can’t exactly bring medical equipment outside of the building, you know. And besides, it’s much too soon for me to be able to tell you anything. It needs a few more weeks to become more like a person.” She touched his stomach almost fondly. He trembled and shuddered.
“I don’t want to go through this.”
“Like I said before, it’s time to start embracing things like this when they happen,” Agatha said firmly. “Which means that you have to tell Tristan. He’s going to find out eventually, anyway.”
Jack nodded, but inwardly, he knew that he was going to put that particular task off as long as possible. He didn’t need to mate with Tristan anymore so the loose clothes he was already being given to wear would help disguise his pregnancy, wouldn’t it?
Pulling on his shirt, Jack gave a little shudder and then straightened up. “I think I need some alone time to go think about this.”
“Of course,” Agatha said calmly. “I’ll see what I can do about bringing you some vitamins and care sheets. And you have to follow what your body tells you from now on. You still aren’t very strong yet! Your body will know when it wants to eat or rest.”
Jack nodded and moved away. Instead of going over to tell Tristan about what had happened, however, he turned his face in the direction of the beautiful river scenery that he had seen with Tristan the day he killed the bear. His stomach roiled with turmoil and nausea, and he desperately needed to find some peace in all of this.
Walking through the forest, he found himself holding one hand over his stomach. A shudder raced down his spine. He knew that shifter pregnancies tended not to last more than a couple months. There was no way he was ever going to be ready for something like that! And what did h
e know about taking care of a child? He didn’t even really like kids all that much.
Except...
Partly descended down the slope, Jack stopped abruptly and a great sense of understanding swamped through his body.
That desperate, overwhelming urge to keep that child from running into the street... Was that what it was like to be a mother?
Shaking his head, he started off down the rest of the slope and quickly found himself standing at the river’s edge. A pale face stared up at him from beneath the water, and he sat down on the bank with his toes dipped into the coolness.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said quietly, knowing no one would ever be able to hear him. No one was going to ever be able to answer his plea.
All the signs of this pointed to him having to give up his independence. He’d fought so hard for it, and he was never even truly able to experience it. Now he was mated, to a member of a pack he still hardly knew, and he was pregnant.
Everything was out of his control. It was all so wrong, and he didn’t know what to do anymore.
Suddenly, a low growl sounded from behind him.
A short scream of fear tearing from his throat, Jack spun around and leapt to his feet. Not even ten feet away from him was an alpha wolf, its grey pelt bristling with fury. He didn’t recognize it and put up his hands in front of him, trembling. Any words he might have said were all tangled up on his tongue.
The grey wolf lifted its head, and Jack saw the scar on its cheek.
In an instant, he was transported back to that night when Tristan had to kill one of his own and then banished the other two.
Was this one James or Bryce? Had they never left the area? Or had they come back for revenge?
Jack couldn’t see a second wolf, but neither could he take his senses away from this one to search more thoroughly.
The wolf took three steps forward and then lunged.
Desperation exploded to life inside Jack. It felt as though some overwhelming fury that would make even Tristan’s bitter anger pale in comparison. It was like he was burning alive, heat surging outward through his entire body.
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 42
