“I’m not sure. I mean, we never used protection so it could have been any time.”
That was true, and a major oversight that Jace should have taken into account. Oh, well. What was done, was done and what happened next seemed obvious, but Jace wasn’t going to force that on Keiran if he didn’t want it. It seemed like they’d be having this talk a lot sooner than he thought.
“What do you want to do about it?”
The omega glared at him. “I’m not getting rid of it!”
“Whoa!” Jace held up his hands. “Not what I meant. Of course you’re not getting rid of it. I just meant, what do you want to do about... us? I said I would never leave you and I won’t, unless you leave me. Which... you can do. If you think it’s best.”
Keiran reached out and grabbed onto Jace’s hands, holding them tightly. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever. I love you.”
“And I love you.” Here came the toughest question of all, and he hadn’t even had time to prepare for it. “Would you like to be my mate?”
“I think you’d like to be mine.” Keiran laughed, almost hysterically. “After all, you’re the one who’s always trying to mark me.”
“That’s instinct.” Jace laughed too. “And I really do want to. Of course I do. I’ve wanted to for ages. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. But what do you want?”
“I want you to mark me. I want to be your mate. But, Jace, how would that even work if you’re the prince? That means you would be Head Predator someday and I would be a prince? A king? I’m not royalty. Wouldn’t everyone hate that?”
Jace lightly touched his fingertip to Keiran’s lips, shushing him. “You worry too much. There might be a lot of sticklers for purity of blood, but there will also be a lot of people who will think it’s quite the love story. And judging by the turning tides, maybe it’s time that something like this happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that our baby might end up being born into a world more torn than we were,” Jace admitted. “Civil war is coming. I might not have been restored to my full duties yet, but I’ve heard that the crime rates are rising. On both sides. At an alarming rate, Keiran. And those shapeshifters we captured didn’t really know anything about what the leaders of this movement are planning, but they did get across the message pretty clearly that it was going to happen soon.”
Keiran hesitated, body stilling slightly in Jace’s arms. He didn’t know why no one had come in to interrupt them yet. Every second counted. “Go on,” Jace encouraged.
The omega hesitated for only a heartbeat longer before pushing his face against Jace’s shoulder. “I’ve always felt like everything is unfair,” he murmured. “In this life we live. I’ve always felt pushed aside and discounted because I’m an omega, but then I stop and think that if things are this bad for me, what must it be like for the prey shapeshifters? It has to be awful. It’s like we really aren’t any better than the animals inside us, whether we’re a lion or a mouse.”
Jace agreed, but he had taken enough lessons in debate to realize that acknowledging the other side of the argument was just as important as defending his own views. “But we are animals, Keiran. Animals naturally fall into this kind of hierarchy.”
“But we’re humans too!” the omega said, lifting up his brilliant blue eyes to peer at his alpha. “We’re born as humans. We aren’t born as animals. We can do things that normal animals can’t, because we have the intelligence and memory for it. Everything we have right now, including this very castle, is because we’re human. We need to stop treating ourselves like labels can define us.
“And I want to point out that the animal kingdom is full of chains. Full of those different kinds of hierarchies, at all different levels. You don’t normally find lions and tigers in the same chain, same as you don’t find deer and mice in the same one. They’re on different levels, or equal levels in different places. The animal kingdom allows for that. But our intelligence... makes us stupid about that. We want everyone to be the same, when we need to be trying to make sure that different people have the same opportunities.” Keiran pulled in a deep breath. “If my worth hadn’t been judged based on my supposed standing in life, Pa never would have sold me.”
And I never would have met you.
Jace knew the omega was right. More than right, he was dead accurate. “What you’re saying is that this clearly isn’t working and we need to figure out another way.”
“Yes.”
“People don’t like to admit they’ve made mistakes.”
Keiran smiled bitterly. “I guess we’ll just have to hope that they can see admitting to a mistake is worth the price of being able to stay alive.”
They clutched at each other in the bed in silence. The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds as Jace thought hard over the situation. “I think we should wait on me marking you. I think it would be a good... ace in the hole to have, you know? To show that I’m taking this seriously. Making the change that I want everyone else to make.”
Keiran made a face. “I guess that makes sense, although it’s kind of scary to think that I’m now part of this weird, backward world that wants me to make personal decisions based on politics.”
“You get used to it.”
“Well, you had just better make sure that if you propose to me in public or something, you better make it good.”
Jace laughed and kissed his love. “I promise.”
Chapter 16
“You’ll do fine.”
Keiran glanced over at his alpha, the one who had taken his virginity and stolen his heart. Beautiful, powerful Jace, who now walked around as if he hadn’t been bedridden only three weeks ago. He smiled encouragingly, but Keiran didn’t really feel very encouraged. In fact, he felt as if he was about to throw up, only this time it wasn’t from morning sickness or a sudden bout of nausea when facing down a food that he normally loved.
Pregnancy sucked, and not the least because of all the uncomfortable physical changes. Shapeshifters went through a pregnancy from start to finish much faster than humans did, in about half the time, similar to many animals. There were exceptions, of course, such as elephant shifters who held onto their babies for almost two whole years before releasing them into the world.
For most, that speed meant symptoms were doubled in intensity. And it meant that Keiran was now showing to the point where his predicament would have been obvious to anyone around him... if the entire castle hadn’t already known. An omega in the public eye, as a prince’s servant, could only visit the doctor so frequently before others started putting the puzzle together.
And those visits were a pain in the ass too. It always seemed like he was doing something wrong. He wasn’t eating enough, and not enough of the right thing. He’d accidentally missed taking a vitamin out of the dozen or so he’d been prescribed. He was exercising too much. He complained too much.
Sanjay would complain too if he had a little wolf jumping up and down on his bladder all night.
It all sucked, but Keiran was already smitten with the child. It was healthy and active, and its presence in the back of his mind made him feel paternal. More than that, it made him feel ready to be a father. He really wanted to meet the kid.
“Keiran?”
“Oh... sorry. Did you say something?” he asked, turning toward Jace. Pregnancy brain was another thing that sucked. The baby was stealing all his brain cells, somehow.
“I said you’ll do fine.”
“I guess. Maybe. I really don’t want to do this, fine or not.”
Jace rubbed his hands over Keiran’s shoulders in an attempt to soothe some of their tension away. “I know but, if you do good, I’ll reward you tonight.”
I really hope I feel good enough to be rewarded.
So much had happened over the past couple of weeks. Auroris had officially topped the charts as one of the deadliest cities in all of Dexus, due to the sudden extreme rise in crime as the different shapeshifters fo
ught against one another. Not only that, but there had been the whole grueling process of discussing their ideas for the future and actually getting the council to want to agree to listen to those ideas. The 13 council members weren’t pleased that their young prince had gotten himself attached to a pregnant commoner omega. Yet, there was nothing they could do about it except to be incredibly ornery all the time.
How it had come to be decided that Keiran would be the one proposing the ideas to them, he had no idea. But, here he was, standing with Jace just outside the grand meeting room and waiting for the others to arrive.
“Do you remember everything we practiced?” Jace asked.
Keiran scowled at him. “Of course I remember! I’m pregnant, not brain dead! Unlike you were, Your Highness.”
Jace caught his face in his hands and pressed a kiss to his lips, sliding his tongue into the omega’s mouth and back out again. “I wasn’t brain dead. Just taking a very long nap. For days.”
Keiran growled at him, wrapping his arms around Jace’s neck. With everything he felt these days, physical attraction wasn’t high on the list. He felt it now, however, a pleasant stirring of warmth deep in his loins. He just hoped he’d be able to feel it again for later on.
The door next to them opened. Keiran sprang away from Jace but didn’t get anywhere because the alpha kept an arm around his waist. He felt that Jace was trying to tell him that they weren’t doing anything wrong, but under the stern gaze of the councilman glaring at them he couldn’t help feeling like a teenager who had been caught out past his curfew.
“We’re ready for you,” the man said. He sounded as if he spoke through a mouthful of marbles, probably due to the fact that he had his lips peeled back and his teeth visibly clenched. And what shiny-white, pointy teeth they were.
Keiran swallowed hard and followed Jace into the room, aiming to take his usual place just to the right of the head of the table. That arm around his waist had other ideas, guiding him to take the seat that Jace normally occupied as prince; the alpha settled beside him, taking a spot of less importance.
The significance of this action didn’t go unnoticed by the council. A murmur ran down their line. Keiran didn’t know any of their names despite having sat in on many meetings ever since he came to the castle. They didn’t speak one another’s names very often, no doubt because they all knew each other so well that there was no need to distinguish who was talking to whom. They knew each other’s habits and beliefs, with enough history between them for long-lasting arguments to form. Really, it made everything all that much more confusing for an outsider.
“Well,” one of them said. “We gathered here because you summoned us, even though it’s supposed to be our day off. This had better be worth it.”
Another spoke, “Judging from what they just did, it looks to be interesting, at least.”
Keiran opened his mouth but a third council member spoke, cutting him off before he could even get started. “If this is about the relationship between you two, we do not support it.”
“No, that’s not...”
He was interrupted again by another person. “Who asked you for your opinion?”
The third speaker twisted in his seat to glare at the other. “While you might be a closet romantic, I am a realist!”
“Afraid of a changing world,” yet someone else muttered.
“Their relationship is more than just a fling! The omega is pregnant! They are mates in everything but name!” The council member waved his arms in agitation. “Who knows what effect this will have in the future? And in such a treacherous time already!”
“Excuse me,” Keiran said. Jace sat beside him, hands folded on the desk. Keiran was irritated with him for not helping, but also thankful that the alpha was giving him a chance to take care of this on his own. “Hey!” Keiran barked.
It took a moment for the arguing to stop, but slowly the members of the council turned to look at Keiran with expectant looks, eyebrows raised.
“If you would let me talk, Jace and I have been discussing an idea about the exact thing that you’re worried about! Maybe if you would listen, you’d learn something.”
No one said anything, until that third speaker again let out a derisive snort. “Look, the omega is hormonal.”
One of the female council members snorted as well, but not at Keiran. “That hormonal omega has the ability to rip your throat out if he so desires. Pregnancy does strange things to the mind.” She turned and smiled at Keiran from beneath silver bangs. “Go ahead.”
Wasn’t expecting that.
“Okay. Thank you. So. Clearly we, um, we all know what the issue is lately. No one in Dexus is happy with the way things are. And no one is going to ever be happy like this. It isn’t fair.” As quickly and succinctly as he could, he related what he’d already discussed with Jace on numerous occasions, explaining how the animal kingdom had a variety of individual slots for all its creatures that allowed them to coexist. The council waited, listening. Some of them seemed to be interested, while a few were clearly bored out of their minds and daydreaming of how to salvage the rest of their day off.
When he ran out of words, one of the councilmen asked, “You make an interesting point, but what do you propose for us to do about it? This is the way things are. We’re just adjusting still to the situation.”
“Gareth,” Jace said, “just listen. All of you, just listen.”
Keiran took a deep breath and pushed on, knowing that this was going to be the hardest part. “We need to split up the kingdoms again. Dexus needs to return to being two, not one. That’s the only way there’s ever going to be peace. We’re just too different to live like this. We need the two kingdoms back, so prey can govern prey and predators will be ruled by predators. But we need to take what we’ve learned in the past 100 years so that we can actually have peace this time.”
“Ha!” Gareth laughed, sputtering through it. “Are you kidding me? You want us to go backward? We’ve made so many strides forward!”
“I know!” Keiran said. “I know! And we need to realize that we made a mistake and this isn’t working! We can’t change the past. We have to salvage the future. We divide everything up again, exactly the way it was before. We need to have a Head Prey and a Head Predator. We need to have new travel laws and we need to have laws put in place about crime. We need to make it so that everyone is treated equally while being allowed to be different. That means we can’t focus so much on the class system anymore. If someone can do something, we should judge their merit based on that and not on whether or not they have nice clothes and money to spend on fancy jewelry.”
Everyone stayed quiet as Keiran finished speaking. Again, they all looked divided.
“Are we seriously listening to this? It’s borderline traitorous!”
“But, the omega...”
“Keiran,” Jace interjected.
“Right. Keiran has made some intelligent points.”
Keiran suddenly laughed. He couldn’t help it. Nothing was funny, but he just felt the urge to laugh, almost immediately followed by the heat of tears pressing at the backs of his eyes. “You people are all so biased. All you can think about is your own station in life. You’re so privileged, sitting here in your big fancy castle while some people get sold to fucking slave traders because society thinks they’re worthless. Tell me something isn’t wrong with that. Tell me slavery, which was outlawed by both kingdoms over 300 years ago, is just part of the adjustment period.”
He ran out of breath and looked down. He’d said his piece. They could do whatever they wanted now.
“What do you think, Prince?”
Jace spoke immediately. “I think Keiran is right. We came up with this idea together, and I stand behind it. Maybe you should take a vote.”
“A vote to see if we’ll even participate in this nonsense.”
“Fine,” Jace said. “Whatever it takes. Just know that you’ll be hearing from us again if that’s the course you take.”
/>
Keiran watched as the vote was cast. Six voted in favor of rejecting the proposal, and seven were for it. By a majority of one, the future was due to change.
Jace pushed up from his chair and placed his hand on Keiran’s shoulder. His touch burned, the meaning clear. Keiran stood with Jace and looked out at the council, half of which looked like put-out children. “Thank you for your time. We’ll leave you to get back to the rest of your day. Keiran, let’s go.”
Reaching out, Keiran caught Jace’s hand and followed him out the door. The moment it shut, Jace flashed a grin over his shoulder and started running. “Your reward awaits!”
They made it back to the fifth floor in record time.
Chapter 17
Jace slammed the door to his bedroom behind himself, shoving Keiran deeper into the room. The omega twirled around to face him, as graceful as ever, but now it seemed as if he turned around his rounded stomach as a sort of fulcrum. Jace laughed and went over to him, wrapping his arms around Keiran’s waist. Keiran hugged him around the neck, pulling himself up to wrap his legs around Jace. Tangled together, Jace slid his hands under Keiran’s ass and gave it a light squeeze.
“You’re mine now,” Jace growled.
Keiran laughed and tightened his thighs around Jace, squeezing him in return. “I’ve been yours for ages now, and you’re just noticing?”
Jace turned to brace Keiran against the wall, holding him up and touching their lips together. Keiran’s mouth opened eagerly beneath his, their tongues meeting between them. Heat and wetness slid together, back and forth, mimicking the thrusting of sex. Similar heat gathered in the pit of his stomach, tightening in his groan. His cock stiffened, pushing against the front of his slacks. “I knew all along, I was just waiting for you to notice. You dummy.”
“I’m the dummy?” Jace pushed his lips harder against Keiran’s, claiming him. “You’re the one who went and got yourself pregnant.”
Keiran growled and held onto Jace with his hips, using his grip to grind and thrust himself against the alpha’s firm stomach.
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 91
