Slow Birth

by Leta Blake

  That’s why Caleb greeted him like a dear old friend, and Vale let the man ply him with soup and sandwiches before asking to be guided up to their room for a rest. Jason followed at his heels, and Caleb led them up a striking staircase that split at the top into separate wings of the house.

  “The place is enormous,” Caleb said with a sigh. “All the better to fill with babies, I suppose.” This last he tacked on brightly, voice full of a cheerful hope that Vale recognized as Caleb’s usual public persona. Frankly, he wondered how genuine the brightness really was, because, underneath, he sensed a kind of sadness that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “Xan’s family always did like to show off,” Jason said, his hand on Vale’s lower back as they took a left at the top of the stairs and then hung a right to walk a corridor decorated with rococo ornaments that seemed far from Caleb’s personal style.

  “Indeed,” Caleb agreed.

  The hallway boasted multiple bedrooms on one side and windows that opened to the courtyard below on the other. A breeze flowed in, cooling the air and leaving an imprint of sea-salt on Vale’s tongue. He rather enjoyed it, and as the breeze curled through his hair, a deep relaxation began in his bones.

  “This one.” Caleb opened the room. “It has an en suite bathroom and a big bed. Urho will be just down the hall in a similar room. If you need anything—towels, fresh bedding, food at odd hours—don’t hesitate to ask any of the servants, or to ring specifically for our man, Ren. He’s sent from wolf-god above and never lets me down.”

  Vale hugged Caleb goodbye for the time being, and flopped back on the bed, his belly moving around beneath his shirt. Jason stood by the window, looking out, his shoulders stiff and his back straight. “Nice view?”

  “A garden,” Jason offered. “The servants seem to be wrangling it back into shape.”

  “Perhaps you can help them, darling.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “The sea must be the other direction, then,” Vale observed from his comfortable spot propped up by pillows. The bed was truly divine. The mattress had just the right amount of firm-but-soft to ease his aching body. Growing a baby was ridiculously hard, it seemed, and he didn’t think omegas were given enough credit for the task. Too much was made of the miracle and not enough of the strife involved. He let out a low moan as the child shoved a foot into his rib and twisted it there.

  “Are you all right?” Jason asked, immediately by his side, hands on his stomach to feel the baby move. “Should I get Urho?”

  “You know I’m perfectly fine,” Vale grumbled. “Just the usual aches and pains.”

  “The journey was more tiring for you than I realized it would be,” Jason said, smoothing his hands over the bulge and then smiling when the baby kicked his palm with a sharp pop. “You need to rest.”

  Vale shrugged, not sure if he could sleep even if he tried. He was in that fretful state of exhaustion where he’d dearly love to nap but probably couldn’t manage it. “I don’t think I can.” He moved to rise. “Maybe a walk in those gardens will help.”

  “No,” Jason said firmly. “You will rest.” He pushed Vale back down on the pillows and sat beside him. Minutes ticked by.

  Vale sighed and muttered, “At least hand me my notebook.”

  Jason looked as if he might protest, but then he pulled the pencil and pad from Vale’s luggage, brought up while they’d eaten soup by the servants. He handed it over.

  Vale pressed the pencil against his lip, tapping it there, waiting for a flow of words to come. He hadn’t written poetry in months. The font had dried up. All his creative energy went to the child inside. And yet he refused to give up. He had so many things he wanted to share with the world—the experience of pregnancy just one of them—and yet no words came.

  Jason interrupted his not-writing with a question. “What do you think Xan and Urho are doing?”

  Vale arched a brow. “You know exactly what they’re doing, darling.”

  Jason cocked his head, considering, before rising to go look out at the gardens again. “Do you think we ought to feel jealous?”

  Vale scoffed, tucking the pencil in the notebook and setting it on the night table by the bed. “Of Xan? And Urho?”

  “Well, they were our lovers first. Before they were each other’s, I mean.”

  Vale laughed and then laughed some more. He laughed until tears rolled down his face, and Jason started laughing, too. He came to the bed and wiped at Vale’s wet eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “Stop, stop,” Vale said, half-heartedly pushing his hand away. “You’re going to give me the hiccups making me laugh like this.”

  “I was serious,” Jason said, still giggling, too.

  “Jealous of them? Because we had them first?” Vale said, and his laughter returned until he finally let out a long breath, clearly trying to get a hold of himself. “No, darling. I don’t think we should be jealous.”

  Jason nodded thoughtfully, his own laughter still tugging at his lips. “I know. It’s just…it’s strange isn’t it? To think of what we used to do with them, and then to think they’re doing that together. Right now, most likely.”

  “Not really,” Vale said. “I just hope they enjoy it. They’ve both been pining long enough. If the act doesn’t measure up to expectations, we could be looking at a long, awkward stay until this one makes his appearance.” He touched his stomach then. The laughter seemed to have startled the baby enough to calm it. Vale had the sense the babe had paused mid-gymnastics to listen.

  “They’ll enjoy it,” Jason said quietly. “Sexually, Xan is…”

  Vale’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, baby alpha. Don’t make me kill your best friend in his sleep.”

  Jason laughed again. “So, you are jealous.”

  “Not of Urho, and not of Urho having him. Of him having once had you…” Vale shrugged. He’d taken Jason and Xan’s former relationship with more ease than many Érosgápe would have, but he didn’t like to imagine the details of it.

  Jason shrugged. “He’s easy to please, that’s all I was going to say. I promise.”

  “Easy to please,” Vale huffed, irritation flaring. “I don’t recall making you work especially hard to please me either.”

  Jason laughed again and then sat on the bed, leaning close to nuzzle Vale’s neck. “That could be a fun game. Want to play?”

  Vale tried to pretend disinterest, but it lasted all of five seconds before his cock had betrayed him by creating a bulge in the front of his soft, drawstring maternity pants. “What are the rules?” he asked instead.

  “I have to please you, and you have to make me work for it.”

  Vale smirked. “Oh, I see. Feeling the need for a little discipline, are you?”

  Jason shrugged this time. “Maybe. It’s just something we haven’t done before. Not since we were courting anyway. Back then, I wanted to please you so desperately, but you acted like you weren’t sure…” He licked his lips, eyes going shy and hot at the same time. “Like you weren’t sure I was good enough.”

  “Oh, baby alpha, did I make you suffer very much?”

  “Yes.”

  Vale smirked. “What if I still don’t know if you have what it takes to be my man?” He went on with a hint of real sorrow in his tone. “What will you do about that?”

  Jason growled softly and pushed him back into the mattress, slinging a leg over his thighs, and wrapping his arms around Vale’s shoulders. Vale could tell that if it weren’t for the baby, Jason would have flung himself on top of Vale and started ripping his clothes off. The babe required some measure of caution.

  “Go on, then. Prove yourself,” Vale ordered casually. He yawned. “I’ll let you know if I’m impressed. Maybe you can earn the right to be my alpha.”

  Jason made short work of Vale’s clothes and his own, and soon Vale was sweating and shaking as Jason sucked, licked, kissed, and fucked him to orgasm, and then did it again, and again. Despite the evidence of his pleasure, Vale pretended disinterest a
nd uncertainty, causing Jason to redouble his efforts time and again.

  Outside the window, Vale did not doubt the beta workers Jason had spotted in the garden below heard Vale’s cries of pleasure, and he didn’t care. Jason “earning his place” as Vale’s alpha was sheer bliss, and he had no reason to hide how lucky he was to be this man’s omega.

  As he came apart again—this time around Jason’s thick cock—he threw back his head and granted Jason the reprieve he’d earned. “You’re mine,” Vale gasped. “My alpha. Mine alone.”

  Jason roared as he came, clutching Vale’s shoulders as he took him from behind, and crying out his pleasure. Floating back to earth, Vale smirked. No doubt somewhere in the house Xan and Urho were having their fun, too. But there was no way what they shared could compare to his joy in Jason.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Three weeks later

  The sea was alive. Jason could think of no other way to describe the sense he got when he stood next to it, staring out at the thrashing water. It was beautiful, yes, but wildly so. The Virona ocean was much less tranquil than the water by his parents’ cottage at Seshwan-by-the-Sea. It was frothy and urgent. It should frighten him.

  And yet it was the only place he wanted to be.

  Vale enjoyed it, too. His hours on the beach were the only times, outside of sex, when he didn’t complain about his various aches and pains. As the child grew, the pressure on his scars became nearly unbearable, and Jason’s ability to handle Vale’s distress lessened by the hour. Still, he held it together, being the alpha. He hadn’t allowed himself to cry since Urho had told him to get it together. Instead, he buried his fears as far inside as possible and presented nothing but confidence to his beloved. It took its own kind of toll.

  At least he had Urho to talk with about it. Sometimes.

  Urho had his own troubles. Xan was a handful, and Urho was busy trying to hold on to him.

  “Look at the gulls,” Vale said quietly, pointing toward the sky. “They swoop like they’re spelling out words.” He frowned. “That’s almost good enough for a poem, but not quite.”

  Jason brushed his fingers over Vale’s beard and into his hair, saying nothing. Vale’s inability to write was one in a long list of regular complaints. He’d stopped trying to placate him and resorted to simply listening.

  “I wish we could swim. Just think how the water would take the weight from my belly.”

  Jason said nothing still. There would be no swimming. The late autumn air was too cool and the water too frigid to even think it. But bundled up in sweaters, they could happily bask in the dull sun every day. The salty air and crashing white noise of the waves seemed to bring Vale and the baby a kind of peace that they lacked elsewhere. And Jason loved to sit with him, Vale’s head on Jason’s knee, both of them nestled between layers of blankets to stay warm.

  “It’s a war in there,” Vale had said that morning before they’d set out to the ocean. “He’s determined to beat me up from the inside.”

  Jason hoped there was no truth to the old omega’s tale that the relationship between the babe and omega during pregnancy signified their relationship for the rest of their lives. Because Vale seemed to alternately adore the baby and resent it—first for stealing his words, and then for the ongoing pain he caused as he grew and moved. What if, in the end, Vale and the child didn’t get along? Just look at Xan and his parents. There was no guarantee that they would all like each other.

  Love each other, certainly. But like was another matter. Everyone knew that.

  “I miss my pater,” Vale said suddenly, sitting up as a wave crashed onto the shore, washing up a small raft of seaweed and a branch. “I wish he were here to tell me it was all going to be all right.”

  Jason rubbed Vale’s back and didn’t offer up much else. He’d never met Vale’s parents, and while he’d been curious about them, Vale hadn’t ever talked about them all that much. Not even when they’d discussed the cabin before renovating it. Not even when they’d walked around the property that day before the snowstorm.

  “My pater was smart.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  Vale shrugged. “My father was smart, too, of course, but he was the silly one. Joking and laughing all the time. Pater was serious as a heart attack. That’s why I’d want him here to say that we’re going to be all right. I’d believe him.”

  “If he were that serious, then he probably wouldn’t say it at all.”

  Vale huffed. “No, he probably wouldn’t.”

  “I wish he were here, too,” Jason finally said. “I wish I’d known them both.”

  Vale smiled. “They loved each other very much.”

  “And you.”

  “Yes, they loved me, too.” Vale touched his stomach. “We’ll love him, Jason. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried about that.”

  Vale sighed. “I know you are. That old omega tale has wormed under your skin. But there’s nothing this one can do that will make me not love him. Even if he kicks my spleen out while he’s in here.”

  Jason nodded and kept his thoughts to himself. He could think of one thing the babe might do that could make him not love it. If Vale didn’t survive then Jason wasn’t sure how he’d ever forgive himself…or the baby.

  The sun was falling in the sky, and it was time to get Vale back up to the house. “Dinner will be served soon.”

  Vale sighed and let Jason pull him to his feet. “How was your time in the gardens?”

  Jason smiled, putting his hand on Vale’s back and taking his arm to guide him toward the stairs that led up to the house. “It was good. The gardener has finally accepted that I don’t want to meddle, just help.”

  “He’s lucky to have you.”

  “I’m lucky he didn’t quit when I first showed up. That would have left Caleb in a mess.”

  “Caleb would manage. I get the impression he always does.” He started toward the house, one hand on his stomach, and the other in Jason’s grasp.

  Vale waddled more and more every day, and Jason kept close to him. Especially on the way to and from the beach. The dunes, the stairs, and even the sand itself could shift about under Vale’s feet and leave him tipping over.

  “Did you talk to your father?” Vale asked as they reached the safety of the path near the gardens.

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s not angry?”

  “He understands.”

  Vale nodded knowingly. “They’re Érosgápe. Of course, he does.”

  Jason’s work for Sabel Enterprises had been handed off to another employee when his father realized that he was too distracted by Vale’s needs to handle it properly. He felt guilty about that, certain that a better alpha would have been able to do both, but he wasn’t willing to risk a single moment with Vale for something as mundane as car parts. Not when he wasn’t sure Vale would make it through the pregnancy, much less the birth.

  No amount of Urho’s assurances and Vale’s apparent robust health could take away the dagger of fear lodged in Jason’s heart. Nor could it stop his mind from interpreting every whimper and moan as evidence that Vale’s body wasn’t going to weather this storm. But he had to keep it all locked down.

  Pushed deep.

  No leak of his true fear was allowed. Vale needed Jason’s belief as much as he needed food and water. So, he’d fake it until they had a crying, healthy baby in their arms, and Vale was assessed as safe, too. Then, maybe, he’d let himself fall apart with relief.

  “This is taking longer than I imagined,” Vale said, as Jason scurried ahead on the path to open the door for him. “I never realized that, aside from the pain, being pregnant could be so dull.”

  Jason wished he found it dull, too. Unfortunately, he still found it terrifying.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A month later

  The relief in the house was palpable. Catching, even, in its pleasant strength.

  The relationship between Xan and Urho was flourishing to everyo
ne’s satisfaction and delight. Caleb’s printing press and supplies had been delivered, leaving him happily creating all day and buzzing with cheerfulness at night. And Janus, Xan’s cousin who had been staying with them at Lofton to act as a spy for Xan’s father, had been summoned away from the house for a spell, and everyone felt the joy of his absence.

  Vale saw the relief in Jason, too. His gait was easier, more relaxed, and his smile came brighter as the days passed. Vale suspected it was less to do with the absence of Xan’s annoying cousin, and more to do with the progress of Vale’s pregnancy.

  “His pulse is lower, and his blood pressure is down,” Urho said. He put his stethoscope and the portable blood pressure cuff back in his black doctor’s bag and sat back on his heels.

  Vale was propped up on pillows on the sofa in the library, a half-dozen partially-read books spread out along the length of the cushion. Urho was at Vale’s feet for the examination, and Jason stood behind the sofa, hands on Vale’s shoulders as he kept an eye on the proceedings.

  Urho placed his palms against Vale’s ever-growing bulge and pressed gently, making sounds beneath his breath.

  “Well?” Jason asked.

  Vale smirked. Oh, his adorable baby alpha—always so impatient.

  “The babe seems to be the right size.”

  “Why are we doing this here?” Jason asked. “You can’t examine his scars in public like this.”

  “Oh? I believe you’ve been ‘examining him’ in nearly every empty room of this house lately. And, rumor has it, even the garden,” Urho said with an eye roll.

  Vale laughed. He and Jason were never going to live down the last month. They’d been busted multiple times, in multiple places, by far too many people in mid-lovemaking. But Vale wasn’t ashamed. He was pregnant for the only time in his life, and he was going to fully and completely enjoy the only part of it that wasn’t painful or dull—copious amounts of sex.