Mating the Omega (MM Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 1)

by Ann-Katrin Byrde

  I felt snubbed, but only a little. Right now, she held the key to a mystery we both wanted solved.

  She laughed and shook her head. “I can’t say for sure. There’s some swelling which may or may not be normal for him, because I don’t have a baseline to compare it to. But his womb feels denser.” She turned her attention to me. “We don’t get many omegas here, but I started looking into it when Mac’s cousin Bram was born. You’ll be okay.” Then she turned back to Mac. “It’s a good sign. I’m guessing you two likely won’t have to worry about heats for a while, but I’ll let you know for sure when I have the results of the blood tests.”

  “How long will that be?” Mac’s voice was full of suppressed emotion, excitement, anxiety, eagerness. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, but his gaze stayed fixed on the nurse.

  She winked at me. “A couple of days. We have the equipment to do a few simple tests, and that’s one of them. I’m glad you weren’t coming for a thyroid test—I’d have to send that out and it could be weeks. But if I can do it myself, it’s just a matter of when I get the time to do it. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.” She held out a hand to help me up and whispered, “The fathers always get worked up. Take it easy on him, okay? He’s going to be a royal pain in your butt for the next six months, if I know Mac.”

  I snort-giggled, and whispered back, “He already is. That’s okay. It’s Mac.” We shared a grin and then I shook my head at Mac’s questioning expression. “Doctor-patient stuff. Just you worry about finding me pickles and ice cream.”

  “Are you having cravings already? We can stop at Supplies on the way home…” He looked relieved at having an actual task to accomplish.

  “No, no, I’m teasing you!” I laughed and kissed him, then looked up to see Adelaide shaking her head at me.

  “I told you to be nice to him.”

  “Oh, I will,” I said, and sent Mac a look that told him exactly how I wanted to be nice to him. It made him suck in a harsh breath, and a shiver ran over my skin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I spent the ride home curled up against Mac’s side, my hand under his shirt running over the solid planes of his belly, my head on his shoulder. Mac had one hand on the wheel, the other sneaking down the back of my jeans, teasing at the skin at the base of my spine until I was ready to tell him to pull over, despite the fact that it was only a ten-minute drive from the clinic to our home. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

  The Alpha was sitting on our front step when we pulled up in front of the house, his expression grim. We got out, our ardor suddenly cooled, and I had an uneasy feeling that this was about me, and it was going to be bad.

  Mac walked straight up to him and unlocked the door. “Let’s talk inside.” He followed the Alpha into our living room and I closed the door behind us.

  “Should I go upstairs?” I asked, uncertain whether they’d want me in the conversation. In Montana Border, I would never be involved in a discussion with the Alpha, even if it had something to do with me. It wasn’t how it was done there, though I was starting to understand that things were different here.

  “I think you’d better stay,” the Alpha said. “This concerns you.”

  He and Mac sat on our couch and I curled up in my chair in the corner. My mother’s blanket was draped over the back of it, and I pulled it down over my shoulders to combat the chill of apprehension I felt.

  The Alpha looked at Mac, then at me. “We’ve received a summons today. Several of them. Your old pack is suing us to return you and to pay them damages for the loss of your—” he snarled”—innocence. And its value.”

  The blood drained out of my face, but I didn’t know what I felt. I should have guessed they wouldn’t give up so easily. “When do we go to court?” I heard myself say, as if I were in another room, eavesdropping on my own conversation.

  “They filed in human court. That might be our only hope.”

  “What? Why?” Mac left the couch to come sit with me, picking me up, then settling down with me cradled in his lap. I hugged his arms to me, but all my attention was for the Alpha.

  “They’re treating it as a civil matter, like you’re property.”

  “I am.” Well, kind of a person-possession hybrid, really.

  “No, you’re not. But that attitude is something that Garrick thinks will work against them. Your old pack is kind of isolationist, right?”

  I nodded. The only reason Dad got his electrician’s papers is because the pack needed money, and they had me and Mom to hold over his head.

  The Alpha grinned. “They probably don’t realize how much attitudes have changed in the human world. Garrick’s going to look for a lawyer for us.”

  I shook my head. “Who’s Garrick?”

  Behind me, Mac grumbled, “That’s right, you haven’t met him.”

  “I’ve hardly met anyone.”

  His arms tightened around me. “No. I suppose that’s my fault. I’ve wanted to keep you to myself.”

  “I wasn’t putting myself out there either.” I turned my head and kissed him. When I looked back at the Alpha, he wore a satisfied smirk. “You think you’re responsible for this, don’t you?” I said, gathering all my bravery. It was still hard for me to believe he wouldn’t lunge across the room and smack me right off Mac’s lap, but all he did was laugh at us and grin even harder.

  “I sure pushed hard enough on you two. I’m glad it’s working out. You’ll have to sit down with the lawyer, both of you, and your father, Jason. He or she will have lots of questions.” He sobered. “There’s one other thing.”

  “What?” I asked, with that prickly sense of looming disaster.

  “Are you guys expecting?”

  A sudden tension turned Mac’s body to steel. “We don’t know yet. We just went in this morning. It’ll be a couple of days, I think.”

  The Alpha rubbed his hands down his cheeks and stared down at the floor. He looked like a man trying to work himself up to something extremely unpleasant.

  When he raised his head again, I was sure of it.

  “If we aren’t successful in this suit, they’ll take Jason back to Montana and we’ll have to negotiate a mating contract with them. You can imagine how that might go.”

  I felt sick--I knew exactly where this would go. My hand went to my belly, trying to protect something I didn’t even know existed. “You think they’ll ask for so much you can’t afford it, and then they’ll abort me to bring me into heat again and mate me there.”

  He nodded, his expression bleak.

  Mac stirred beneath me, and when he spoke, his voice was deep bass rumble that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and promised retribution for the person that had angered him. “Not if they want to live,” he said. It was wrong, and dangerous, what he said, but it made me feel safe, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him, my face pressed against his.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It won’t happen. The humans would have a fit. They wouldn’t dare.” But the squirming in my gut told me I wasn’t as sure as I sounded.

  The Alpha spoke. “Just in case, we’re going to ask the lawyer to do everything they can to put this off until the fall if your blood tests come back positive.” He stood. “I’ll leave you two to talk about this. As soon as you know, I need to be the first call you make.”

  I nodded, my face still hidden behind Mac’s. I was afraid to move—the churning in my stomach was getting worse and the room suddenly felt about ten degrees cooler, and hotter at the same time.

  The door closed with a thunk and we were alone.

  “I swear,” Mac murmured in my ear, “I won’t let it come to that. Your father hid you for years, I can too. If it goes badly,” he sat back and cupped my cheek in one large, warm hand. “We’ll disappear. Go to Mexico, or farther south, even.” His hand moved down to cover mine, lying limp against the skin beneath my bellybutton. “I won’t let them take our baby from us.”

  That did it. “I
have to go.” I rolled off his lap and bolted for the stairs. I barely had time to drop to my knees next to the toilet before everything in my stomach came burning out through my mouth and my nose. I coughed and gagged and vomited again, my back aching with the effort of it.

  Mac’s hand on my back startled me—I’d been so involved in trying not to choke I’d completely forgotten about him. He gave me a damp cloth to wipe my face with, and held me gently while my body did its best to reject everything I’d eaten this week.

  At least, that’s what it felt like.

  He rubbed circles on the small of my back. I groaned and rested my head on my arm where it stretched along the porcelain of the bowl. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. How are you feeling now? Better?”

  “I don’t know. A bit. Tired.”

  “If it’s anything like the throwing up I did in bachelor’s quarters, no wonder. I’ll call the tutor and cancel this afternoon, and let them know at the garden you won’t be there.”

  “No, really, I’m fine, I just need a few—” I bent over the toilet again, retching up stuff I didn’t even remember eating, and it kept going after, even when it had gone from vomiting to dry heaves. Mac tried giving me water, which I only threw up again. By the time my stomach had settled, nearly half an hour after the Alpha left, I was sobbing with frustration and exhausted.

  “Okay?” Mac asked when my stomach had been quiet for a good ten minutes.

  “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.” He helped me down the hall to our bedroom and tucked me in under the covers. The last thing I remember him doing before I fell asleep was putting a glass of water on the bedside table, and an empty garbage can on the floor at the head of the bed.

  It wasn’t romantic at all, but I loved him all the more for it. And then I was asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mac started letting Jason sleep in, and began doing some of the housework himself—despite Jason’s protests—so that Jason could rest. It hadn’t been nerves, but morning sickness, that had made Jason so sick the day they learned about the lawsuit. But with that shadow hanging over them, there was little happiness to offset the discomfort of a month of near-constant nausea and vomiting. Jason grew thinner, and his humor took on a sharper edge, symptom of his fatigue and the anxiety he thought he was hiding from Mac.

  Today they were meeting with the lawyer Garrick had found. Mac gathered together an assortment of the things that Jason had so far proven he could keep down—water, crackers, fruit, and the last of the candied ginger Abel had bought during one of his trips outside walls to meet with clients. Adelaide was trying to source something to help with the sickness, but werewolf physiology was different from human, and apparently omega physiology was even more different. What they had helped, but not enough. After their last visit, she had quietly told Mac that he needed to reduce Jason’s stress.

  Problem was, how to do that?

  He called up to the bedroom. “You dressed yet?”

  “Coming.” Slow steps on the stairs, and then Jason shambled around the corner into the kitchen. He looked tired, with dark shadows under his eyes and pale cheeks. Mac knew he wasn’t sleeping well, though whether it was worrying about the lawsuit, or just his body adjusting to the demands of their growing pup, Mac wasn’t sure.

  “Do you think you could eat something?”

  “I don’t know.” Jason pulled out a chair and kind of fell into it. “I think I’m done puking for the day.”

  “Tea?”

  “Yeah.” Jason put an elbow on the table and propped his head on his fist, watching dreamily as Mac boiled water and got down Jason’s favorite mug. “Thank you.”

  Mac twisted around to regard him in surprise. “For what?”

  “For all this. Being around.” His hand went to his stomach, still flat, though Mac hoped not for much longer. “I can’t be a lot of fun right now.”

  “You’re fine.” Mac poured the water into the mug and left it to steep. He leaned against the counter. “This will be over soon. And once you’re eating again, I imagine you’ll have me running all over day and night, looking for food for you. Then I’ll complain.”

  Jason laughed weakly. “Can’t wait to hear it.” He smiled and Mac loved him even more for refusing to let this all get him down.

  Once the tea had steeped, Mac sugared it heavily and set it in front of Jason, then went back upstairs to get Jason’s mother’s blanket.

  “What are you bringing that down for?” Jason asked when he reappeared with it.

  “We’re going to have this meeting here, save you the trip out. And if you need to lie down, you can rest on the couch, or go upstairs.” Mac set it on the chair next to Jason’s.

  Jason opened his mouth, and Mac was certain he was going to argue, but instead he laid a hand on Mac’s arm and said, “Thank you.”

  Mac kissed him on the forehead. “Drink your tea and then we’ll see if the little monster will let you eat something.”

  “Brat. Takes after his dad.”

  “You’re not a brat.”

  Jason smiled and sipped carefully from the mug. He put it down on the table and Mac could see him waiting for the nausea to strike. Just when Mac’s nerves couldn’t stand it anymore, Jason picked up the mug again. “So far, so good.”

  “Don’t rush it.”

  “No. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I’m going to tidy up before they get here.” Mac put his hand out to keep Jason from getting up. “No, I can do it. Your job right now is to drink your tea, and then eat something. That’s your only job.”

  “Are you going to alpha me if I don’t?”

  “Would it work?”

  “Might.” They’d discovered that, since they’d mated, it took a lot more effort on Mac’s part to make his alpha power work on Jason. Whether it was that he was more likely to worry about upsetting him, or if something had changed in one of them, they didn’t know, but his alpha power flowed right around Jason’s omega, leaving nothing behind. A moment of quiet passed, then Jason added, in the bright joking tone Mac had missed so badly. “I’m feeling lazy enough I might just let it work.”

  “That’s my man.” Mac kissed him on the cheek and went upstairs to make the bed and make sure the bathroom was respectable.

  William and Abel arrived ten minutes early to help move the kitchen table into the living room and set up everything they’d need. Mac moved Jason out to the couch, promising that he could sit at the table when the lawyer arrived, but for now, “Save your strength, will you?”

  “Fine. But don’t think you’re ordering me around.” There was a gleeful glint in Jason’s eyes as he said this, and now, Mac noted, some color in his cheeks.

  Maybe this is about over. He hoped so—watching Jason be miserable made Mac miserable. He brought Jason’s snacks out for him and his heart lightened a little when Jason started nibbling at a cracker, and didn’t immediately turn green.

  It was just as well—another knock sounded on the door and when Mac opened it, he found Garrick and a tall human man with a briefcase and cheekbones that could cut glass standing on the other side.

  “You must be MacKenzie Mercy Hills,” he said in a voice like brandied velvet, rich and arresting. It was a good voice for a lawyer.

  “I am,” he said and stepped aside to let him in.

  “This is quite the case.” He walked past Mac and paused. “I normally deal with criminal cases, but Mr.—” He paused. “It’s rather awkward that you all use your pack name as a family name.”

  Abel shrugged and moved to the table, pulling out a chair to sit. “Pack is family.” He looked up at the lawyer, and Mac felt the prickle and roll of his power. “We aren’t human, in the end. That’s why the enclaves, right?”

  The lawyer rolled his shoulders; Mac thought he must have felt something. But he had to give the man credit—he didn’t let it put him off balance. “Mr. Garrick Mercy Hills
will help me with the contract law. I understand he finished his law degree but was denied the right to take the bar?”

  Mac and Abel nodded, and the lawyer smiled, a wide, wolfish smile that felt very…pack. “Once we’ve dealt with your current issue,” he cast a shiny hungry glance at Garrick, “I’d like to hear more about that.”

  Mac glanced at Garrick, who shrugged.

  They settled around the table, even Jason, who—to Mac’s eyes—looked much better. A chance to do something about his old pack seemed to have done him a world of good. And Adelaide had said that, in most cases, the sickness rarely lasted more than a month. He hoped this was the beginning of the end.

  The lawyer set out a pad of paper and a couple of pens.

  Garrick cleared his throat. “I’ll do the introductions. Alpha, this is Luke Montague.”

  Abel leaned back in his chair and stared at the lawyer through narrowed eyes. “I’ve heard of you. I’m surprised you’d bother yourself with a shifter issue. We’re pretty small potatoes, compared to the cases you’ve defended.” His tone was cool and aggressive, a test of the human.

  Montague smiled and picked up a pen. “Let’s just say I’ve been feeling an urge to spread my wings. And Garrick—I can call you Garrick?” He tilted his head in the shifter’s directions. When Garrick nodded, Montague continued, “Garrick here was extremely persuasive.” That lupine grin stretched across his face again.

  At Abel’s nod, Garrick continued the introductions. “This is our Alpha, Abel Mercy Hills. Our Head of Security, MacKenzie Mercy Hills. And the omega in question, Jason Mercy Hills.”

  Montague nodded to each person in turn, making notes on his pad without appearing to look at it. “Well, now that we all know who we are, let’s start putting the details of the story down. We’ll start with you, since it does seem to be your story.” He looked at Jason, who nodded resolutely back at him.