by L. C. Davis
The way Nathan was looking at him left no room for Kent to doubt that he was being as weird as he was afraid he was. “Thanks. But uh, you don’t have to come in. I’m sure you have stuff to do.”
“I don’t mind. The clinic’s not busy, so it shouldn’t be that long,” Kent said, opening the door to the small yet pristine office.
The receptionist looked up, smiling at them from behind her desk. “Hi, Kent. And this must be Nathan?”
“Guilty,” the omega said with a sheepish smile, slinking over to the desk to sign in.
“You can come on back, you’re the only patient for the next couple of hours,” she said, moving around to open a door on the other side of the desk.
Nathan hesitated. “I’ll uh, be back.”
“I’ll be here,” Kent said with a strained smile. He looked around the waiting room and picked up a parenting magazine, settling uncomfortably into a chair that was obviously meant for someone half his size.
The door fell shut and Kent tossed the magazine aside. He’d never been the nervous sort, but his foot was tapping erratically on the tile before he managed to stop it.
He had to get it together or Nathan would have even more reason to resent him when he found out the truth. Kent was still struggling to process it himself.
Imprinting on Nathan would have been complicated enough under normal circumstances, but he was pregnant with another alpha’s child. Kent had always wanted a mate and a family, but he’d imagined there would at least be some space between those life events.
Then there was the likelihood that Nathan wouldn’t even want him when he found out the truth. Tyr certainly hadn’t. Kent wasn’t about to let himself believe a mate bond was going to change that, especially since he couldn’t be around the younger omega for two seconds without making a fool of himself.
The moment Nathan came out through the doors, Kent knew something was wrong. Kent had known Dr. Williams his whole life and knew the beta wouldn’t have done anything to upset Nathan intentionally, but his drive to fix all of Nathan’s problems had already kicked in full force and he was ready to tear the office door down, if need be. “Everything alright?”
Nathan looked surprised by the question. “Everything’s fine.” He hesitated. “I just saw the baby for the first time.”
“That’s...good, right?” Kent asked, finding himself at a loss when it came to the omega. Down was up, right was left and God help him if anyone asked him for the time of day.
“Yeah,” Nathan said, cracking a small smile as he held a hand to his stomach. The smile crumpled and tears filled the omega’s eyes. “It’s great.”
Panic surged through Kent’s chest, pushing him to do something, anything to stop those tears. “What happened? Tell me what’s wrong.” After years of barking at troops, it came out as an order even though it was meant as a plea.
“I don’t know,” Nathan said in a strained voice, wiping his eyes. “Can you please just take me back to the house?”
“Of course.” Kent looked around the waiting room, grabbing a handful of tissues from a box by the table before leading Nathan out to the car. He offered the tissues to the omega and stared helplessly as Nathan collected himself. “Did something happen? Did Dr. Williams say something?”
“No,” Nathan sniffed, dabbing at his eyes. “I don’t even know why I’m crying,” he said with a strangled laugh. “God, I feel like such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Kent said, reaching out to stroke a lock of hair that had fallen into Nathan’s eyes. Whether the touch or the eye contact that followed was a worse mistake, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, the damage was done.
Kent had started entertaining schemes to keep the imprint a secret for as long as possible, but one look in Nathan’s eyes was all it took to know that just wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t have that kind of strength. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
Nathan searched his eyes and seemed as bewildered as Kent felt. “I don’t know. I just…” He looked away, his fists balled up in his lap. “This whole time, it hasn’t felt real. I know I’m pregnant, but actually hearing the baby’s heartbeat made it click, I guess. Everyone is talking about all these options I have and all this stuff I need to do to make sure the baby stays healthy, and I feel like I can’t breathe.”
Kent listened, his heart aching in protest as he began to accept that Nathan’s problems weren’t ones he could just swoop in and solve. He turned the key in the ignition and glanced over at the omega. “Can I take you somewhere? It’s not far.”
Nathan hesitated a moment before nodding. “Okay.”
Kent drove in silence to the edge of the lake after which the pack had been named by his ancestors more than two centuries earlier. He got out and helped Nathan out of the truck, trying to ignore just how right it felt to have the omega’s hand in his.
“Is this Silver Lake?” Nathan asked, looking out over the rippling water that was cast in a silver hue as it reflected the mountains in the distance.
“It is. I always used to come out here when I felt overwhelmed,” he said, leading Nathan over to the water’s edge. “Sometimes I still do.”
“I see why,” Nathan murmured. “Even the air feels cleaner out here.”
“Believe it or not, hardly anyone comes up here. There’s no development on the land for miles, so no one can hear you if you scream.”
Nathan cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not even vaguely menacing, it’s just menacing.”
Kent cringed. “Sorry. I know we didn’t spend that much time together when you used to come here, but you’re gonna learn that I have a knack for saying things in the worst possible way. I’m not very good with people, hence why I come out here to get away from them.”
Nathan smiled. “And here I just thought you hated me.”
“Hated you?” Kent frowned. “Where would you get an idea like that?”
“I mean, I saw the way you looked at me when I first showed up,” Nathan said, looking down at the ground. “Not that I blame you. I guess if my home was a halfway house for troubled omegas, I’d probably get tired of it.”
“That’s not…” Kent groaned, realizing he had done even more damage than he’d feared. “Nathan, I’m glad you’re here. Really glad, and the fact that Silver Lake is seen as a sanctuary for omegas going through a rough time is the thing that makes me the most proud of it. Like I said, I’m just not good with people.”
“That’s not true. You were always the life of the party,” Nathan said, frowning. “I was jealous of you even back then. You always seemed to know who you were, how to make everyone laugh…”
“There’s a fine line between being the funny guy and the punchline,” said Kent. “I never did a great job of straddling it.”
Nathan seemed to be considering his words, looking back out at the lake. “Do you really come out here to scream?” he asked after a minute.
“Sometimes. When I wanted to scream stuff that would get me grounded if I said it around my parents,” he teased. “It might not help, but it’s worth a shot.”
Nathan hesitated. “What do I say?”
Kent shrugged. “Whatever comes to mind. It’s cathartic or something like that.”
The omega cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “FUCK!” at the top of his lungs.
Kent blinked, staring at him for a moment before he burst into laughter. Nathan soon followed suit and he was laughing so hard that he leaned back against the hood of Kent’s truck to support himself. Kent joined him, grinning as he watched the tension fade from the omega’s countenance, transmuting into pure joy that made the lake look dull and lifeless in comparison.
“What?” Nathan asked, wiping his tears. At least he wasn’t crying because he was sad anymore. Kent decided that was more than worth the price of humiliation.
“You’re just cute,” Kent said without thinking.
Nathan stopped laughing and stared at him. “Cute?”
Shit. “You know.
Like a puppy,” Kent lied.
“...Oh.”
And just like that, Kent wanted to crawl under the truck. “It’s a good thing I’m better with my hands than I am with my mouth,” he muttered.
Nathan’s stare turned blank but before Kent’s latest verbal blunder could fully set in, the omega dissolved in laughter again. “And here I thought you were just trying to make me feel better with the whole socially awkward thing.”
“No,” Kent said, running a hand down his face. “No, that’s all me.”
“That’s a relief,” Nathan said, giving the Alpha a smile Kent just knew would be his undoing.
“Why?”
“Because you seem so...perfect. It’s a relief to know even you have a human side,” Nathan said, giving him a playful nudge.
“Perfect?” Kent scoffed. “You’d be the first person to say that.”
“Are you kidding? Everyone talks about you in Mountain Ridge. How you were the youngest Alpha to be awarded the Federation Medal of Valor. The only Alpha the soldiers are more afraid of is my dad,” he said dryly, pausing. “Both of them, actually.”
“Yeah, Connor’s kind of legendary.” Kent knew from experience that the omega wasn’t half as sinister as the reputation that preceded him wherever he went, but he had fought alongside too many wolves who were old enough to remember Cutter to fall into the trap of believing that Connor was as harmless as he seemed. A tamed wolf was still not something to be trifled with.
“Tell me about it,” Nathan muttered. “Everyone expects me to be him. Even he’s not him anymore, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. I know a thing or two about living in someone’s shadow.”
“You?” Nathan asked doubtfully.
“Adam’s always been the good kid. The one we all looked up to. Our parents tried not to compare the rest of us to him, but everyone else does. People can’t help it,” he said with a shrug. “They know your family, so they think they know you. Whether they mean to or not, they’ve already formed all these judgments and opinions before they’ve even met you based on who you are, who you know.“
“Heuristics,” Nathan mumbled.
“Huh?”
“It’s a thing in psychology. People process so much information on a daily basis that if we took everything on its own out of context, we’d never be able to function,” he explained. “Heuristics are shortcuts. You make assumptions about things based on what you know about other related things. It makes it easier to understand the world, but sometimes it backfires.” The omega’s cheeks colored. “Sorry. I sound like a nerd.”
“Yeah, but there’s nothing wrong with being a nerd,” Kent said, grinning. “Just means you’re passionate about something. That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, well, passion can only get you so far,” Nathan sighed, pulling his knees up to his chest. “It didn’t even get me into grad school.”
“I barely made it through my Bachelor’s and that was only for my commission, so I don’t know that much about these things,” Kent said carefully. “But from what I understand, grad school is hard to get into no matter what field you’re in. My sister tried three times before she got into the program she wanted.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She’s always been a brain, like you,” he laughed. “She had perfect grades, but the second time she applied, she finally hunted down someone on the admissions panel and demanded he tell her why she didn’t get in. He said she had all the right credentials, but they were looking for more well-rounded applicants with real-world experience,” he said with a shrug. “So she took a year off, went overseas to do some volunteer work and wound up deciding she wanted to get into a completely different program. Now she’s a teacher, and she’s never been happier, but she never would have realized that was what she wanted to do with her life if she hadn’t been rejected from the MBA program she originally wanted to get into.”
Nathan listened intently. “That’s basically what my parents and advisors told me. I mean, for all I know, my age is the reason I didn’t get into the program.”
“But that doesn’t make it easier to live with. Trust me, I get it.”
“I just tried so hard to build my own identity,” Nathan said quietly. “I love my parents, but I wanted to be my own person, you know? I knew if I wavered even slightly, if I left even a tiny space open for other people to define who I was, I’d never get that chance. Chase Wesson was supposed to be my escape.”
“From your dad’s legacy?”
“That and everything else. Being an omega, being the alpha’s kid. I don’t mind any of it, but I just wanted the chance to be something else, you know?”
“Yeah,” Kent said thoughtfully. “I mean, I don’t know what it’s like to be an omega, but I can see the appeal of living with humans. Danvers was my escape, I guess. When my parents first sent me there, it felt like a punishment, but no one there knew my brother and no one cared if my father was the Alpha of some small pack hardly anyone had even been to. There’s freedom in being nobody. It gives you the chance to become somebody and not have to worry that you’re only that person because that’s who you were molded into.”
“Exactly,” Nathan said earnestly. His enthusiasm faded as soon as it had appeared. “Not that it matters now. Now I’m not even ‘Cutter’s kid,’ I’m just ‘that omega who got knocked up before graduation.’”
“Maybe that’s true, but it only defines you if you let it,” said Kent. “It’s not how I see you.”
“...No?”
“You can spend your whole life worrying about what other people think, Nate. I wasted enough of mine doing just that,” said Kent. “But in the end, they’re not paying as much attention as you think. They’ve all got their own shit to deal with, and at the end of the day, you can’t change how they feel. You can only be true to what you want. That’s what you’re here to figure out, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.” Nathan looked up at him under those dark lashes, his blue eyes full of curiosity. “What do you want?”
The question took Kent off guard. It was far from the first time he’d been asked, but it was the first time he’d actually known the answer. Not that he dared to say it out loud. “I already have a lot of it. Family, a career where I feel like I’m doing something meaningful,” he said, treading carefully. “I’ve always wanted a mate and kids, but that’s kind of taken the back burner to other things.”
“Why?”
Kent gave a stilted laugh. “Well…”
“Sorry if it’s too personal.”
“No, it’s fine. The honest answer’s just kind of pathetic.”
“I doubt that, but I’m the crowned king of pathetic, so I promise I won’t judge even if it is.”
“Let’s just say I put all my eggs in the wrong basket.”
“Tyr Amari?” Nathan asked in a knowing tone.
“See? You’re not the only one with a ‘reputation.’”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you guys. I know how much you cared about him.”
“I still do, but it’s different now,” Kent admitted. “I’m just glad Tyr had the wisdom to see what I couldn’t back then. I loved him, but it wasn’t the kind of love that would have taken us the distance.”
“You mean a mate bond?”
“That’s part of it, but the older I get, the more I realize that people come into your life for different reasons. Some are there to teach you a lesson, some are there to make you take responsibility for your shit, some are there as friends and if you’re really, stupidly lucky, maybe one is there for all of it. Tyr’s a damn good friend, and so is his mate. I’m good with that.” He paused, laughing at himself. “I wasn’t always, but I am now.”
Nathan grinned. “Spoken like a wise old man.”
Kent rolled his eyes. “Wise might be a bridge too far. I’ve just screwed up enough times to accumulate a lot of tough lessons.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll find the right ‘basket’ soon,” N
athan teased. “Not like there’s any shortage of omegas around here.”
Kent snorted. “No, but I’ve decided matchmaking isn’t the right route for me.”
“No? Why not?”
The alpha’s gaze swept over the face he knew so well even though sometimes it felt like he was looking at a stranger. “Let’s just say I know what I want, and I’m willing to wait until the timing’s right.”
Nathan swallowed audibly, drawing Kent’s attention to the omega’s neck. He’d never looked at an omega and felt the urge to bite before. It was foreign territory, and it scared Kent more than anything he’d encountered on the battlefield ever had. However Nathan had actually ended up in his current situation, the last Alpha he’d given his trust to had used and abandoned him in the worst way. It didn’t matter if the Alpha knew there was a chance Nathan was pregnant or not. In Kent’s eyes, using an omega for a one-night stand was unforgivable. The potential for a mating bond to form was too much of a risk to take for the promise of one night of pleasure, even if it had been fully consensual, which Nathan’s heat alone called into question. Even the Alphas Kent had served with who took pride in an endless string of sexual conquests had the decency to mate with humans rather than an omega who was hardwired to attach emotionally and bond chemically.
As much as Kent wanted to explore the feelings for Nathan that seemed to grow exponentially with each moment they spent together, he knew that a mate bond wasn’t enough. Neither was a mark, if Topher’s experience was any indication. Kent couldn’t control the fact that he’d imprinted on Nathan, but he could damn sure control his own actions, and he intended to do just that for as long as it took. Nathan had to come first. So did the life another Alpha had created without a second thought. Kent decided in that moment that he would wait as long as it took, if only to prove to Nathan that he wasn’t the same way.
“I should get you back to the house,” he said, offering a hand to help Nathan down from the hood of the truck. “You’re an honorary member of the Colt family, which comes with a lot of fretting. And curfews.”
