Even after I lulled Trevor to sleep, I lay awake considering the situation. I'd never seen any indication that my Omega was going into heat. Trust me, I remembered his first one vividly. He never mentioned to me that it should be arriving. Could a simpletea have really hidden it? And we'd only made love the one time - I'd never heard of an Omega taking that fast. Doesn't it always take several couplings before a pregnancy test is positive?
Then there was the fact that Trevor had withdrawn from me both physically and emotionally. That's exactly the opposite of what an Omega in heat is supposed to be driven to.
Every single thing I could think of backed my initial conclusion that there must have been someone else. Well, except one. Deep in my heart, I knew that Trevor would never do that to me. And the fact that I had ignored that instinct and believed the worst about him was eating me up.
Once Trevor sighed and snuggled deeper into the covers, I slipped from the bed. When I caught myself pacing the living room, I huffed in irritation. If I was going to waste my sleeping hours castigating myself, I might as well accomplish something at the same time.
As quietly as I could manage, I collected my tools and headed for the addition that was in progress. The exterior was framed and finished, so I began on the wiring. By the time I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, it was mid-afternoon, and the first bedroom was ready for the drywall.
When he mentioned it that night, I flat out refused to let Trevor take the pups to the dorms, so he grudgingly agreed to stay in the house for the time being - as long as I let him be.
For the next week, I spent as much time with my pups as I could. We played outside, I took them into the woods to teach them to hunt, and I read them as many bedtime stories as they wanted. Late in the mornings after Trevor was asleep, I snuck into the house and joined him in bed just long enough to coax him into a deep slumber, to hold him close for a few minutes so that he and the baby could both benefit from my otherwise unwelcome presence. Then, I'd return to work on the addition and, when I couldn't stay awake any longer, I'd retire to the guest cottage to start the cycle over again.
In the darker moments when the thought occurred to me, I denied to myself that I was wasting my time creating a home for children who were unlikely to continue to exist after I had fucked everything up with their carrier. Admitting it could be true was too close to accepting it as inevitable.
~*~
"Clint?"
It was almost dawn when Rafe's concerned voice caught my attention. Trevor was up later than usual, so I'd begun to frame in a third bedroom on the addition, still telling myself I wasn't in denial. The first two were done – except for paint and furniture – and I had plenty of time to fill.
"Yeah?" I grabbed a bottle of water without meeting his gaze and swallowed it in two gulps before tossing the empty plastic to the ground.
"You know you have company?"
"Zade?" Rafe nodded and I barely kept from rolling my eyes. "Yeah. He showed up a few hours after we got back. He's been following Levi around like a puppy every time he sees him since. "When Levi is in the dorm, he mopes outside. It's pathetic."
Rafe looked away from the young Alpha who was staring longingly at the dorm house. "You feeling all right?"
I shrugged and lined up another two by four.
"C'mon, man. Talk to me."
I huffed an irritated sigh and sunk the nail with one strike before dropping my hammer to the ground. "What do you want to talk about?"
"You look like shit," Rafe said without preamble. "Your eyes are sunken in, you're losing weight," he said, his voice serious, "and the last few days you've been walking around like a damned ghost."
I shrugged. "Haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."
"The weight loss?"
"Not hungry." I could almost hear my old friend's brain whirring as he turned the situation over in his mind. "Why are you here, Rafe?"
"Colby insisted that he needed to come see Trev." Rafe grabbed a spare hammer and a handful of nails. "Having a little trouble letting him out of my sight at the moment, so I tagged along."
My stomach clenched at the reminder that my pack's future – my family - might not be the only one I'd fucked up. We worked together in silence for a bit before three long shadows drifted overhead. I stiffened immediately. Rafe was right that I was worn down and I knew that I wasn't up to taking on even one dragon, forget multiples.
"Relax," Rafe muttered under his breath. "Friendlies."
I followed his gaze over to where the dragons had landed. Falk and Cian were already in human form and pulling on clothing. A dozen yards further back, Harry's hulking dragon form patiently held a travel bag open with one massive talon as Spencer trotted out and headed for the packhouse.
"What are they doing here?"
Rafe just shrugged and reached for another beam as Falk and Harry made short work of the distance between our unofficial dragon landing strip and the addition we were working on.
A few words of greeting and they each joined in the action as if they'd been expected. When Drey's coupe followed Collin's truck up the drive, I gave up on understanding what was happening. When Lachlan positioned himself behind the table sawunder the awning I'd pitched as a temporary workshop, I just nodded to him. When Alrich rocked his forest green Harley up onto its kickstand beside Rafe's bike, I almost smiled.
"What took you so long?"
