Prologue
Paul
“Come on, baby,” Hudson cajoled me, arousal pitching his voice higher than normal as he pinned me against the wall in the tiny supply closet we were hiding in. A couple of months earlier one of the other Omegas, Cielo, had caught me blowing Hudson in the library stacks so we’d had to start beingcreativeabout our hiding spots after that. “I drove all the way out here to see you and you’re gonna leave me with blue balls?”
I blew out a sigh and tried to rein in my annoyance. “I offered a blow job,” I reminded him. “When you said you were coming to see me, you never told me you expected to fuck me in a storage closet. Besides, we don’t even have a condom and my cycle will start in the next day or two. It’s not safe.”
“I’ll just put the tip in.” Hudson bent down to kiss my neck. “I’ll bust my nut all over your sexy ass instead,” he promised. “You know the last thing I want to do is knock you up before you get out of here and we can be together, don’t you, baby?”
I sighed again. “Yes, but..”
As soon as he heard theyesHudson quit listening. He yanked my jeans and underwear down over my hips and spun me around, shoving my face into a mildewed mop hanging on the rack. Before I could argue or tell him he misunderstood, there was a blinding pain in my ass that had me gasping for breath as my body tightened against the intrusion.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” Hudson grunted as he continued to force his way into my body, completely oblivious to my agony. “You’re so fucking tight.”
I was literally frozen in pain and tears began to stream down my face. Luckily, Hudson was so keyed up that it didn’t take long. A few more teeth-grinding jabs into my body and Hudson stiffened behind me, the wetness dripping down my crease telling me loud and clear that he hadn’t bothered to pull out before he finished.
I wiped my tears on my shirt and tried to fake a smile, but there wasn’t any need. Jerking his pants up, Hudson already had one hand on the doorknob when he kissed my cheek. “That was good, kid. Thanks.”
Letting himself out of the closet, Hudson left me standing in the dark with my jeans around my ankles and a sinking suspicion that I had just fucked up royally.
~*~
Six Weeks Later
Sitting in the tiny jack-and-jill bathroom that I shared with the room on the other side of me, I stared at the two pink lines on the stupid stick.
Pregnant.
How the fuck had I been stupid enough to get pregnant my first time having actual sex? I groaned; the sound drowned out by knocking on the door from the other room.
“Can you hurry up? I really need to go!”
Stuffing the test in my pocket, I flushed the toilet and flipped the lock, shoving the door open. “It’s all yours.”
I’d never been so glad to be in-between roommates -not like I was really ever thrilled to have one-as I sat down on my bed and stared at Hudson’s number in my phone, wondering how to explain to him that we were going to have a baby. Maybe crack a joke? Tell him that since he’d liked my ass so much I’d decided to let him keep it? Or aim for serious and mature? Calmly explain that there were consequences of the decision we’d made? Or, rather, the decision he had made for us. I was still working through the options when I tapped his name to dial the call.
The call that went dead nearly immediately.
The call that ended as though I’d been blocked from calling him.
I dialed again and then a third time, moving from spot to spot in the room in case a bad signal was the culprit, but nothing worked.
My head began to spin as I realized the enormity of the situation, of the trouble that my lack of self-control had landed me in, just as my father had always said it would. Dropping to my knees in the center of the room, I barely even noticed when my phone slipped from my fingers to land lightly on the beige carpet.
I spent the rest of the day wandering around in a haze, alternating between knowing that I’d been used and discarded and then a minute later reassuring myself that it had to be some sort of mistake. If I could only speak to Hudson, I was sure we could resolve everything, but the call withered and dropped every time I dialed.
I was lying in bed, trying desperately to sleep when an unwelcome thought assaulted me. I’d been shipped off to the Omega Destiny, International program to keep me out of my father’s way. Now that I was pregnant and still three months from my twenty-first birthday, there was nothing to keep him from pulling me out and sending me to a work program or worse. Or even forcing me to hand the baby over to the courts for placement, branding me incorrigible, and dumping me in a fucking convent for the rest of my days.
If I could somehow manage to keep my condition a secret, I could use the time before my birthday to plan my escape -ourescape, I silently corrected myself, laying one hand on my still-flat belly. Laying in the dark and pondering my situation, the perfect way to avoid detection came to me.
The most recent rescued Omega, Bari, was pregnant with twins and his scent was so strong that it overshadowed everything around him. If I could simply arrange to sit near him when we were in groups, there was a very real chance that I could actually keep my condition a secret long enough to finally be my own man.
Giving up on sleep, I switched on the bedside lamp and reached for the pen and paper I kept on the nightstand, beginning a list of everything I knew about Bari’s schedule and where I’d seen him in his free time. If this plan was going to work, I’d need to spend as much time around Bari as possible and God knew Ineededthe plan to work.
Sylas
“You want to run that by me one more time, Chuck?” I switched the phone from my left shoulder to my right and reached for the rag I was using to polish the hubcaps on my vintage Chevy truck. “I’m pretty sure you lost me somewhere.”
