“Not before you tell me why your dads named you Titan,” Mathlin replied. “You said you’d tell me!”
Titan grinned wolfishly and wagged his tail. “Soon.”
Mathlin tried to roar; so did Jannie. “No fair!”
“Hey, I’ve got to save some intrigue for later,” Titan said.
31
PREGNANCY AND BIRTH
Mathlin retchedin front of the toilet. Titan skidded into the bathroom and knelt next to him, brushing his hair away from his face.
“Sorry,” the alpha murmured, looking guilty. “This pregnancy thing really sucks for the omega.”
Mathlin shrugged. “Not much I can do about it. It was like that with Jannie too.”
Titan growled. “Well, now you have me.” He stayed next to Mathlin and rubbed his back, before offering him a glass of water to rinse his mouth. When Mathlin was finally done, Titan scooped him up and carried him out of the bathroom.
“I can walk!” Mathlin said.
“Yes, but I like how tiny you feel in my arms,” Titan rumbled. “Small omega. All mine. Besides, you look tired.”
Mathlin sighed. Hewastired. This pregnancy was hitting him harder than Jannie’s; he felt sleepy most days. When he tried waking up in the mornings to follow Titan to the bakery, Titanmade him fall back asleep—but he did carry Mathlin and Jannie to the car, driving them to the bakery so they could continue to sleep there while he baked.
Because Mathlin’s fatigue had set in soon after he’d conceived, there hadn’t been time for him to do a proper surgery on Titan’s bicep. It had healed awkwardly. Mathlin kept meaning to fix the muscle alignment... when his eyelids didn’t feel quite so heavy.
“It’s okay. I’m working around it,” Titan kept assuring him. “You need sleep, sweetheart.”
“Fine,” Mathlin grumbled, already asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Titan had not terminated Mathlin’s contract. He was still paying Mathlin even though Mathlin did little more than snuggle up to him and sleep, but Mathlin wasn’t awake enough to realize it yet.
In the meantime, he gnawed on raw steaks, clung to Titan, and dragged Titan into their nest whenever they were home.
It waswhen they were spooning together in their nest, Titan’s large hand covering Mathlin’s belly, that the pregnancy began to feel real.
Titan was swirling his fingers through the gray fuzz on Mathlin’s belly, pressing soft kisses to Mathlin’s shoulder.
“Your belly is starting to show,” Titan rumbled, curling more snugly against Mathlin.
Mathlin’s heart skipped. When he looked down, he realized that Titan was right. His belly was a bump now, something visibleinstead of being unchanged like before. Gingerly, he covered Titan’s hand with his own. “Our pup.”
If Titan were the same species as Mathlin, this would’ve been a litter of pups. But because they were different species, there was only one child in there.
One child, but no less precious because of it.
“What do you want to name the pup?” Titan asked. “How did you decide on Jannie’s name?”
“I named her after my grandmother, Janelle. How did your dads decide onyourname? I don’t know any Titans.”
Titan huffed sheepishly, ducking his head. “I’m part of a litter. When we were born, my dads decided that they wanted to get to know us first, before choosing our names.”
Mathlin squinted suspiciously. “So you did something weird.”
“So I did something weird,” Titan confirmed. “We were all in the pack house one night, in the entertainment room to watch a movie. I don’t know why they decided it was a good idea for pups that young, since all we did was roll around and play-fight each other. Anyway, there was a movie starting up on the screen; they had a movie projector beaming it onto the wall.”
“And?” Mathlin held his breath.
