While Dexter and I hadn’t actually spoken about how we would break the news of Sage’s condition to him, I didn’t think that the way I had just done so was the most optimal choice.
This suspicion was supported by the way my mate shrieked “What?!” down the line loud enough that I winced and tore the phone away from my ear.
“Shh,” I heard Jamie in the background of the call, “unless you want the guards to catch me down here.”
“Sorry,” Sage murmured back, his voice a bit distant. I assumed he had turned his head to face Jamie. “I…I…I…”
I wished I could see my omega, that I could hold him and apologize for overwhelming him, and for ruining what should be joyous news for our relationship. For knowing what was happening inside his body before he even did.
“Sage, beautiful, I’m sorry,” I spoke the words anyway, even though they felt so inadequate in this situation. “In an ideal world, you should have learned about your pregnancy first. You should have had the opportunity to tell Dexter and meand—”
“You’re…you’re wrong.”
I sat back in the seat of the car, parked half a mile away from the old building where he was imprisoned, and I frowned. “What?”
“You’re wrong,” he repeated with a bit more conviction. The street around me was quiet; the industrial area void of people, save for the odd truck driving past. There were other buildings nearby; all large, gray and innocuous, and I wondered what kind of horrors lurked beneath them as well. “I can’t be…I mean, you never knotted me, and the only time you” —he cleared his throat “—well, you were still a beta then. And I wasn’t in heat. Dex was. So, I can’t be…”
Staring out of the windshield, I smiled a little sadly. I’d had the same misgivings, but Eric and Brandt were convinced, and I had no reason to doubt their science. Besides, my alpha and The Magic seemed just as certain as Brandt and Eric.
“Your blood test results came back the day you were arrested,” I cringed, hating even having to say that last word, my alpha braying and hoofing the ground in anger inside me, “and Eric and Brandt said they were pretty conclusive. I…wethink it probably happened that first night, even though we all still thought I was a beta then.”
And hadn’tthatbeen a fun conversation to have with the two doctors who just happened to be my mate’s brothers? If I hadn’t been so concerned about Sage at the time, I might have been more unsettled at sharing some of the more intimate details with them.
“I don’t…Serge, I…” My heart ached at the low whine that came through the call, and it took every thread of willpower I possessed not to fly over the barbed wire fence and…all right, I hadno way to actually get in to see my omega, but perhaps I could use my horn to gouge his jailers to death.
“Your brother has theories,” I told him instead, my own voice thick with emotion. I tried to talk to him normally, as though I wasn’t just as heartbroken at being separated as he sounded. “He’s keen to know if this means betas can successfully mate with omegas now that The Magic is spreading, or if it’s because I was secretly an alpha all along. He has, of course, promised a lot of testing in our future.”
I knew Sage was upset when the gentle teasing about his brother did not elicit a dramatic groan. Instead, my heart dropped into my stomach when he timidly asked, “Are you and Dex okay with this?” I obviously didn’t reply fast enough, because his breathing hitched and he added, “I didn’t know, and when we talked about it, we said we’d wait…”
“I don’t know how Dexter feels,” I answered honestly, wincing when I heard just how the words sounded.
Once again, I cursed the fact that we were doing this over the phone and not in person. That instead of being an exciting time, I was full of worry for his health and when I would ever get to see him again.
“And you?” he asked softly. I didn’t need to see him to imagine the anxious expression on his face, or the way he was probably worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
Leaning back against the headrest, I closed my eyes and allowed myself a moment —a fleeting, blissful moment— to pretend that he wasn’t trapped in a magic repressing cell. That we had learned about his pregnancy without the stress of a wrongful arrest hanging over our heads.
Even though Sage was correct in saying that we’d planned to wait, the thought of him growing round with my baby, glowing with joy and health, made me happy. He’d made no secret of how badly he had wanted to find an alpha, to follow his biological urges and devote his love and attention to children of his own.
I’d known the moment that I popped my knot that I would eventually give my mates the life —the family— they wanted. And, despite not having a chance to talk about it with Dexter, deep down I knew that he wanted the same happy ending with Sage as well. Hell, he knew Sage better than I did; there was no way he wouldn’t have seen babies in his future, with or without me in the picture.
“I’m feeling like I’ve failed you,” I confessed, not exactly answering Sage’s question, but getting to the crux of the matter instead. “I’ve been a terrible mate. An even worse alpha. I didn’t claim you. I left you for over a month. I wasn’t able to protect you from” —he couldn’t see me, but I waved a hand wildly in the confines of the car— “this. And all with a baby in your belly. But, even if I think you deserve a better alpha and mate than me, I am selfish, and I want it all anyway. I want you, and Dexter, and our baby.”
My omega was sniffling again, making my heart pang. “You’re not a bad alpha,” he argued, “or mate. Or bad anything. And when you get me out of here, I’m going to do whatever it takes until you agree with me.”
As upset that I was at the ongoing situation, his words made me smile. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the change in his tone and in his outlook. His fire was returning, hopefully replacing the helplessness I’d heard when we first began the call. “I’m going to hold you to that, beautiful.”
“Good.” He paused for so long that I was almost worried the call had dropped out, if not for the sound of his breathing. “And Serge?”
“Yes, Sage?”
“When you get me out of here, I’m going to need you to knot me properly.”
It was definitely wrong to be instantly aroused when the situation was still dire. My cock, however, didn’t get the memo. My voice turned ragged with instant need even to my own ears as I promised, “I’ll knot you and claim you like I should have that first night. You and Dexter both.”
My perfect mates.
My family.
