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Didn’t even have the decency to stay until Lex woke.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lex

Everything hurt, but then it didn’t. Pain subsided as soft comfort embraced me, a warm breath ghosted over my cheek—Zeke’s sweet mint laced with a tuna sandwich that made me recoil and groan. “Watch where you point the fish breath, dude!”

The words cracked in my throat as I pulled back and sat up, clutching my blanket to my aching belly that made my core tremble with weakness.

“Lex?” Zeke sat bolt upright and leaned over to cup my face, keeping me at arm’s length. Fear and worry had turned his beautiful features into a mask I hated. It tainted the beauty I loved.

“M’alright. Where’s princess stank-face?” I groggily glanced around, shifting my hips as I tried to tear my thoughts away from our baby. The horrible pain I felt still echoed in my mind. It was what I got for mucking about with the universe—cosmic karma.

Zeke choked on a breath and coughed. “What?”

“That morose little fucker with the horrible haircut?” I itched to slap the little dude.

“Probably off somewhere house hunting and running errands because he feels the first shred of guilt he’s ever had in his entire life.” Zeke’s sneer made me want to kiss away the lines in his face. I wanted his smile, anything for that dopey little love-struck look he had for me—at least until we’d found out the news… The lack of news.

“Why did he—” I found myself breaking down with a sob that stung my eyes and shook my chest. “Why did he do that if he knew? Were we really not supposed to have a baby? Was it on purpose? I didn’t know.”

“Hey. Hey.” Zeke reached out as I clutched the blanket in my lap and fought with my hands as he gestured toward me. “It’s alright. It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t! That—whatever he did.” I couldn’t hold back the sob that broke me and held a hand to my stomach in defeat. “I—”

Zeke rested a hand over mine and drew my shirt up. “Whenever a requisitor is in a book, they create their own little bubble. In a dive, it’s imperative to allow the acting requisitor to know the time skips so they can insulate their bubbles. That’s why it’s a bad idea to group dive with more than two people. I thought Mesmer would know better.”

“What…” I stared down at the little swell of my belly, the outward shape of it far larger than it’d been that morning. A light flutter from within had my heart swelling, my tears turning from misery to relief. “Wh—”

“It hurt so bad. I thought—” I rubbed a hand over the swollen surface and gasped at the little feathery flickers within.

“Your pants were biting into your belly.” Zeke gestured toward my stomach, and I reached down and winced at the slight bruising under my fingertips. “It happened so fast.”

“This really… This is complicated.” I rubbed my hand over the surface of my stomach and straightened my back, sucked my stomach in, and glanced around my body… “I don’t know if I can hide this.”

“Throw on a sweatshirt and do whatever you need… We have big discussions coming.” Zeke rested his head in his hands.

“You don’t want to go through with it?” I froze as my heart clenched and my breath halted.

Plenty of people tackled parenthood single.

I could do it. I had magic… Maybe whatever library they sent me to would let me keep the baby. Maybe I could afford a sitter. Maybe—

“What? No! No. We need a house, and like…a yard and babyproofing stuff. We need…baby things? Maybe we should visit your parents first before you’re bigger…” Zeke took my hand in his. “And there’s a babysitter… That’s going to take time to get us a nanny or something.”

I sighed in relief as my tears settled down. “Zeke.”

We crashed into one another’s arms and froze there, where one of us trembled like a dandelion in a breeze days before the seeds ripened. In either case, we trembled together, and he stroked over my head, fingers spread and digging to the scalp in a way only someone so intimately familiar with curly hair could.

Maybe it was the omega in me, maybe some misplaced trauma bonding or whatever… But slick pooled at my backside and I drew Zeke against me, rolling and climbing atop his lap in a fretful rustle of blankets and sheets. “I—I kinda need this.”

“I don’t know if we sh—” He hardened underneath me as I reached down in desperation to fish his cock out and engaged in some mild acrobatics and contortion to shed my pants onto the floor. Still had my socks on, a crying shame, but my body reacted just like a traumatized omega in one of Warwitha Calvin’s books.

“I need—” The words broke in my throat as I reached back to feel my hole. I was wet, disgustingly so. As I sank two fingers into myself to stretch in preparation. Zeke wasn’t the largest man I’d ever seen, but he certainly needed preparation to take. I toyed with my hole, finding my insides sensitive but not overstimulating. I wouldn’t come from my fingers alone, so I abandoned my efforts and decided to take him—ready or not.

Zeke struggled for a moment, fighting instincts that I’d already given up on. An omega needed their alpha, in distress. It was nature—if not fantasy, nature. In either case, it was an excuse for us to be together intimately, for me to celebrate my relief—for us to bond.

I sank down, letting his cock breach me, sliding into my channel with familiar ease and a wonderful burn. Damn, I loved it.