Incompatible (Eden’s Omegaverse #8)

PROLOGUE

LAKE

"Lake! We need to go or we’ll be late!"

Aiden’s voice calls from the direction of the driveway.

I sigh and look over at Vren, my husband’s brother-in-law, who is here to stay with the kids. He is trying to clean up the crumbs that Snow keeps producing with impressive dedication. In front of him lies a stack of papers he has been scribbling on while eating a blueberry croissant.

Winter is watching him with a frown.

"Do you have to be such a pig?" he mutters.

"Winter, don’t talk to your brother like that. You made just as much of a mess when you were his age."

"Not that much," Winter grumbles, pouting.

Snow looks up from under his messy white bangs, then sticks his tongue out at him.

"Daaaaad! Snow stuck his tongue out at me!" Winter immediately tattles, as if I don’t see it myself.

Vren wipes the table again, smiling. "You’d better get going, Lake, or you really will be late."

"All right, all right, I’m going," I say, brushing some crumbs off my sweatshirt. I am wearing yoga pants and a loose hoodie that does a poor job of hiding my very round belly. I am nearly nine months along, but I refuse to give up my weekly prenatal yoga classes.

"Will you be gone long?" River asks in a hesitant voice.

I turn to him. My oldest son is standing by the window, holding his violin, his big blue-green eyes fixed on me. The sunlight catches his hair, lighting up deep red tones.

"Two hours at most," I say, walking over to him.

"I want you to help me practice," he murmurs.

I tilt my head and kiss his cheek. "River, your performance isn’t for another two weeks. You’ll have plenty of time to make it perfect. You’re already doing so well."

"That’s not true! I still mess up all the time!" His lips, usually curved in a sweet smile, now tremble with frustration, his eyes filling with tears.

"Hey, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. You’re already playing well, and you’ve got two whole weeks left to practice."

"I want to practice today," River says stubbornly, still pouting.

"We’ll practice when I get back, I promise, okay?" I sigh.

Snow jumps down from his high chair and runs to me, holding out a sheet of paper. It is a drawing of our whole family, me, his dad, River, Winter, and Snow. In my arms, he drew a tiny baby with a tuft of dark red hair.

"Oh, what a beautiful picture, Snow! You even added your new baby brother!"

River leans over my arm to look. "How do you know what color his hair will be? Maybe he’ll be blond like you guys."

Snow doesn’t say anything. Even though he is almost three, he still doesn’t talk. He just points at my belly, then at the baby in the drawing, and nods firmly.

"In about two weeks, we’ll see if you’re right about the red hair," I say with a smile.

"Lake!" Aiden’s voice comes from behind me. "We’ve got twenty-five minutes. We’ll just make it if we leave now."

He stands in the doorway, watching us with a faint smile.

"I’m coming!" I call back, turning around, only to feel Snow grab my hand.

He lifts his drawing again, pointing at something above the baby’s head. It looks strange, like a black smudge.

"What’s that? A bat?" I ask.

"Looks like a fallen angel," mutters River. "With his wings broken."

Snow glances at him and nods firmly.

Then darts back to the table, grabs another drawing, and runs it over to me.

This one shows a flipped-over car with two figures lying next to it.

The drawing is crude, made of wobbly lines, but one of the figures has red hair and the other blond.

They look small, more like children than adults, with their little legs sticking up.

"What’s this, sweetheart?" I ask gently.

Snow doesn’t answer. He just tilts his head and stares at me.

"Why do you draw such awful things?" River snaps, snatching the picture from him. "Do you always have to be so weird and creepy?" he shouts, throwing the paper on the floor.

Snow lets out a high-pitched sound and shoves River.

"Oh no, here comes a fight!" Winter shouts, jumping off his chair to join in.

"Snow, you can’t hit your brother. And River, don’t take his drawings, that wasn’t nice," I begin, but Aiden lays a hand on my shoulder.

"Lake, we really have to go."

I let out a huff. "All right, kids, behave yourselves and don’t drive Uncle Vren crazy, okay?"

River’s eyes are shiny with tears. "Why do you always defend him? His drawings are stupid! He’s been drawing skeletons and dead people lately!"

"We’ll talk about it when I get back," I say, forcibly keeping my voice calm.

Vren steps closer and crouches beside Snow. "Hey, come on, buddy. Let’s draw something nice, maybe flowers or a sun, yeah?"

But Snow turns and clings tightly to my leg. I stroke his bristling blond hair. "I’ll be back in two hours, sweetheart."

He shakes his head hard.

"I have to go, or I won’t reach the car," I say with a small smile, but he keeps holding on tight.

"Hey, little guy," Aiden says, gently pulling Snow’s arms from my leg. The boy starts to struggle, his face twisting as if he is about to cry.

"What’s wrong, baby? I’ll be back soon. Then we’ll draw together, okay?"

"You said you’d practice with me!" River cries out, his voice trembling.

"We’ll do it all, practice and draw, when I get back," I promise.

Vren takes Snow from Aiden’s arms. My youngest is crying hard now.

"Go ahead," Vren says. "They’re predicting rain later. You don’t want to get caught in it."

"All right, we’re going," I murmur, casting one last look at my children before stepping outside.

Aiden keeps glancing at me as we walk toward the car.

"Listen," he says as we buckle up. "There’s something I want to ask. My second cousin Jordan, you remember him? He’s been switched to part-time at work and is looking for some extra hours.

I thought maybe we could ask him to come by for a couple of hours a day, help you around the house, maybe watch the kids for a bit. "

We pull out of the driveway. I stay quiet for a moment because, to be honest, I’ve been thinking the same thing. Being pregnant makes it hard to keep up with everything lately.

After a while, I say, "Maybe that’s not a bad idea, especially if we’re planning to expand the family even more," I say, giving him a look.

Aiden smiles knowingly. "You know I’d never say no to that. I’ve always wanted a big family."

I rub my chin. "Yeah, then maybe call Jordan. It’s probably time to get someone to help out around the house. We’re growing fast."

"I’ll call him tomorrow," Aiden says with a grin.

Twenty minutes later, we pull up to the fitness center where my yoga classes are held.

When I get out, Aiden suddenly walks around the car and comes up to me. He places his hands on my shoulders, then slides them up along my neck to my face, looking straight into my eyes.

"I love you, you know that?" he says quietly. "You’ve seemed so tired lately. This pregnancy feels different, doesn’t it? Harder."

I sigh. "It’s not even that. I’ve just been having these recurring nightmares lately. This constant sense of unease I can’t shake."

His fingers gently brush my cheeks. "Everything’s going to be all right, because it has to be, okay?" he whispers, then leans in and kisses me softly.

His silvery eyes, framed by long lashes, study me with such intensity that my heart squeezes.

"I want to believe that," I murmur. "Now come on, we’ve got two minutes left."

We walk into the room just as the instructor comes in. It is already filled with several pairs of expecting parents. Since we arrive late, we settle in a corner next to a couple we’ve seen a few times at earlier classes, though they always keep to themselves.

The alpha looks close to sixty, his hair almost completely gray, while his omega partner seems around forty, with a sharp, tense expression.

His dark blond hair is cut very short, giving him an almost minimalistic, austere look, and he always wears black.

He is probably in his ninth month too, but he seems to be handling the pregnancy much worse than I am.

His eyes are shadowed, his skin pale, and his hands and feet slightly swollen.

I give him a polite smile, and he nods stiffly in return.

The next forty-five minutes are devoted to exercises I genuinely enjoy.

I like staying active throughout my pregnancies.

I have plenty of discipline and never have trouble working out at home, and I try to swim in our pool whenever I can.

But these outings with Aiden are my break, my respite.

I love when his attention is focused only on me, when his hands move carefully over my body, when his eyes linger on me with tenderness.

Aiden is my True Mate, and we need each other to live.

I cherish those moments and don’t want to give them up.

After class, we head straight to the parking lot because a light drizzle has started. We are among the first to leave; most couples usually take longer in the locker room.

When Aiden tries to start the car, the engine sputters, coughs a few times, then dies.

He mutters something under his breath and tries again, but it stalls once more.

"We really need to replace this old piece of junk," he says.

Just then, the same couple we sat beside in class walks by. The older alpha and the serious-looking omega in black. I glance their way. In previous classes, they were quietly chatting with each other, but now there is something different between them, some kind of strained silence.

Aiden tries to start the car twice more. Nothing.

"I guess we’ll have to call roadside assistance," I say calmly, "or maybe an Uber."

Then I flinch slightly because the omega in black suddenly taps on my window.

"Car trouble?" he asks.

I roll the window down and smile weakly. "Looks like it. This car’s on its last legs."

"If you need a ride, we can help you, I think we live near you," he says.

I am surprised by the offer, considering how stern he looks. Maybe appearances really are deceiving. Aiden, however, seems less than thrilled.

"If we call roadside assistance, it’ll take forever," I murmur. "And I promised River we’d be home soon so I could help him practice…"

Aiden hesitates, then sighs. "All right. We’ll leave the car here. I’ll come back tomorrow and deal with it."

I turn back to the omega waiting by the window. "Thank you so much for the offer, we’ll take you up on it," I say with a friendly smile. He nods but doesn’t smile back.

The guy seems extremely serious and stiff, like some kind of official or municipal clerk.

Aiden walks around to my side, opens my door, and helps me out. My big belly makes every movement feel clumsy. We follow the couple to their car.

"I’m Lake," I say, extending my hand to the omega. "And this is Aiden."

"Albert," he replies shortly. "And this is my husband, Max."

I glance at him. The alpha looks terrible, his complexion gray, dark circles under his eyes. He gives us a hollow look, like a man too tired to care.

What a strange pair. Maybe even a little creepy.

Feeling an odd sense of unease, we climb into the back seat of their car, a sleek black SUV.

We give them our address, and Albert mentions that they live about five minutes away. He says he has seen us driving in front of them after previous classes and figured we must live nearby.

We start driving. The conversation stays light at first. We talk about the yoga class, the instructor’s quirks, and his favorite phrases that everyone has come to expect.

Albert speaks in a calm tone, not exactly talkative, but every word he says feels precise. Like each one needs to be considered before it leaves his mouth.

We are driving along the coast when he suddenly asks, "Have you chosen a name for your baby yet?"

"We were thinking of Bay," Aiden answers. "We’ve got Lake here, and our oldest is River. Maybe it’s time for Bay."

"An interesting naming pattern," Albert says, though it doesn’t sound like approval. "We’ll probably go with something more traditional," he adds after a moment. "We haven’t decided yet. It’s not an easy choice."

"That’s true. A lot of people use family names, grandparents, great-grandparents," Aiden says.

Throughout the drive, Max stays silent, focused on the road. I glance at him a few times; he looks awful. Sweat glistens on his forehead like he has a fever.

"Is this your first child?" I ask.

"Yes. A late-life situation," Albert replies. For the first time, he almost smiles, crookedly, but it is there.

"This will be my fourth," I say.

He doesn’t seem surprised. "I thought so. Congratulations. I’ve always wanted a big family, but life didn’t work out that way."

He stops there, like he is about to add something, then decides against it.

"The first child changes everything," Aiden says with a polite smile. "It’s exhausting, but it’s also the biggest miracle of your life."

Albert doesn’t respond. For a moment, we all stare out the window. The rain is picking up, and the wind hits the SUV’s windows in sharp gusts.

Something in me feels off. I squeeze Aiden’s hand tighter, lacing our fingers together.

My other hand rests on my belly. The baby inside me seems restless, stretching and kicking. A dull cramp rolls through me, then another, stronger one. It is normal this late in pregnancy; I often get these practice contractions.

I look at Aiden. Our eyes meet, and for a moment we just stare at each other. I take in his beautiful, sculpted face, his silver eyes framed by dark lashes. I love him so much. He is a part of every cell in my body, and I am part of his.

And then it happens.

The car jolts violently. We veer off the road.

Does Max lose control on the turn? It looks like he doesn’t even try to correct the wheel.

My gaze locks on his pale, rigid profile, his clenched jaw. Everything that follows happens so fast, I can’t make sense of it.

The car plunges down the slope, flipping, crashing through bushes and branches.

I scream, my fingers digging into Aiden’s hand.

And then everything goes black.