Chapter 18 Pregnancy
PREGNANCY
Ottis hovered by the front doors, waiting for Doc to return. He tried not to gnaw on his nails. He tried not to pull out his hair, either.
When his stomach tried to cave in like a sinkhole, he yanked on his clothes, collecting Marcie from Hijinks.
Marcie giggled and kicked, taking the edge off his worries.
It was kind of crazy, actually. It wasn’t too long ago that all Ottis needed to center himself, was Marcie safe and happy in his arms. He would’ve been perfectly fine with things staying that way, too. Marcie at the center of his world.
Except sometime over the past two days, things had changed.
Now, Doc’s opinion mattered. Some part of Ottis’ wolf-brain demanded that he do everything he could to make Doc approve of him again. It made him horribly nervous. Doc could easily cast him aside if he wasn’t satisfied; where would that leave Ottis and Marcie?
Maybe we should leave before it’s too late, Ottis thought. Before I fall in love with him.
“What do you think?” he whispered to Marcie, bringing her to the living room couch. “Is this too dangerous?”
Marcie grabbed his lower lip and yanked.
Ottis groaned. “I may as well flip a coin.”
The front door swung open. Ottis ducked behind a couch and tried not to breathe, even though he knew his thundering pulse had already given him away.
“I don’t exist,” he squeaked.
Doc snorted, closing the door. “And who does that disembodied voice belong to?”
“A ghost,” Ottis’ mouth blurted.
“A very chatty ghost who happens to be in my lair,” Doc rumbled. “Tell me, is this ghost hurt?”
Ottis’ heart tumbled. “Um, no?”
His heart skipped.
Doc was in front of the couch in a heartbeat.
Ottis cowered and clutched Marcie to himself like a shield. “I’m not hurt!” Another skip. “... That badly.”
Doc narrowed his eyes. “Show me where. You don’t have to put Marcie down, but I won’t give this a rest until you’re treated.”
“Fine.” Ottis set Marcie in the circle of his legs, before peeling off his shirt. “Here.”
He turned slightly to show Doc the bullet graze. Doc sucked in a slow breath; he probed Ottis’ shoulder, careful not to touch the wound itself. “Just this?”
“Yeah.”
Doc turned away, only for Ottis to notice the line of red across his bicep.
“Hey, we’re twins,” Ottis blurted. Doc looked back, eyebrow raised. “You have a graze on your arm, just like me.”
“That doesn’t make us twins,” Doc said dryly.
“We’ve slept together, so I guess it’s for the best that we’re not.”
Doc snorted, the tension in his shoulders easing. He disappeared through the front door and, from the sounds he made, opened and shut his car trunk. Moments later, he was back with a massive first aid kit.
Ottis gaped. “Why is your kit so huge?”
The alpha coughed. “Some might even say it’s not big enough.”
“You did not just turn that into a sex joke.”
Doc’s eyes crinkled. “I serve as a medic on some of my friends’ rescue missions. This kit covers everything I might need in the field, for creatures of most sizes.”
It was completely unnecessary for two bullet graze wounds, but Ottis was very impressed by the spread of supplies.
“It’s big enough for me,” he blurted.
The warmth in Doc’s voice soaked into Ottis’ bones. “I could tell by how wide your eyes went.”
“That’s because my eyes are bigger than my hole,” said Ottis’ mouth. “Ugh! Just... Ignore me. Please.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I would like to listen to you for as long as I can.”
“I’m never going to crawl out of my hole of shame,” Ottis moaned. “Which is totally not the hole in my ass.” Then Ottis looked down, and saw Doc’s still-bloody wound. His embarrassment faded. “Crap. Do you think... I could patch up your wound? It can’t be easy to reach your arm at that angle.”
Doc grinned behind his mask. “Of course.”
The shopping cart wheeled into the living room, its cargo basket lined with soft blankets. Ottis brightened.
“Hey, new friend! We haven’t had time for introductions yet, but we’ll get there soon. Right now, I need you to watch Marcie for a bit, yeah? You’re a great cart.”
The cart squeaked its wheels excitedly. When Ottis placed Marcie in its cargo basket, the cart carefully brought her around the living room, showing just a fraction of its usual excitement.
“You’re doing so great,” Ottis said.
The cart flipped its wheels happily.
Ottis looked back at Doc, who was smiling with his eyes.
“What do you think?” Doc said.
“I’m liking the cart. I think it was a good idea to bring it back.”
“Me too.” They grinned at each other. Then Doc peeled off his shirt in a glorious display of flexing muscles, and Ottis couldn’t help staring. Doc reached over and gently shut Ottis’ mouth. “Up. Let’s rinse out these wounds in the bathroom.”
“Right.” Ottis got to his feet, feeling inadequate next to Doc, with how thin he was. Except Doc traced his knuckle up Ottis’ belly, rumbling low in his throat. “You like how I look,” Ottis said, surprised.
“Of course. I would like to taste every inch of you.”
That made Ottis feel so special, too.
Doc squeezed the back of Ottis’ neck. He herded Ottis to the nearest bathroom and made him hold out his arm under the shower, gently washing his wound with soap and water. Then he used the gentlest water pressure to rinse it clean.
Ottis did the same for him, his fingers careful on Doc’s raw flesh.
“You’re used to seeing wounds,” Doc murmured as he dried them off with clean paper towels.
Ottis shrugged. “When you have eight alpha brothers getting into scrapes and comparing wounds like they’re measuring dicks, it kind of becomes...”
“Normal?”
“Normal,” Ottis agreed.
Doc laughed, easing the anxiety that still lingered in Ottis’ belly. He brought Ottis back to the living room and sat with him on the couch, pulling on a pair of gloves. He smeared a thin layer of ointment on Ottis’ shoulder and bandaged it up.
It wasn’t all that different from the scrapes Ottis had helped his brothers with. But it still felt really daunting when Doc—an actual doctor—turned his arm to Ottis.
Ottis gulped and carefully applied ointment to Doc’s raw flesh, pressing a piece of gauze over it. Doc helped him tear off sections of tape; Ottis secured the dressing. “There.”
“I don’t get a kiss?” Doc asked lightly.
Ottis blushed. “Fine, you get one.” He leaned in and hovered his lips a hairsbreadth from the bandage, making a kissing noise. “I could even French your wound, if you’d like.”
Doc laughed. “No, thank you.”
They sat together for a while, quietly. Until Doc’s smile faded and he pinned Ottis with his gaze. “I had the situation under control, you know. Out there.”
Ottis hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“And I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Doc took Ottis’ hand, the one on the same side as his graze wound.
“You were lucky that the bullet mostly missed you. But if you had been a second too slow, if you had moved a little more... Your injury would’ve been a lot worse.
And I need you to keep yourself safer than that, sweetheart. I can’t—I can’t fix all wounds.”
Doc said that raggedly. Ottis’ heart ached.
“It hurts you, when you can’t save your patients,” Ottis said.
Doc sighed like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I remember them. And I don’t want to risk you. It’s why I snapped earlier. I’m sorry.”
Ottis swallowed, leaning into Doc’s chest in an attempt to comfort him. Doc wrapped his arms around Ottis.
“Are you still mad at me?” Ottis asked in a small voice.
Doc shook his head. “I’m not... mad at you. Mad at your actions, maybe. I was afraid of losing you, sweetheart.”
Ottis’ pulse fluttered. “Well, what am I supposed to do if I lose you?”
Doc blinked and looked up, surprised. Like he had never heard that before.
Ottis’ heart went tumbling down the stairs. He straightened and scowled at Doc. “I don’t want you to be in danger, either. Because I will be very upset if you die.”
Those bright blue eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yes!”
Doc rumbled, pulling Ottis closer. “I’ll try my best to stay safe. You’re my favorite omega.”
“Well, just you wait. If I get pregnant, I’m going to be pukey and grumpy, and you’re going to regret everything.”
“I won’t,” Doc said, something else flashing through his eyes.
A week later, Ottis snooped around the forbidden wing of Doc’s mansion.
In truth, he had almost forgotten about it. Ever since his heat, he had been feeling more tired than usual, his movements slow, his eyelids heavy. More than once, he had fallen asleep in the middle of playing with Marcie, only for her to stuff her fingers up his nose.
In an attempt to stay awake, he had decided to go exploring while Doc was away on his hospital shift. Just that he ran out of energy a few steps into this hallway.
Ottis slumped against the wall and sighed.
His shopping cart friend squeaked, nudging his hip.
“Hey buddy,” Ottis said tiredly. He draped himself over the cart’s handle so he could shuffle along the hallway with some support. The cart flipped a wheel in question. “I’m so tired,” Ottis explained. “Pretty sure this wasn’t what you signed up for when you came to live here.”
Instead of racing off, the cart wriggled beneath him, content to move at his pace. Marcie was in the cart’s cargo basket, shaking a rattle. When Ottis reached for it, Marcie gave the rattle to him excitedly. Then she picked up more toys, and began handing them to him.
“Thanks, hon,” Ottis said, his heart full.
He slowed down when they reached the only doors on that side of the mansion. It was a set of steel doors, with a black sensor pad next to it.
Ottis had a sneaking suspicion that this room was secretly built like a fortress.
“I don’t suppose it’ll let me in?” he mumbled, pressing his hand against the sensor.
Nothing happened.
“Psst,” said someone from around the corner. “Want to know the secret password?”
Ottis did not trust that voice. But it made him curious, and he couldn’t help himself. “What’s the password?”