Chapter 63 #2
Shawn leans in, sotto voce, and says to me, “Don’t worry, they’re very trainable. You just gotta be patient with them.”
“Hey!” Jax playfully protests while Todd snickers.
“Actually,” Shawn continues, to me, “yours might be more easily trainable than mine since he’s a beta, not an Alpha.”
“Hey!” Todd says while Jax bursts out laughing and slaps him on the back.
Doctor Williams, a human woman married to an Alpha wolf, seems really nice. I immediately like her. After she swears to maintain secrecy, Jax and Shawn, with some input from Todd, walk her through what happened, including everything that led up to it, and the whys.
She nods. “I would like a copy of those formulas you used,” she tells Shawn. “Obviously whatever you did worked, although I personally wouldn’t have added the cannabis and kratom in the first round.”
“Normally I wouldn’t have, either,” Shawn says. “But given the serious nature of this entire situation, and the truncated timeframe, and that it was his first heat, I wanted to stack the deck.”
She smiles. “Well, looks like you succeeded. We could open an apothecary.”
“Thanks doc, but I already have enough work.” He pulls out his phone and she recites her personal email address so he can forward everything to her.
She proceeds to get basic vital signs on both of us. When she finishes she kindly smiles at me.
“This is rare,” she says. “As in, I’ve never heard of a different species beta getting an omega pregnant on the very first heat ever. But I’m willing to bet the chance of you being pregnant is 100%, because pregnancy’s the only thing that short-circuits an omega wolf’s mating heat.”
“And death,” I mumble.
She laughs. “Well, yeah, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say that’s not what this is.”
“You sure?” I look up at her. “Maybe I died and I’m in…” What would this be? I don’t want to say hell, because that’s not right.
Todd sits next to me on the sofa and drapes an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “I know, baby,” he says, nuzzling the top of my head. “This wasn’t the plan. And…” He makes a low, unhappy noise, not quite a sigh. “If you don’t want to—”
“I’m keeping this baby no matter what!” I snap, sensing where he was heading with that. “Even if I have to leave, I’m keeping it.”
He holds me tighter. “It’s okay, baby. No one’s going anywhere.”
“No,” Jax says from where he’s standing on the other side of the living room. “No one is going anywhere.” He wears a dark, thunderous expression. “You’re pack, and that’s it. Full stop.”
“He does smell like pack,” she says to Jax. “So kudos, that part of the plan went, eh, according to plan. Congrats.”
“I thought you were a human?” I ask.
Another smile. “I was born into the pack. I’m lucky my metabolism is slower, like a shifter, both from my lineage and my Alpha mate.
I was born with excellent senses of hearing, sight, and smell.
My mom’s a non-shifting wolf, born into the pack.
My dad’s a beta wolf shifter also born into the pack, but one of his grandfathers was human.
” She shrugs. “Genetics are funny, huh?”
A thought hits me. “Will it be healthy? I mean, if it’ll be born horribly suffering and without any chance to live…” I swallow hard. “How will we know it’s okay?”
“First, we’ll confirm you caught with a blood test,” she says. “From there I’ll run the tests I normally run. The closest analog I have is human or nearly human women who mate with male shifters from other species.”
“Like Mom,” Todd says.
“Yes, exactly. Just like your mom. And I’ve delivered your siblings,” she adds.
“Women in those cases have had babies who are born perfectly healthy. As have women from shifter lines who can’t shift and who mate with male shifters from different species.
I’ve never heard of a baby born to a parental combo like that being a shifter.
I’ve also never seen it happen with both male parents being shifters from completely different species.
Not saying it’s never happened, because maybe it has but it’s so rare I haven’t heard of it.
My gut instinct says we’re looking at a best-case scenario—a healthy nearly human baby who can’t shift. ”
“And the worst-case?” I ask, tearing up at the thought.
Her smile fades. “We’ll closely monitor you.
Bloodwork, scans, everything. I don’t have the machine needed to do a high-level scan once you’re farther along, but my cousin runs a radiology clinic in Brooksville.
She’ll take us in after hours and run the scans for me off the books.
That way we’ll know immediately if there’s… ”
She hesitates. “I will be honest with you throughout the process. I will support you, as your doctor and caregiver. If there is an issue, we’ll discuss it at that time and I will give you all options to choose from.
But for your peace of mind, and I know this is difficult under the circumstances, please assume everything is progressing normally and your baby’s healthy unless or until I tell you it’s not. ”
“Have you ever terminated a male omega pregnancy before?” Jax asks.
“Twice, while we still lived with the affiliated pack in Colorado for a couple of years after I completed medical school in Denver. Both were raped during their first heats and neither wanted to keep it. That’s how they’d made their way to our pack to start with, escaping their home packs.
They both later went on to have babies with mates.
I’ve also had to induce labor early a couple of times for health problems for the baby or the omega father, and fortunately those had positive outcomes. ”
“I like the idea that we assume everything’s normal unless or until it’s not,” Todd comments.
“It’s already not normal!” I realize I’m shrieking and I can’t help it.
It’s finally starting to hit me that…
I’m pregnant.
I’m going to have a baby.
How’d I go from wondering in the space of a few weeks if I’d even be able to stay alive to now I’m bringing another life into the world?
A life that never would have been possible had I not escaped my father, because I would have been forced into a marriage I damned sure didn’t want, to a woman I have zero romantic feelings for.
And I would’ve gotten myself killed trying to kill my father before allowing him to force me to father a child with her.
“Any special instructions, doc?” Todd asks as he watches me, apparently—rightfully—worried I’m close to an emotional breakdown.
“Stay hydrated and no heavy lifting or strenuous physical activity for the next couple of weeks. I mean nothing more strenuous than doing the dishes. Don’t lift anything more than about ten pounds. Plus, obviously, no alcohol or drugs.”
“Why no physical activity?” Shawn asks.
“Oh, that applies to you, too. If there’s going to be a miscarriage—which happens in male omega first pregnancies more often than in their later pregnancies or in normal female pregnancies—it usually happens within the first couple of weeks.
Also meaning no sex for the next several weeks.
Including masturbating because orgasms can trigger contractions.
Not until I’m sure everything’s okay. No need to jostle things around in there, and your hormones will already be a mess enough as it is. ”
“You got it, doc,” Jax says. He looks at me. “Obviously your initiation ceremony is cancelled.”
I swallow hard, my stomach falling. “But I want to be part of the pack,” I whisper.
“You are part of the pack. As the pack Alpha I have the authority to modify requirements. There’s not a single person in this pack who, under the circumstances, will disagree with me, either.”
I’m forcing myself not to break down in tears. Stupid how just a little while ago I didn’t want any cock near me that wasn’t Todd’s, and now I’m upset I’m not getting railed silly by a bunch of guys I haven’t even met.
Jax tips his head. “I’m not saying you won’t have an initiation,” he kindly says, a tone that nearly breaks me. “I’m saying that, for now, I refuse to do anything to endanger you or your baby. You are not the first pregnant person—female or male—who we’ve deferred or delayed initiation for, okay?”
I sniffle and nod and feel stupid as hell for getting upset about this.
“Why don’t we head home?” Shawn suggests. “I think Todd and Mal have things to discuss.”
“We do,” Todd says.
“I’ll call and check in with you tomorrow morning,” Jax tells Todd, who nods.
“You okay?” the doc asks me. “Do you want me to hang for a while to answer questions?”
I shake my head because I’m definitely not okay, but I also don’t want her here right now. I just want Todd, and I want time to sit with this and…process.
“We’re good, doc,” Todd says. “Thanks.”
She gives him her personal cell and home numbers.
“Call me, day or night, okay? I mean it. And call my office in the morning and tell them I need you scheduled for the day after tomorrow, an early morning appointment just after we open, for bloodwork and urinalysis. You too, Shawn. I can run those tests in-house. Fasting tests, only water after midnight the night before. Pregnancy tests, obviously, but I also want baselines for sugar, white blood cell count, kidney function—all the usual stuff. They’ll know. ”
“Will do,” Todd says.
Jax and Shawn lean in to hug me before Todd walks them out.
Alone in the house, I’m…
Numb indicates I can’t feel, but that’s not it at all. It’s like I’m overloaded. Like every circuit in my nervous system has burned out. So much has hit me in such a short amount of time, it’s like I’ve lost the ability to…process.
Todd returns and sits next to me on the couch, and then it’s just the two of us.
Well, two-point-one of us, I guess.
I flop over on the couch, away from Todd, and stare at the ceiling. He rests his hand on my thigh and I have no clue where my mind is right now.
“Can I get you anything?” he asks.
I harshly laugh. “A new set of parents? A new father, at least. I love Mom.”
“Sorry.”