Chapter 15
Russell
The ding of the bell above the door wakes me. With a startled blink, I try to look presentable for the customers, but when I turn my head, I hear the familiar sound of a wheelchair creaking and instantly know there’s no need for that.
“Morning, darlin’!” Auntie Elmira beams the moment she sees me, arms raised in excitement. Hunter is pushing her in, giving me the same reserved smile and a nod he always does. His black hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and his thick beard looks freshly trimmed.
“Oh, hey!” I quickly search my mind to find out if she said she would come around and I forgot about it. No, I think this visit is impromptu, though it’s getting to that time when she would usually turn up. “What are you doing here so early?”
“Had a hospital appointment in town, so I thought we would drive up,” she says.
I walk up to them and bend down to hug her. As always, Elmira smells of cinnamon and spices; soft and warm and loving. I briefly hug Hunter, too.
“I see. Everythin’ okay?”
“Yes, yes, everything is okay,” Elmira notes, waving her hand as if it doesn’t even matter. Then she scrunches up her nose and glances at Hunter. “Are you okay, darlin’?”
Do I look that drained? My face might be a little red from resting it against the counter. “Why? I’m fine. Just feelin’ a bit tired these days. Must be somethin’ about the changing weather. And I haven’t been eating that well recently, so…guess that could explain it.”
She always worries about me. I know she feels like she needs to do it on behalf of both my parents, who aren’t here, but I wish she wouldn’t stress herself over me too much. I worry about her a lot, too, but that’s just a part of being a family.
Her rusty brown eyes look me over. She keeps sniffing the air. “You smell different. Doesn’t he smell different, baby?” she asks, twisting at the waist to address Hunter.
He draws his brows together, clearly uncomfortable with openly scenting another omega like that. We share an awkward glance before he responds. “I…err, I guess so? A little,” he mutters while resting against the handles of the wheelchair.
Elmira wheels herself closer to me—nearly making Hunter fall over in the process because he didn’t expect it—and forces me to bend down to her to be able to touch my cheek. “Are you sick?” she asks, the line between her brows and the wrinkles around her eyes both deepening.
I know that illness, cancer or otherwise, is something she always worries about at the back of her mind, so I gently take her hand and pull it aside with a smile.
“I’m okay, really. No pain or anything. I’m probably just missin’ some vitamins.
Iron, or B12. Maybe vitamin D. Not having those makes you sleepy and tired, don’t it? ”
Humming thoughtfully, she tilts her head and keeps scenting me.
“You’ve gained a bit of weight,” she mutters, her eyes narrowed as if in suspicion.
I step away with a little chuckle. It doesn’t bother me—my weight’s always fluctuated, especially after I left the army—but she’s usually not one to comment on that sort of stuff.
“Judging my weight now, are we? I…guess I have.” I admit with a shrug.
“I’ve been gettin’ kinda lazy these past months. ”
She doesn’t need to know that I haven’t been taking care of myself much because I’ve been depressed about an alpha I barely knew, one I can’t forget about, who left after spending the most extraordinary few nights stuck here with me.
She doesn’t need to worry about my mental state as well as the physical, or chastise me for ‘not finding some nice man from around here instead of dreaming of city alphas.’
Something shifts behind her eyes in a way that puts me on alert. Sharply, she turns to Hunter. They share some kind of telling look I’m not privy to, and I notice his entire face changing, too.
My gut twists with unease.
“An omega only changes their scent this much if they’re sick or— You haven’t had any visitors recently to help you with your…needs, have ya?”
My cheeks flare with embarrassment as soon as she asks. I let out an uneasy chuckle and rest my hands on my hips. “Pft, why are you askin’ me that?” She usually doesn’t talk to me about these things.
Hunter clearly senses the awkwardness, so he steps in with that firm, steady voice of his. “Omegas only start smelling different when they’re sick or pregnant, Russell.” He narrows his dark eyes slightly. “I think we’re tryin’ to figure out which one it is.”
I open my mouth, ready to dispute the ridiculousness of that, but then my chest tightens and my stomach churns.
Memories of all the things we did with Wren flash through my mind. The very unprotected, wild, adult things.
Aunt Elmira’s eyes go wide for a moment before her expression softens in concern. “Has an alpha knotted you recently, darling?” she asks in a careful tone.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I blurt. I’m sure of it, even if my heart pounds a thousand beats a second and my skin buzzes with adrenaline. I can’t be. “I-I haven’t been sick. I haven’t thrown up. It has to be something else,” I say, shaking my head determinedly.
Because I am determined. I took suppressants the entire time I was in the army. They’re safe to be taken here and there, but I was on them for over four years in a row. I read the pamphlets. Taking them for as long as I did was most likely bound to make me infertile. I know that.
“By the Dualis, Russell!” Elmira practically shouts, wrapping her hands around the armrests of her wheelchair in shock. She gives me the glare my mother used to give me when I was in trouble. “Not everybody gets morning sickness!”
Hunter’s thick brows raise nearly all the way to his hairline.
It can’t be.
I struggle to get hold of myself with a sharp inhale. “I…it was when… When there was that blizzard a few months ago. Remember how I…told you that late Mrs. Compton’s son had to stay over because—” My gaze drops to my stomach and my words abandon me.
I stare down at it, realizing that maybe it hasn’t been just me being lazy and not working out or doing much else besides eating like crap.
I have been…rounding…slightly, but I was always a little chunky.
At times more fat than muscle, at times the other way around.
So I thought nothing of it. But this is different, isn’t it?
“What were you thinking, Russell?!”
“I…”
Auntie Elmira puts her head in her hands with a frustrated sigh. “You weren’t thinkin’, that’s what!” she snaps.
I frown. She knows I’ve been hearing variations of that ever since I was a kid. My parents would tell her off if they heard her say stuff like that, which is why she has that uneasy look on her face.
Can I blame her, though? She’s right. I wasn’t thinking.
Good gods, I wasn’t thinking at all…
I didn’t consider that possibility. Even when Wren knotted me and came inside me over and over again.
Even though he was an alpha in rut and I was an omega in heat.
All I cared about was him. About those sad blue eyes.
About making him feel good. And yeah, I cared about him making me feel good, too.
What happened here during that storm almost didn’t seem real, so how can this be real?
Maybe I really am as soft in the head as people say…
Auntie Elmira makes another sound of exasperation before looking up at me, clearly having come up with some sort of plan. “Alright, darlin’, we…we gotta get you to the doc. Yes! That’s what we’re going to do,” she mumbles to herself while absently rubbing her temple. Hunter nods behind her.
Why does it feel like I’m a teenager who got knocked up? An irrational sense of apprehension bubbles up in my chest. “I don’t want to go all the way to the hospital. It—”
I need to think.
Dualis be damned, I need to think about this!
My heart’s still inside my throat, and my head feels all light.
I lean against the counter next to me so that I can stay standing at all.
Is tiredness a sign of pregnancy? What else was I overlooking and ignoring?
What else was there that I was too dumb to notice? How could I be this fucking stupid?
“Oh, not the hospital, darlin’. Doc Coleman.”
The mountain doctor?
That man has been around ever since I can remember, taking care of everyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t go all the way to the proper hospital in Ridgelake.
He’s also been old for as long as I can remember, so he must be like a hundred by now.
Who knows if he even has an actual medical license.
He is respected by the locals, though, that’s for sure.
Especially by the venusfolk, being an omega himself. And he’s definitely helped with plenty of the more natural, unassisted births people prefer around here. So I suppose he’s got experience with that.
I rub the back of my neck and bite on my lip. I’m not getting out of this, am I? There’s no other option but to face this.
“Fine…”
“We might still be wrong about this. Right?” Hunter suggests in a careful tone, probably throwing it out there as an attempt to calm me down, considering my hands shake like a newborn fawn when I put them down.
“Right!” Auntie Elmira says promptly. “The doc will have pregnancy tests, so we’ll know for sure. Then we can…think about other steps.” Her voice gets quieter and more uneasy at the end, making the nausea suddenly overcoming me that much stronger.
If I am pregnant, then…then this is a damn mess.
And I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. Even after living my entire life as an omega, I never imagined myself in this scenario. Never. Not once. I guess it never felt like…I was worthy of something like that.
I look around the store. “I’ve only just opened. I can’t—”
“People will understand, Russell!” She raises her voice, stressing the importance of it. “Go on. Close up and put up a sign. We need to find out if you’ve gotten yourself into a situation before you give me a heart attack.”