Chapter 23
Violet
My eyes felt as if they’d been super glued together. They were impossible to open, and everything felt heavy, even breathing felt impossible. Almost like I was swimming through honey and unable to find the surface.
I tried to force my eyes to open, but they fluttered uselessly and remained mostly closed.
Then, the scents of rotten citrus and burnt rubber drifted to my nose. Footsteps followed the smells.
No.
A hand brushed my cheek, and I shrunk into myself.
“Shhh, take it easy,” Logan whispered. “You’ve been so tired since you came home, don’t push yourself.”
My eyes slid open, and my heart skipped as I stopped breathing.
For a split second, I told myself this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Since escaping, I’d been having recurrent nightmares of Logan and everything I’d lived through in the Stellar Mansion.
When I woke up, I’d be in my nest or in Vinny’s bed, safe and warm, my bunny tucked under my chin.
Logan’s face hovered above me, still just as deceptively handsome as he’d always been but he looked older in ways he hadn’t when I left.
His mousy brown hair was a mess and exhausted crescents framed his eyes. There was something feverish in the way he looked at me, like he hadn’t slept properly since I’d disappeared and it’d been my fault.
“There’s my Dove,” he breathed, relief flooding his features.
My brain still clung to the idea that this wasn’t real. That any second now I’d wake up in my nest, Skye snoring softly nearby, Benji humming in the kitchen, Vinny’s scent wrapped around me like armor.
Then Logan slid his fingers under my chin and tilted my face up.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
My eyes lifted against my will.
Carefully, he adjusted something on my face, and something foreign rolled in my throat, and whatever he shifted made something in my throat slide.
My body reacted, causing me to gag. A sharp, tearing pain flared behind my nose and down my throat, and the pain was made worse by the unbearable pressure in my stomach.
My eyes squeezed shut as my hands flew to my face.
Tape.
There was tape on my cheek.
My stomach flipped as my fingers traced the tape and found a tube.
One that went all the way up to my nose and—oh my Gods was that what was in my throat?
My nail found the edge of the plastic, but just as I tried to rip the whole thing out, Logan’s hand found mine.
“Don’t,” he warned, fingers tightening around mine to the point of pain.
I whimpered and his face actually softened.
Why wasn’t he breaking my fingers? That’s what he did when I didn’t listen. He hurt me.
Why wasn’t he hurting me?
“If you take it out, I’ll have to replace it,” he said softly before kissing my knuckles. “That’s unpleasant for both of us. But, now that you’re awake, if you eat and don’t starve the babies for a few days, I’ll take it out.”
The babies, I’d almost forgotten about the babies. What if he hurt the babies? I'd been asleep, what if he drugged me, or—
My spiraling halted the second I tried to sit up.
Pain constricted my abdomen. It wasn’t stabbing, instead it was like I teetered on the edge of bursting at the seams.
I gasped as my hands flew to my stomach on instinct.
“Hey, hey,” Logan soothed immediately.
His hands slid under my arms before I could tip forward.
“Easy,” he murmured near my ear. “You’ve been sleeping a long time, it was easier that way.”
A long time.
How long was a long time? Days? Weeks? Months? Why hadn’t my pack saved me? Were they okay?
He adjusted the pillows behind me one by one, lifting me inch by inch so my body could catch up. Every small shift made the pressure inside me roll and settle in an awful, heavy way.
“There,” he whispered once I was upright.
He didn’t let go.
“See?” he said softly. “You just needed help.”
One arm stayed braced around my back, the other sliding down to support the weight of my belly as if it were precious cargo, and I finally dared to look down.
I was huge.
How long had I been sleeping?
My hand pressed to the globe jutting out in front of me, half expecting to find a pillow, or a silicone belly, or something that led to this not being my body.
But my stomach was firm and warm under the silk nightgown I didn’t recognize.
I gasped in horror as my hand started shaking.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Logan mused. “Don’t worry, you still have a while until the babies are here.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head as it finally registered. Babies—plural, Logan knew it was twins.
My head jerked up and his hazel eyes met mine.
“When I got you back, I was so angry at you for running,” he cooed before softly rubbing my stomach.
I shivered at his touch, doing my best not to gag, or react, or do anything.
“I took you back to the clinic to see what we could do about this—“ He stopped talking just long enough to softly pat my belly before continuing the caresses. “That’s when I learned it wasn’t your fault you ran—all the drugs at First Chapter Heat clinic are experimental—when they opened their goal was just to help omega through heat, you know?”
I nodded. Logan had showed me the reviews, I remembered that.
“So all those fertility drugs probably drove you a little crazy, you smelled something nice out the window, and your lesser, hormone filled brain sent you running.”
The words slid into me slowly.
Lesser.
My fingers curled weakly into the blanket.
“You weren’t thinking,” he went on gently. “You couldn’t think. Not properly. Not after what they pumped into you.”
He brushed his knuckles down my cheek, tender.
“You would have chased out any scent that remotely matched yours, such a shame it had to be a Rossi.” The name soured on his tongue, and for a moment, I thought he might hit me.
My eyes sealed shut and I flinched back, braced for impact.
“Stop being dramatic, Violet, I'd never hit you.” Logan sounded hurt. “Discipline? Always, but I would never maliciously hurt my beautiful omega.”
My chest felt too tight to breathe. Slowly, I cracked one eye, and then the other. Logan watched me as if he was checking to make sure his words landed with the right weight.
Then he sighed.
“You really don’t remember much about coming back home, do you?” he murmured.
My hair brushed my bare shoulders as my head swiveled back-and-forth.
“Obviously, we had to visit the heat clinic again to see what they could do about our little problem. You were less than willing to make the travels, so I gave you a mild sedative.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“Unfortunately, thanks to declining birth rates, the clinic refused to do anything that could potentially harm the babies.”
My chest hollowed with relief until I realized there was a very heavy but hanging in the air.
Logan’s thumb resumed its slow, absent-minded path over the curve of my stomach.
“But,” he continued easily, “they were more than willing to help with you.”
My hands lifted to explain that I didn’t need to be helped. I was fine.
Then I remembered, even if I were to sign Logan, he wouldn’t understand.
“They were willing to make exemptions,” he explained, wrapping his fingers around mine and folding my hands in my lap for me. “When the subject isn’t the pregnancy itself.”
I wasn’t a subject. I was a human being. Again, that likely didn’t matter to him.
“Did you know that visible pregnancies kick the breeding instincts of both alphas and omegas into overdrive?” Logan asked.
I didn’t, so I responded accordingly.
Logan’s smile widened.
“It’s one of those inconvenient little biological facts,” he said matter-of-factly. “When an omega looks unmistakably pregnant—round, heavy, obviously carrying—it triggers territorial and breeding responses.”
My lip quirked in disgust, but Logan ignored it.
“In alphas,” he continued, “it increases possessiveness, and in omegas,” he added, watching my face closely, “it encourages compliance. Nesting. The urge to care for others. Emotional dependence. The clinic is very interested in that response.”
Of course they were.
“They offered me a deal,” Logan went on, as if he were talking about a business lunch. “They promised to help me get you pregnant and keep you pregnant as many times as I wanted.”
My chest tightened.
“But only if I allowed them to test a new compound,” he said. “The one that exaggerates visible pregnancy markers.”
He gestured openly at my body.
“They need real-world data,” he said. “Not simulations. And no one wanted to volunteer for their program.”
His fingers tightened around mine in my lap.
“But, I couldn’t see it going badly.” Logan continued. “It doesn’t touch the babies. It only amplifies outward presentation. You know, tissue growth, fluid retention, abdominal expansion. And all I can think about is how much harder that would make it for you to run from me.”
I looked down at my stomach again, suddenly way more repulsed than I had been.
“The doctor advised me to keep you under for the first few days, something about the initial growth potentially being painful, and they were right.”
The pressure inside me shifted again and a sharp wave of nausea climbed up my throat. I made a small, broken sound before I could stop it.
Logan’s grip on my hands tightened.
“Easy,” he murmured, pleased more than concerned. “I know. I know it's uncomfortable, but you look so beautiful right now, Violet.”
Beautiful. I gagged so violently I curled in on myself.
“Ahhht, no slouching, it will make it worse,” Logan coached.
He slid his hands under my arms and forced me straighter before I could curl in on myself again. The movement stretched my abdomen tight as a drum. Tears steamed down my face as I tried to grip my teeth through the discomfort.
“That’s it,” he murmured, misreading everything. “Deep breaths.”
I tried, I really did. But it felt like there wasn’t enough room inside me for my lungs to properly expand.
My hands shook as they hovered uselessly between us.
And that’s when I saw it on top of a shelf, way up high. Far too high for me to reach.
My bunny. The one that smelled like Vinny and always made me feel better.
My chest seized and I lifted one trembling hand to point before mouthing please.
Logan followed my line of sight. His mouth curved faintly.
“Oh,” he said softly. “You want that?”
I nodded desperately.
The motion made the room spin again. I just wanted to feel better and I knew Vinny’s scent always did just that. Benji covered her in his scent, I needed my rabbit.
“Violet,” he sighed, almost indulgent. “You’re not a child. You don’t need stuffed toys.”
But I did. I needed her. I couldn’t remember exactly everything I read about bond rot, just that Vinny's pheromones would lessen the symptoms. I needed that.
I pointed at the stuffed animal again, but Logan didn’t even look. Instead he got out of bed before slipping his hands under my arms and pulling.
“Up,” he said, the gentleness thinning.
My body followed because it had to.
The second I was vertical, the weight of my stomach dropped and black dots swarmed across my vision. My knees gave out and I fell straight into Logan’s chest.
I thought for sure he’d let me hit the ground. But, Logan caught me. He inhaled deeply, nose tickling my hair..
“There,” he murmured, satisfaction threading through his voice. “That’s better.”.
My hands fisted weakly in his shirt because I didn’t have the strength not to.
He mistook it for affection.
“You see?” he whispered against my temple. “You don’t need that stupid thing.”
My stomach felt grotesquely swollen and heavy between us as Logan stroked my back.
“All you needed was your husband,” he said softly.
My fingers were still tangled in his shirt, not because I wanted to hold him, but because I was terrified I’d fall.
But, Logan mistook it as affection. He softly kissed my head before shifting his grip on me once more.
“Come on, we have so much to do before we reintroduce the world to Mrs.Stellar.”