Chapter 18
The scent of raisins and walnuts enveloped him like a second skin.
The room was dark except for the orange glow of the city seeping in through the edges of the curtains.
Ren had his head resting on Brody’s chest, rising and falling with each of the alpha’s breaths, and his legs tangled between Brody’s in a way that made it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Their sweat was slowly cooling. Ren could feel Brody’s heartbeat beneath his ear, steady and slowing, returning to its usual rhythm. The alpha’s fingers traced lazy, aimless strokes across his back, as if he were drawing maps of territories known only to him.
Ren had been holding the phrase between his teeth for a while. He turned it over in his mind, chewed it over, rephrased it. But he had already learned that with Brody, there was no point in sugarcoating things.
“I want to go to the doctor.”
Brody’s fingers paused for a moment at the curve of his lower back. Then they resumed their movement.
“Are you feeling sick?”
“No,” Ren sat up a little, resting his chin on Brody’s sternum to look at him. The dim light obscured his features, but his gray eyes, rimmed with red, shone with a hint of alertness. “But I want a specialist to tell me that everything’s fine. In here.”
He brought his hand to his belly. Still flat. Still silent. But no longer empty.
Brody was silent for a moment. His hand moved up from Ren’s back to the nape of his neck and stayed there, his fingers buried in the blond hair.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been,” Ren continued. He swallowed. “My family didn’t… there wasn’t money for that. My father preferred to spend it on other things.”
He didn’t need to specify which ones. Brody knew. The whole damn house knew by now.
“But this is different. This deserves it.”
Brody exhaled slowly. The air ruffled Ren’s hair. Then he grabbed him by the waist and pulled him until they were side by side, face to face on the pillow, so close their noses were almost touching.
“It’s dangerous for you to leave here.”
Ren frowned. He searched for Brody’s eyes in the darkness.
“Still? Is it still that dangerous?”
Brody’s jaw tightened. The line of his mouth went straight, tight, and Ren recognized that look: it was the one he wore when he was holding back information he didn’t want to let out.
“Brody.”
“Reznov hasn’t stopped.”
The name fell between them like a stone in still water. Ren felt his stomach clench, an old reflex that should have worn off by now but hadn’t.
“He paid seven hundred thousand dollars,” Brody said. His voice was low, without inflection, as if he were reading a report. “That kind of money isn’t lost. It is not forgotten. It isn’t absorbed as just another business loss. He wants what he bought.”
What he bought. Ren. His body. A whole year of unlimited access to whatever Dimitri Reznov wanted to do to him.
A chill shot up from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck with the force of a whip.
The skin on his arms, his thighs, the back of his neck bristled.
Brody noticed because he pulled him close and pressed him against his chest, wrapping both arms around him. The heat of his body was like a wall.
“He has people looking for you. Not as many as in the first few weeks, but enough. They’re discreet, well-paid, and they know this area.”
Ren squeezed his eyelids shut. He forced himself to breathe against Brody’s chest. The scent of home filled his lungs and pushed the panic down a centimeter. Just a centimeter. But it was enough to speak.
“I need to see a doctor, Brody.”
It wasn’t a whim. It wasn’t negotiable. Ren knew little about pregnancy, only what he’d gleaned from a library book.
That book discussed bonds and genetic compatibility, not ultrasounds, prenatal vitamins, or the myriad issues that could arise in a body weakened for years by suppressants and emotional neglect.
Brody kissed the top of his head. His lips lingered there for a moment, pressing against his hair.
“I know. I’ll try to get one to come here. To the mansion.”
Ren nodded against his chest. The tension gripping his shoulders eased a little. Just a little.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
They fell asleep like that, entwined, with the promise floating between them like something fragile that neither dared to touch again.
Three days later, Ren was in the library with his legs tucked under him and the book on fated mates open to a chapter on linked gestation when Brody appeared in the doorway.
He rested his shoulder against the frame and crossed his arms. He wore his black shirt rolled up to his elbows, and his hair was tousled as if he’d run his hands through it too many times.
Ren looked up from the book.
“You haven’t found one.”
It wasn’t a question. Brody’s posture said it all. The tension in his forearms, the way he clenched his jaw.
“I haven’t come across anyone who isn’t connected to my uncle.”
Brody stepped into the library and sank into the armchair across from Ren. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face with both hands.
“Malachi has tentacles in every damn private clinic in this city. The doctors who treat linked or pregnant Omegas… they all report to him. Not directly. Through intermediaries, contacts, favors he owes them or they owe him. If I call any of them and ask them to come here, in less than twenty-four hours everyone will know exactly where you are.”
Ren closed the book. He set it on the armrest of the sofa. He felt the familiar chill of fear run through his knuckles, but he pushed it aside.
“Then we have to get out of here.”
Brody lifted his head from his hands.
“Yes.”
They looked at each other. Ren saw in Brody’s gray eyes something that resembled exhaustion but wasn’t quite it. It was calculation. The gears of a mind assessing risks, routes, and possibilities.
“But it can’t be here. Or anywhere nearby. Malachi’s contacts reach the entire metropolitan area and well beyond. We need someone who has absolutely no connection to the business.”
“How far away?”
“Far. Another city. Maybe three or four hours by road if we’re lucky. Maybe more.”
Ren took that in. Three or four hours in a car. Outside the mansion’s security bubble. Exposed. With Reznov hunting him and his own family having placed a bounty on his head.
He brought his hand to his stomach without thinking. The gesture was already becoming a habit.
“How long will it take you to set this up?”
Brody leaned back in his chair. He looked at him with that intensity Ren already knew, but that still made him feel as if every thought were being read.
“I need a few days. I have to find the right doctor, someone reliable, who won’t ask questions and who’s willing to see patients outside of office hours if necessary.
I need a clean route, a vehicle they can’t track, and at least two trusted people covering exit points in case something goes wrong. ”
“So I have to be patient.”
It wasn’t a complaint. It was a statement of fact. Brody nodded.
“A little. Yes.”
Ren took a deep breath. The air tasted of book dust and the old wood of the bookshelves.
A little patience. He could handle that.
He’d survived years at Julian Valois’s house; he’d survived an auction, a barefoot escape through empty streets, the impact of a bond he hadn’t asked for. He could wait a few days.
“All right.”
Brody rose from the armchair. He crossed the distance between them and leaned over Ren. He placed a hand under his chin, lifted his face, and kissed him. Brief. Firm. A promise compressed into the touch of their lips.
“I’ll make it quick.”
Ren held his gaze as he pulled away.
“I know.”
Brody straightened up and headed for the door. He paused in the doorway. He turned halfway around.
“Eat something. Marta made soup.”
“Brody.”
The alpha stopped.
“Be careful looking for him. If Malachi finds out you’re looking for a doctor for a pregnant omega…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Brody looked at him a second longer than necessary and then nodded once.
Ren found himself alone in the library. The book closed on the armrest. His hand on his belly. The silence of the mansion around him like an embrace he didn’t know whether it protected him or trapped him.
A few days. Just a few days.
He got up and went to get the soup.
The kitchen smelled of beef stew and fresh bread.
Ren was the last to enter, his hair still damp from the shower and Brody’s t-shirt covering him down to mid-thigh.
Brody was already seated at the head of the table, with Zev to his left scrolling through something on his tablet and Rocco on the other side serving himself an obscene amount of bread.
Ren sat down next to Brody. Their knees brushed under the table, and the contact sent a small, warm jolt down his leg.
Jax was the last to show up. He was coming from the gym, with a towel around his neck and a smile that Ren recognized as a prelude to disaster.
He sat down across from Ren. He served himself some stew. He chewed a piece of bread. He looked at him.
“Well.”
“No.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You don’t have to. I know that look.”
Jax raised his hands in surrender, but the smile didn’t budge a millimeter from his mouth. Next to him, Rocco set his fork down on his plate with a soft clink and turned to Brody.
“Congratulations, boss.”
He said it casually. Without ceremony. Like someone congratulating someone else for fixing a leak. But Ren saw something genuine in his dark eyes, something he hadn’t seen before in Rocco, whose usual expression oscillated between professional indifference and sharp irony.
Brody nodded.
“Thanks.”
Zev didn’t look up from his tablet. His fingers paused over the screen for a moment, just a moment, and then he said without looking at anyone:
“I’ve calculated the probability of conception during a first shared heat between fated mates without suppressants or contraceptives.”