Chapter 42 Mattaniah
Mattaniah
Dominic has been unbearable for thirty-six hours.
It started the morning after the park bench.
I came out of the bathroom and found him standing in the hallway with a glass of water and two saltine crackers arranged on a small plate.
The nausea had already passed by then but he watched me eat both crackers like he was supervising a hostage negotiation.
By noon he had reorganized the refrigerator to put "easy-access foods" at eye level, which apparently meant yogurt, bananas, and six different types of crackers.
By evening he had removed the step stool from the kitchen because reaching for high shelves involves stretching, which involves core engagement, which is apparently a concern now.
I'm two weeks pregnant. The baby is the size of a poppy seed.
The second morning is worse. I wake up to find him sitting on the edge of the bed watching my stomach instead of my face. When I roll over to get up he's on his feet in a second. His hand hovers near my elbow as if swinging my legs over the side of the bed might kill me.
"Dominic." I sit up and push his hand away. "I'm pregnant, not dying."
"You threw up yesterday." His hand hovers again. "Twice."
"It's morning sickness and it's standard. Amos already explained the physiology to you in detail that I personally found excessive."
"Amos said the first trimester carries the highest risk of—" He stops because my face is doing something that makes him reconsider finishing the sentence. "I'll make breakfast."
He makes breakfast. A mid-morning snack appears beside my laptop at ten thirty.
Water arrives at eleven without being asked, then a different water at eleven fifteen because the first one wasn't cold enough.
When I stand up to go to the bathroom his whole body shifts toward me before he catches himself.
Amos is marginally better but only because his hovering takes the form of data rather than physical presence. He's been reading research papers on Omega pregnancy after prolonged suppressant use since six in the morning. The information emerges in periodic updates I haven't requested.
"The studies suggest increased folic acid supplementation during the first eight weeks," he says from behind his laptop at noon. "I've ordered prenatal vitamins. They should arrive this afternoon."
"Great."
"Also the research on post-suppressant fertility shows a slightly elevated risk of multiple gestation."
"Amos."
"I'm just noting it for awareness."
"I am aware. Thank you." I close my laptop and press my palms against my eyes. The apartment has shrunk in the past day and a half. Every room contains at least one Alpha tracking my movements. The bond marks on my neck transmit their anxiety in a frequency that makes my own pulse run faster.
"I need one hour of normalcy." I look at both of them. "Just one hour where nobody monitors my water intake or reads me statistics about folic acid."
Dominic's hands grip the kitchen counter. He fights the possessive response he obviously wants to make, the effort visible in his whitening knuckles. "One hour." He says it through his teeth.
"Thank you." I pick up my phone and text Tamsin.
The walk to the cafe on the corner is the first time I've been alone since the pregnancy tests.
The absence of their scents hits me as I head down the hallway, the leather and smoke and pine and cedar that have been a constant overlay on every breath I've taken for the past two weeks thinning out until the elevator smells like cleaning solution and metal.
My bond marks ache at the loss. The rest of me exhales.
The café is just a few steps from the apartment, a small space with decent coffee and private booths. Amos spoke to the complex right after Richard’s removal from the company so they’ve put someone just outside our apartment building, the Alpha nodding at me when I pass.
Tamsin is already in the booth when I arrive.
She's got her phone propped against the sugar dispenser watching something with the sound off and a half-eaten muffin in front of her.
She smells like green tea and something floral strong enough to taste.
She looks up when I slide into the seat across from her.
"Holy shit." She sets her phone down. "You look different."
"I've had a week."
"You look like you've had a month compressed into a week." Her eyes travel over my face and drop to the bond marks above my collar. "Also you smell different. Also you're glowing."
"I'm not glowing. I threw up this morning."
"You are glowing. It's a specific glow. I've seen it on my cousin and my sister-in-law." She leans across the table and her voice drops. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"
My face goes hot from my collar to my hairline. "Stop asking."
"Oh my god." Her hands come up to cover her mouth. "Oh my GOD. With BOTH of them? How does that even work? No wait, I know how it works, the biology is straightforward, I just mean logistically how do you—"
"Tamsin." I say her name with enough force that the couple in the next booth glances over.
She grins behind her hands. Then she lowers them to the table and the grin softens into something more careful.
"For real though." Her voice drops the teasing edge. "Are you okay? This is a lot. The bonding, the scandal with the photos, Richard getting removed, and now..." She gestures at my stomach. "This is a lot of life in a very short time."
The question tightens my throat.
"I don't know. I think so but it's complicated. I haven't fully forgiven them for... some things. And now I'm pregnant and they're being so careful with me it makes me want to scream."
"Careful how?"
"Dominic won't let me lift a coffee mug. He tried to carry me to the bathroom yesterday and I had to physically push him off. Amos is delivering unsolicited research updates about folic acid at hourly intervals."
Tamsin snorts into her muffin. "That tracks for both of them." She picks a piece off her muffin. "You know that's just how Alphas are when they find out their Omega is pregnant, right? The hovering is biological. It'll ease up once they settle into the reality."
"Or it won't ease up and I'll lose my mind."
"Also possible." She pulls out her phone and starts scrolling.
"Okay, practical stuff. You need a doctor who specializes in Omega pregnancies, especially post-suppressant ones.
My cousin used Dr. Vasquez at Metro North.
I'll send you the contact." She types something and my phone buzzes.
"There's also a support group that meets on Thursdays at the community center for Omega parents in triad or dual-Alpha configurations.
My cousin said it saved her sanity in the first trimester. "
The idea is approximately as appealing as another conversation about folic acid. "A support group."
"Trust me." Tamsin points her phone at me. "You're going to need other Omegas who get it. Your Alphas can love you to death but they can't understand what it feels like to grow a person inside your body while two possessive territorial instinct machines try to manage the process."
"Possessive territorial instinct machines." I pick up my coffee and take a sip. "That's the most accurate description of my mates anyone has ever produced."
"I've been watching them operate for a month. I'm observant." She grins. "Also, congratulations. I know I'm supposed to ask how you feel about it before saying that but honestly I've been waiting for this since the first time Dominic walked past your cubicle and his head turned like a radar dish."
"Like a radar dish."
"You didn't see it because you were too busy pretending your blocker was working." She finishes her muffin and wipes her hands on a napkin. "The whole floor saw it. We had a betting pool."
"You had a betting pool about my love life."
"We had a betting pool about when the CEO's son was going to stop circling and make a move. HR shut it down after the boardroom incident but by then most of us had already collected." She holds up her hands when my expression shifts. "I won forty dollars. You're welcome."
The laugh escapes me loud enough that the couple in the next booth looks over again. Tamsin watches me laugh looking thoroughly satisfied.
"For what it's worth," she says as I'm pulling my jacket on to leave, "you look happier than you did when you started at the company. Even with everything. You look like someone who finally landed somewhere."
"You're the second person to say something like that to me."
"Then maybe start believing it." She slides out of the booth and gives me a hug that communicates more than she'll say out loud.
The walk back to the apartment door once inside the building takes forty-five seconds. The security escort nods at me again on the way past. My phone buzzes with a final text from Tamsin reads: if Dom tries to carry you to the bathroom again call me and i'll come fight him.
I smell Dominic as I get closer. Leather and smoke layered so thick in the hallway that he's either been pacing or standing at the door long enough to saturate the air.
Underneath his scent I catch my own, the new sweetness that's been building since the park bench, and the combination of the two makes my bond marks pulse.
He's at the apartment door when I step out, and instead of leaning against the frame he steps forward into my path, just filling the space so that getting past him means going through him or choosing to stop.
I stop. His hand catches my wrist, loose enough that I could pull free without effort.
"You were gone for two hours."
"It was an hour and a half." I don't pull my wrist free. "I know it was more than one hour but I'm fine."
His nostrils flare as my scent reaches him at close range. The grip on my wrist shifts, his thumb pressing into my pulse point. He's scenting me through the contact and the Alpha focus in his expression is so concentrated that my breath catches.
"You smell like green tea and someone else's perfume." His thumb moves against my pulse.
"That would be Tamsin, who I had lunch with like a normal person who is not dying."
His jaw works and he lets go of my wrist.
I lean up and press my lips against his jaw for half a second before I keep walking toward the living room.
"Amos." I drop onto the couch beside him. "I have a doctor recommendation and a support group that meets on Thursdays. Tamsin says I need other Omegas who understand what it's like to be pregnant while two possessive territorial instinct machines try to manage the process."
Amos' mouth twitches. "She called us possessive territorial instinct machines?"
"She was being generous." I pull out my phone and forward him the doctor's contact. "Make the appointment. And stop reading research papers at me. When I need the data, I'll ask for it."
"Noted." He takes his glasses off and cleans them.
"How was lunch?" Amos sets the glasses down.
"Normal." I lean my head against his shoulder and close my eyes. "It was normal and I needed it."
Dominic sits in the chair across from us.
"Tamsin won forty dollars betting on us," I say into the quiet. "The whole office had a pool."
Dominic shifts in his chair and his eyes find mine across the room. "I knew about the pool."
"You knew."
"I run half the building, Mattaniah." His gaze doesn't move from mine. "The pool was useful. It meant people were paying attention to the right things."
I stare at him across the room. "You let people bet on our relationship because it was strategically useful."
"I let it run because shutting it down would have drawn more attention than ignoring it." The corner of his mouth lifts. "And because I was going to win."
"You are unbelievable."
His mouth curves up a little more, just barely.