Chapter 18
REMY
I spent the night tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable.
And to make matters worse, I kept falling in and out of dreams where I lost my mate.
It wasn’t a case of recapturing a dream or having the same one on repeat, either.
Each time it was a new scenario, and they all ended the same.
Hari was gone, walking away because he was mad…
at me… and I deserved it. I hadn’t marked him yet, and he couldn’t get past that.
Of course, it was the one night we weren’t staying at each other’s house because I had a really early teleconference and he had a delivery.
Every time I woke up sweating and reached for him, my heart pounding in my chest, he wasn’t there to reassure me.
Each and every time, there was a split second when I thought the dream was real. Pure, freaking agony.
When my alarm finally told me getting up and out of bed was my only option, I felt no more refreshed than I had when I went to sleep.
I’d been exhausted yesterday, too. Not simply normal tired.
Weird thing was, work-wise and around-the-house-wise, it had been a pretty normal day.
There’d been no reason for me to be dead on my feet like that.
In the hopes of waking up a little more, I kept the water in my shower slightly cooler than normal. All it did was annoy my koala, who was missing his eucalyptus steam, and had me shivering. I was still just as tired as when I stepped in.
Somehow, I managed to be in front of my computer in time for the meeting.
Barely. It was an overseas one, so it required a lot of concentration.
The translations were done with a text bar on the side of the screen and away from the numbers they were sharing.
Keeping up with who was saying what and making sense of words that were misspelled due to fast typing while looking at the charts was nearly impossible on a good day, and this wasn’t a good day. Not yet, anyway.
The good thing was that by the time it was over, it was late enough in the morning for me to call my mate. He’d be up but not quite at work yet. Gods, I needed to hear his voice.
“Hey, you’re calling. Is everything okay?” We talked or texted all the time, but it was usually a text first.
“Ish. I didn’t sleep well, and I wanted to hear your voice. I missed you last night.”
“Same. So very same.”
“Come over for dinner?” We hadn’t made any plans, and my koala needed to know when we would see him next
“You sound exhausted, Remy. How about I bring dinner over to you instead of cooking?”
“I’d argue with you, but that sounds all kinds of perfect.” My computer started beeping; another video call was about to start. “I gotta go. Talk to you later.”
My stomach started acting weird halfway through the next meeting. It made sense. My stomach was never great on days after I didn’t sleep, and I hadn’t eaten yet to counteract it, giving me a double whammy.
I threw some bread in the toaster and put the tea kettle on, knowing that it was better to have some mint tea than to attempt coffee when my stomach was yuck.
I didn’t even get the butter on the toast before I was racing to the bathroom and emptying my stomach of what little was in there.
I felt remarkably better afterward and went back to work like nothing was wrong.
When I thought the day had finally settled down, I got called into the office for a computer patch.
At least it was right before lunch. I could drop it off with IT and grab something to eat with Steven.
I hadn’t talked to him much lately; it was safe to say I was pretty much focused on my mate.
He understood, though, and didn’t think anything of it, although he did admit to me he felt a little jealous and wished someone would call his number by accident too.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you kind of look like crap,” he said and grabbed a cheese fry from our pre-lunch greasy goodness.
“Thanks.”
“I’m serious, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I didn’t sleep well last night is all. Bad dreams.” I grabbed a fry and shoved it in my mouth.
“Nightmares about anything fun?” Steven often turned his dreams into short stories, saying one day he’d write a book. He hadn’t yet, but he looked at every dream as the potential for a new story idea. It was kind of adorable.
“No, they were all awful. Harry decided he’d had enough and left me.” Saying it out loud was like a gut punch.
“Enough of what? You guys are, like, inseparable.”
“Because I hadn’t marked him yet,” I whispered.
His eyes went wide.
“It felt like I was asking too much.”
“Just once, Remy, would you listen to your words and see how you make your life more complicated than it needs to be?”
“Fine, Mr. Words of Wonder, what would you do?” Because I could use all the advice.
“What would I do? Soon as he walked in the door, I’d be nibbling on that sexy neck of his.” He didn’t keep his voice low, and I heard the older woman at the table next to us gasp. She was human and probably thought we were talking about sex. Ugh.
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that. But also, I don’t think he’s upset about it. I don’t think this is a manifestation of that, anyway. He might be longing for that bond, but that’s not what this dream was about.”
When did he become the dream guru?
“What are you going on about?” I pulled the whole platter of fries in front of me when he went to grab one. It wasn’t time for him to eat, he needed to speak.
“They’re mine now, because you were mean.”
“I wasn’t mean. I just think it’s your inner self needing you to be bonded fully, because maybe it’s not just the two of you anymore.” He did know how to be discreet when he wanted to, not saying koala. Sometimes I didn’t understand my bestie.
“The two of us? I’m a one-alpha kind of guy.”
“Not you and Hari. You and your koala. I think maybe you’re expecting.”
“What? I…” Could I be pregnant? Wouldn’t I know if I was?
“Well, let’s put the evidence on the table. You look like you didn’t sleep well.”
“A lot of people don’t sleep well.” I usually did, though.
“And are you more tired than normal?”
“Yeah.” Exhausted.
“And you said you didn’t feel well this morning, that your stomach was kind of hating you and you’re not sick.”
“Fine. But that doesn’t automatically mean pregnant.” Although I wasn’t sure what other options it could mean.
“Are you doing the things to get you pregnant without any protection?” This time he was loud again. Was he trying to traumatize that old lady?
That conversation led to both of us going to the store and getting a pregnancy test. I could probably have gone by myself, but the bestie’s support was nice. I set it on the kitchen table when I got home with my computer.
I wanted to take it to know the answer, but after keeping so many things from my mate, I didn’t want to have this secret, not even for a couple of hours. He could be there, which meant he should be there when I took it.
When he showed up with our chicken dinners, he noticed it right away. “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked, picking it up with a smile on his face. He wasn’t upset about this, not in the slightest.
“I don’t know. Steven thinks I should take it.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think I should take it. But before we do that, can I ask you something?”
“You can always ask me anything, omega mine.”
“Are you mad at me because I haven’t marked you yet?”
“Mad? No. But when I look at yours, I do get a little worried that maybe you don’t want to.”
That was all the encouragement my koala needed.
He’d never forced his way through me before, ever, but suddenly he was controlling my body to the point where I lunged forward and my teeth sank into my mate’s shoulder.
At first, I panicked, trying to gain control of my body again, pissed that my koala would do such a thing.
But then my mate wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close, his cock hard between us. Hari wasn’t upset, he was loving it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask first, my koala took the conversation to mean ‘mark me now’ and took over.”
“I could tell by your eyes. They weren’t yours at all.”
“That didn’t scare you?” I’d been around a tiger shifter who sometimes had his beast shining through, and it was intense, to say the least.
“Nah. I mean, maybe if you were soaking wet, it might have.” He smiled. “I love you, Remy, and if you’re not pregnant, it’s okay. But I really hope you are.”
“Me too.”
I took the test, and we both watched it, which was exactly what the pamphlet told us not to do. But one line turned to two.
“We’re gonna be dads!” he yelled, picking me up and twirling me in a circle.
“We are,” I said, rubbing my cheek against his. “And I couldn’t be happier.”