Epilogue I
The silence in the car smothered Jasper D’Arlowe as he slumped down as far as possible in the passenger seat, lower lip clamped between his teeth. He’d been chewing on it off and on since Val pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot, and it was a miracle he hadn’t bitten it off yet.
Val had attempted light conversation a few times during the drive, but Jasper wasn’t having it.
They had come for the bad news they knew they would receive, news that coiled through his chest like thorny vines, lodging into every part of him that was tender and vulnerable.
Months of wasted time to force his failing body to accomplish the one thing it was supposed to do well, and it had all been for nothing.
The final, desperate heat they coaxed out of him had gone nowhere, just as every single one that came before it.
Omegas were supposed to be breeders. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“I’m fine with it,” Val insisted for the sixth time during their three-hour drive, his gaze focused on the dark road ahead. “I am. I mean, we can always look into fostering and adoption if we want to.”
Jasper’s eyes stung with unshed tears, and he swiped at them to keep himself under control. He wouldn’t break down in the car. He wouldn’t. “Just shut the fuck up, Val. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
He felt like a piece of shit for snapping at his mate like that, but Val wasn’t the one who was declared infertile.
He wasn’t an omega, and he couldn’t understand it.
Jasper wanted children, yes, and they could always foster or adopt, but he would not have the experience of being pregnant, of the doctor’s visits, of the birth, of holding his child in his arms for the very first time and having that bonding experience.
It was something he’d wanted since he was a teenager and realized it was something he could and was allowed, and even encouraged, to want.
It wasn’t fair. An omega’s value was not supposed to be tied to their ability to birth children, but Jasper wanted them. His irregular heats would slough off into nothing, and both of his alpha mates would have to deal with Goddess only knew what hormonal issues.
He didn’t want it. He had never asked for it.
“You don’t have to talk, but I’m going to talk to you,” Val said, and Jasper rolled his eyes, resigning himself to dealing with Val’s pep talk for the rest of the drive. He meant well, but it changed nothing. “You mean so much to me. I chose you, Jasper. You’re the only omega I’ve ever wanted.”
Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose. Deep breaths, in and out, just like his therapist had taught him.
“We’re never gonna be able to have kids.
Never gonna be able to have a family. All those fucking dreams of buying a bigger house to cram all the kids into mean nothing now, Val.
I’m broken. We know. Just… Let it go. Just let it go. ”
“I’ll let it go when I believe you’re feeling better. I can feel how miserable you are about it, and I get that, but let me in. Tell me what you need to feel better.”
What a stupid request. “I need a uterus that functions the way it should function when it grew in my body. I want a baby. What’s so hard to understand?”
They had been arguing for the past two weeks while they waited for their scheduled appointment, though Jasper swore up and down it wasn’t necessary.
Both Val and Brady—his other alpha mate—had regular ruts.
Even Cass’s periods were always on time.
It felt like a cruel joke from the universe that Jasper’s heat cycles were all over the place.
And he knew what that meant in the back of his head long before he became addicted to late nights scrolling forums of omegas all bemoaning their infertile status.
He was one of the lucky ones, at least. Most infertile omegas without mates or partners struggled to find alphas who were interested in them.
None of his mates had so much as whispered an urge to find someone to replace him, and Jasper doubted they would, but he almost wished they would.
They deserved to live their own dreams, too.
Val pursed his lips, his gaze fixed on the stretch of dark road ahead of them. “Well, that was just one opinion, right? Give me a few weeks to do some research, and maybe we can figure something else out. Maybe that doctor was just an idiot, who knows? Maybe we can still fix this.”
“I love you,” Jasper said, and Val’s face softened, “but you and I both know there isn’t any fixing this. It happens. It sucks, but it happens. We just have to make our peace with it.”
The rest of the drive home was quiet, Val reaching out to turn on the radio but leaving it low.
Jasper was fine with that; it broke up the awkward silence between them, and the occasional crackle through the speakers felt nostalgic as he settled his head against the cool glass of the window, his eyelids fluttering shut.
Dad’s car radio never picked up anything that wasn’t laced with static, and those long night drives that served as nothing more than a waste of gas to calm Jasper down from whatever anxiety he was spiraling through at the moment had given the crackling sound a soothing effect.
He wasn’t even aware he was dozing off until the car came to a stop and Val touched his shoulder. “Hey, baby, wake up. We’re home now.”
Jasper huffed and pushed himself into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes. “Thanks.”
He wanted to crawl into his nest and scream into the pillows until the frustration ebbed enough for him to get some sleep.
Even though his appointment was in the afternoon, he still spent most of last night wide awake, waiting for the inevitable diagnosis that he was fucked-up and unable to fix.
Now that he knew that, maybe he could get a few solid hours of rest.
It would do nothing to soothe the ache in his heart. He thought nothing would. Maybe a few drinks, or maybe it was time to get involved in kickboxing once again to see if that went anywhere.
He dragged himself out of the car, stretching his arms over his head until his back popped, and paused when he noticed a faint golden light through the trees across the road.
His pack lived in the countryside for the peace, and though there was one other property within walking distance of their home, no one had lived there for as long as Jasper had known the place existed.
Whether the price was too steep, the cottage undesirable, or something about the interior was bad, he did not know.
He kept expecting to just see another car on the road one day, pulling off onto that twisting little dirt path that slithered through the trees.
“Did someone move in across the road?” he asked Val, nodding toward the light. The urge to cross the asphalt just to see if he might glimpse the cottage from the road was tempting, but Jasper knew that until the dead of winter, it was impossible to see anything without walking down that path.
Val frowned, cocking his head. “You know, I think I might have heard someone driving when I was getting out of the shower, but I didn’t think too much about it. I mean… About time, I guess? I’m surprised nobody moved in sooner. It’s nice out here.”
Jasper could agree with that much . “Maybe we should go say hi tomorrow or something. Might not be a bad idea to have friends out here when the weather gets bad.”
“Maybe,” Val hedged. “Come on, let’s get inside. Brady and Cass are waiting.”
As petty as it was, they could keep waiting as long as Jasper was concerned.
He would have to sit them down and tell them both that his body wasn’t working right, that they wouldn’t get to have the family they wanted to build together, that he was the wrong choice of a mate after all.
The frisson of anxiety that threaded through his mind let him know Brady was indeed waiting for them, and not for the first time, he wished Cass was as tied up in their bond as everyone else.
While Val unlocked the door to let them into the house, Jasper turned to throw a glance toward the dirt road. It was a short walk; he would try to think of something nice to bake, maybe, so he’d have an excuse to go over. Maybe it was a pack with an omega. Couldn’t hurt to try.
As he stepped into the house, though, he could have sworn he saw someone standing at the edge of the shadows spilling across the road, tucked just out of sight.
And it looked like they were facing him.