Chapter Twenty-Six
Mark
The woman staring me down looks so much like my mate that I nearly have to blink to make sure I’m not seeing double.
Her hair is the same shade of red as Ava’s, only with streaks of an ash-toned blonde along her temples and through her part.
I also recognize the same coiled serpent energy.
She means to dress me down—for what, I’m not exactly sure.
“Hello, Dr. Kendrick. I’m pleased to finally meet you,” I say smoothly, rising from the couch and extending my hand to shake hers.
She eyes it warily. “Do you care to explain to me why you left one of my children with a bleeding head wound and then disappeared with my other for days, leaving us with no idea where she was?”
Fucking hell, she even sounds like Ava.
Luckily, I have plenty of experience with this particular subspecies of viper.
“I left Jack with his husband, who is far more skilled in healthcare than I—”
“You don’t have to answer that, Mark. Mother, dial it down a notch.
If you want to be mad at anyone, sounds like it needs to be me or Jack,” Ava cuts in, hands on her hips in a mirror image of her mother.
“By the way, Jackson, don’t think you and I won’t be having a conversation about your stunt,” she adds.
“Oh my God, I was only trying to help. One of my clients is a dealer, so I reached out—”
“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Ava, her father, and I say simultaneously.
The tension eases a little as everyone except Dr. Kendrick bursts into laughter.
“Lawyers,” Jack says, with a dramatic roll of his eyes.
“I cannot defend you if you want to blab to the cops,” Ava says. “But I know you only meant to help. I’m glad you’re okay.” She goes over to him, throwing her arms around him for a tight hug.
“Mark isn’t the cops,” he grumbles, but squeezes her in return.
“Close enough, Jack.”
“Rest assured, I am mad at you, Ava Lynn,” her mother says, arms crossed and reminding everyone of the original issue.
“All of this could have been avoided if you hadn’t been risking your health by doubling or tripling up on your suppressants for no damn reason.
So you almost get your brother arrested—”
“I didn’t almost get Jack anything! I was asleep in my nest when he took off on his half-brained mission,” Ava says loudly.
“Wait a minute, what does she mean you were tripling up on the untested illegal suppressants?” I ask at the same time Ava speaks up, my own arms crossing as I glare at her.
Overlapping the both of us, Jack protests, “Now, hold on!”
“That’s enough, everyone,” Ava’s father says, and the room immediately quiets. Despite being a beta, I have a feeling he’s a “speak softly, carry a big stick” sort of man. Real alpha energy.
“Suzanne, it seems to me that Mark here kept our son out of jail and most likely saved our daughter’s life by helping her through her heat.
Ava, you should have at least left a note and not scared everyone half to death.
Jack, you could have been less… Jack about that.
So everyone knock it off.” His voice remains steady and on the quieter side, but the effect is noticeable.
“Sorry, Dad,” Ava and Jack both mutter.
“Now then,” he says, walking towards me and extending his hand, “Shelby made it sound like it’s basically a done deal that you’re our new son-in-law, so welcome to the family, chaotic as it is. I’m Hank Kendrick.”
I can’t help but smile at him as I shake his hand with a firm grip. “I honestly wouldn’t have expected anything less from the family that produced Ava. She’s a force of nature.”
Dr. Kendrick clears her throat. “Not to break up this touching moment, but I need a blood sample from Ava to compare her hormone levels now that she’s finished her heat.
See if we are out of the woods, along with…
other things.” Her voice still carries a distinct chill.
I get the impression that she’s retracted her fangs because of Hank, but she’s still going to take a while to warm up to me.
“Like if I’m pregnant?” Ava asks, and I feel myself freeze. I know she’d mentioned that it was likely, but I didn’t think we’d find out this soon. And I hadn’t truly thought about it.
A baby? Nine months from now? God, it’ll probably be a little spitfire redhead. The thought isn’t unappealing by any stretch. I wonder how many I can convince her to have. My own little army of mean-ass gingers.
Her mother sighs. “Possibly. Omega hormones work differently than beta pregnancies, so in theory, I should be able to pick up traces of the hormones, particularly if you conceived at the beginning of your heat. But there’s no way to know how your overuse of the suppressants impacted things.”
She turns back to me. “And how will you react, hmm? In regard to my daughter’s career and finances,” Suzanne says quietly. “Especially in regard to your political aspirations.”
I chuckle, shaking my head.
“I fail to see what’s humorous about the question,” she says coolly.
“I apologize, Dr. Kendrick. It’s only that the majority of your questions were covered by the pre-bond prenup your daughter made me sign.”
“That’s my peanut,” Hank says proudly.
“As far as my political future, I’ve found in the last few weeks my interest in that has been waning.
I only ever wanted to change the city, and now…
” My voice quiets as I look at my mate with a soft smile.
“Well, I’m beginning to think I might have more of a background role supporting the most capable woman I know. ”
Ava comes closer and squeezes my hand.
“We haven’t fully had a chance to talk about it yet, but I think if a baby is in our near future, I likely won’t run for reelection. It’s easier for me to take on the brunt of childcare; what Ava does is too important. I can transition back to private practice and take on limited cases.”
“You don’t intend to make her play a traditional omega role?”
“Nothing about Ava is traditional. I don’t see why we should start now,” I reply.
By the time we shoo everyone out of the penthouse, we’ve had dinner and come up with a game plan for how to handle the fallout from our relationship going public, and I can feel the reduction in anxiety from Ava’s side of the bond.
She’s still feeling a little weak after her heat, so I take care of cleaning up the kitchen while she relaxes in the nest.
I lean against the doorframe, looking in on the only room of the penthouse I’d never been allowed into before.
It’s a cozy space but, much like the omega it belongs to, looks expensive and luxurious.
The colors are muted champagne, bronze, and white, with various textures of fur and silk.
One of the walls is nothing but a massive window overlooking the city, only with a special tinting that Ava can darken with a remote.
“May I enter your nest, little cereus?” I ask quietly. I don’t remember a lot from biology class, but I do know omegas are very territorial about their nests.
She lifts her head from the pillow she’d burrowed into and turns to me.
I’m dumbfounded by how gorgeous she is. Will she ever stop taking my breath away?
She’s fresh-faced, in a shirt she’d quickly stolen from me despite her closet with enough clothes in it to outfit a small army, and her hair is piled into a messy bun.
Of all the looks I’ve seen this woman in, this is easily my favorite.
Well, tied with when she’s naked, I suppose.
“Yes, please,” she says, making grabby hands toward me.
“Clothes on or off?”
“Off, but toss them here so I can mix them in,” she says, shifting some blankets around.
“Wait a minute,” I say with a laugh. “Are those my ties? I’ve been looking for those! I thought I was going crazy.”
Her cheeks flush. “Most of them you just forgot. I only stole like… two. Maybe three.”
I shake my head and strip as instructed, handing her the discarded items. I wait patiently while she moves things around, fluffs them, and adjusts some more.
I have no idea why; I can’t see any sort of difference, but her nose is scrunched up in the most adorable look of concentration, the tip of her tongue sticking out between her lips.
Finally, she seems satisfied and motions for me to come onto the bed.
“If I’m naked, only fair for you to be too,” I point out as I slip beneath the pile of blankets.
“Is this a ploy to get into my panties, Mark Taylor?”
“If I ever don’t want into your panties, I want you to promise to have Tony take me ‘round back and shoot me.”
She giggles and tugs my shirt off along with the sports bra she’d been wearing.
I pull her body to mine, amazed at the way my muscles relax as soon as our skin is touching. “Fuck, that’s better. I know it was an important evening, but I was starting to feel like I was going to climb out of my skin if I didn’t touch you soon.”
“Side effect of the bond. I am a little nervous about the next few days,” she admits.
We had ultimately decided to contact the bar association in the morning and report that Ava was an incredibly late-presenting omega and we had bonded.
It was rare, basically unheard-of in someone’s thirties, but her mother seemed confident that she could produce the necessary bloodwork documentation to prove it.
Shelby believed that with the correct strings pulled with the press, it would be easy enough to spin it into quite the fairytale romance.
An explanation of why we’d always fought like we had.
Which, honestly, was the truth—the best kind of lies usually were.
Ava would reassign any of her open cases in my borough, and hopefully, that would be the end of it.
Unfortunately, it meant that we would no longer be working against each other, so how much time we’d be able to carve out together during the day was questionable.
I tickle my fingers lightly down her side, pressing my lips to her forehead. “We’ll figure it out. Once we make the official public announcement after we talk to the bar, people will be more understanding of us needing to see each other and touch frequently.”
“Were you serious about the baby stuff?” she asks quietly. A complete shift from what we’d been discussing, so obviously something she’d been chewing on for a while.
“Yes.”
“You really don’t want to run for mayor anymore? I’m not going to ask you to give up your political aspirations,” she says, propping herself up on her elbow, cheek pressed to her palm. “We could hire a nanny.”
I sigh. “I’ve always wanted to be a dad.
I just never really pictured what that looked like before, because I could never see myself getting married.
I didn’t think I’d ever find an omega and never felt much of a pull to any ‘betas’ before you,” I say, poking her.
“Faced with the reality of a possible baby now, though, I don’t think I want a stranger raising them for the long hours that we both sometimes work.
I’m… excited about the idea of parenting, if I’m being honest.”
“A stay-at-home alpha is certainly a new one. You’re going to catch a lot of shit about it.”
I shrug. “Ask me how much I care. If I’m not running for mayor anymore, I no longer have any desire to impress any of those stuck-up assholes.
The only opinion I care about is yours. Will you respect me less if I stay home with our baby?
” It’s a genuine question, I realize. I hadn’t considered that Ava might view it as emasculating.
A bit of panic surges through me, and she must feel it, because she cups my cheek and kisses me.
“No, Mark. I wouldn’t respect you less. In fact, I find it incredibly sexy. Something about a man who is secure enough in his masculinity to embrace more ‘submissive’ roles is hot. Maybe I’ll talk you into it in the bedroom too,” she says with a grin.
It’s nothing I’ve ever fantasized about before, but the sudden mental image of Ava in a black leather teddy and stockings makes my cock twitch.
She fake gasps. “Did I just feel a surge of desire, sir?”
I blush. “Maybe. I’ve never thought about it before. But the idea isn’t… unappealing.”
Ava bites her bottom lip. “Wow. Well, it isn’t on my end, either.
Maybe we should do some toy shopping soon.
Ease into certain things.” She pushes on my chest until I roll onto my back, and she straddles my hips.
She still has her panties on, but a large wet spot is showing on the cotton where slick is beginning to leak from her.
Her perfume fills the small space of the nest, and I groan. “Please tell me you’ve recovered enough that you’re interested in sex again.”
“Now that I’m thinking of pegging my big, strong alpha mate, I’m definitely interested in sex again,” she says, slowly grinding along my length.
“Fuck, Ava, you can’t just say things like that out loud,” I rasp, embarrassment and desire filling me in equal parts.
She laughs and leans down to kiss me, gripping my wrists and holding them above my head like I’ve done to her in the past. It’s crazy how different everything feels now that we are bonded. It’s like I’m comfortable enough with her, with us, to let down guards I didn’t even know I had.
The idea of switching who’s trading off who’s in charge in the bedroom?
Sounds kinky. I’m in.