Chapter Fifteen #2
Roan’s tail swept around, curling about the egg and dragging it along the side of his body and into our view.
It was smaller than Nexus’s egg, far smaller than Noah’s.
Iridescent violet swirled over the surface, shades of dark indigo entwined, the shine of it so much like my own scales interspersed by the slightest swirl of Robard’s silver.
“It’s beautiful.” I stared at it, unsure if I could touch it, but Roan made that decision for me, snatching my hand to place it on the shell.
A clear war flashed in his face, a defensive anger at anyone or anything touching his young, but the way he forced himself overrode instinct, and that one contact sent a shock through my mind, sensations, warm love, and something beneath all the prickly ire that told me Roan was more than I could understand. Roan was mine.
The door to our bedroom pushed open, and Doc swept in with defeat written over his face. “Fuck.”
“Don’t bother with the epidural. Just fucking get this next one out of me and go away.” Roan’s growl of frustration rode the edge of pure instinct, and I did all I could, leaning in to wrap him in my scent, distract him from the milling guests.
“Well, his perineal seam has split, to the womb’s convergence so the eggs can pass.
The loper’s glands are secreting a lubricating material that is perfused with our venom and acts as an antiseptic.
” Doc smeared something on his hands and gloved up before going in, lifting Roan’s tail out of the way with a perfunctory touch that had him hissing.
“My stars…” Zurok’s breath caught. “Liru and I are interested in raising young, but I do not think the path of birth is for me.”
“Nor I,” a softer voice answered, Zurok’s partner, a pale-yellow scaled male with bright-blue eyes and hair an equal blue, like a waterfall down his back, plaited loosely.
My heart ached for the couple, two that wanted children but neither wanting to alter their bodies or go through such a change. Liru rested a hand over his stomach and stared with unease. “Too much like being inhabited…”
Zurok pulled him into his side and nodded. “Perhaps, in time, we will find comfort in our roles as parental friends.”
“We call them uncles.” Doc busied himself and motioned Zurok over to exchange scientific terminology. I lost track of things like vascularization and innervation and objectively refused to acknowledge things like clotting. It wasn’t happening to me, but I still felt bad about it.
Roan grunted and shifted his legs, tail jerking in Doc’s grasp. “Fuck, Murdoc! What would Sarge say if he knew your hand was up my surprise cloaca?”
“Make a fist.” Doc’s deadpan response caught me so off guard, the air rushed from my lungs in an aborted laugh.
“You’re evil,” Roan wheezed and shouted as Doc lifted Roan’s tail and used it to adjust his hips.
“Says the man who charges for air in his hotels.” Doc sneered and gestured for me, making a squeezing gesture with his free hand as he pointed to Roan’s tail. I reached in and did as I was told, wincing as Roan cried out, his pitch sharp and pain evident. “And there we go, it’s descending.”
“What was that?” Zurok leaned in closer.
“Tail muscles and ligaments link to the pelvis, and by angling it up, you tilt it and cause movement of the womb. Counterpressure on the symphysis and a little massage triggered an incomplete contraction, which caused our dear second egg to pop down. Twin births weren’t exceedingly rare, but they were well studied, thankfully.
” Doc retreated, and Zurok’s omega partner leaned in to offer him a cloth to wipe things down.
A swear, a push, and a groan of pain all had Roan screaming through a final volley that had the second egg breaching. Roan didn’t restrain his efforts, though. He pushed, gritting his teeth and pushed again, whole body shaking.
“Hey, easy. No rush!” Doc huffed and flinched as Roan cried out and strained, shaking as the final egg spread him and slid free, falling gently into the knotted blankets with a wet thump.
This egg was not like the first, not a swirl of our combined colors, but rather a dull, dusty purple with a brassy speckling, rather like my own scales. I reached for it before Roan could swipe it with his tail and brought it to its brother, nudging them together at his side. “Roan…”
Roan broke down into soft tears, his sobs quiet, breathy things. With one arm cupping to the eggs and the other draping over his back, I leaned in to kiss his shoulder, in the very space I’d marked.
Doc and Zurok leaned in to work and clean Roan, if his wincing and jostling were any indication until they leaned him on his side and placed absorbent cloth beneath him to stave off any excess fluid leakage that came with the healing process.
“Avoid fucking like rabbits for a few weeks if you can. Roan’s dick is fair game the moment he’s ready, but keep your pecker away from him.
” Doc huffed and tucked Roan in with a clean blanket.
His gestures and tail a stark contrast to the rude bravado.
But that was who Doc was: sass and bratty behavior.
Roan was pride and bravado. I wanted to be the oasis in his desert life, his reprieve from the harsh outside, a treasure, like unwrapping the many layers of a gift.
Like the rare moment I’d been able to taste an orange.
The bitter peeling, bitten through, rewarded me with the sweetest juice.
“I’m not the weak link in this chain.” I chuckled and nuzzled against Roan, tucking our eggs between us. “I can go forever without it.”
I gave Roan a long stare as he stroked the shells of our eggs and closed his eyes.
Doc sat on the edge of the bed as Zurok and Liru watched on.
In my occasional glances, their stares were longing and miserable.
Roan cleared his throat to draw my gaze back.
“Doc, am I safe to get a shower while Wallace changes the blankets and sheets?”
“Can you even stand to leave your eggs right now?” Doc raised a brow as I glanced over.
“Not easily, but we have friends here to keep our eggs company.” Roan leaned in and gave me a soft kiss over my lips before he slipped away, eyes closed and body tense, guided by Doc.
Zurok and Liru stood there with open mouths, and I gathered the freshly lain eggs, each in a clean cloth, before handing one to each of them. It was difficult, even for me, to part with them, but soft whimpers of joy tickled my ears as I went about changing the bedding and cleaning up.
When I tightened the last sheet and tucked a nest of blankets into place, I turned and gestured to invite the two into our nest. “If you would like to keep them warm while he bathes?”
They nearly sobbed at the offer and slid into our nest, tucking the eggs in with meaningful looks toward one another.
Little sobs, soft breaths, and whispers about Liru braving the process if they were to go the route of artificial insemination on the next season. Or perhaps they could adopt in time.
“I can feel them, their life. They’re reaching out to bond.
” Liru touched the shell of the swirled one.
And as he said it, I could feel it too, little tugs on my senses, an electrostatic presence that made my mind drift to places of warmth, comfort, bright lights, unease, all balled into two wonderful little points.
I sat in a chair nearby and watched the two omegas, wishing for something they couldn’t have easily. Something I’d accidentally stumbled upon. It felt wrong.
Zurok had treated us with such love and respect upon arrival, protected all of us, and opened us to a world beyond anything. They’d given us home and heart. Equality and purpose, despite me not being sure of what I could truly add to their utopia.
Roan returned sometime later, and Zurok slid from the nest with his mate, replaced by a bare Roan with stringy wet hair and eyes that bored into me guiltily.
He stroked a hand over the swirled one’s shell then the speckled, studying them both with a wistful frown. “It will be difficult raising two children, especially if I need to travel.”
I nodded as I joined him, and his eyes traced their shells.
I touched them in turn, and something bothered me.
The speckled one sang for me, lifting my heart high in my chest as the swirled one muted, still loving and joyous.
Roan’s gaze drifted from the egg to Zurok and Liru.
I kept silent because my own bond with Roan told me something that made me want to weep tears of anguish and joy at the same time.
All the fear I had about raising two children in the stead of one, the pain of watching others weep.
I whispered in a cracking voice as I touched between the eggs. “Do you feel the difference, Roan?”
He nodded. Wetness glistened in his eyes. “Doc, can you make sure the swirled one’s egg is fine?”
Doc nodded as he brought out a portable device that functioned similarly to the 4D. He studied the heartbeat and vein of life forming within it as Zurok watched on with angst.
“Zurok?” Roan gestured for the male and sat up, drawing the egg over with him. I did the same with the speckled egg as Doc declared them both perfectly healthy.
Both their gazes drifted to the same egg, the swirled one.
Roan took a shuddering breath as I reached over to hold his hand.
Perhaps it was never meant to be, or perhaps that momentary lapse where Roan left his eggs to take a shower, or another omega’s heart thudding so close so soon… I wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, moral or otherwise.
I will shower this child with the same affection, the same love and adoration.
Financially, anything he needs.” Roan took a shuddering breath.
As much as I wanted two babies, I knew that the planet, the stars in the sky, and nature itself said we only got the one.
The bond with the egg in his lap dimmed. “Wallace?”