The baby had taken to performing gymnastics, using Vale’s organs to kick off into contortions, and Vale was weary beyond the telling of it. Still Urho guaranteed him that the baby, once born, would be so cute that Vale would forget his irritation with it now. He believed it was true, but it didn’t make a kick to the kidney feel any better.
“It’s not far now,” Jason said, putting his hand on Vale’s stomach, and kissing his cheek. “Should I open the window?”
“Yes.”
The sea air poured into the carriage with a salty wildness that gave Vale the shivers. He took deep, fortifying breaths, finding it settled his stomach and cooled his hot skin. “That’s better,” he murmured, wiping a hand over his beard. “Not much farther now?”
“Just a few more miles,” the beta driver said, pointing ahead toward the sea cliffs. “The Lofton House is just that’a’way. What are you’uns doin’ up at the big house?”
Urho pleasantly explained that the flu epidemic had taken off in the city beyond their willingness to risk exposure, and so they’d packed for a few months stay and trundled off together to their friends’ home in Virona.
“Ah, yes, we’re still blessedly free of the cursed sickness,” the driver said. “So, are you gonna vacation the whole time then? Must be nice.”
“No,” Urho explained. “I’m a doctor, and Jason here is a scientist.”
Jason scoffed and explained that he’d had to give up his work in the labs for the duration of the stay. But his work for his father’s company could, sadly, be done from afar, and so he would still be occupied with it for several hours a day.
“Idleness is wolf-god’s enemy,” the driver said and rolled down his window to spit out. “Good thinkin’ stayin’ busy-like.”
Vale didn’t know that he agreed. He didn’t want Jason working too much. It kept him from fulfilling Vale’s every whim. Not that Vale wanted him unoccupied, per se.Thatwould lead to nothing but indulgence in copious amounts of sex, and as horny as the pregnancy made Vale, it also made him irritable, too. He was well and truly sick of being fisted. Blow jobs? Great. Nipple play? Fantastic. Rimming? Please. But he wanted Jason’s hand away from his asshole for the foreseeable future.
Yet, Urho refused to alter his prescription of a daily fist, and, in the heat of the moment, Vale never could resist that beautiful feeling of fullness, resorting to begging for it even. But for some reason, it left him annoyed later. It was too much and never quite enough. And he tended to get snappish afterward.
So maybe itwasbest if Jason worked at least part of the day.
Vale was sick to death of his own fickle company—one minute he wanted nothing more than to nap, the next he had to walk. One moment he wanted tea, and the next, he didn’t. He craved fish, and then couldn’t stomach it. He was cranky and anxious but didn’t want Jason to share even a shred of his fear. Vale wished he could escape his head. He didn’t know how Jason wasn’t sick of being around him, as well.
“That must be it,” Jason said, pointing at a large, red-roofed house as they bounced over a big pothole in the road.
The beta driver cursed and apologized. “The roads get rough in the spring rains, and no one’s paid to fix ’em,” he said.
The jolt made Vale’s hips ache, and the scar tissue inside tightened like a rubber band. He hissed under his breath. Jason and Urho were annoyingly solicitous, and he bantered with them both briefly about the baby’s chances of being adorable. High, Urho assured him. Jason simply nuzzled his neck and left Vale an annoyed puddle of goo.
Their destination, Lofton, loomed ahead and the chaos of their arrival was perhaps not as great as it could have been, but chaotic all the same. Xan and Jason greeted each other like pups, roughhousing in the yard like they were back at Mont Nessadare. And the electrical, lust-filled charge between Urho and Xan when they met again after months apart was enough to make Vale’s omega glands swell with slick.
Caleb was a sight for sore eyes. Warm and knowing, he greeted Vale just the way he needed to be greeted—with affection and offers of food. Xan’s omega was a calming balm, all blond and white and giving off a creamy glow that calmed Vale’s nerves on sight. Urho claimed their immediate bond was due to a brooding instinct, claiming omegas are always drawn to one another for support during pregnancy, but Vale knew it was so much more than that.
Only another omega could ever understand what he now faced. No matter how much an alpha tried, he could not comprehend what it was to be subsumed by his body’s demands. Omegas shared a commonality of surrender. During heat and pregnancy, they learned how little control they truly had over nature, and how little their egos mattered when it came to wolf-god’s push for reproduction. That was something an alpha never understood, not even after the uncontrollable rush of anÉrosgápebonding.
That’s why Caleb greeted him like a dear old friend, and Vale let the man ply him with soup and sandwiches before asking to be guided up to their room for a rest. Jason followed at his heels, and Caleb led them up a striking staircase that split at the top into separate wings of the house.
“The place is enormous,” Caleb said with a sigh. “All the better to fill with babies, I suppose.” This last he tacked on brightly, voice full of a cheerful hope that Vale recognized as Caleb’s usual public persona. Frankly, he wondered how genuine the brightness really was, because, underneath, he sensed a kind of sadness that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Xan’s family always did like to show off,” Jason said, his hand on Vale’s lower back as they took a left at the top of the stairs and then hung a right to walk a corridor decorated with rococo ornaments that seemed far from Caleb’s personal style.
“Indeed,” Caleb agreed.
The hallway boasted multiple bedrooms on one side and windows that opened to the courtyard below on the other. A breeze flowed in, cooling the air and leaving an imprint of sea-salt on Vale’s tongue. He rather enjoyed it, and as the breeze curled through his hair, a deep relaxation began in his bones.
“This one.” Caleb opened the room. “It has an en suite bathroom and a big bed. Urho will be just down the hall in a similar room. If you need anything—towels, fresh bedding, food at odd hours—don’t hesitate to ask any of the servants, or to ring specifically for our man, Ren. He’s sent from wolf-god above and never lets me down.”
Vale hugged Caleb goodbye for the time being, and flopped back on the bed, his belly moving around beneath his shirt. Jason stood by the window, looking out, his shoulders stiff and his back straight. “Nice view?”
“A garden,” Jason offered. “The servants seem to be wrangling it back into shape.”
“Perhaps you can help them, darling.”
“Maybe I will.”
