Page 70 of Breeding Clinic

“What are we doing for Christmas?” I ask Matthew. With my old pack, we rotated whose family we spent the holidays with.

“Hmm? Oh. We usually rent a big ski chalet up in the mountains. Everyone comes, although Gabriel’s family don’t fly in from Brazil every single year. They’re saving their airfarefor after the baby’s born. What about you? What does your family do?”

I turn down the volume on the TV while a home improvement show plays in the background. “They’d probably like a ski chalet, although I don’t think they’d actually want to go skiing. We always did a small dinner the night before, then presents in the morning, then a big family dinner with the rest of the family. Josh’s parents live next door to my parents so I got to see them half the time when the pack wasn’t visiting the other families.”

Matthew looks up from his typing. “Josh was your old alpha?”

“Yeah. We grew up next door to each other.” He was my first kiss. My first everything. And then he threw away all of our history when things got hard. My inability to move on was holding the pack back. Keeping them from moving on.

And he was right.

After I left, Josh had his best string of games. For the first time ever, I don’t have an emotional reaction when I remember it. No anger or hurt or resentment. Only the facts. It didn’t work out. That happens sometimes. Scent matches aren’t a guarantee you’ll live happily ever after.

The baby moves. As if reminding me that I have more important things to fixate on than old regrets. Tiny repeated pokes make a pattern on my right hip from the inside. It’s a strange sensation.What is she doing in there?I rub the spot.

“Is it the baby?” Matthew asks, looking at where I’m rubbing. “Can I feel?”

“Of course.”

Matthew puts his laptop aside and slides across the couch. I grab his hand and bring it to my belly. His touch is tentative and light. I push his hand down harder, right over the spot where she was moving.

“It might be too early still,” I warn him. The baby app on my phone says our baby girl is the size of a carrot.

The baby goes still, as if she’s shy. “Try talking to her,” I suggest.

“I could read a book to her. I downloaded some.”

The suggestion makes me smile. He looked up baby books? That’s so sweet. “Okay. Let’s get comfortable.” I put a pillow behind my head and slouch down, reclining. Matthew sprawls out between my legs, his head propped on my belly. He pulls out his phone and opens his reading app while I turn the subtitles on for the TV show I’m barely watching.

“Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do,” Matthew reads. “Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, andwhat is the use of a book,thought Alicewithout pictures or conversations?”

“Are you readingAlice in Wonderland?” I ask, surprised.

“Yeah.” He tips his face up to look at me. “It’s my favorite book.”

I chuckle, my belly bouncing and his face along with it. “I thought you meant a baby book.”

Matthew frowns. “It is a kid’s book.”

“It took me by surprise, that’s all.”

He’s so earnest. It’s cute. I brush a curl out of his eyes. His hair’s getting long. He usually gets it trimmed by now. But we’ve been rather busy lately. He doesn’t seem to mind my affectionate petting. It’s the omega in me. I crave the exchange of scents. His weak beta scent gland in his neck has the highest concentration, but there are pheromones in our hair too.

“Okay,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I interrupted. Carry on.”

After a brief pause, he does. He reads the whole first chapter to our baby so she can learn his voice. And I half-watch thehome design show. It’s a nest makeover show. When I notice that Matthew is glancing at it too, his attention to his book waning, I turn the volume up.

“Are you ready to see your dream nest?” the host asks the anxious blindfolded omega.

“Yes. I’m ready,” the omega answers.

“Then take your blindfold off in three… two… one!”

“Oh! Wow. How did you do that?” the omega says, excited.

They show a montage of the before and after. Before, the room was beige and bland. With big box store furniture that has to be put together with an allen wrench. Now it’s a mermaid lagoon.

Someone painted a mural on the walls and ceiling to make it look like an ocean at sunset. The carpet’s been pulled up and hardwood floors installed. The nest is half of a pirate ship, made to look like it’s been broken and drifted into a lagoon. It takes up nearly the entire bedroom. Mountains of soft, cozy blankets and jeweled pillows make the surface soft. Fake flowers and pillows that look like moss covered stones decorate the base of the ship nest. Netting decorates one of the walls. Seashells and a starfish are stuck in it haphazardly.

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