Page 21 of Omega Haunting

Only, Astral would find out eventually. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life lying to my mate and everyone else I was close to. It was the easiest way but until Astral saw what I did, there was little I could do besides not leave him alone with the old wolf. Only that would probably be easier said than done now that our matingmoon was winding down.

Chapter Eleven

Astral

I woke up in a cocoon of Marsin. It was like this every morning since we met. He wrapped around me and brought his wings out to hold me in. Most of the time it was one of my favorite places to be. Normally, it was endearing, but after his cave-alpha stunt in the woods yesterday it was annoying. My stomach flipflopped anticipating the fight when I brought it up later in the day. First thing in the morning was never a good time to fight.

“It doesn’t have to be a fight. I don’t think Marsin is the fighting type. Not with us anyway. He was spooked out in the woods. He didn’t grow up playing all throughout them like we did,”my wolf chimed into my thoughts as I tried to wiggle out of my Marsin cocoon.

“Morning,” my mate yawned and lifted his uppermost wing to free me.

My stomach flipflopped again. I didn’t want to be annoyed with him. I blinked back tears. Why was I crying? I hadn’t done anything wrong. We hadn’t even discussed it yet. I didn’t have long to ponder the question because my stomach lurched as if it planned to launch itself into outer space and visit Starscale 1 all on its own.

“Babe?” Marsin said, sitting up as I flung myself to my feet and sprinted to the bathroom.

He didn’t need to see me this way. No one needed to see me this way. So, I slammed the door shut behind me.

“Mate?” Marsin said, trying the knob, but it was locked by magic. I didn’t need to touch anything to make it move. Magicpounded through my cells and was always looking for a way out anyway.

“Astral?” Marsin tried again but I was in no condition to answer.

The stuffed pork chops from the night before must’ve not agreed with my stomach. That added to the fact I was almost certain my first fight with Marsin was coming up and the almost crying spell was easy enough to explain away.

“Is there anything I can do, mate?” he asked, his voice gentle.

Fuck him. I wanted to stay mad for a minute now. I was sick as hell and it had to happen right after he acted like I was a lost pup in the woods of my ancestors. Hell, it was our pack that discovered the first mothman shifter colony. Fuck him.

“Uhhh… Mate, I’m not sure what I did, but I’m sorry if I upset you. I’m more than happy to talk about it later but right now I’m more concerned about your current situation. Should I call the clinic? Your moms? Sprint out to the pharmacy and buy a test?”

“For what?”I snapped back at him over our mating link.

“A pregnancy test, mate,”he said gently and I dropped onto my knees.

My stomach was taking a microbreak but fuck me! He was probably right! What fucking timing nature had. Our first fight and Dern possibly losing his mind.

“What fight, mate?” Marsin asked. “I feel like you’re having an argument with me that I don’t know about.”

“You tried to stop me from helping Dern yesterday,”I sighed over our mating link and flushed the toilet.

“I would’ve checked on him for you. I wouldn’t have left him out there. Something is off with him. You’re right about that and we don’t know what. I will always want to keep you safe. I would have taken the risk and checked on him. It’snot a good excuse. I know it’s not but mate, there is a better than good chance that you’re pregnant or carrying an egg. I know carriers have gone to war and built whole worlds while carrying and growing their children but I like to think that our ancestors did all that work so that their descendants didn’t have to. I can’t say I knew you were pregnant yesterday but we’ve been trying to conceive for a month now.”

I let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the bathtub. I closed the toilet seat and my eyes. He was right. It was a poor excuse. We didn’t have the slightest inkling I was pregnant the day before.

“I don’t want to fight through the door,” I managed to huff aloud.

“May I come in then, please?” Marsin asked.

“Can you get me some water first?” I asked him.

“Of course. Anything else. There are some gummies on top of the fridge. Mom put them in one of our snack baskets as a joke. So I stashed them up there…” I let my words trail off.

“It probably wasn’t a joke, huh?” Marsin asked, carefully.

“Probably not. I’ll talk to you in a minute, okay, alpha?”

“I’ll be right back,” Marsin said.

I didn’t move until I heard his footfalls further away in the house. Once I was alone for a moment, I pushed myself upright, moving slow to test my stomach’s equilibrium. Then I washed my face and gave the bathroom a quick wipe down before washing my hands and heading out into the bedroom.

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