Page 66 of Where the Current Takes Him
“It’s okay,” he heard himself say. “Let’s get back to the house, and we can call Dr. Enas.”
“Do you think he’ll know what’s going on?” Beau’s voice was small and scared. The ruffled tissue at either side of his neck swirled in the currents of his breath.
Loriun gathered his mate into his arms and struck out for the house. “I’m sure he will.” The muscles in his lower back burned with exertion as he whipped his tail through the sea. He worked to keep his face a mask of calm.
Internally, Loriun was having a meltdown. If Omegas regularly developed gills, wouldn’t it be common knowledge? Did all Omegas have gills? Did they sprout gills after mating with a Mer? Had hefuckedgills into a human? Was Beau somehow a hybrid and he didn’t know?
The last thought gave Loriun pause. It would certainly explain why Ashford seemed to care so little for his son, and why he would have offered Beau up as a lab rat.
A fresh wave of rage at the very idea washed through Loriun. He ought to have forgone the handshake and greeted Ashford with a well-deserved punch to the face.
But Beau couldn’t be a hybrid. He was born four years prior to the very first Mer–human pairings, and he appeared entirely human, with the obvious exception of his newfound gills. Even beyond that, Loriun couldn’t imagine Ileana stepping out on her husband to have a tryst with a Mer. There had to be some other explanation.
At last, they reached the sea entrance to their home. Loriun surfaced and set Beau on the shell bench. An unwanted flash of Beau in the throws of heat on that same bench invaded Loriun’s mind.
“Wait here. I’ll get you a towel.” Human skin didn’t repel water the way Mer scales did, and the last thing he needed was for Beau to slip and shatter a bone.
Loriun flicked the last drops of water from the end of his tail and retrieved a fluffy towel from the bathroom. When Beau’s naked body was sufficiently swaddled, Loriun grabbed his phone from the kitchen island. His hands were shaking. It was already 8 p. m. and well past the clinic’s closing hour.
Loriun sagged with relief when Dr. Enas picked up.
“Hello?”
“Doctor, I’m so sorry to be disturbing you after business hours…”
“Not at all. What is the problem? Is Beau okay?”
“Yes—Well…” Loriun eyed his mate, who was curled in a ball on the sofa, hair dripping in his eyes. “He’s not hurt. But we found something… worrying.”
“And that is…?”Dr. Enas prompted.
The words began to spill out. “We went for a night swim and Beau was trying to prove that humans could actually swim,but then he got caught in a riptide, and by the time I reached him, he was… breathing. Underwater.”
The Omega doctor on the other end was quiet, ratcheting Loriun’s anxiety levels up a few more notches.
“Well?” he asked loudly, scraping his claws through his hair. “Why does myhumanmate havegills?”
“I can think of only one reason,”Dr. Enas said.“But you must answer me truthfully this time. When Beau was suffering from Pheromone Overwhelm, did you engage in intercourse?”
Loriun winced. “Ah… Yes. We did.” He’d deal with Beau’s ire later. For now, all he cared about was making sure his mate was okay.
A sigh crackled over the line.“I thought so. And you did not use protection?”
“No.” Loriun closed his eyes. Foolish, teenage mistake. Something he would have done in his college years, not as a thirty–three–year–old adult.
“Well, Loriun, I don’t know how to say this tactfully,”Dr. Enas said at last.“Your Omega is pregnant.”
The muscles in his chest came to a complete standstill. He could no longer draw breath.
“What?” he choked out. Beau looked up, eyes swimming with worry.
“You had unprotected sex with an Omega in heat.”Loriun could almost hear the eye roll.“Pregnancy is often the result.”Clearly the doctor’s bedside manner did not extend to his patients’ Alphas.
“But…” Loriun’s mind was little more than a windswept dandelion. “How—What does that have to do with the gills?”
“Some human Omegas carrying hybrid children have been known to develop latent gills for the duration of the pregnancy. The exact cause remains unknown, but the theory is that their bodies react to the fetus, triggering the change.An Omega with sudden-onset gills is undoubtedly pregnant. Latent gills have never been observed for any other reason.”
“What is it?” Beau asked, fear hitching in his voice. “What’s he saying?”
