Myron woke at four in the morning, convinced something was wrong. Not only because he had been trying and failing to sleep most of the night, but because the one dream he’d finally eased into was nothing but anxiety projected onto the backs of his eyelids.

He hadn’t realized just how dependent he’d become on falling asleep with Charles in his arms. He’d asked Charles for time and space naturally came with it. He couldn’t blame the other man for not wanting to be around him when he had come right out and admitted that he needed to slow the rapid progress of their relationship.

He also knew that Charles was right about him being the one who’d set things into motion so quickly. He was the one who’d asked Charles to trust him with his heart, and he knew that he’d essentially handed it back and asked him to hold onto it for a little while longer, but wasn’t that better than proceeding with something he wasn’t ready for?

Ready or not, Myron felt drawn to check on his mate. Charles could hate him, and he was probably more than justified, but that didn’t mean Myron had stopped worrying about him. It didn’t mean he was going to stop caring for him between then and whenever he managed to purge those feelings that lingered for Inara.

He opened the door to the upstairs room just a crack, relieved that it was open. At least, until the hall light lit up the bed enough for him to see that Charles wasn’t in it.

Myron’s heart sank as he searched through the room. Charles’ things were gone, but there was no note.

The omega rushed downstairs and almost collided with his mother, who was shuffling around with a glass of milk and a cookie from the batch Avery had made earlier that night. “What are you in such a hurry for?” she asked, yawning.

“Charles. Have you seen him?”

Beverly frowned. “No, not since this afternoon. You know, he seemed rather upset, come to think of it. I know you never wanted my advice, but since I have more experience with Alphas than you do—“

“Not now, mom,” he muttered, looking into the living room. No sign of Charles there, either. He picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed Charles’ number, but he couldn’t hear the phone ringing anywhere in the house, and something told him that Charles was nowhere in the pack, either.

Before Myron could grab his keys, Nicholas came out, still wearing his robe and looking like he could barely keep his eyes open. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Your brother is having romantic trouble,” Beverly said dryly.

“Charles is gone,” Myron said, looking over at his brother. “Did he say anything to you or Avery?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him since he came back.” Nicholas frowned. “When was the last you saw him.”

“Earlier tonight,” Myron said, running a hand through his hair. He felt like the room was spinning, but he knew it was just his world.

Nicholas’ eyes narrowed. “Did you fight?”

The way he asked made it clear he knew at least something about what had gone on between them. Myron looked at his mother, who was listening intently and no longer half-asleep. Despite not wanting to give her any gossip to feed on, he didn’t want to waste time he could spend looking for Charles. “It wasn’t a fight.”

“Jesus, Myron, what did you do?”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Nicholas,” Beverly scolded.

Nicholas sighed. They hadn’t actually fought since repairing their relationship within the last year, but Nicholas seemed to have replaced arguing with expelling air from his lungs.

“He was upset because he saw me talking with Inara,” Myron admitted.

“Talking with her? When?” Nicholas asked, frowning.

“Earlier today. We met up at the bistro, and—“

“You went on a date with your ex?” Nicholas asked, staring at him like he’d just confessed to having sex with her in the town square.

“It wasn’t a date.”

“You went to a restaurant to talk with someone you used to fuck, and were obsessed with as recently as a few months ago. If it’s not a date, it’s poor judgment at the very least.”

“Language, Nicholas,” Beverly said in a guttural voice she reserved for scolding her children. “But your brother is right, that’s absolutely absurd. Did you at least talk to him about it?”

Myron wasn’t sure how to answer. They’d talked, alright, but admitting what they’d talked about after hearing his family’s reaction to what he’d been certain was an innocent thing was making him second guess his timing and everything else.

“What did you do, Myron?” Nicholas asked in a tone Myron hadn’t heard in years. The one that said, “What have you gone and screwed up now?”

“Nothing,” he gritted out. “I just told him that after meeting with Inara, I felt like I needed time to think things through.”

“To think what through?” Nicholas cried. Even Beverly winced at his volume. “Please don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about giving that witch a second chance.”

“Of course not! I love Charles,” Myron said defensively. He hadn’t planned on saying those words around his mother for a while yet, but now he knew keeping that secret was of no use. He wasn’t even sure why he’d wanted it to be a secret. Hadn’t it bothered him back when Charles was hesitant to take their relationship beyond a one-time fling?

“Then what the hell is there to think about?” Nicholas demanded.

“What’s going on?” Avery asked, stalking out of the bedroom. “You guys are going to wake Jade and if I don’t get at least two more hours, I am going to snap.”

“Myron ‘met with’ Inara earlier, at the bistro,” Nicholas said bitterly. “That’s why Charles was so upset. Oh, and then Myron told him he needed time to think about their relationship.”

Avery’s eyes widened and the way he was looking at Myron was even worse than the judgment. “What? Myron, is that true?”

“He’s making it sound worse than it is,” Myron muttered. “Things have been going way too fast, and I just needed a second to slow down and think.”

“Because of Inara,” Nicholas said flatly.

“Yes, partly because of her,” Myron snapped. “Is that not what you’re supposed to do if you still have feelings for someone? Take the time to sort them out and work through them before giving yourself to someone else?”

“It would be, if you hadn’t already given everything to Charles,” Nicholas growled. “Instead, you waited to bring him here and dropped this shit on him out of the blue. Do you have any idea how that must have made him feel?”

“What happened to you thinking our being together is a terrible idea? Huh?”

“Oh, I still think that. Just for very different reasons,” said Nicholas. “And the ship for taking it slow has set sail.”

“Nicholas…” Avery said worriedly.

Myron didn’t like the tone in his voice. Like they both knew something he didn’t about his own mate.

“No. This isn’t just a matter of privacy anymore,” Nicholas muttered. “He needs to know.”

“Know what?” Myron demanded. “If Charles is out there, he’s in danger, so if either of you know something, you need to tell me now.”

Avery nodded reluctantly. At least the look of confusion on Beverly’s face made it clear Myron wasn’t the only one out of the loop.

“Charles is pregnant,” Nicholas said, still scowling at his brother.

Myron heard him, but the words didn’t make sense. “I… he’s what?”

“He’s pregnant,” Nicholas repeated, folding his arms. “He just found out this afternoon, right before you gave him your little ‘I need space to find myself’ speech.”

Myron’s heart sank like lead. Charles was pregnant, and now everything made sense in a way he didn’t want it to. The fact that he’d found the other man crying on the balcony, the fear and pain in his eyes when Myron had told him he needed to slow down. The betrayal.

“Oh, God,” he breathed. “What have I done?”

Beverly had been a mostly passive listener in the conversation, but the revelation that she had another grandchild to worry about finished waking her up. “Charles is an Alpha! How on earth did this even happen?”

“He’s not an Alpha,” Myron answered listlessly. “He’s something else.”

“Well, what else is there?” Beverly cried.

Myron shook his head. “They don’t know. He’s just…different. So am I, I—“ He broke off when he realized he had no idea how to explain the full truth to his family. He didn’t have time, either. “I have to go.”

“I’ll send out a search party,” Nicholas muttered.

“I’ll call Nadia,” said Beverly. “That old broad’s always got her nose in everybody’s business. If he’s in Southbend, we’ll find him.”

Myron tried Charles’ phone again and his heart stung when he heard the sound of the man’s soft accent on the answering machine. “Charles, it’s me. I know you’re upset, and I know about the baby. You have every right to be furious, please just… just call me when you get this.”

By the time he hung up, he and Avery were alone. The omega was watching him with a sad gaze, his arms folded over his pajamas. “I don’t think he’s here, Myron.”

“Why?” he gritted out, reaching for his coat.

“Because I wouldn’t be,” Avery answered.

Those words were a punch in the gut, but Avery was right. Myron had fucked up, which was nothing new, but never this badly. “I’m going to find him and make this right.”

“I hope you do,” Avery said softly. “But you need to understand it’s not going to be easy. Charles may not be an omega, but in some ways, he’s softer than any omega I’ve ever met. I saw his face when he found out about that baby, and I could tell how scared he was.”

“Scared? Why?” Myron asked, horrified.

Avery shook his head. “I don’t know. The doctor said he’s at a high risk, but I don’t think that was it.”

A high risk. Myron was already scared for his mate, and their child, but now he was terrified. If anything happened to either of them because of the stress he’d put Charles through, to the point where he felt like he had to leave and go out on his own… “What did he say to you?”

“He was scared of how you’d react, and I told him that you’d be thrilled. That you’d always wanted a family, and he should trust you.” The guilt in Avery’s tone drove the anguish in even more. “I thought you had changed. We all did.”

“I have,” Myron gritted out. “I love him, I… I just fucked up.”

“Do yourself and Charles a favor, Myron. When you do find him, don’t expect that you’re going to be able to fix it right away. That time you said you needed? Take it, and I mean really take it. Figure out what the hell it is you want, and realize that at some point, you are going to have to make a choice between a love that’s real and one that was never what you thought it was in the first place. When you make that choice, and get your own heart right, you’re going to have to accept that Charles’ might be in a very different place. And for that, you will have no one to blame but yourself.”

Myron swallowed hard. The omega’s words weren’t easy to hear, but they were true. Painfully so.

The irony was, it had only taken him a night to figure out what he wanted, and now that he had space from Charles, he knew it sure as hell wasn’t that. There was just a good chance that he’d figured it out too late.