Chapter Nineteen
Blade
The sharp scent of spruce pines and the cool temperature was a nice change from the city. As we neared the compound, I expected to see walls and barbed wire. I suppose it was the word “compound” and the secrecy that surrounded the place that had me picturing it as a prison of sorts.
But when we drove through the entrance, the iron gates were wide open, and there was no sign of guards or security of any kind. We pulled up in front of a large gray building that had a sign that read Medical Complex on the front.
We got out of the car and Wyatt walked up the steps ahead of me. Before he could knock, the door opened and a young girl stepped out. She was slender and only reached Wyatt’s chin. She smiled and waved at me.
“Welcome. I’m Trina.” Her voice was warm.
“Wyatt.” They shook hands.
I approached the two of them. “I’m Blade.”
She nodded and her gaze dropped to my slightly rounded stomach. “I know.”
I laughed self-consciously. “I guess it’s obvious.”
“Just a little.” She grinned. “We have your cabin all ready. I went ahead and stocked it with fresh juices and bottled water. There’s a small grocery store just down the way. You’ll want to grab whatever else you need.” She winked at me. “No doubt omega daddy will want to stock up on snacks.”
My face warmed. I had been eating a lot of sweets and craving salt lately. I was kind of embarrassed, because I’d never been someone who liked junk food. But now I couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
Wyatt put his arm around my shoulders. “What do we do first?” He peered past her. “Is there any way Blade could get a checkup?”
“Of course.” She moved back into the building and we followed. “We always do an examination as soon as the omegas arrive.”
“Good.” Wyatt sounded relieved.
I was a little more apprehensive. How exactly did they check on the baby, since I was a man? I followed her into a bright examination room off the main lobby.
She turned to Wyatt. “You can stay with him if you want. I know this is really stressful for both of you.”
“I’d like that.” He nodded.
She touched my arm. “Okay, take everything off but your underwear, and put on the blue smock. You’ll want it to open in the front.” She opened some drawers and started laying out items: a stethoscope, two syringes, and a tube of some type of lube. Then she straightened. “Dr. Peters will be right in.”
After she was gone, I did as she said, and then I sat on the paper-covered exam table. Wyatt took a seat in the corner. He smiled reassuringly at me. “So far so good.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I was expecting everyone to be more uptight.”
“Me too.”
“I know I need an examination, but man, I could use a nap.” I sighed and hung my head.
His lips twitched. “I know. You’re eyes are at half-mast.”
“All I want to do is eat and sleep. That can’t be healthy.”
“It must be what the baby needs.”
The door opened and an older man with a neatly trimmed gray beard entered the room. He smiled and shook our hands. “I’m Dr. Peters.” He scribbled something on his clipboard. “I’m glad you two finally made it.”
“Of course.” Wyatt leaned back in his chair. “We’d have come sooner, but we had work obligations.”
“Well, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”
“I guess.” My stomach rolled with nerves. “How exactly does this work?” I gave the tray with the syringes a nervous glance. “You know… with me being a man and all.”
He followed my gaze, and he chuckled. “One of those is a vitamin B shot, and the other is so I can draw some blood. Don’t worry, the exam is mostly painless. The most discomfort you’ll feel is that the gel is kind of cold on your stomach, and the needle might prick a little when I draw your blood.”
Relief washed through me. “Okay. Good.”
“Go ahead and lie down.” He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Once I was flat, he moved closer and started pressing very gently on my abdomen. “Morning sickness almost gone?”
I nodded. “Yep. I get a few twinges every now and then, but nothing like in the beginning.”
He laughed. “Yeah, it’s pretty awful at first.” He continued to press on me. “Everything feels normal.” He stepped back and went to the cart in the corner that had a machine on it. He rolled it closer, and then he squeezed a big blob of gel on the probe. “This is completely safe for the baby. Don’t worry.”
I studied the contraption. “If you say so.”
He smiled. “It seems intimidating, I know.” He flicked some switches on the device.
“This works on a man too?” Wyatt sounded skeptical.
“Of course.” He took in my dubious expression. “You don’t have to be a female to have an ultrasound. The way this works is the machine transmits a high-frequency sound into your body, and it hits the boundaries between things like soft tissue and fluids, or soft tissue and bone.”
I wrinkled my brow, and he laughed.
“The sound waves are then reflected back to the probe, and the machine calculates everything. To make a long story short: the sound waves are used to create a two-dimensional image of the fetus.”
“Ahhh.” I nodded. “I think I get it.”
Dr. Peters pushed open my smock, and he pressed the probe against my stomach. I winced at how cold the probe was, but I held still. A dark image appeared on the screen, but I couldn’t tell what anything was. He continued to move the wand around until a rapid swishing sound became obvious. The image on the screen became a mixture of white, gray, and black, and a small pulsing movement appeared in the center of the image.
“That’s the baby’s heartbeat.” Dr. Peters squinted and continued to move the instrument around my slick abdomen. “Sounds like a good strong heart.”
I was amazed as I stared at the screen. That was the baby’s heart? That was the baby’s actual heart? A lump formed in my throat, and my eyes stung. This was really happening. For so long the baby had been this faceless concept. The baby hadn’t been a who; the baby had been an it. I’d been able to not really connect with the flesh-and-blood side of it all. But when I saw the image of its beating heart on the machine, it became all too real.
“Wow.” Wyatt’s voice was hushed. “That’s actually a baby.”
The doctor chuckled. “Yep.” He pointed to some parts of the screen. “This is the fetus’s head. There are the legs and arms.” He sounded very matter-of-fact.
“This is crazy,” I muttered. It made me feel twice as bad that I’d been eating so much crap. That poor little fetus was eating every bag of Cheetos and Snickers bar I was eating.
“The baby is inside the omega pouch. It’s a fleshy pocket that takes the place of a womb in a solar eclipse omega.” He leaned closer. “It all looks really good. The fetus is the right size for eight weeks.”
“It still looks so small.” Wyatt peered intently at the screen.
“This last month it’s going to grow a lot.” The doctor glanced at me. “Seen enough?”
I glanced at Wyatt. “Yes. You?”
“I guess.” He laughed. “It’s so cool to think that’s our baby.” He held out his hand to me, and I grabbed it.
“Yeah. It’s really wonderful and insane all at the same time.” I squeezed his fingers.
Dr. Peters pulled the probe away, and he wiped my stomach and the instrument clean. He pushed the cart back into the corner and picked up one of the syringes. “As I said earlier, this is vitamin B.”
I let go of Wyatt’s hand, and I tensed my stomach muscles. The needle gave a sharp prick, and then it was done. The doctor then picked up the second syringe.
“We need a blood sample just to make sure everything is as it should be.” He stuck the needle into a vein in my arm, and I watched the syringe fill with my blood. He was skilled enough that it really didn’t hurt, and before I knew it, he was done. He put a Band-Aid over the insertion point and had me bend my arm.
“That wasn’t so bad.” I smiled at the doctor.
He lowered his head, and then his expression became more serious. “Now this is where I need to talk about the real challenges of an omega pregnancy.”
I met Wyatt’s strained glance. “Okay.”
“Unlike a female pregnancy, there’s no birth canal. That means when it’s time to deliver, it’s imperative that you get to the medical complex within thirty minutes or so. You won’t want to leave the compound the last week of pregnancy because the baby can really come at any time.”
I nodded, feeling apprehensive. “So it’s dangerous?”
“Yes.” He grimaced. “In a female pregnancy, whether the woman is ready to deliver or not, the baby has a passage. The baby will be born regardless of whether the woman is ready. In a male omega, there’s no natural exit from the body. If a C-section isn’t performed in a timely manner, the baby and the omega can die.”
“Shit,” I muttered, rubbing my stomach.
“So you’re saying once he goes into labor, we have around thirty minutes?” Wyatt asked, his jaw tense.
The doctor sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. What triggers the labor in a male omega is the disintegration of the air and feeding tube inside the womb. Once it’s no longer functioning, the baby is deprived of oxygen, and if the baby isn’t removed there is a high risk of sepsis. It all happens very quickly. The baby must be removed promptly to prevent infection from spreading through the bloodstream of the omega and the suffocation of the child.”
“Wow.” I stared at him with my eyes wide. “I knew this might be complicated, but I had no idea it was potentially life threatening.”
“That’s why we wanted you here as soon as possible.” Dr. Peters sighed. “We’ll do our very best to make sure you and the baby are safe, Blade. You have my word.”
“Yeah.” I exhaled. “Okay.”
“In twenty years of doing this, I’ve only lost one omega and baby.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m not okay with that ever happening again.”
“Shit. What happened?” Wyatt looked pale.
“The omega insisted on leaving the compound even though he was due any moment. We couldn’t get to them in time.” Dr. Peters looked uneasy. “I did my best, but it was too late.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere.” I met Wyatt’s gaze. “I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize our baby.”
“Sorry to end your exam on such a depressing note.” Dr. Peters slipped the syringe with my blood into a little bag. “But it’s important you understand you need to stay close by, just in case.”
“We will,” Wyatt responded firmly.
Dr. Peters leaned toward me and spoke softly. “Remember, in twenty years, Blade, only one fatality and that was because the omega didn’t listen.”
I nodded and tried to relax. “Okay.”
He moved to the door. “Go ahead and get dressed. I should have your blood results back by tomorrow morning, and I’d like to see you again in about five days. We might be able to tell the sex of the baby by then.”
“Really?” I was glad for the change of subject. I’d been nervous enough before I’d heard the possible complications. Now I was twice as apprehensive.
“Yep,” Dr. Peters said.
After he was gone, I slid off the table and got dressed quickly. When I met Wyatt’s gaze, he had a funny expression. “Everything okay?” I asked as I ran my hands over my hair.
“I think this pregnancy is giving me an ulcer.”
“I know.” I sighed. “But we won’t be stupid. We’ll stick close to the compound, and everything should be fine.”
“Right.” He gave a curt nod.
I frowned at him. “Don’t look so grim.”
He stood and leaned in to kiss me. “Sorry.” He forced a smile. “That was moving as hell to see our baby.”
Our baby.
I put my arms around his waist. “Yeah.”
“I want the sex of the baby to be a surprise.” He laughed. “What about you?”
“I agree.” I smiled.
There was a knock on the door and Trina came in with a bottle of pills. “Prenatal vitamins. Have you been taking any?”
My face warmed. “I never even thought about it.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled. “Start now, though.” She handed me the bottle.
“I will.”
“You look exhausted.” She laughed and patted my shoulder. “Your cabin is up the same road you came in on, about a quarter mile. It’s blue and it has window boxes with yellow flowers. You can’t miss it.” She held out a key, and Wyatt grabbed it.
We walked out of the building, and she went back inside. We got in the car and pulled onto the road, passing a bunch of brightly painted cabins. I was once again surprised by how cheery and normal everything seemed here. I’d been convinced it would be a dreary place where solar eclipse omegas came to unload their unwanted offspring. But as I glimpsed children playing in their yards, I realized that wasn’t the case at all. This was a community of happy families, not a prison.
“Remind me to call Mom tonight,” Wyatt murmured, interrupting my thoughts. “She wanted to come with us so bad.”
“I know.” I grimaced. “I felt kind of guilty leaving her behind. But this is pretty personal and intense. I’m glad it’s just you and me.”
He nodded. “Me too.” He shot me a warm glance. “Seeing that ultrasound made this even more real.”
“I know.” He grabbed my hand, and I kissed his knuckles.
“So what do you want, a boy or a girl?”
Shrugging, I said, “No preference.”
“Me either.”
“I don’t know how to take care of either.” I laughed, peering out the window at the tall, pine-covered mountains that surrounded the compound.
“I know. I’m scared and excited.”
“I’m mostly just terrified. What if I’m a horrible parent? What if I fuck up my kid and he or she turns out to be a serial killer?”
“That’s pretty grim.” He bugged his eyes and pulled into the driveway of a small blue house with bright yellow flowers. “This must be it.”
I opened my door and stepped out onto the gravel drive. “Home sweet home.”
Wyatt grabbed the bags from the back of the car, and we headed to the front door. The key gave Wyatt a little trouble, but eventually he got it to work. The interior was cozy with a stone fireplace and a comfy brown couch. I was pleased that it smelled clean inside, like cinnamon and vanilla, and the walls were adorned with scenic oil paintings of the surrounding mountains.
The bedroom had one big king-sized bed, and my stomach tingled with excitement. Wyatt and I hadn’t officially shared a bedroom back home. We’d made love most nights and Wyatt would often stay in my bed, but I’d never suggested he move his stuff into my room.
Wyatt came up behind me, and he kissed the back of my neck. Then he held me tight, with his hands on my stomach. “How do you feel about the fact that there’s only one bed?”
I smiled and leaned back, but I didn’t say anything. My throat had a lump in it, and I felt emotional.
“It’s a small cabin. There’s nowhere to run, Blade.” He kissed my ear. “Is that okay with you?”
I swallowed. “I don’t want to run,” I whispered.
“Promise?” His voice sounded more uncertain than usual. Wyatt always seemed confident and sure of himself. But I detected a tiny wobble.
I nodded and put my hands over his. “We’re a family.”
He inhaled sharply. “And you sure that’s what you want?”
Turning around in his arms, I held his questioning gaze. “I had no idea that was what I wanted.” I smiled. “But now I don’t want anything else.”