Page 141 of Alpha Heat

Xan sat up, his stomach flip-flopping. “Yeah?”

Caleb rubbed his flat belly. “I can’t promise anything, and who knows if it will truly take, but I feel different. I think we did it.” He broke into a grin. “I hope so. I’ve wanted a baby for so long. I hope he looks like you.”

Xan laughed, and Urho kissed his shoulder, sending a shiver through him. “Well, I hope he looks like you. You’re so beautiful.”

Caleb rolled his eyes, but looked pleased. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t look like Urho. Then we’d have some explaining to do.”

They all laughed softly, though it was impossible. Urho had only knotted Xan. There was a sudden quiet in the room as they all looked at each other and the future possibility hung in the air.

“Though perhaps one day…” Caleb said, shrugging. “Once an heir is secured. And once we’ve established that society and the rest of the world can simply go fuck off.”

Urho scoffed softly at the idea, but his cheeks grew a bit darker, and a wetness appeared in his eyes. Xan wondered if a child was something Urho would want with the two of them. A biological child of his own. Or if that was something he’d only wanted with Riki.

“We’ll start with this one,” Caleb said, smiling widely again and going to the curtains to throw them wide. A fresh, bright sun was rising on a clear day, and Caleb glowed in it like an angel. “I think he will be a very good place to start.”

Urho drew Xan into his arms, and the two of them admired Caleb, the hope of the future babe growing tangibly between them all, filling the room with promise.

“He’s not yetfully recovered, Mr. Heelies,” Ren said, his eyes drained and his skin gray with exhaustion. “But it appears your cousin will live. Though, if I may say so, he is much changed.” Ren pressed his lips together and then whispered brokenly, “The fever has left some damage.”

Xan, Caleb, and Urho sat in the library listening to Ren’s report. Dr. Bainson had returned to the town the prior morning, leaving Ren to care for Janus for the rest of his recovery.

“What kind of damage?” Caleb asked, a hand resting protectively on his stomach the way it had all morning during breakfast with Jason, Vale, and the new babe, whom they’d chosen to name Virona Sabel.

Xan questioned the wisdom of the name wholeheartedly, finding it a bit too on the nose, and he questioned Vale’s true poetic abilities if he didn’t see it. But the pink, screaming thing wasn’t his child to name, and in the end, they planned to call the babe Viro for short. That, in Xan’s estimation, seemed much more reasonable.

“Has his mind been affected?” Urho asked when Ren paused for a long time after Caleb’s question.

“In a way,” Ren conceded. “He is lethargic and moody. I think he could use some encouragement. He seems to be profoundly full of regrets.” He darted a glance at Caleb and then the floor.

“He’s no longer contagious?” Urho asked, putting his hand on Caleb’s knee, as though to stop him from rising and going to Janus immediately. Xan wondered how he’d known to do just that.

“He’s not. The doctor said that once the sheets were burned and the room scrubbed down, he was safe for any visitor. Mr. Sabel has gone to see him a few times since we followed those orders, but Mr. Janus doesn’t talk with him. And he refuses to leave the detached wing. Frankly, sirs, the servants would like to move back, but none of them dare to with him there. He roams the place like a ghost.”

“I see,” Caleb said, pushing Urho’s hand away and rising. “I’ll go to him now.”

Xan’s heart clenched, and he rose to his feet, wanting to grab Caleb and hold him back from going to visit his first… Notlove. That was wrong. His first hope. But he only hugged Caleb and murmured, “Come to me when you’re done?”

“Of course,” Caleb said, kissing his cheek as though sensing Xan’s distress. “Don’t worry. My heart is devoted to our life together. I only want to help him.”

Xan nodded and watched with an anxiety he resented as Caleb followed Ren out the library door and into the great hall.

“He’s going to come back to us,” Urho said calmly. “Sit down. We’ll wait for him here together.”

“But what if he loves him?”

“He doesn’t. But, if he did, he’s carrying your child.”

“Is he?”

“I scent a change in him, don’t you? The spark of something different and new.”

“Yes.” Xan’s heart thrilled. “That’s our baby?”

“Yes.” Urho tugged Xan close against his side, nuzzling his hair. “That’s your baby.”

“Ours,” Xan insisted, and a beautiful smile creased Urho’s face.

Xan tried to rest with Urho, but he couldn’t stop imagining what was happening between Caleb and Janus. An hour passed, during which Urho read aloud to him from the small book he’d given Xan all those months ago. Urho had been pleased to find it in Xan’s bedroom, packed in with other keepsakes he’d brought from the city. It was a comic collection featuring an alpha boy and his pet snail; silly, but typically entertaining enough. Not today, though.