Page 48 of Loving My Omega (The Perfect Designation Trilogy #2)

Chapter

Forty-Eight

C olton looked up at me and I saw his question without him needing to say it. I gave him a soft smile and a nod.

“She should know. She’s the medical professional.”

Colton sighed. “I have PCDHS.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh sweetheart. Did Raine diagnose it?”

He tapped his fingers on the countertop. “Yes…and no…”

Eva cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Colton didn’t say anything and so I stepped in again. “Because he’s at stage seven.”

Her brow furrowed and she started to her shake head. “There are only four stage before…”

“Yeah. Supposedly, I was supposed to off myself years ago. I know.”

My jaw set at the bitterness in his tone. Eva wasn’t having it though. She walked around the counter and took his face in her hands.

“You will never say that again. Do you understand me?”

Colton pushed against my chest, probably a bit shocked but I couldn’t see his face. It ran momentary through the bond but softened.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She snorted. “Don’t call me that. It’s Eva, Pumpkin, or Babe. Nothing more and nothing less.”

Colton and I chortled at the same time.

“But what is Stage seven. If you’ve hit that.”

Colton explained it and Eva looked horrified. He explained the pain and the times where it was worse. I worried that it would never go away. That Colton was just suck with this incessant pain for the rest of his life. My dragon was upset that it wasn’t fixed immediately from us marking. Over time though, I hoped it would lessen and he would be free from it.

Eva was not happy, but she rubbed Colton’s hand. “We definitely need to spoil you. Drown you in love and hopefully you’ll heal. We will do our damned though, won’t we?” She looked up at me.

“Absolutely.” I kissed Colton’s head and he grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Alright. Let’s do a first assessment here, then we will set up a schedule and get you started on some good habits to help you moving forward. How does that sound?” There was a strain in her voice but she seemed to be trying to push past it with a smile on her face.

Colton nodded and stood up. The new clothes he was wearing were hanging a little more off him than normal and I frowned. Rubbing my eyes, it was so frustrating. Eva came up behind me and rubbed my back. Giving her a smile, we headed up to the bedroom but Colton looked absolutely uncomfortable. He played with the bottom of his sweater. I pulled his hand away and held it. Pulling him towards the bed, I sat down on the edge of it.

“How would you like Colt, Eva?”

She had brought up a small bag with her. “Laying down on the edge of the bed is fine. If you want to sit next to him on the bed, you can. I just need this side free. And shirt off, dear. Can’t do much with it on.”

I smiled up at Colton as he looked down at me. Colton lifted off his sweater and I helped him get it over his head. My hands grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled over his head. My eyes went to Eva as the shirt came off. Her hands were shaking as her eyes roamed his back. There was a part of me that was hoping Colton wasn’t as bad as I thought he was but the look on Eva’s face was enough to tell me I wasn’t.

“Alright, lay on your back. Let’s get started.”

Colton hummed and laid down next to me. When his head hit the pillow, his eyes fluttered shut. I knew he’d been up early but I wondered if he had taken a nap or if the impending meeting had stressed him out too much. Eva, though, used her fingers to touch and feel most of his upper body. She paid special attention to his abdominal muscles and around his bump. Taking out the measuring tape, she ran it across the bulge.

“Well, your muscles are softening up nicely and you are, somehow, still exactly where she needs to be size-wise. I don’t have my heart rate machine with me but we will do that next time. I’m sure Marcus would like to hear his little hatchlings heartbeat for the first time.”

Colton smiled at me and nodded. “I think so.”

“Your weight though, is a serious concern. Colton, you need more. More of everything.”

Colton’s face dropped. “I know…I’m trying.”

“There is no trying, dear. When you are hungry, you eat. No questions asked. No, but I just ate 30 minutes ago. None of that. She’s going to tell you she’s hungry and your body is telling you you’re hungry. That’s double the amount of time spent eating. I don’t care if you have six full meals a day. You eat when you’re hungry. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

Eva pointed at me. “I’m going to give you a list of things that need to be in the house at all times for him to eat. High fat, high protein, high nutrition. Some of it may even seem like it’s too much fat but it’s not. It’s the salt we want to keep down. Sodium is not good at a time like this.”

I nodded. “Sounds good. I was doing my best between his morning sickness. We were doing good and it seemed like the nausea passed but last week he got sick pretty much with everything he tried to swallow. It seems a little better now and he hadn’t had any issues for a couple days now.”

My hand brushed some hair out of Colton’s face and I realized he was asleep. Shaking my head, I grabbed one of his blankets and covered him. Slipping out of the bed, Eva grabbed her bag and followed me quietly out of the room.

“I’ll wake him up for dinner. He probably didn’t get a nap earlier.” I smiled back at Eva but my smile fell at the look on her face.

It was angry and upset and worried all rolled into one look. Swallowing, I realized that my worries may have been completely founded. I felt like I was going to need to something to help me get through the conversation we were about to have.

“Marcus, I’m going to give you a list, everything on there needs to be accessible or in whatever you’re making for dinner. His weight needs to shoot up so quickly. It’s almost going to need to be an unhealthy amount of weight gain. Try to have him stay away from chips and stuff with a bunch of salt.”

“It helps that he doesn’t eat that stuff.”

Eva furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? He’s nineteen and in college. Most live off of chips and ramen noodles for four years.”

I shrugged. “I’ve only seen him eat ramen once and it’s because I had it in my cabinet. Outside of that, I’ve never seen him eat chips or candy or even drink soda. He was struggling a lot in the beginning with morning sickness, so what he could eat was cut down completely. That was part of the reason why he lost so much weight in the beginning. We managed to work our way up to plain foods but he’s never asked for chips or anything when I run to the store.”

Shaking her head, she sighed. “That poor boy. He’s been neglecting every need his body has for so long I’m not sure he even knows how to stop. Every comfort whether it be food or objects, he’s just tossed aside just in case. You are going to have to be there for him, dear. Otherwise, he will wither away.”

“I…I’ve never really been around Omegas as much as others in a pack. I’ve been on my own for a while now and I just never got exposed unless they were a making offer.”

Eva snorted. “It’s fine. It wouldn’t help. There aren’t any Omegas like him. So it honestly would be useless to know. There might be some similarities, like nesting, eventually. It might come up more prominently in the last month where he can’t ignore it anymore. But it seems like he still likes soft things as well. The blankets scattered around prove that.”

“I just don’t know what to do to help. He always says he’s fine. I can’t read his mind when he doesn’t let me in all the time.”

“Well, I can give you some pointers. His stress will go up the bigger he gets because of wanting to continuously hide. He also is going to get large and absolutely will be unable to hide. But for now, larger soft sweatshirts. Ones that he can swim in will help him feel more at ease. Probably pants will need to be purchased as well. But wait for him to ask those. You jumping the gun might upset him. His hormones will be all over the place. I’m surprised he didn’t flip with you being late today.”

I chuckled. “Honestly, so I am. There are times where he snaps, like with Queen, the filter he usually has flies out the window.”

Eva smiled and nodded. “I’m sure the stress and fear fed into those hormones and it just turned to rage. Especially when his wolf’s first thought was probably that someone he cares about was in danger. So just be aware, that might be a more common occurrence. He’s so sweet and mellow, without being submissive…” She shook her head. “Honestly, Marcus, Colton is one of a kind. Give him all that he wants and more. I’ve been handling Omegas for over two hundred years. Even high risk cases but never have a seen an Omega anything close to who Colton is. I’ve worked with hidden Omegas too. I mean the docks? Was he serious?”

I nodded. “I picked him up from there on his last day. The Betas and Alphas just thought he was one of them. That night he ended up saving two guys lives. He passed the exam to work. Colt said he wasn’t planning on working too long because Raine said he shouldn’t after his second trimester but I don’t think he ever told her what heavy lifting job he was doing.”

Rubbing her eyes that turned into pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed. “Well, for now, we will keep an eye on his progress. Thursdays seem to work for the both of you, outside of any unscheduled meetings.”

I nodded. “Yeah. That works. Colt still has online classes he’s attending up to the end of Ma and I’m teaching until then at the university.”

“Are you continuing to teach…”

“I took off the spring quarter and I didn’t commit to anything for summer. It’s a smaller group for summer so a lot of the teachers take off if it’s not a core class. I know Colt said he wanted to start back up for summer because his scholarship only allows a semester off. But if he decided to take it off, I would just cover his tuition. I don’t have a problem with that.”

Eva smiled. “Honestly, you don’t need to now how to treat an Omega, Marcus. It’s just taking care of your mate and you are doing well in that regard.”

I snorted. “Yeah. I don’t even know where to begin with that either. He’s let me take care of him more but he still will fight me on the simplest of things.” Rubbing my face, I leaned against the fridge. “Plus, it seems like all my problems keep making an appearance now. I don’t want to stress him out more. However, my being an Alpha-10 has just continued to cause us problems.”

“Are you worried about the panther?”

My crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of her. I’ve had some desperate shifters come after me. Ebony is on a whole other level at this point. My dad and I have submitted a retraining order for her and her pack. She can come at me all she wants but Colt…” I looked up at the bedroom door slightly ajar. “She threatened him. She wants me. As long as he’s with me and she isn’t put in her place, it could be dangerous for him.”

“Well, make sure you stay on top of it. He really doesn’t need anything else. Not with how hard this has been for him.” Eva smiled at me. “You two seem to have a special bond though. That goes a long way to help both of you.”

Laughing, I shook my head. “He says that I smell like burning birchwood. Something slightly sweet but I’m assuming the smokiness is coming from the fact that I’m a fire dragon. For me, I’ve been struggling using cardamon in my cooking anymore because it is his scent completely.” Rubbing my lips, I smiled as I remember fighting with him to put cardamon in the rice porridge.

“But…you guys shouldn’t be scenting one another. Not if you’re chosen.”

Shrugging, I leaned forward a bit. “My dad said that. But Colt explained the few things he remembered the night we ended up in a Haze and it was that burning wood and I think my black hair.”

“But Omegas don’t have fated mates…” Eva was chewing on the inside of her lip. “You guys had sex during his heat though?”

I shook my head. “It was a week before. Apparently, sex with a human a week before minimizes the effects of a heat?” My jaw locked and I grumbled. “He’s being doing it since he was fourteen apparently. I don’t know how…”

Eva gasped and covered her mouth. “Fourteen?! Who would…? Why would…? By the old gods, no wonder that poor boy is touch-starved. His family doesn’t know?”

“No. His family is royalty of the grounders Beta level. While he saved himself from being found out as an Omega. His family ostracized him because he wasn’t a leadership Beta. So already he was abandoned just not even as an Omega.”

She shook her head. “I can’t wrap my head around what that boy has been through. The fact that he’s still alive…is a miracle, frankly. There isn’t a single Omega in my two hundred and fifty years that has been through what he has and survived.”

“There are times where I feel awful for what happened that night. I was drunk, and apparently, I tried to help get him home. I don’t remember hardly anything. I think dancing with him but when I found out he was under age, I made the mistake of taking him to Keith’s office to try and get him to go home. The Haze just took over.”

She nodded absently. “I mean, a heat is a hard thing to fight as an Alpha.”

“He wasn’t in heat, Eva. He was there for his heat ritual a week early.”

“You do realized, Omegas can’t get pregnant except on their heat, right?”

I looked at her and shrugged. “I was the first Alpha to ever touch him. Colt realized something was wrong when his heat never came and he wasn’t feeling well.”

Eva shook her head. “The only way…would be if you’re fated. But no Omega has had A fated mate. Unless…” she trailed off, scratching her chin. “You’ve given me much to think about. Starting now though, I’m yours. Any questions or issues, I’m available at all times. My number is on the fridge. I shall see you next Thursday.”

I nodded and got up. My hand came out or shake hers but she pulled me into a hug.

“Congratulations, my dear boy. On finding your own. Having your own hatchling. I’ll be here to help guide and make it easier. He will be alright. We just need to take care of him so he can take care of himself.”

“Thank you, Eva. I feel a lot better. You have no idea.”