Page 11 of Omega Haunting (Starscale Mates #8)

Astral

I woke up in a cocoon of Marsin. It was like this every morning since we met. He wrapped around me and brought his wings out to hold me in. Most of the time it was one of my favorite places to be. Normally, it was endearing, but after his cave-alpha stunt in the woods yesterday it was annoying. My stomach flipflopped anticipating the fight when I brought it up later in the day. First thing in the morning was never a good time to fight.

“It doesn’t have to be a fight. I don’t think Marsin is the fighting type. Not with us anyway. He was spooked out in the woods. He didn’t grow up playing all throughout them like we did,” my wolf chimed into my thoughts as I tried to wiggle out of my Marsin cocoon.

“Morning,” my mate yawned and lifted his uppermost wing to free me.

My stomach flipflopped again. I didn’t want to be annoyed with him. I blinked back tears. Why was I crying? I hadn’t done anything wrong. We hadn’t even discussed it yet. I didn’t have long to ponder the question because my stomach lurched as if it planned to launch itself into outer space and visit Starscale 1 all on its own.

“Babe?” Marsin said, sitting up as I flung myself to my feet and sprinted to the bathroom.

He didn’t need to see me this way. No one needed to see me this way. So, I slammed the door shut behind me.

“Mate?” Marsin said, trying the knob, but it was locked by magic. I didn’t need to touch anything to make it move. Magic pounded through my cells and was always looking for a way out anyway.

“Astral?” Marsin tried again but I was in no condition to answer.

The stuffed pork chops from the night before must’ve not agreed with my stomach. That added to the fact I was almost certain my first fight with Marsin was coming up and the almost crying spell was easy enough to explain away.

“Is there anything I can do, mate?” he asked, his voice gentle.

Fuck him. I wanted to stay mad for a minute now. I was sick as hell and it had to happen right after he acted like I was a lost pup in the woods of my ancestors. Hell, it was our pack that discovered the first mothman shifter colony. Fuck him.

“Uhhh… Mate, I’m not sure what I did, but I’m sorry if I upset you. I’m more than happy to talk about it later but right now I’m more concerned about your current situation. Should I call the clinic? Your moms? Sprint out to the pharmacy and buy a test?”

“For what?” I snapped back at him over our mating link.

“A pregnancy test, mate,” he said gently and I dropped onto my knees.

My stomach was taking a microbreak but fuck me! He was probably right! What fucking timing nature had. Our first fight and Dern possibly losing his mind.

“What fight, mate?” Marsin asked. “I feel like you’re having an argument with me that I don’t know about.”

“You tried to stop me from helping Dern yesterday,” I sighed over our mating link and flushed the toilet.

“I would’ve checked on him for you. I wouldn’t have left him out there. Something is off with him. You’re right about that and we don’t know what. I will always want to keep you safe. I would have taken the risk and checked on him. It’s not a good excuse. I know it’s not but mate, there is a better than good chance that you’re pregnant or carrying an egg. I know carriers have gone to war and built whole worlds while carrying and growing their children but I like to think that our ancestors did all that work so that their descendants didn’t have to. I can’t say I knew you were pregnant yesterday but we’ve been trying to conceive for a month now.”

I let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the bathtub. I closed the toilet seat and my eyes. He was right. It was a poor excuse. We didn’t have the slightest inkling I was pregnant the day before.

“I don’t want to fight through the door,” I managed to huff aloud.

“May I come in then, please?” Marsin asked.

“Can you get me some water first?” I asked him.

“Of course. Anything else. There are some gummies on top of the fridge. Mom put them in one of our snack baskets as a joke. So I stashed them up there…” I let my words trail off.

“It probably wasn’t a joke, huh?” Marsin asked, carefully.

“Probably not. I’ll talk to you in a minute, okay, alpha?”

“I’ll be right back,” Marsin said.

I didn’t move until I heard his footfalls further away in the house. Once I was alone for a moment, I pushed myself upright, moving slow to test my stomach’s equilibrium. Then I washed my face and gave the bathroom a quick wipe down before washing my hands and heading out into the bedroom.

Marsin waited patiently in the bedroom doorway with a bottle of water. He handed it off silently and flashed me a sheepish grin.

“Even if we’re not done talking about what happened yesterday, you’re allowed to be happy that I’m maybe-pregnant,” I said, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “I’d be rather cross if you weren’t excited about it.”

“Are you excited about it?” Marsin asked.

“I am but that’s all the more reason you have to get it through your head that I won’t stop you from following me but I won’t be some house omega. I won’t be someone who sits back and sucks on his tail while you run into danger. That’s not how we work here. I doubt it’s how you work in outer space either. I can’t imagine someone trying to boss around an omega dragon. I don’t even think Clarence Moonscale has succeeded at that one and probably never will.”

“I’m sorry,” Marsin said, dropping to his knees in front of me. Even with me on the edge of the bed that put us almost eye-to-eye. “I wasn’t thinking. Well, that’s a lie. I was just thinking about someone hurting you. I never want to live in a world without you.”

I rolled my eyes. Here we go. He was about to be an apologist for every cave-alpha in the universe.

“But I also don’t want to live in a world where you’re not happy,” he said.

That I was not expecting.

“I don’t want to live in a world where you feel trapped or under anyone’s thumb. I’m not saying it won’t ever happen again. I’m not saying that I don’t have the urge to build a nest, put you in it, and keep you there, but I am saying I won’t let my dragon do that. I’m sorry Dern has so many issues, but something is off about that wolf. I can’t put my talon on what it is but promise me you’ll be careful around him.”

“Around Dern?” I arched a brow and took another sip of water.

“Around Dern,” Marsin nodded.

“You know without Dern we wouldn’t be sitting here maybe-pregnant, right?” I asked him.

“Correct but he says it himself. He only does magic he benefits from. Maybe I’m overprotective. Maybe I’m misreading Earthside sarcasm but if I am then we have nothing to lose, right? You can be careful around him and it’ll be easy, because he’s just an old wolf with some quirks, right?”

“I don’t like how you say that,” I said, setting down the bottle of water so I could cross my arms.

“You don’t have to. I’m not asking you to stay away from him or to figure out what’s up with him. Just to be careful.”

“I’m always careful, Marsin,” I sighed.

“Babe,” he said, drawing the word out and uncrossing my arms so he could hold my hands. “Please be careful. Please. Maybe my dragon is just a territorial asshole but Dern’s an omega. He doesn’t want in your pants or under your tail. So I don’t think it’s that. Can you promise me you’ll be careful?”

“I promise but only because you look so grovelly on your knees. I like it.”

“Is this a ‘while you’re down there’ situation?” Marsin smirked and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s a ‘did you forget the gummies situation’?”

Marsin pulled out the bottle from his pocket and dumped two into my hand. I ate them slowly, savoring the orange jelly flavor dissolving on my tongue. Marsin rubbed slow circles on my thighs and I let my eyes drift closed. Maybe that wasn’t our first fight. It didn’t feel like much of a fight at all.

“We don’t have to fight over things. We’re going to be together for a long time. If we get under each other’s skin or hurt each other’s feelings by accident we need to be able to talk about it.”

“I was ready for every excuse in the book,” I admitted.

“I have them but at the end of the day I was an asshat for putting my discomfort before your autonomy. Next time I’ll just charge ahead or follow you in,” he grinned.

“Don’t forget I can’t imagine a world without you either,” I said and leaned my forehead against his. “And if I felt better I’d kiss you so hard that I glued you to this universe so you could never leave me.”

“I think you need more science than magic for that one,” he teased.

“Well, good thing I have you, huh?”