Page 32 of Where the Current Takes Him (Mermate #1)

Loriun

I t wasn’t until Beau was seated at the restaurant that Loriun dared to speak. “So… you are still considering… carrying the nymph to term?”

Beau glanced up from the menu, wrinkling his nose. “Nymph?”

“Baby,” Loriun amended.

“You call them nymphs?” Beau shook his head. “Sounds like a baby bug.”

“The word in Loaish is nuaia . But your scientists concluded that ‘nymph’ was a suitable translation.”

“Sounds racist.”

Loriun closed his eyes, willing away the sudden anxiety-induced irritation. “We can discuss the minutiae of language later. I need to know what you are thinking about our situation.”

Beau let his gaze drop back down to the menu. “It’s a lot to take in,” he mumbled. “A lot to think about.”

Something invisible squeezed Loriun’s chest. “Yes. Of course. I understand.”

And it was the truth, to some extent. Loriun could never fully grasp what it must be like to face a pregnancy, much less an unplanned one. But trying to keep his longing for this child in balance with his rational thinking… It was torture.

He’d grown up watching his species die. Watching nymphs perish in the egg. Hearing the endless grief of parents whose children never took their first breath. This was something Beau couldn’t comprehend.

A bright voice startled Loriun out of the depths of self-pity.

“Good morning, gentlemen. My name’s Eurie and I’ll be your server today.

” The girl had to be no more than eighteen, with springy coils of hair in a halo around her face.

Her deep brown skin looked human at first, but as she set two glasses of water on the table, the light caught her scales.

They were iridescent, casting rainbows along her fingertips, and harmonizing with the oil-slick manicure on each of her Mer-like claws.

A hybrid.

“Have you decided what you’d like, or should I give you a few minutes with the menu?” Eurie asked, smiling. Her eyes were a shade of blue so dark, it was nearly black.

“We’ll take a few more minutes,” Beau answered, though he was doing a very poor job concealing his shock at her appearance.

“You got it.”

The moment the hybrid girl strode off, Beau leaned in and hissed, “She’s a hybrid!”

“Yes,” Loriun murmured. “The first interspecies pairings occurred twenty years ago, and their children are growing old enough to work. They are only going to become a more common sight as they age.”

“That is… so hard to wrap my head around.”

Loriun snorted. “You are only twenty-four.”

“Still!” Beau protested. “I remember the day the first hybrid birth was announced. It doesn’t feel like that long ago.”

“That’s because it wasn’t.”

Beau glanced over at the server, attending to another table. “She’s beautiful.”

Loriun nodded. “Hybrid children always are.”

They fell silent. Loriun allowed himself to imagine what their child might look like if Beau decided to continue the pregnancy.

A boy with sandy hair and golden skin, pink scales shimmering along his back and hands. Pale blue-green patterns glinting along his arms. Beau’s dark eyes, and pink fins along his ears.

Loriun’s throat tightened.

“I’m keeping it.”

The Mer snapped his attention back to his mate. “What?” He hardly dared to believe his ears.

“The baby,” Beau said. “I’m keeping it. I don’t want to terminate.”

The Omega was still gazing over at the server, Eurie.

Something like longing tugged at his youthful face, and his eyes were unfocused.

Loriun was unable to speak for a moment.

He just stared at his mate, really seeing him for what felt like the first time.

Beau was so young. His first twenty-four years on this planet had been neither free nor particularly happy.

And now, Loriun had gotten him pregnant, ripping away any chance Beau had at truly enjoying his youth.

Was it right to let Beau go through with this?

“Are you…” Loriun finally choked out. “Are you certain?”

Beau’s expression sharpened and his gaze snapped to Loriun. “Are you not?”

“Beau…” Loriun closed his eyes. “I want this child more than anything. But you… you’re so young. I feel as though I am trapping you into a life you did not agree to.”

Beau didn’t reply right away. When Loriun peeked out at him, his teeth were worrying his rosy lower lip.

“I do not want to trap you,” Loriun murmured. “And I do not wish to use your body for my own happiness.”

Beau’s eyes glittered. “I know. You’re right.”

Loriun’s stomach twisted.

“I am young,” Beau continued. “But I’m also not a child. I can make decisions for myself and for my body. I won’t say I’m not terrified, because I am.”

A webbed hand slunk across the table to grip Beau’s.

“I really never thought about being a parent,” he said, looking down at their interlocked hands.

“It kind of freaked me out. Still does, honestly. I was raised in a society that pretends Omegas don’t exist. But…

I can’t stop thinking about this baby. What they might look like.

What they might become.” Beau offered Loriun a watery smile. “Let’s make a family.”

Loriun shot to his feet and swooped down, his lips crashing into Beau’s, kissing him like it was their last day on Earth.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, they broke apart, panting.

“Sooo…” the server said, keeping that customer service smile firmly in place. “What can I get you?”

∞∞∞

The first few weeks of his Omega’s pregnancy felt like a fever dream. Beau’s stomach remained flat, and each time Loriun remembered his nymph was in there, it sent a thrill of excitement through his blood.

Beau was supremely unimpressed by his inability to use the brand new bar in the upstairs room, and had taken to making irritable mocktails each evening.

“I can’t even make you a drink,” he grumbled, pouring a shot of pomegranate syrup into a shaker. “Because you’ll die or something.”

Disgust crossed Loriun’s features. “I wouldn’t die, but we Mer don’t enjoy recreational poisonings. Although,” he added, eying a flat bottle filled with amber liquid near the top of a shelf, “I might die if you give me that.”

Beau glanced at it. “I would never waste my Old Taylor whisky on someone as ungrateful as you.”

Loriun snorted. “That is just old poison.”

“Yeah, old poison from the prohibition era . Do you have any idea how valuable that stuff is?”

“Yes. I bought it.”

“Oh. Right.”

Ice rattled in Beau’s shaker, its non alcoholic contents sloshing in his grip. Loriun propped his elbows on the bar counter, admiring the way his mate’s lean muscles flexed under his soft skin.

The Omega paused. “You see something you like?”

Loriun tilted his head. “Of course.”

Beau laughed. “You need to hang out with Vuos more, so you’ll understand when I make a joke.”

Red liquid splashed into a pair of wide, flat cups on tall stems. Martinelli glasses, or something like that.

“Here,” Beau said, handing one over. “I guess the upside of drinking mocktails is that we can drink them together.” He clinked his glass with Loriun’s, and took a sip.

Loriun tasted the beverage with caution. Over the past few weeks, he’d learned the hard way that his and Beau’s taste buds did not always align.

Tart juice and pleasant bubbles seemed to light his mouth. “Oh, I actually enjoy—”

Beau slapped a hand to his mouth and shot out of the room.

Loriun lurched upright. “Beau?”

He heard the bathroom door slam from inside the adjacent bedroom, then the sound of his Omega being violently ill.

“ Turys’asi bua,” he swore, thundering downstairs.

He’d read the pamphlets and the Alpha preparedness booklet, yet he did not feel even slightly prepared.

He slapped the lever on the electric kettle, then dug into a cabinet.

Little ginger candies rained down on him, and he collected as many into his pockets as he could.

Shaking hands seized a large mug and a sachet of peppermint tea. Behind him, the roaring kettle clicked off, and he filled the mug with boiling water. A drop of steaming tea sloshed over the rim as he made his way back up the stairs.

Loriun emitted an undignified yelp at the burn on his wrist.

“Loriun?” a weak voice called. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” he yelled back, outraged. “I should be asking you that. I’m coming in there.”

“Wait—”

The door struck the stopper with a thud. Beau was slumped across the toilet, looking sweaty and pale.

“I have peppermint tea,” Loriun announced. “And ginger candy.”

Beau groaned. “I thought morning sickness was supposed to happen in the morning.”

“No,” Loriun recited, recalling the pamphlets. “It can occur at any time of day.”

“Fantastic.”

Loriun crouched down, offering the mug. “Take small sips of tea.”

“This feels unsanitary.” Beau took the mug with trembling hands. “Drinking tea in the bathroom.”

Loriun shuffled closer, placing a hand on his mate’s back. He smoothed circles across the wide expanse of his shoulders. “Is there anything else I can do?”

Beau shook his head. “I think it’s going away now. The pomegranate just set it off, I guess.”

“Should we move downstairs?”

Beau considered for a moment. “Yeah, I think it’s safe.”

The Mer carefully collected his mate into his arms, holding him tightly to his chest. Beau’s slender fingers held the mug of tea steady as he rose into the air.

“This is stupid,” Beau grumbled against Loriun’s neck. “You can’t even see that I’m pregnant and I’m already spewing my guts up.”

“Your guts? That sounds like a medical emergency.”

“I’m calling Vuos.”