“It’s fine. It was actually kind of funny.” Jenna grinned, her teeth shining white against the tan of her skin. “Keld put you to bed, I got you water, then I kicked him out. I stayed until you refused to drink any more liquid. Seems like it didn’t help much.”
“I’d hate to imagine what I’d feel like if you hadn’t done that.” Grayson shuddered. “Thank you. For taking such good care of me. You’re the best drunk babysitter ever.”
“Yeah, well, let me be the drunk baby next time, deal?”
Grayson laughed. “Deal.”
∞∞∞
“Congratulations, Braydon,” Grayson said with a smile. “It’s an Omega boy.”
The man accepted the squawling bundle in shaky arms. His Alpha, an ill-tempered, rust scaled behemoth, groaned.
“I was so sure it’d be an Alpha.”
“Well, it’s not,” Braydon sniped back.
Grayson sighed. The couple had been bickering on and off since they arrived. He could only hope it was the result of sleeplessness, pain, and stress.
At least I might win the Big Ass Baby Award this week.
The thirteen pound, seven ounce hybrid child was an unfortunate combination of his human father’s peach-toned skin and a dulled down hue of his Mer father’s reddish orange, resulting in monochromatic, peachy skin and scales to match. Even his fins were a color one could easily find on a human face.
Grayson sidled out of the room as the argument shifted to baby names. He nearly ran headlong into Rorith, who was lurking outside the door.
“They’restillfighting?” the Mer whispered. His satin brown scales refracted a faint rainbow from the overhead LEDs.
“Yeah,” Grayson murmured back. “About names now.”
Rorith shook his head. “No wonder they’re not mated. Proof that the Mermate program doesn’t always work.”
“How do you know?” Grayson’s voice returned to a normal volume as the two nurses meandered back toward their station.
“Smell,” the Omega Mer answered, tapping his nose. “Mated Alphas and Omegas have a much weaker scent to outsiders.”
Grayson’s eyes widened. “I thought mating was like the Mer version of marriage.”
Rorith made a sound of derision. “If you want to simplify it, sure. But it’s an irreversible, biological process.”
Irreversible?
“How does it work? I mean, obviously it’s more than just sleeping with each other, if those two managed to have a baby.” Grayson jerked his thumb back at the occupied birthing suite.
Rorith blew out a slow breath. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to explain this to a human… Basically, both parties bite each other during intercourse, usually at the same time. It has to break skin, and it has to happen roughly around the same time as climax.”
Grayson’s face heated. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Rorith shuffled some paperwork around on the desk. “So don’t go around biting any Mer.”
Keld’s face swam, unbidden, to the forefront of Grayson’s mind. It had been doing that a lot lately, always accompanied by a wave of embarrassment. The memory of his forest scent, of his smooth scales under Grayson’s cheek, of the way he’d brushed that lock of hair off Grayson’s forehead—
“Hello? Grayson? Anyone home?”
Grayson jolted back to reality, coming face to face with Aureli. “Shit. Sorry. What’d you say?”
“Guess who I have a date with tonight?” Aureli’s brown eyes crinkled into a broad smile.
“Uh. That female Alpha you ditched us for?” Grayson dodged a good-natured smack to the arm.
