“When I got you back, I was so angry at you for running,” he cooed before softly rubbing my stomach.
I shivered at his touch, doing my best not to gag, or react, or do anything.
“I took you back to the clinic to see what we could do aboutthis—“ He stopped talking just long enough to softly pat my belly before continuing the caresses. “That’s when I learned it wasn’t your fault you ran—all the drugs at First Chapter Heat clinic are experimental—when they opened their goal was just to help omega through heat, you know?”
I nodded. Logan had showed me the reviews, I remembered that.
“So all those fertility drugs probably drove you a little crazy, you smelled something nice out the window, and your lesser, hormone filled brain sent you running.”
The words slid into me slowly.
Lesser.
My fingers curled weakly into the blanket.
“You weren’t thinking,” he went on gently. “You couldn’t think. Not properly. Not after what they pumped into you.”
He brushed his knucklesdown my cheek, tender.
“You would have chased out any scent that remotely matched yours, such a shame it had to be a Rossi.” The name soured on his tongue, and for a moment, I thought he might hit me.
My eyes sealed shut and I flinched back, braced for impact.
“Stop being dramatic, Violet, I'd never hit you.” Logan sounded hurt. “Discipline? Always, but I would never maliciously hurt my beautiful omega.”
My chest felt too tight to breathe. Slowly, I cracked one eye, and then the other. Logan watched me as if he was checking to make sure his words landed with the right weight.
Then he sighed.
“You really don’t remember much about coming back home, do you?” he murmured.
My hair brushed my bare shoulders as my head swiveled back-and-forth.
“Obviously, we had to visit the heat clinic again to see what they could do about our little problem. You were less than willing to make the travels, so I gave you a mild sedative.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Unfortunately, thanks to declining birth rates, the clinic refused to do anything that could potentially harm the babies.”
My chest hollowed with relief until I realized there was a very heavybuthanging in the air.
Logan’s thumb resumed its slow, absent-minded path over the curve of my stomach.
“But,” he continued easily, “they were more than willing to help withyou.”
My hands lifted to explain that I didn’t need to be helped. I was fine.
Then I remembered, even if I were to sign Logan, he wouldn’t understand.
“They were willing to make exemptions,” he explained, wrapping his fingers around mine and folding my hands in my lap for me. “When the subject isn’t the pregnancy itself.”
I wasn’t a subject. I was a human being. Again, that likely didn’t matter to him.
“Did you know that visible pregnancies kick the breeding instincts of both alphas and omegas into overdrive?” Logan asked.
I didn’t, so I responded accordingly.
Logan’s smile widened.
“It’s one of those inconvenient little biological facts,” he said matter-of-factly. “When an omega looks unmistakably pregnant—round, heavy, obviously carrying—it triggers territorial and breeding responses.”
My lip quirked in disgust, but Logan ignored it.
