Page 48 of Glitterati Omega

“O-oh?”

Winston shrugged, then caught his gaze. He looked away hastily. “It was not an easy birth. None of her children have been.”

“Oh,” Rupert murmured. “I’m sorry to hear that then.” He refrained from commenting on the fact she could at leasthavechildren.

“Mm.” Winston looked at the table, as though searching for something. “I wish she would take a page from your book. Two was enough; this is the fourth, and they’ve nearly killed her every time. At least you’ll never need to worry about that.”

“No,” Rupert agreed, his shoulders slumping. “I suppose I won’t.”

Winston took a long pull of his wine. “It’s much better,” he said, apparently emboldened by wine and jetlag. “We’ve come a long way from when practitioners wouldn’t even consider this type of surgery on an omega your age. But too many omegas still think it’s their duty or some such, and then they die, leaving their partners with nothing but hungry mouths to feed.”

“That’s bleak,” Rupert muttered. “Some omegas live.”

Winston tipped his head to the side. “You’re right about that. But we don’t talk enough about the damage it does—even an easy birth can scar an omega for life.”

“And what do you know about it anyway?” Rupert sniffed, suddenly angry.

“Hm? Oh. My mother is a midwife.” He finished his wine. “I’ve seen a lot.”

“Oh,” Rupert said. He set his soup spoon down.

The conversation dwindled from there; they both decided to turn in early, Rupert because he had surgery in the morning, and Winston because he was jetlagged.

Rupert tossed and turned all night, his nerves fraying, Winston’s words flitting through his mind again. Was he really better off? He didn’t feel like he was.

He didn’t see Winston before he went to the hospital in the morning; part of him was glad for that, because he wasn’t sure he could face the alpha after last night. Moose went with him, because he didn’t want Charli there. Moose was the strong, silent type, and he radiated calm and comfort. Charli would have been a nervous wreck, and the last thing the two of them needed to be was nervous wrecks together.

The last thing he remembered was the bright lights on the tiled ceiling of the operating room. He woke up again in another room that seemed very much the same, except there were windows and some natural light. He blinked a bit, then reached for the plastic bowl and vomited into it, violently. He nearly dropped the bowl as pain coursed through him, and he curled up.

He must have dozed again, because the next thing he knew, there was a nurse in teal scrubs and Dr. Arendse standing there, her hands clasped. She looked upset, and his heart went into overdrive, slamming him out of his stupor.

Had the surgery not gone well? Had something gone wrong? Had they found cancer or—

“Doctor?” he asked. “Did—did it …”

“No,” she said stiffly, “it did not go well at all. We got you prepped and put under, wheeled you into surgery, and we’d just gone in, when we realizedsomeonehad failed to mention that he’sexpecting.”

Rupert blinked a couple of times. “What?” he asked finally.

She widened her eyes.

“Me?” He pointed. “I’m—”

“Pregnant, yes,” she said curtly.

He shook his head. “No, no—that’s not right. I can’t be—”

“You are,” she assured him. “We did the blood tests, took you down to ultrasound—even though we’d just put the camera in there, seen it anyway.”

“It’s not cancer?” he asked, feeling very, very ill. “You’re sure it’s not a … a tumor or—”

She looked at him flatly. “It’s a fetus, Rupert.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, then laid himself flat against the pillows, pushing his shoulders back to try and ground himself as he stared at the ceiling. “Heavens.”

“It would have been very helpful if you’d mentioned that—”

“I didn’t know!” he snapped, then wilted. “I didn’t know.”