Page 56 of Glitterati Omega

Winston exhaled slowly. “I thought as much,” he murmured.

“He wasn’t that bad. He only struck me a few times, when I’d made him very upset—”

“Nobody should ever strike anyone, no matter how upset they are.” Winston pursed his lips. “I’m sorry I grabbed your wrist earlier. That was wrong of me.”

Rupert didn’t know what to say to that. He peered cautiously at the alpha, who stared back with those soulful eyes of his, and Rupert hated it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said finally. “I … that’s why they couldn’t do the procedure. They opened me up and found … that.”

“You didn’t know before?”

He shook his head. Winston leaned a little closer. “But you’ve known these last two weeks.”

“Yes.” Rupert wiped at his eyes.

“And you didn’t tell me.”

He shook his head, mouthingno. “I told you, I was scared.”

“Of what?”

Rupert glanced up at him, then looked away just as quickly. “I knew you didn’t want it,” he said, guilt thick in his voice. “I was scared you’d tell me what you did this morning.”

“Well,” Winston said slowly. “It’s for the best then, wouldn’t you agree?”

Rupert shut his eyes, felt tears track down his cheeks. He took another deep breath. “Yes,” he said, “yes, of course. It’s … it’s for the best.”

Winston was patient, and Rupert had never thought the virtue so damnable. The silence dragged on until he looked at the alpha and blurted, “I’ve had four miscarriages. Before this one. I …”

Winston’s eyebrows lifted. “Then perhaps itisfor the best that you have the surgery.”

Rupert landed his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “Everyone keeps saying that,” he ground out. “But I—I want a baby, I’d give anything … anything … and I …”

He shook his head furiously. “My mother,” he started, then broke off sobbing.

Winston landed a hand on his back, and he flinched away.

“My mother killed herself,” Rupert spat finally, then sucked in another desperate breath. “She killed herself when she found out my father was cheating on her.”

Winston’s brow knitted, like he didn’t understand. Rupert desperately wanted him to, wished that he didn’t have spell out the whole horrible story. “My father didn’t want me—didn’t want an omega as his heir, but my mother was sick like me. It’s hereditary. She wanted another baby too, for him, and then … that was the last straw for her.”

He lowered his head and picked at his cuticles. “And I got sick and I couldn’t give Thomas a baby and he cheated on me.”

Winston reached over and took one of his hands. “I will never ask you to give me a child,” he said firmly. “I would never ask any omega to put themselves through such … torture. You saw Mandisa—two months later, she is still bleeding, she is still sore. She nearly died, four times, and for what? Some little parasite.”

“It’s not torture if you want it!” Rupert cried. “I—it’s worse torture knowing I can’t do it, I can’t! I’m an omega and I can’t do what I was put here on this wretched earth to do, and what is even the point of my life if—”

“Rupert!” Winston squeezed his hands hard. He rose up on his knees. “That kind of talk is nonsense—you are much more than just a … a baby factory! No omega deserves to be treated like that, every omega has potential outside of being just a mother—”

“I want to be a mother!” Rupert barked back. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be!”

“There are other ways to be a mother,” Winston said sternly.

“I—you don’t understand,” Rupert sniffed, then screwed his eyes shut. “I want—I want to experience that, to … to!” He shook his head as words failed him. He knew it all sounded ridiculous—he was nothing but a mush-minded omega, brainwashed into wanting a baby, thinking he was only the sum of his reproductive parts. “I don’t even feel like an omega anymore,” he murmured, pulling his hands away from Winston. He was suddenly so cold.

“Rupert … having a baby is not why you were put here on this earth.”

“Isn’t it?” He glared at the alpha. “Isn’t that why any of us are here? To hand our genes down to the next generation, to … continue? After all, if there are no next generations, then … what is any of it for? What does any of it matter?”