Page 51 of Evan and the Alpha

I either have cancer or I’m knocked up. Both seem radically unlikely, but cancer seems more realistic than the other scenario.

I sit down on the bed with a whump, my knees giving out. I let the test clatter to the floor, skittering off somewhere. I stare at the wall for a very long time.

There’s a slight knock at the door, and Tek pokes his head in. “May I?” he asks, but he enters the room before I can consent.

He looks awful, but I say nothing as he shuffles to the bed. His eyes are red-rimmed and sunken; his skin has lost its shine. He’s a dull, almost sickly, purple.

He approaches slowly, then sits down, as though all his joints are seized. Relief crosses his face once he’s perched. Then he looks at me. “They asked me to talk to you, since we are both omegas.”

He takes my hand; he’s freezing. I’m about to ask him what’s wrong, but he pats my hand, almost absently. “What did this test of yours say?”

“Positive,” I reply. I hesitate, then say, “That means I’m either pregnant or I’ve got cancer. One of the two.”

Tek nods wearily, then closes his eyes. “And which do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. I mean, how am I supposed to know?” At home, we’d do a battery of tests to figure it out.

Tek opens his eyes again and smiles softly. “Well,” he says, “you know what we think. But I suppose you sun spirits have ways of knowing?”

I nod a little. Tek sighs. “We don’t have much here,” he says, “other than divination and … knowing.”

I frown. Tek considers, then says, “Omegas often know. There is no guessing or confusion or anything. We just know … in our bones. In ourselves, in our souls.”

I frown deeply. “That’s—”

Tek smiles again, turns that golden gaze on me. “We trust the knowledge of our bodies. Perhaps it is different for sun spirits?” He pats my hand again.

“I … do feel weird,” I confess finally. “Like, I don’t know, but I’ve known this whole time that …” That Sobek was right. That I was changing.

“And, like, I don’t know how that’s possible—I’m a human, we don’t … don’t have alphas and omega, we don’t do that—but it …”

Tek nods very gently. I stare into his eyes as a cry rises up in my throat. I open my mouth to let it loose, but it sticks there, stealing my breath. I curl my free hand over my stomach, then glance down. “I’m pregnant.”

Tek grips my hand harder. “Oh my God,” I gasp, my breath rattling past my lips. “I’m …”

“You’re all right,” Tek advises softly.

I swallow tightly. I look up at Tek again. I feel like I need to scream, but I laugh instead. It’s like something pops in my chest, and I suddenly feel lighter, freer.

Happy.

That’s not the emotion I’m expecting to come hot on the heels of this realization, but it is. I’m happy. Overjoyed, almost. I do want to scream—but screams of joy. I want to run into the street and tell everyone.

I can barely keep breathing. I throw myself at Tek, lock my arms around his neck. The other omega seems startled at first, then slowly closes his arms around me, his hands on my back. I keep laughing; I close my eyes and nuzzle in against Tek.

“I’m pregnant,” I murmur against his scales. “I’m pregnant, I’m going to have a baby …”

“Ahem.”

We glance up to see Sobek in the doorway. He shuffles his feet a little. “Is there an answer?”

Tek and I look at each other. Then we look back at Sobek, and I nod. My face heats up, but I put a hand on my belly. My throat threatens to close up, so I barely manage to whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

“Yes,” Sobek agrees, but it’s not an I-told-you-so look or anything like that. It’s just quiet and awed and happy, and I try to catch my breath.

The pure, unadulterated joy in my veins fizzles out after a minute or so, my brain catching back up with my heart. The kroakka lay eggs. Their omegas don’t stay pregnant for nine months. They don’t give birth to eight-pound babies, I bet.

How the fuck am I going to have a baby? I’m still, for better or for worse, a guy, and I don’t …

I tent my brows and look at Sobek.

TheColumbiacan’t get here soon enough.