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“What’s on your mind?” Wilder finally asked.
“Too much,” Avery replied, his voice low. “Imagining that everything I do from this point until the Tribunal could be the last time I do them for a long while.”
Wilder winced. He could kill Tensen for putting those thoughts in Avery’s head. “Ineedyou to think positively.”
“I need to be realistic. Getting my hopes up that they might free me only to then be forced back into that prison…” Avery drew in a deep breath before releasing it.“Thatwould be harder to face down the road.”
For you and me both.“I’m a firm believer in manifesting our own destiny. See it and you can be it.”
“That’s great in the business world. Work hard and rise through the ranks. Here? In my situation? I have little control over what the judges decide.”
Wilder shook his head. “I don’t want to think about that right now. At this moment, you’re free, you’re here, and you’re with me. We need to focus on your rehabilitation and physical therapy.”
“Ignoring it won’t make it go away.”
“No… but focusing on a week or a month from now makes us lose sight of today. I simply want to spend time with you. I want to get back what’s been robbed of us.”
Avery leaned over and placed his head on Wilder’s shoulder. Wilder lifted his arm and gently dragged his omega into the crook.
“Can we just sit and linger in that for a little while?”
“Yeah,” Avery answered before Wilder captured his lips in a kiss.
* * *
A few weeks later,Avery wiped the sweat from his brow, glaring at his drill sergeant of a physical therapist.
“You can glare all you want, Avery. It doesn’t mean you can give up,” Hector said.
“I’m… not… giving… up,” Avery replied through the next few motions.
Hector chuckled. “One more and you’re done.”
Avery finished the last exercise before lying on the hardwood floor, gasping for breath. “I thought this was supposed to be therapy. Not torture.”
“The whining…”Hector shook his head, bending to lift the stretch bands Avery had just finished using. “I overheard you were some bad ass, changing the world type. Where’s he?”
“Dying here on the floor.” Avery eyed the clock over the fireplace. “Are we done-done?”
“We aredone-done,” Hector said, tossing the bands into his tote bag. “One more week and we’re all through with PT, too. I only get to torture you a couple more times.”
“You poor thing.” Avery rose to a sitting position and eyed the man. “I have a check-in with my doctor later today. Think he might clear me for active duty, Sarge?”
Hector barked with laughter, his smile bright. “I think you might be ready to roll, soldier.” Hector lifted his bag and tossed it over one muscled bicep. “See you Friday.”
“See you Friday,” Avery said.
Hector offered a wave and was gone. Once he’d had a bit of a respite, Avery rose to his feet and crossed the space into the kitchen for a bottle of water. After checking the time once more, he headed to the bathroom to shower and prepare for his appointment.
His mind drifted as he showered, feeling oddly alone. It wasn’t the first time, but being by himself was a rarity since leaving prison. Between Wilder hovering, his uncle, cousins, and brothers visiting, his physical therapy, Tensen and Rohan checking in—he’d had few moments to call his own.
Lowering a hand to wash his stomach, he realized it wouldn’t be too much longer before he was almost never alone. A smile came to his lips as he washed the barely there swell. It had been a huge swing of the pendulum: going from avoiding being treated as a womb with legs to growing a life with a man he’d fallen in love with. A man who wouldn’t stand in his way of being everything he could be.
It’s all he’d dreamed of when he was younger and visions of a future relationship had filled his head. Omega school prepared them to tend house, cook, clean, budget the household finances, sew, and become the demure omega one was expected to be. An omega submitting to his alpha to be bred and filled with baby after baby. Once he’d gotten older, he’d realized he’d wanted more, and those visions had seemed like shackles.
He stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel. After drying, he looked at the scars left on his stomach—a constant reminder of a near tragedy that he hoped would eventually have a happy ending. Tensen had done as he’d said, and found another attorney to aid Vero in the court battle, but the omega was fighting representation. Avery feared he was too unwell to make a clear-minded decision.
Avery had spoken to his uncle, hoping the ORM would get involved and perhaps focus some of their attention on getting Vero the mental help the omega desperately needed.
