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Devin groaned at the first sight of the tangled threads, burying her face in her hands. Quick to straighten as Rey stiffened, she rushed to explain, “Mom, please tell me you didn’t.”
“Of course I did! I’ve been making these things since you showed your dynamic, Devin. I knew you would stop all that nonsense eventually, and I was right. If Mr. Rey doesn’t like them, then that’s one thing, but you’re going to humor your mother.”
“Janet,” Thomas hissed in a whisper, a quiet warning to his wife as Rey leaned forward with a quiet rumble building in his chest.
“What?” Janet’s lips slanted in a perturbed frown as she glanced at Thomas. “She knows this is important.”
Tugging the knitted blankets, booties, and bonnets free of her purse, Janet laid out each item with the utmost care on the coffee table. With obvious pride, she smoothed the rainbow stripes of one blanket before fussing over the blue and white pattern of another.
Devin looked away, inexplicable tears stinging her eyes. She should be grateful her mother cared enough to make so many things, to hold onto them all these years, but all she could think of was how she would never do anything again. All those years spent arguing with her mother, straining their relationship to the point of breaking too many times to count, all the hard work. It was all for nothing.
She’d wound up right where her mother had told her she would and she didn’t even have the love of her mate to show for it.
“They’re lovely,” Rey said quietly, stroking Devin’s shoulder with a gentle hand. “I’m sure Devin will make room for them in the nursery.”
“Is she okay,” Thomas asked, half rising from his chair, already reaching for his wife. “We can go. Come back another time, maybe?”
“It’s fine, Dad,” Devin sniffled, swiping rough hands against her cheeks. “Everything makes me cry now.”
“Hormones, sweetie,” Janet said with an understanding sigh. “Why, when I was pregnant with you, the smallest things would set me off. I imagine it’s even worse for an Omega.”
There it was. Her mother tried to be so understanding, not grasping the fact Devin was no different than her. A quirk of genetics gave her this dynamic, but nothing about her was what an Omega should be. It was the misery, the shame that made everything unbearable. The knowledge that she was nothing anymore.
Devin contemplated coming up with some excuse to make them leave but thought better of it. This mattered to her mother, maybe her dad, too. She fell into her melancholy silence, letting Rey carry the stilted conversation. It was what was expected of her. Her parents ceased to see her as an individual the moment they found her mated to an Alpha. She sat beside him, a living, breathing person who had no purpose in life but to make him happy. Devin was trying to do that.
She was just as miserable at it as everything else.
The day dragged on. Forced to give a tour of the house and nursery, Devin withstood her mother’s high-pitched delight in everything. Even accepting the good-natured ribbing on how far Devin had come from their lowly trailer. She would never utter a word about how she preferred the simplicity of that life. That she didn’t need any of the fancy things Rey showered her with.
Back out on the front walk, Devin bid her parents goodbye. Rey even allowed Janet to crush Devin in a hug, her tearful goodbyes smeared across Devin’s hair as if they wouldn’t remain in town another three days at Rey’s expense. He’d put them up in a grand hotel, a fact her mom regaled her with.
Extracting herself from her mother’s embrace, Devin waved a final farewell before making her way into the house. She was beyond exhausted, disturbed on many levels. Everything felt wrong as she headed straight to the bathroom, intent on scrubbing away the greasy feeling of her mother’s victory.
It wasn’t Janet’s fault. She was happy for her daughter, nothing else. It was Devin who felt like she’d failed.
“It was too much.” Bald statement lingering in the steamy air as he watched Devin scouring her body, Rey shrugged his shoulders as if to settle a great burden upon them. “I’m sorry I pushed.”
“It’s fine,” Devin said automatically, turning her back to him so he wouldn’t see red-rimmed eyes or pinkened nose as she wiped away her tears. “You were right. They deserve to have a place in his life.”
Although why he extended the honor to her family when he felt so little towards her was a mystery. Maybe he thought it would make it easier for her to have her parents close by. To have some of the strain taken from him. Didn’t most people rely on their parents for emotional support? Devin hadn’t done that since coming to terms with her dynamic and they made it clear what they wanted for her.
An Alpha. A home. More babies than they could count. Devin shuddered and stepped under the spray, rinsing away the cold dread.
Unable to stretch the shower out any longer, Devin cut the water off and wrapped herself in a towel. She kept her gaze averted, not looking at Rey as she dried herself. Her body ached with the need to go to him, to have his arms come around her. To hear his purr slip into a rich growl that would excite.
She couldn’t ask him for that. Never would have it again.
Devin would accept what he doled out. Would cherish every moment of it, but she would never again demand his attention. Bad enough he felt he had to do this much just to keep his baby healthy and whole.
“I think I need to sleep,” she mumbled to her toes as she slunk past him, grabbing a clean pair of sweats to wear before climbing into the bed. As much as she hated being in the bed with wet hair, she hated the course of her thoughts more.
Devin didn’t sleep. Not as Rey stretched out behind her, purring as loud as he could. As he stroked her sides and the baby, she closed her eyes and pretended. All the while she gloried in the sounds he made, wishing it was for anything else.
* * *
The next day wasn’t much better. Mom’s pointed remarks and Dad’s disappointed looks had Devin bawling halfway through their visit. Devin escaped to the bedroom, babbling some excuse. Abandoning Rey to entertain them as she dove into her nest to sob at the complete failure she’d become. She wasn’t good enough to be the person she wanted to be, and she damned sure wasn’t a good Omega.
Janet hadn’t meant anything by her latest comment. Devin knew that. Still, it’d been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
