Heat Race - Tanya Chris Page 0,103

I could keep you. She was going to divorce me, and I thought I wanted you, thought you were the best part of that marriage.” His father spat in his direction. “If I’d known what you would turn out to be, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

Was he supposed to be warmed by the fact that his father had wanted him enough to kill for him, or shamed by his father’s disapproval of who he’d grown up to be? He refused to be either.

“You knew if I had a choice, I’d go with her.”

“Because you were soft,” his father said with a sneer. “Even as a child. When you presented as an alpha, I thought maybe. Maybe all the time and money and not claiming an omega would be worth it. But nah. Would’ve been better if you’d been born human instead of an alpha who gives it up.”

Saul just stood there, stunned by how much his father hated him. “You sent those men after us. Sent Lon to rape Jack Henry.”

Otis shrugged. “You planning to do anything about it, or you want me to wait while you call your alpha?”

Saul was planning to do something about it. That was why he’d come—to make sure his father never harmed anyone he loved ever again. The discovery of his mother’s remains had only solidified his resolve. He pitched the shovel away from him. He would kill Otis with his bare hands. That was how he deserved to die.

His father made a come-on motion, unconcerned, but aggression raced through Saul with more fury than it ever had before. His claws and fangs sprouted, elongating and sharpening as he crouched for the attack. His father’s eyes widened, a trace of fear finally flickering through them. Saul didn’t give him any time to adjust, just sprang the way he’d watched Jasper and Elias go at each other so many times.

His father staggered back under the force of his weight. He tried to fight back, but Saul had caught him off guard. He pinned Otis to the ground and sank his fangs into his neck. They were so long, so sharp—weapons unlike any he’d ever had at his command before. The wolf inside him screamed its victory as he ripped through his father’s flesh. There hadn’t even been a fight. His father thought he was weak? That he wasn’t a real alpha? That he would be easy to handle? The wolf showed him different.

ELIAS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elias looked around at the meticulously decorated living room and tried to shake off the feeling of being a visitor. His father had made coffee, and his mother had served it in cups with matching saucers, which they sipped from as they sat on the immaculate, color-coordinated furniture. It all felt tremendously foreign. After months of living in the cabin, the new house was a luxury despite its plywood underflooring, unpainted walls, and a kitchen that was still only the outline of a kitchen to come. But if the new house was a luxury, then this was… too much.

Elias set his china cup on its china saucer and placed it on the soapstone coaster on the cherrywood end table and wondered how long he’d have to stick around. He loved his parents, and they were endlessly excited about the baby, but being fully dressed, sitting upright, and watching his manners… this was nothing like home.

“When’s the sonogram again?” his mother asked.

“Not for another three weeks.”

She was eager to start buying baby things in pink or blue instead of neutral greens and yellows, but Elias and his mates had agreed to go easy on the color coding. They only had the one nursery, and hopefully there’d be a lot of children to fill it. Assuming Jack Henry lived through the birth.

The more Elias researched, the more he worried. C-sections weren’t a new concept. Women had been surviving them for a thousand years—not perhaps as regularly as they’d have liked, but far more regularly than omegas. Part of the reason was omega anatomy. Omega wombs were off-center and located behind some crucial organs. But enough had been known about omega anatomy a couple hundred years ago that surgeons should’ve been able to remove a child from an omega’s womb without killing him. And indeed, omega survival rates had increased as omegas started seeking surgical intervention. But then the survival rate of their offspring decreased.

Elias had unearthed an old pamphlet which listed the options open to an omega of that time period. Be cut open by a