3
Felix
Felix wakes the next morning feeling like utter crap.
The curtains are too thin. The heater is cranked too high. The bed sheets are too rough. His ass is sore, and when he relaxes, thick fluid oozes from his hole.
He frowns, reaching down. His heat makes him drip thin, colorless slick, and... The smear on his fingers is a pearly white.
The memories from last night slam back into him: Kade bending him over, his cock thick against Felix’s ass, his blunt tip pushing in. Kade, his teeth dragging sharp against Felix’s throat. Kade, filling him up, knotting inside him. Felix lingers on the sensations of being stretched, the way Kade fucks him like no one else can.
It makes his body flush with warmth, makes him hard. When he pushes his fingers inside, he finds more of Kade’s cum, thick and sticky.
He groans, turning over in his bed, grinding against his sheets. He fucks into his hand, but it’s nothing like Kade’s callused palm stroking down his cock. He’s had other lovers over the years, of course, but none of them had enticed him to return, and Kade... Kade had driven the breath from his lungs, made him come so hard his vision blurred.
Felix climaxes with a hoarse cry, spilling onto his sheets. He huffs into his pillow, wipes his hands off on the bed, and slowly gathers his thoughts.
His heat feels better today. It lingers as a faint warmth in his limbs, a low throb in his belly. Last night had helped, and so had the semen Kade left inside him. The bedroom smells like pine and cedar, like the musk of sex. He smells Kade in the sheets, on his skin. Kade had ground his scent into Felix’s cock. Heat creeps up his cheeks. He hadn’t thought that Kade would want to mark him again.
Felix pulls himself slowly up in bed. He hadn’t seen Kade in years. Kade still looks the same: broad, muscular, his eyes sharp, as though he can see through anything Felix does. As though if he looks hard enough, he’ll see why Felix had tried so hard to flee. Felix gulps, reaching for the water glass on his bedside table.
And there, next to the glass, his birth control pills sit on a stack of notepaper. There are three rows of ten white pills, black marks colored onto three plastic bubbles. He hasn’t taken them in three days.
“I forgot?” Felix whispers, air punching out of his lungs. He glances down at his belly, thinking about the white streaks on his fingers. Kade had asked about condoms last night, and Felix had been positive he’d taken the pills. All he’d had to do was look at the bedside table, but what had he done instead? He’d gone and spread his legs and Kade had knotted inside him.
What if I’m pregnant? It’s not... very possible. He hasn’t been pregnant before. And it’ll take a week before a test confirms anything. “I can’t be pregnant,” Felix says, staring down at his abdomen. “I’m not pregnant. The odds are too big.”
But it had also been his bondmate inside him. The chances with another alpha would be smaller, but it had been Kade, and Kade had filled him thoroughly last night.
He sets his palm gingerly on his belly, staring down at his pale skin. But it’s flat, and there’s nothing to say he’ll be pregnant for sure. How could he have forgotten the pills? First the suppressants, and now the BC. I hate my brain so much.
“I’m not ready for a baby,” Felix says, groaning into his hands. “I can’t be pregnant.”
But what if I am? The thought sends a chill through his stomach. What if Kade’s child is growing inside me?
The bedroom spins around him. If he gets pregnant... if he’s swollen with child and Kade sees... if Kade thinks Felix is back to ruin his life a second time... That’ll be a mess, Kade had said. Kade had never wanted a child, even from before Felix left.
What if he thinks I tricked him? Felix whimpers, sagging back into his bed. I can’t keep the baby. I can’t afford it. And it’ll only have one parent. Kade never even agreed to it.
I should wait, he thinks. I shouldn’t panic. Maybe I’m not pregnant. Maybe... maybe abortion might be an option.
But it’ll also be Kade’s child, a piece of Kade that’ll stay with Felix, when he finally discovers what Felix did five years ago, and turns his back on him for good. Felix bites hard on his lip, cradling his belly. If last night was the final time he slept with Kade, then he can’t regret a child. He’ll have a piece of Kade with him when he leaves Meadowfall again, someone to remember him by. He’ll be gone before Kade even discovers the pregnancy.
Kade will find another mate to replace Felix, someone who won’t hurt him again, and he’ll have a good life after that.
Felix buries his face in the pillow, his face crumpling.
An hour later, Felix pops a heat suppressant and gets ready for his interview.
At the gas station, the burly alpha manager looks him over, bushy brows drawn low, thick lips pulled in a sneer. But he nods after Felix answers What work experience do you have? Rick shoves his hands in his pockets. “You’ll do,” he says. “You look decent enough. We need to increase the sales here—costs are rising.”
It’s not like Felix does any good with sales, when his own paintings have been collecting dust, hidden under rags in a spare bedroom. A job is still a job, and it’ll give him shelter for now. “When can I start?”
“Tomorrow. Uniforms are in the back,” the manager says. “I’ll leave the forms here and you’ll fill them in. Don’t be late. Susan will tell you what to do.” He heads out the doors in a rush of bitter-wood, turning past the storefront posters with a glower. He waddles like a duck, Felix thinks.
Behind the counter, the
