Breeding Clinic (Heatverse)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

KAT

“So in layman’s terms…” I ask the lawyer.

She puts her pen down and settles back in her chair. “It would be an extremely difficult case to win, and it would take a lot of time and money. I’m willing to represent you and try, but I can’t guarantee the outcome. The courts don’t like to take parental rights away if a parent will fight for partial custody of their child.”

“But he was only supposed to be a sperm donor.”

“I know.” Her eyes soften, but her frown is grim. “And I’d start by arguing that a contract signed while in the throes of estrus isn’t legally binding. Your mental state was altered. But they’ll counter that the mistake was yours at the initial appointment when you were not in estrus. That you picked a match from the wrong binder.”

“But they weren’t labeled.”

“Which is a system error on the clinic’s fault. If you wanted to sue them for damages, that would be a much easier case to argue. Their negligence and system issues caused you real emotional distress.”

I shake my head. “They refunded me the fees. And I don’t need more money. I want my baby. He can’t take my baby from me.”

“He can’t,” she agrees. “But he can sue you for partial custody. A judge will probably grant it. I looked into him and his pack. No arrest records. A solid work history. The alpha owns his own small business, which employs about twenty people. And his packmates are clean. The Brazilian beta’s family immigrated here legally, and he’s a permanent resident. He works at the hospital. The other beta has several lawyers in his immediate family. Their lawyer will argue they’re all model citizens and pillars of society. I can’t find any angle to dig into them. I wouldn’t advise bringing a suit against his pack for full custody if you believe they’ll fight it.”

They will. “So I’m fucked.”

“Think about it and decide what you’d like to do. If you decide to sue the clinic, I can start that paperwork.”

Defeated, I take the business card she offers me and head out to my car. I sit in the shade and let the air blast my face. Then I grip the steering wheel and scream. People walking down the sidewalk stare, but move along. Nobody stops to ask the crazy, screaming omega why she’s losing her damn mind.

My phone rings, and Jen’s name flashes across my dash. I answer it.

“What’d the lawyer say?” she asks.

“That I’m fucked. He owns half of my baby and he can sue me for partial custody.”

“Motherfucker.”

All the steam goes out of me, leaving me depleted. “It’s not his fault. It’s the clinic’s.”

And a bit of mine, I guess. I didn’t realize I grabbed a binder I shouldn’t have. And I barely glanced at the paperwork I signed. But who expects an omega in heat to read fine print legalese? It’s ridiculous .

“You should sue them,” Jen says.

I don’t have the energy to deal with a lawsuit. The pregnancy has sapped my strength and brain cells. I take three or four naps a day and going through my editor’s suggestions is like pulling teeth. Her notes are good, but I can’t focus well enough to think straight before my mind wanders or I need to puke again.

“I don’t want to sue them.” I rub my flat stomach absentmindedly.

“I can’t believe you got dicked down by an alpha and didn’t tell me,” Jen says, sounding offended.

“I thought it was the reason why everyone says his clinic’s the best!”

“Like a secret menu?” she asks. “But instead of fancy coffee, it’s dicks?”

The sheer ridiculousness of it makes me laugh, and then Jen joins in. The harder she laughs, the harder I laugh. Until my eyes water and I can hardly breathe, I rest my forehead against my steering wheel. None of this is funny, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.

“You know what I think?” Jen asks.

“What?”

“You should go talk to them. Find out what they want. What if it’s not that bad? You do three days one week, they do four, then it switches. Could be nice. Sometimes I’d kill to have a long weekend alone with my pack.”

But that’s the difference between us. She’s got a pack of wonderful men who adore her. Me? All I have are my books and my cat.

Hot tears prick at my eyes and I sniff them back. I hate the idea of handing my baby off to strangers every week. But she’s right that I can’t avoid them forever. Ignoring this problem won’t make it go away. “You’re right. I need to talk to them. ”

“Let me know what they say. And this time, don’t leave out a single detail. Okay, I’ll let you go. Bye.”

“Bye.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, I pull out of the parking lot. The lawyer might not have been able to help me, but she did find the name of the business he owns. O’Donnell’s. It’s the Irish pub on Main Street.

I drive across town and pull into their parking lot and stare at their sign. The outside is painted white and dark green. The gilded wooden sign with a green shamrock hangs over the door. Music pumps through their doorway as an older beta couple leaves with a white box of leftovers in their hands.

The waitresses are wearing work shirts and black pants. They look up from their dry erase seating chart to ask me if I want to sit at the bar or a table.

My eyes snap to Liam instantly, despite the crowd. Like an invisible string connects us. He’s standing behind the bar, a black towel tossed over his shoulder. He smiles at a patron while he pours them a beer, putting it down so the foam can settle. He’s as handsome as I remember.

“The bar,” I tell them, walking past the hostess stand. I find an empty stool and settle onto it, then wait for him to get to me.

Liam makes his rounds around the bar, pulling beers and mixing cocktails. He takes a plate of food from a runner and sets the gravy-covered fries down for a customer. He works quickly and efficiently, his large hands palming several stacked plates at once.

I’m only now realizing that coming here like this was a mistake. I should have called, not ambushed him at work. But if I’d thought about it for too long, I’d have chickened out. Like I did every other time, I considered picking up the phone and calling him all week.

He texts me good morning and good night. He’s sent me links to pregnancy-safe recipes. And mommy blog articles about staying cool in the summer while pregnant. I haven’t texted him back. Not a single time. And that makes me feel guilty.

When he finally sees me, he freezes. Liam recovers quickly, setting a clean glass full of ice in front of me. He taps a button on his soda gun and ginger ale fills the glass. Bubbles pop and fizz in the dark liquid, clinging to the glass wall. He drops a straw in and slides it across the bar.

“How are you?” he asks.

I palm the glass and rub a bead of condensation away. “Good. Shocked, tired, and sick to death of vomiting.” I know what he’s really asking. “We’re fine.”

He smiles and his right cheek dimples. It makes him alarmingly attractive. “Good. I’m glad you’re both okay.”

This isn’t his fault, and I realize how unfair this all must be for him. He didn’t get what he wanted, either. Now, somehow, we have to figure out how to make this work. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you while you’re working. I wasn’t thinking.” I hike my purse up on my shoulder to leave him alone while he’s working.

“No, sit! Please. I’m glad you came. We can figure this out. But not here. Come on. I live upstairs. We can talk there.” He sets his bar towel down and takes off his black apron. “James, take over for me.”

I lean back on my stool. “Wait, you live above the bar?”

“Yeah?”

Is he insane? “You can’t raise a baby in a bar!” In my shock, I’m too loud. The people around us stop their conversations and stare. I blush from their scrutiny.

“Good thing I don’t live inside the bar then.” He opens the hatch that separates the bar from the restaurant and comes around to grip my elbow. “Bring your ginger ale. I think I have some crackers. I read that helps. ”

He’s too bossy, as alphas often are. But I’m eager to get away from his staring patrons. Liam brings me to the back of the pub to a door he unlocks with his key. Behind it, there’s a staircase leading up. I follow him. He unlocks another door at the top with the same key.

The apartment above the bar is nicer than I expected. The building is old, but it has a worn, vintage vibe to it that’s charming. Thick rugs pad the squeaky hardwood floors. The walls are painted a pretty sage green. Large windows let in light.

“It’s not as loud up here as I thought it would be,” I say, looking around.

He raps a knuckle on one wall. “The walls are plaster. Good for sound insulation.” Then he leaves me in his living room to rummage through his kitchen cupboards. “O’Donnell’s was my great-granddad’s. Patrick O’Donnell. He immigrated here from Dublin with his parents when he was two. That’s a photo of him there right after the pub opened.”

I look at the wall beside me, studying his family photos. Most are recent, but some are old. I’m most interested in the ones in black and white and sepia. The oldest is a photo of this bar, but from the 1930s, judging by the clothing and cars. A tall alpha in a brimmed hat lifts a beer up in celebration under the pub’s iconic sign. It’s a different sign than the one that hangs now, but the symbol carved into it is the same. The photo isn’t crisp, but the man has the same dimple as Liam.

“He built it?”

“Bought it near the end of prohibition. Got it for pennies on the dollar after prohibition drove the English-style pub that used to be here out of business. Renovated everything to the studs with his own two hands. Ran it as a social club for all the Irish immigrants until they legalized alcohol again. I’m still untangling his electrical work. Now I know why my dad and granddad never touched it. Can of fucking worms. ”

I grimace. Bad wiring rises to the top of my concern list. But the other photos on the wall soon distract me. There’s Liam standing with two other men, all of them dressed in suits. One has pale skin covered in freckles and curly brown hair, and the other is taller with golden brown skin and perfect white teeth. They’re hugging each other and smiling at the camera. The image is too intimate for them to only be friends. His pack?

A cabinet slams shut, and I jolt out of my snooping. He hands me the crackers, and he’s right, they do help. I’ve been living off crackers, toast, and baked potatoes for weeks. I can’t wait for the first trimester nausea to subside.

“Thanks.” I pop one in my mouth and chew slowly. He looks so happy to have done something for me. I don’t have the heart to tell him they’re stale. A sip of ginger ale washes it down, and another gets the after taste out of my mouth. “Are these all photos of your family?”

He turns his attention to the wall of photos and I set the stale crackers down on an end table while he’s distracted. “Yes. That’s my grandfather. This one is him with his pack. That baby is my father. I’m the oldest of five. Those are my brothers and sisters there. And these are my mates, Matthew and Gabriel.”

From their height and builds, I’m guessing they’re betas. I recall him saying they didn’t have a breeding partner.

“How’d you meet?” I ask.

“Matthew and I went to the same college. We shared a math class and I’m terrible with algebra. He offered to tutor me. Not that it improved my grade much. After a few weeks of tutoring and hanging out we spent more time fucking around than studying. I still failed the class. By the end of the semester I didn’t care because I’d found my first packmate. Later, we met Gabriel at the FIFA world cup. The tickets were a Christmas present from Matthew’s parents. Make sure that in front of Gabriel you call it football, not soccer, or he’ll give you a long lecture about it.”

My heart twinges with old wounds. Josh plays soccer professionally for the USL. I sat and watched a lot of his games, but I never quite fit in with the other spouses.

“Are you into sports?” Liam asks.

“No.” I’m quick to change the subject. “So you own the bar? What do your packmates do?”

“Gabriel is a physician’s assistant. Matthew is a banker.”

Oh. Those are all very normal jobs. I’m not sure what I was hoping for. Some sign that this pack can’t take care of a baby. But a stable pack with triple employment versus a single mother… One who’s self-employed with a variable income… Even with my savings, I know which way a judge might lean. The lawyer was right. The stale cracker sits like lead in my stomach.

“What about you?” he asks.

“I’m a writer,” I say, keeping it vague.

“Oh, that’s so cool. Fiction? Nonfiction? Anything I’ve read?”

“I doubt it. I write romance novels.” I cringe saying it, considering how we met. I’m painfully aware that my personal love life has been a failure. My characters always meet the right person, fall in love, and live a happy life full of bliss and as many babies as they want. But real life doesn’t always follow the script. Sometimes happily ever after isn’t forever.

His eyebrows shoot up and he smiles, his cheek dimpling again. “Well, now I definitely have to read one. I could learn some tips.”

He doesn’t need any tips. “I’m not sure you’re ready for what I write.”

His smile widens into a grin. “You don’t know what I’m into. Is it butt stuff? Kinky? I probably have a pair of fuzzy handcuffs from a bachelor party somewhere.”

The fact that his handcuffs are probably fuzzy covered plastic tells me what I need to know. “Something like that.”

“Wow. You’re really not going to tell me. After I told you all about my grandfather too.” He pretends to be hurt, placing a hand to his chest. “The mother of my child is cruel.”

His off-the-cuff remark reminds me that I came here for serious reasons. “So… we should talk.”

The phone on the wall rings, interrupting what he was about to say. Liam answers it, listening to the voice on the other end. His easy expression becomes serious. “I’ll be right there. No, don’t call the cops yet. Let me talk to them.”

He hangs up and gives me an apologetic look. “I have to go downstairs for a bit and deal with two drunk idiots. Stay here. I’m going to lock the door behind me to make sure you’re safe.”

He leaves and locks it. I strain to listen for the sounds of a fight or yelling, but the sounds from the bar downstairs are muffled. All I can really hear is the traffic noise from the road out front. I take advantage of his absence to snoop.

There are two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a bathroom plus the living room. It’s small, but cozy. The second bedroom looks like a guest suite that doubles as an office. Is this where they planned to put the nursery?

There’s nothing egregious. No devil worshiping altar or insect-riddled piles of filth. If anything, they’re tidier than me. I have the bad habit of letting dirty dishes pile up in the sink until I remember to load the dishwasher.

After twenty minutes, I’m somehow both bored and anxious. I sit on their couch and pull out my phone, checking my socials and scrolling through the photos and feeds of old friends and older coworkers. My aunt posted another set of really badly angled selfies and pictures of her food. Looks like she’s in Miami right now.

The sound of police sirens wail outside. Seems like they ended up having to call the cops. The sun drifts toward the horizon and the boredom makes my eyes harder to open. I try to read a book, but every time I sit down this is what happens. I fall asleep.

A few minutes won’t hurt. I’ll just close my eyes. His key in the lock will wake me.

The old brown couch smells like them. Like the woods, and a campfire, and the crispness of freshly fallen snow. I lie down, pressing my face into one of their pillows to breathe in the blend of their scents. Minutes later, I’m asleep.

The scent and pop of cooking bacon wakes me. Confused and groggy, I sit up. A patterned quilt falls off my shoulder. I grab it before it can slip to the floor. My shoes are gone. Where are my shoes? I find them lined up neatly underneath the coffee table with my purse and phone sitting above them.

“Are you hungry?” a man asks from the kitchen.

I wipe drool off my cheek with the heel of my palm and blush. How the fuck did I not hear him come in? I blink at the beta who’s still waiting for an answer. Gabriel. The Brazilian PA. He’s wearing fitted black scrubs that show off the breadth of his shoulders and the size of his muscular arms. He flips the bacon with a spatula.

He’s cooking breakfast. Shit, what time is it? I glance outside, but it’s still dark out. It could be ten at night or four in the morning .

“Breakfast for dinner?” he asks, pointing to his frying pan with his spatula.

Dinner. Thank God. “Where’s Liam?” I ask, still waking up. How long was I asleep?

“Dealing with the cops. Nothing big, only a broken stool and some bruises.”

That doesn’t sound like nothing. “Is that typical?”

He stirs the contents of his pan and grinds salt and pepper over it. “No. Once or twice a year, someone decides to act foolish. But most of the patrons are regulars. They come for the food and a beer after work, not shots and fights.”

An actual kettle whistles, and he clicks the burner off, pouring hot water into a mug. He adds a spoonful of honey and a bag of tea and brings it over to me. The label is a popular brand of pregnancy tea. A blend of caffeine-free white tea, ginger, and aromatics that are supposed to soothe nausea.

“My sister swears by this,” he says. “She drank it with all three of her babies.”

“Thank you.” Did they buy this specifically for me? In case I came over? That’s sweet.

I blow on the tea to cool it and take a sip. It’s a bit spicy but also sweet, and the odd combination goes down easily.

Gabriel makes two plates, then puts covers on the pans on the stove. He joins me on the couch and turns the TV on, pulling up an on-demand soccer game. When I catch sight of an all too familiar logo, I decide it's time to leave.

“I should go.” I pull my shoes on and grab my purse.

“You don’t have to. We want you to be comfortable here.”

They do? Still, it’s late and all I want to do is go home and go to bed. “I have to feed my cat. He missed dinner.”

“Then I’ll walk you out.”

I’m disturbing his dinner. It seems like he’s home from a long shift. “I’ll be fine. ”

He stands, ignoring me. “Liam will kill me if I don’t walk you out. Please, you’d be doing me a favor.” His smile is easy and natural. Long dark lashes frame big brown eyes. His slight accent makes his speech interesting.

“Fine.” It’s easier and quicker to let him walk me down a flight of stairs than argue. I grab my phone and follow him out, down the stairs and through the crowded bar. He walks me all the way outside to my car.

“Wait, Kat! Dammit, excuse me,” Liam says, peeling off from the cops parked out front. He runs over to us, and he shares a silent look with Gabriel.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Kat,” Gabriel says, pulling me in for a hug. He releases me quickly while I’m still stunned, then heads inside.

“We didn’t get to talk,” Liam says.

“You’re busy. It’s fine. We can talk another day.” My keys jingle while I fiddle with them.

“I wanted to ask you if we could start over.”

“Start over?”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “What if we pretend the clinic never happened? Say it was a date instead? You don’t have a pack, right? I do. Let us court you.”

Hope blossoms, only to be squashed by reality a moment later. If it weren’t for the baby, would they be interested in me? “I’m not joining your pack out of pity.”

“It’s not out of pity. I meant it when I said I like you. You’re cute and funny. You fuck like a wildcat. You smell like a plate of Christmas cookies I want to take a bite out of. And you’re carrying my baby. I’m begging you. All I’m asking is for you to give us a chance. And if it doesn’t work out, then we tried. We’ll settle for friends and co-parents. Please.”

I chew my lip and hesitate. The truth is, I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. Single parenthood was something I chose out of necessity. Being packless wasn’t my choice. Maybe he’s right. There’s nothing to lose by seeing if we click. If I’d bumped into him at the bookstore and we’d hit it off, I wouldn’t have had any qualms about being courted by his pack. They’re my age with stable employment and their own place.

The pregnancy complicates everything, but does it need to? My due date is seven months away. That’s plenty of time to decide whether this is going to work. Besides, it’s not like I have a better idea.

“Okay,” I sigh.

“Really?” His eyes widen.

“I’m not making any guarantees,” I warn him.

“You won’t regret this, I promise. We’re gonna be so good to you.” Liam cradles my face in his hands and bends down, kissing me.

I’m so surprised by it that my lips part. Liam takes advantage, deepening it. His lips move against mine, kissing me until I’m dizzy. He crowds me against my car and curls over me. My lips part wider and he pushes a little more. Darts his tongue inside and twists it around mine.

Someone wolf whistles from the sidewalk and I blush, but he doesn’t stop. His hand gropes around to my backside, and he cups a handful of ass. Pulls me up onto my toes and deeper into the kiss.

By the time we surface for air, my pussy is slick and he has a very visible bulge in his jeans. He wasn’t faking his attraction to me or my scent. He really likes me, and the feeling’s definitely mutual.

Liam pinches my chin between his thumb and fingers. “Text me back when I text you so I don’t worry,” he says with a bit of a command. Not quite a bark, though. Alpha commands make the omega in me want to rush to obey and placate. “Please,” he adds to soften the order .

“Okay.”

“Good.” He lets me go and steps back. “Drive safe. Let me know you made it home.”

In a daze, I unlock my car and get inside. I make the familiar drive home. When I get there, I ignore his order for a bit, but the command fizzles underneath my skin. It feels naughty. I’ve always been pretty submissive in bed outside of a heat. Heats make me a bit feral, but ignoring direct orders goes against my nature.

After Waffles gets a belated dinner with some treats to make up for waiting for so long, I can’t put the task off any longer. I strip out of my clothes and throw them into the hamper. Then I send him a text telling him that I’m home and going to bed.

Good , he answers. You need at least eight hours of sleep. Good night, Kitty Kat. Sleep well.

For the first time in a while, I do.