That’s all I can do, at the end of the day. Try, try, and try again to be better.

  And fuck, I want to be better. Being better feels good.

  Being better is the only way I could ever possibly step in front of Rus again without feeling like a complete failure. I need him to see how much I’ve changed. I’m no longer a pathetic, fumbling mess. Even if he doesn’t want me.

  “Even if he doesn’t want me,” I repeat to myself slowly, preparing for the possibility.

  I park in the empty spot outside the store, which looks markedly different from what I remember. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about snow this time.

  A part of me wants to straight up run in there, but the anxiety holds me back, making me stare ahead blankly while I tap my fingers against the wheel and steady my breath. I need to remind myself that we haven’t spoken in a few weeks, and that not everyone appreciates big surprises like this.

  But…surely, he’ll be glad to see me, right? At least a little bit?

  I place my hand over my chest, feeling the pounding heart beneath. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this nervous in my life.

  I have to do this before I lose my damn mind.

  Last check in the rearview mirror—my hair looks fine. I braided it at the back so it stays out of my face, even though a few light strands slip out near my temples and ears. I couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time, but ended up getting at least six hours, so my usual dark circles aren’t too bad. I’m wearing a dress shirt with a few top buttons open and a light bomber jacket that I think suits me pretty well. I hope he likes it.

  I wonder if Rus looks any different.

  God, I can’t wait to see him.

  I get out of the car, still shaky on my legs. My hands feel too empty. Should I have brought flowers or something? No, that would’ve felt like too much. Too big, too intense. Me turning up all of a sudden is crazy enough.

  “Everything’s okay,” I mutter to myself while walking. “You’ve thought about this for months. Not backing out now. You can do it.”

  I freeze when someone steps out of the store. It’s a young couple that gives me pause.

  My brain takes a few seconds to connect the dots—the man looks so familiar because he’s the guy whose satellite phone Rus let me use to call for the tow truck. The woman is probably his omega wife he mentioned. She smiles widely, holding the hand of a little girl next to her who must be a toddler at best, judging by how small she is and how hard she’s focusing on putting one tiny foot in front of the other. Her giggles fill my ears and send a tickling sort of flutter through my stomach.

  I raise my brows with a polite expression the moment the alpha’s gaze lands on me. I expect the same courtesy in return, but instead, something behind his eyes shifts, and he narrows them at me, slowing his step. The woman notices me, too, and quickly picks up the baby while grabbing the man’s hand. Tugging at him and whispering into his ear, she drags him away.

  He utters a remark as they pass me, but I don’t catch it. They turn back at me one more time as they walk off. Rus did say he was possessive. I guess they…really dislike outsiders.

  I keep walking, a little confused and struggling to shake off the strange sensation from that interaction.

  Everything inside me buzzes with memories of this place. When I glance up, I see the window we looked out of while eating the delicious food Rus made. Heat passes through me. Comforting, fluttering heat.

  This is the moment.

  I take one more deep breath before pushing the door open. The familiar ding of the bell rings above me, making the corners of my lips tug upward.

  The scent I’ve been yearning for and recalling these past months fills my nose as soon as I step in. Damn, was it always this sweet? It’s much more pungent in its sweetness than I remember, reminding me more of pure sugar with a hint of almonds rather than just marzipan. Still, it’s as lovely as I expected.

  I look around, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest with anticipation. My eyes are like heat-seeking missiles, targeting only one thing. Nothing else matters. The shelves and things on them blur, unimportant. Then I see it—a fiery crown of short, wavy curls across the store, partially obstructed by a shelf.

  “Be right there!” he shouts, his back to me. He’s stocking something into one of the freezers.

  I stand motionlessly by the door, staring at the back of his head with a stupid smile I can’t control. I remember the way those ginger strands felt under my hand as I raked through them when we were in bed, our limbs intertwined and bodies pressed flush together. The tips of my fingers tingle with how real it is.

  Finally, he steps around the shelving and turns to greet me.

  I watch for that important, telling moment when his eyes meet mine and his face shifts into what is…shock.

  Rus blinks sharply. He drops whatever he was holding in his hand—an empty cardboard box—and as my eyes follow the movement of the object, they scan past him, taking it all in. Face. Neck. Chest. Torso.

  The entire world stops at the sight of his clearly rounded stomach under the washed-out denim dungarees he’s wearing. Rus’s hand sharply grabs his belly, almost instinctively.

  Wait…what?

  There’s a beat. Air evaporates out of my lungs.

  The memory of that weird-ass dream I had a couple of months ago of that magpie coming into my apartment with a bunch of chirping chicks flashes through my brain before my mind completely stalls and nearly shuts down.

  My mouth falls open. I look up at him, secretly hoping that meeting his gaze will somehow snap me out of this. But there is nothing to snap out of. It’s real. What’s in front of me is real.

  Rus narrows his eyes and darts them down, fully aware of the source of my bewilderment. With a heavy exhale, he wraps his hand around his stomach, and my goodness, he’s huge.

  Pregnant. He’s…

  I helplessly fumble for words before some finally come out. “What the fuck?” is all I manage, breathless and a little dizzy.

  I run my hand through my hair before I realize it’s braided and I’m only messing it up. With a trembling breath, I step back, still watching him—his face, his eyes that are averted from me like he’s ashamed—and then I stare at his stomach again.

  “Why…why wouldn’t you say anything? Last time we called, you…”

  What the fucking fuck?!

  Rus is quiet.

  He’s quiet, and my mind only keeps rumbling louder and louder.

  I want to raise my voice. I want to shout because he’s fucking pregnant, and he didn’t tell me, and because I need to get some of this overwhelming tension out, but that thought is promptly erased once the realization that this isn’t his fault hits me.

  He’s probably as overwhelmed as I am.

  I literally turned up with no warning.

  The harsh realizations keep coming. Like the fact that I never even considered this possibility. How could I have been so selfish and stupid?! I had sex with him without a condom how many times while we were together?

  I knotted him. I knotted an omega while I was in a rut, and not once have I stopped to consider the very real possibility that Rus might get pregnant.

  Goddammit. I was so hung up on my own shit that…everything that happened in this cabin felt like some dream. It wasn’t ‘real’. It was happening in some magical world where normal rules didn’t apply. Looking back, I feel like the biggest fucking idiot for just letting myself believe that and going on my merry way.

  These past months, I was all too happy to get myself off to the memories of our time together, but it hadn’t occurred to me once how damn irresponsible what I did was. Or the possible consequences of it.

  Brushing my trembling hand over my face, I have another mini heart attack as a thought pops into my head. “It…it is mine, right?” I ask weakly, a sudden rush of fear gripping me. My knees nearly give out.

  Rus nods bashfully, but without hesitation.

  Finally, he seems brave enough to look at me, and his eyes glisten with held-back tears. Those gorgeous brown eyes. He looks even more handsome than in all the images I carved into my mind. Then again, it might be the pregnancy making him so…radiant.

  He’s pregnant. I got him pregnant.

  The nauseating wave of emotions washes over me again.

  I got him pregnant, and he kept it. He’s kept the baby. He’s keeping the baby.

  Rus is standing there looking so unsure and timid and meek, like a terrified animal. It makes him look small with how his shoulders droop.

  I don’t know what to do. I have no fucking idea. Of all the scenarios I talked myself through on the drive up here, this one didn’t occur to me. And yet it should’ve, shouldn’t it? I should’ve known.

  I’m an idiot. A selfish fucking idiot!

  Carefully, I inch closer to him. It’s the only impulse my body gives me besides the overwhelming freeze response. Rus’s nostrils flare with a sharp breath, and his lips press together while he watches me as my eyes inevitably fixate on his stomach again.

  I want to touch him. Something deep inside me pulls me in with terrifying intensity, but I don’t know if that is what he wants.

  “I haven’t…been with anyone since I came back to the city,” I whisper, praying he knows I’m not saying that just to get his guard down. Praying he sees the honesty in my face, hears the desperation and yearning in my voice, and knows. “I-I could only think of you.”

  A powerful spark flashes behind his eyes. “Me neither,” he says before clearing his throat. “I missed you, Wren. I… What are you even—”

  “What am I doing here?”

  No, no… Calm down. Shit. Calm down.

  I walk in a circle in front of him a few times, kneading my hands and snapping my fingers to get it together, before I speak again. “So you were… Were you gonna… We-were you not going to tell me?” I ask, pointing at his stomach with my open hand. A hand I can barely stop from shaking. There’s a terrible sense of betrayal echoing from a deep, insecure place inside me, but I fight with myself against letting it take over. I have to keep level-headed.

  Rus draws his brows together. “I was gonna tell you! Of-of course I was.”

  “When?! Why…why haven’t you already?!” You’re raising your voice again. “I just…just don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me when we called, unless you…didn’t want me to know? Did you not want me to—”

  “It’s not like that! I wanted to,” Rus blurts out, advancing toward me. When he takes my hands into his—and my goodness, they’re as warm and rough as they were before—I want to melt and forget about all the panic stirring inside me. I look into his eyes, so honest, distraught, and lovely, and just want to let myself get lost in them, whatever is coming out of his mouth be damned. “I did! I wanted to tell you from the moment I found out, but…I also wanted you to succeed. To do what you set out to do. To heal. I knew this would’ve pulled you back to where you wouldn’t be able to do that. Where you wouldn’t be happy.”

  I let out a snort of genuine disbelief. “What?”

  “I could handle this. Can,” he mutters, sighing sharply. “Every day, I wondered whether to call you, or what the best thing to do would be. But the more days passed, the stupider and more unsure and stressed about it I felt. The harder it became. I became paralyzed by it all, and I…I soothed myself with the knowledge that what really matters is that I was going to cherish these babies and the memory of what made them. I just didn’t exactly come up with a…solution to how to deal with the rest of everything, so I…”

  “Hold up,” I blurt, my hand shooting up to his mouth. “Did you say babies?”

  My heart might actually explode. Or my brain. Or both.

  Rus’s hesitant gulp and a slight withdrawal are enough of an answer. “There’s…there’s two,” he whispers before reaching down and brushing over his stomach. I thought he was big just because he’s a…big guy.

  “Oh my god.” I bend down, propping my arms over my slightly bent knees. My entire face is on fire. “This isn’t happening…” It vibrates with my crazed pulse, and my insides keep twisting and churning with…fuck, I don’t even know!

  Am I happy?! I think I am. I think there’s joy in the eye of that emotional storm. There’s also fear, but of course there is! I wasn’t ready for this.

  Another emotion raging inside me is anger. I snap my head up again, my back going straight as I glare at Rus, who still has that damn understanding, soft expression on his face. “And you…what? What did you expect to do?! To have these babies here, by yourself, and take care of them; only you, if you didn’t manage to come up with a way to tell me?!”

  I’m so frustrated I feel the energy prickling at the tips of my fingers.

  It’s not like I’m angry at him. I’m angry at the idea of Rus going through all of that without even consulting me, while I was living in blissful ignorance back in the city, focusing on stupid meetings and having dinners with Samantha and sitting on my ass editing music videos, all the while he was planning to suffer through this alone!

  “I— Y-yes. I suppose so, yeah.”

  His firm, assured response at the end takes me aback. I blink to make sure, but there’s no doubt on Rus’s face. Those brown eyes are fixed on me with almost stubborn determination.

  “Many have gone through this exact thing before me, and many will after. So yeah, if…if I couldn’t bring myself to tell you or couldn’t make up my dumb mind, I was gonna do it by myself.”

  My heart shatters, making my knees nearly buckle with the intensity of the shame and regret; at this grief I feel for the Wren that could’ve lived a life never knowing his own babies. It won’t ever be real now, because I turned up here and found out, but it was a genuine possibility. And I hate that.

  Then a different kind of hurt hits me. He wasn’t sure whether to tell me because he thought I couldn’t handle it. Rus was planning to go through this alone because of how unfit he knew I would be.

  And he was right. That undeniable truth lashes through my measly ego like a dagger.

  But that was the old me. He doesn’t truly realize how damn hard I’ve been trying to pick up the pieces. He hasn’t seen how I’ve been putting myself together, bit by bit. I thought I was doing it for me, and I am, but at the same time, maybe this was the reason, too.

  I study Rus’s face and then his stomach, tears filling my eyes.

  I can’t fuck this up.

  That’s the only thought pulsing through my brain. I - can’t - fuck - this - up.

  All of my fears and worries that have been following me for years—being a bad alpha, not good enough, not strong enough—I can prove to him and myself and everybody that I can do better. That I am capable of it.

  I want to do the right thing. To be here for him, for the babies. Our babies.

  “I don’t want to run away,” I say, staring at the floor. Feeling Rus’s gaze on me, I look up to meet his eyes and then step closer, reaching for his hands again. “I don’t want to run away, Russell. It fucking scares me, this…this really is a lot, but I don’t want to. I’m ready. I…I can handle this.”

  Can I? I don’t know if I can, and at the same time, being in his presence again makes it so that there’s no doubt in my mind.

  Even Rus looks a little unsure. I hope it’s about what he said and not my words. He doesn’t pull away, at least. “What about your life in the city? Your meetings, your sponsor, the therapist you like so much, and your job…”

  I squeeze his hand tightly, and it feels so goddamn right when I do.

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t leave my omega or my responsibility over the lives you carry.” I only realize how possessive and feral that might sound once the words leave my mouth. Rus widens his eyes but doesn’t respond. He just stares at me with his lips parted.

  My throat almost closes up as I ask softly, “Do you want to be my omega? M-my partner, I mean.” For a few torturous moments, I feel almost exactly the same way as when I would wait for my next hit. “Fuck, I know this is completely fucking crazy, but…”

  I watch his throat bob with a gulp. “When we were together, it was… I never felt like that with anyone before,” Rus whispers, voice smooth and mellow. His finger glides over the top of my hand gently. His eyes follow, as if he’s making sure it’s real. “I wanted it to mean something. I still do. But I didn’t know if it was just wishful thinking. Just me being dumb and naive.”

  “I came up here for you, Rus. To see if you wanted to be with me. To be mine.” I squeeze our hands together before leading them down to his stomach. Touching it for the first time sends waves of heat and joy throughout my entire being. “We don’t need anything else,” I whisper.

  Rus’s face brightens as if the sun is shining down on it, and it makes me want to kiss him so damn much, only for it to fall again as worries cloud his features. He looks to the side. “We barely know each other. Are you sure you want to throw away your life to—”

  “Throw my life away?” I repeat with a huff of disbelief, my brows drawn together. “I am not throwing anything away, I… It’s the exact opposite, this— We’ll get to know each other. That is all I want,” I say firmly, leaving no room for doubt.

  Rus meets my eyes, and for the first time, I experience the unmistakable, pure sense of the thing that sometimes happens between an alpha and an omega. That state of one yielding to the other in a way that feels almost spiritual.

  “We’ll learn all there is about each other, and if there are things that don’t go smoothly, we’ll…work through them. No matter what. This is crazy and so sudden, but I want this life, here, with you and our family, more than I’ve…ever wanted anything.”

  There’s a flickering light inside Rus’s eyes. Probably just a reflection, but it hypnotizes me and pulls me in. As he nods and exhales calmly, my entire body is at peace. My mind quiets. My heart slows.