Exclusive interview with Daniel Holt about his transfer of power!
With the rising alpha population, experts are pushing for laws forbidding termination of omega-probable pregnancies.
Rowan Ellis woke up hurting in a bed that was not his. When he opened his eyes, the LED lights on the ceiling nearly blinded him. When he tried to sit up, pain flashed up his body from his left hip and his body was jerked back by the wide restraints that buckled his wrists to the hospital bed frame. He groaned at the sharp pain despite himself and heard movement on the other side of the brown curtain surrounding the bed.
A doctor pushed the curtain aside just enough to enter. "Mr. Ellis. Glad to see you're awake. It's good timing, since your father just arrived."
Rowan's heart stopped. No, not his father. Not now. It explained the restraints and the silence of the ward he was in, but he would rather have been kidnapped than left tied up for his father.
Tyler Ellis stepped past the curtain and pulled it shut with a deadly precision. His face twisted into a sneer as soon as he met Rowan's eyes. "So," he growled, "out late at night in downtown, where you know you're not allowed to go."
Rowan swallowed down his fear and forced up the bile of courage. "I know. I promise I wasn't down there for me. My boss, he needed me to deliver a file he forgot at the office. I didn't want to be down there–"
Smack. Tyler Ellis' hand snapped across Rowan's face. "You do what you're told, filthy omega! And you'll thank me for it!"
Rowan stared up at the ceiling to keep from crying.
"And that isn't mentioning the fact that you were missing down there for three days!"
Rowan tried to sit up out of pure shock and was yanked down by the restraints once again. He stifled the gasp that rose up at the nauseating pain radiating from his hip. "Three days?"
"Yes," Tyler Ellis snarled. "Three days. Sufficient to say, your boyfriend broke up with you once he learned where you've been." He seemed to take sadistic glee in revealing that piece of news.
Rowan forced his tears down. Crying would just give his father what the evil man wanted. He and his boyfriend Nick had been together six months, and it had been the longest amount of time Tyler Ellis had ever let his son keep something he loved.
The doctor cleared his throat nervously. "Mr. Ellis, if I may…"
Tyler Ellis seemed to realize that the doctor had been there the whole time and quickly motioned for the man to go ahead.
"We were initially treating your son because of his broken hip."
Broken hip? Well, that brought sense to the pain fracturing his world.
"But," the doctor continued, "we have ceased treatment due to our latest discovery when we ran his bloodwork."
"Why the hell would you stop–"
"Your son is pregnant, Mr. Ellis."
Rowan felt his soul curl away in revulsion and terror. Pregnant? No! He hadn't done anything that could have led to that! He cringed when his father slowly turned his head to stare down at him.
The doctor kept talking. "This is a virgin pregnancy, so it's good that the hip was broken. It allows the bones to move and reheal in a way that's conducive to carrying the baby. Whatever alpha did the deed knew what he was doing."
Rowan stretched up a trembling hand as far as he could, pleading with his father. "Nick and I never–"
"Then at least you still remembered one thing I told you to do," Tyler Ellis snapped.
Rowan wanted to plead for an abortion, but he knew his father would order one, so he kept silent.
The doctor cautiously cleared his throat again. "Sir, it's a highly probable omega pregnancy, so this hospital will not offer any abortion options due to our compliance with what the experts believe is best for our society."
What?
Tyler Ellis looked pissed for a split second, but then his maliciously clever brain seemed to put an entirely new equation together. "No matter. He'll be keeping it."
"No!" Rowan burst out before he could control himself. "I don't know who did this to me! I'd have to quit my job, and I love my job! I don't want–"
Tyler Ellis' hand was wrapped around Rowan's throat in an instant. "You'll quit your job," he hissed. "If you love it, it means you don't deserve it. And I don't care who did this to you. They made you useful."
"I thought I wasn't useful if I got knocked up," Rowan whispered.
"That used to be the case." Tyler Ellis loosened his grip and ran his fingers down Rowan's neck. "Now I can use you in a way I never thought of before. I'll come back when your hip is healed to give you your new assignment. And, while you're on it, I'd appreciate you finding the alpha who did this. I'd like to thank him for saving me from the infamy of doing it myself." He turned on his heel and left the ward.
The doctor cast one glance of pity in Rowan's direction and then hurried away as well, leaving Rowan boyfriendless, jobless, and stuck carrying the child of an alpha he did not know.