Vengeful Bonds S3 - Ch. 12 - Ollie (Patreon)

Unbeta'd/Unedited.

Ollie loved and hated his Veritas appointments in equal measure. He wanted to see their baby. Of course, he did. He wanted to know she was okay, that his body hadn’t betrayed him…or her…yet. But every scan showed some new unprecedented thing. She was too large, too high up, there was a lot of amniotic fluid, Ollie’s blood pressure and heart rate were a little high. Every appointment drove home that there was no normal anymore.

As always, Win was there saying everything was fine. That these weren’t life-threatening, that lots of pregnancies had this or that and they shouldn’t assume that meant anything. That it was important for him to stay calm. To rest. To relax. Right, sure. No worries there. Easy for her to say when it wasn’t his body being monitored like a lab rat.

What was there to stress about? Just two scientists fighting over his mate’s blood. Totally chill. Just a walk in the park. 

Ollie stifled the laugh bubbling up in him, pressing his tongue hard to the roof of his mouth to keep it in. He could see San watching him like a hawk. Seth, too. Saint watched Seth. Ollie appreciated that someone was acting normally. The rest watched him like a ticking time bomb. Like they were waiting for him to crack open.

He wanted Deke. He hated doing these scans without him. He always tried to play it off like he didn’t want him to miss out on seeing their baby but the truth was, he was…terrified. The kind of fear that sat heavy in his chest and made it hard to take a full breath. When his panic got to be too much, Deke’s pheromones were the only thing to calm him down. Warm, grounding, wrapping around his nerves like a steady hand at his back. 

He was rapidly becoming Ollie’s rock, the only solid foundation beneath his feet. 

It was ironic. Deke was the baby of the pack. The youngest. But since his presentation, he wasn’t just changing physically, he was maturing faster than anyone Ollie had ever seen before. Maybe that happened to all enigmas. Maybe it was being poked and prodded and treated like a science experiment. Or maybe he just knew Ollie was falling apart and someone had to be the responsible one. Maybe he could smell it on Ollie—the fear, the instability, the way everything inside him had gone off balance.

Ollie didn’t know the reason but he was grateful anyway. In the last few months their roles had been flipped on their heads. Ollie had always been the logical one, the planner, the researcher. He was the one everyone came to when they needed someone level headed, when they needed a plan, someone who wasn’t a slave to their hormones or someone else’s pheromones. 

A beta. 

The steady center. 

The one who fixed things.

But that was all gone now. He wasn’t a beta anymore. He wasn’t rational anymore. He wasn’t any use to anyone anymore and his ego couldn’t take it. It wasn’t being an omega that had stolen his reason, his mental fortitude. It was the pregnancy. It was robbing him of the only thing he’d ever truly liked about himself. His brain. The loss of it scraped at him, raw and constant, like something vital had been carved out and left him hollow. 

He didn’t mind being an omega. Some parts of it were amazing. He didn’t even mind being pregnant. But all the things that came with that were just…frustrating.  

While he wasn’t puking his guts out like poor Seth or craving pickles and ice cream, cognitively, his mind was failing him, like his own child was a parasite sucking the nutrients straight from his body. He walked into rooms and immediately forgot why. He’d open his phone to do something and get distracted. Last week, he’d put a pot of water on to boil then had promptly fallen asleep right there at the kitchen table. 

If Loch hadn’t come in to grab a drink at the right moment, Ollie might have burned the whole house down. Or at least ruined a really expensive pot. Which, honestly, might have been worse if you asked Binnie. The thought still made his stomach twist, a cold, lingering dread curling through him.

Everything was changing, morphing, evolving at light speed. Every day, Deke grew bigger, stronger, faster and more confident while Ollie’s body grew softer and unrecognizable, his center of gravity shifting, his joints aching in ways that made him feel older than he was, while his brain function deteriorated and he grew more and more useless to the pack each day. Like he was being rewritten into someone he didn’t recognize, someone he didn’t know how to be.

Deke didn’t see him that way. Ollie knew that. They were mates. Ollie had never really believed in soulmates before they’d met. He’d tried to convince himself that Deke just had a little one-sided crush on him, but there was no denying the shock of awareness Ollie had experienced the moment he’d seen him. Like something inside him had snapped into alignment so violently it stole the air from his lungs. It had freaked him out so much he’d tried to escape.

But the universe had other ideas.

And Ollie was glad. Sometimes it still stole his breath how lucky he was. How completely, terrifyingly seen he felt when Deke looked at him. He wasn’t the type to gush about his feelings. He was the type to bottle it all up until it exploded in a fit of tears. Tears he cried alone where nobody could see him and judge him for unraveling, for being human. For not being the steady, unshakable version of himself he’d built his identity around.

But he was human and he did have feelings and the love he had for Deke sometimes made it feel like there was a baseball lodged in his esophagus. Thick and immovable, like if he tried to swallow it down, it might choke him. 

And it wasn’t just Deke.

The love he had for his pack made him feel connected to something bigger than himself, like he was part of a living, breathing organism. An organism that was about to expand again. That would keep growing, whether any of them were ready or not.

There would be four new babies. Four. They would need an actual village to raise these children. Though knowing Binnie, he might quit his job and become a stay-at-home dad. He was over the moon about four new babies. Already making plans, already hovering, already acting like they’d all handed him the job without discussion.

But there was a chance their baby—their Pop Tart—wouldn’t survive this. Because of Ollie. Because his body might fail him. His body that was never meant to have a baby. A body that felt like it was pushing past its limits more and more every day.

He hissed as warm jelly hit his rounded belly, pulling him from his spiral. The sudden contrast of temperature made his muscles jump under his skin. Win gave a wince and a whispered apology, then pressed the probe to his skin. There was something weirdly soothing about the staticky black screen, the low lights, the white noise of his uterus playing out of the machine speaker. 

It was much easier to find the baby now that Win knew where to look. The rapid thrum of her heartbeat filled the room, too loud, too alive, making Ollie’s chest tighten with something that felt dangerously close to panic.

“There she is,” she said, sounding a little breathless. “Goodness, she’s even bigger than last time.” 

She always seemed just as awestruck by Ollie’s pregnancy as anyone else who knew of it. She did her usual measurements, as Ollie focused on the reassuring sound of the steady lub-dub lub-dub of her heart. 

Babies’ heartbeats were always fast, terrifyingly so. Today was no different. Her heart rate showed as one seventy, which Win assured them was perfectly normal. 

She made small talk as she moved the wand over his tummy, sometimes digging in a little too deep, then apologizing. She asked about name ideas, laughed over them nicknaming her Pop-Tart while San joked about calling Seth’s babies Snap, Crackle and Pop. 

Seth was oddly quiet, watching the monitor with big eyes, clinging to Saint’s arm like a lifeline. His knuckles were pale where he gripped Saint, his usual chatter replaced with something fragile and awed.

“Everything looks good—”

That was as far as Win got before the first violent stab hit Ollie, sharp enough to steal his breath and bring tears to his eyes. 

It wasn’t like the dull aches he’d been dealing with—it was precise, surgical, like something inside him had been yanked too hard, too fast. He grunted, hand flying blindly, reaching for the spot just below his belly. He gasped as he felt his body grow heavy, like all his blood left him in a rush, like they’d opened a valve and drained him from the inside out. 

It was like his world slowed to a crawl, his vision tunneling. Sound warped, voices stretching and distorting like he was underwater. The only thing keeping him from beneath the waves was the numbers on the screen as Pop-Tart’s heart rate skyrocketed. 

It had been sitting at a steady 160 but was now 190 and climbing fast.

“What’s happening?” Ollie gasped, his whole body feeling heavy and light at the same time. His fingers tingled, then went numb, like they didn’t belong to him anymore.

“I’m—I’m not sure,” Win said. 

Her voice lost its usual confidence, pitching higher, thinner.

Ollie was drenched in sweat, his own heartbeat slowing to a crawl as he watched his daughter on the screen. He could feel it—his body trying to shut down, systems dimming one by one, like lights flickering out in a building. Her limbs were kicking, her little body jerking and twitching.

“No—no, no, no—” Seth’s voice cracked, high and panicked as he lurched forward, one hand clutching his own stomach like he could feel it happening too. “What’s happening to him? Why does he look like he’s dying?” 

“Fix this. What did you do to him?” San snapped from a million miles away. 

“I didn’t do anything,” Win said frantically. 

He felt her press a stethoscope to his chest and wrap a cuff around his arm but he could only watch the screen where their baby seemed to be fighting for her life. He could feel himself drenched in sweat, so much so it made the paper beneath him stick to whatever skin was visible. 

He had always logically understood that not many people knew when death would find them, but he felt stupid for not thinking it could be right at that moment. Because he felt like he was dying, like everything was slipping away from him. 

Then suddenly it just…stopped.

Her heart rate dropped back to normal, Ollie’s blood felt like it rushed back into his body, the feeling of heaviness leaving. Air slammed back into his lungs, harsh and burning. He sucked in air like he’d been held under water, the rest of his pack staring with wide eyes. Seth dropped down into a chair, mouth open, one hand still on his own belly. His other hand reached blindly for Saint, gripping him hard enough to wrinkle fabric.

“Deke,” Ollie managed, his voice barely there. “Get Deke.”

It was a testament to how badly shaken Win was, that she didn’t hesitate, just gave a jerky nod, pulling her phone from her pocket. Her hands shook as she dialed, nearly dropping it. 

Ollie frowned as she stepped from the room and shut the door. The click of it felt too loud, too final. The others rushed to him, San immediately pulling paper towels from the dispenser and wetting them, mopping the sweat from his forehead and eyes.

“Are—Are you okay?” Seth asked, voice hoarse. 

His breathing was uneven, bordering on hyperventilating, like it had happened to him right alongside Ollie. 

Ollie wasn’t sure but he nodded anyway. No need to freak all of them out. “I’m fine. I just feel a little…tired.” The words tasted like a lie even as he said them. He could feel himself trembling but it wouldn’t stop. “I—I just want Deke.”

He hated how his voice trembled when he said it. 

San’s jaw clenched as he wiped Ollie’s face, his movements sharp, controlled in a way that screamed he was barely holding it together. “You don’t look fine,” he muttered, shooting a look toward the door Win had disappeared through. “What the fuck is she doing out there?”

His gaze climbed to where Saint hovered over Seth’s shoulder. The look on his friend’s face worried him far more than the others. Saint wasn’t really one to emote. He only really had two settings, brooding and angry. Well, three if you included how besotted he was with Seth. 

But now he looked scared—not loud, not frantic, just a quiet, deadly kind of fear tightening his features—and that sent a knife blade of panic through Ollie’s chest. It was that look, that grim, knowing look of seeing a dead man walking. How many of their friends had been sent out on missions that they all knew would be their last?  

Saint’s hand landed on Seth’s shoulder, firm, grounding, but his eyes never left Ollie. Calculating. Watching. Like he was already preparing for the worst. Should Ollie be preparing too? He’d heard when you were close to death this sort of euphoria kicked in. But he hadn’t felt that at all. Did that mean his life hadn’t been in danger or that the rumors of a peaceful death were a lie?

It felt like an hour passed before the door opened again. Every second stretched, thick and suffocating, the air in the room too heavy to breathe properly. 

But when it did, Deke rushed in, looking stricken, just as sweaty and pale as Ollie felt. “Are you okay? What happened? What did they do to you?” he asked in a rush. Before Ollie could answer, Deke turned an accusatory eye towards Win and the man standing beside her. “What did you do to him?” 

“Help me sit up,” Ollie whispered.

Deke slid his arm around his back and supported him as he swung his legs over. The contact grounded him instantly, the familiar scent of Deke cutting through the lingering haze in his head. When he looked at Win and the stranger, he had another deep feeling of foreboding.

Ollie’s chest loosened just at the sound of his voice, his body reacting before his brain could catch up, some instinct deep inside him reaching for his mate. Almost immediately, he felt Deke pushing those soothing pheromones into him, his eyes rolling at the sudden wave of bliss, that euphoria he’d heard death promised, delivered instead by his frantic mate.

His head snapped to look over his shoulder at Win and the man standing beside her.

“Who’s that?” Seth asked, frowning at the man. His voice was smaller now, shaken.

San straightened beside Ollie, shoulders squaring as he stepped slightly in front of him without thinking, a protective block. “Yeah,” he added, sharper. “Who the hell is that?”

“Everyone, this is my father, Dr. Alexander Hearst,” she said, giving them a smile that wavered just slightly.

Saint didn’t speak, but his grip on Seth tightened, his posture shifting just enough to signal readiness—like violence wasn’t off the table if it needed to be.

“Daddy, this is Ollie, Deke’s mate, San, Seth and his mate, Saint.”

“Nice to meet you all,” he said, beaming at them in a way that made Ollie’s skin crawl even high as he was on Deke’s pheromones. “I hear your pack is expanding quite quickly.”

“What happened to my baby?” Ollie said, words slurring, then looked at the state of his mate. “What did you do to Deke?”

He had no room for small talk. He wanted to know what had just happened and if his baby was okay, if his family was okay. If he was about to lose everything in one sweep.

“Well,” Dr. Hearst said, then cleared his throat. “We’re not entirely certain, but we were running some intensive tests on Deke and we suspect that, somehow, the baby was responding to Deke’s stress.”

“What?” Ollie asked dully. The word barely made it past his lips, his brain still trying to catch up.

“That’s why I was gone for so long,” Win said. “When I told my father what had just happened with Ollie, he made the connection. We will have to confirm by looking at the data side by side of course, but it seems that Deke and the baby are…linked.”

“So that means you’re going to stop experimenting on him, right?” San asked, folding his arms over his chest and crowding closer to sit beside him on the table. His presence was deliberate, a physical barrier between Ollie and them. Ollie’s heart did something funny. San was Deke’s friend first, but he was fighting to protect Ollie and the baby like they were just as important. 

“Well…” Win started, then looked to her father, clearly hoping he would step in. 

“Let’s not be hasty,” Dr. Hearst said.

“Hasty?” Seth asked incredulously. “He looked like he was dying. The baby was…” he trailed off, shuddering. His hand pressed protectively to his own stomach again, instinctive and terrified.

“That’s why we need more tests. We need to confirm that there is a link between them,” Hearst said. “Causation does not equal correlation.”

“What the hell does that mean?” San asked.

“It means that just because two things happen at the same time, doesn’t mean both those things were caused by the same thing,” Ollie muttered. 

Even now, his brain latched onto the logic, the explanation—something solid in the chaos.

“Exactly,” Hearst said, beaming at him like he was his star pupil. 

The approval made Ollie’s stomach turn.

“How exactly do you plan on proving that Deke and Pop-Tart are…linked?” Seth asked. “You can’t possibly think what just happened is good for either of them.”

“Pop-Tart?” Hearst asked, his confusion almost comical.

Almost.

“The baby,” Win said with a smile.

Deke wasn’t saying a word, laser focused on Ollie, on their baby. His grip on Ollie’s side tightened just slightly, like he was anchoring himself there. What was he thinking? What had they done to him that could cause a response like that? Did Hearst want to do that to their baby? Ollie had known this would devolve but he hadn’t thought it would happen that quickly.

“Of course. Cute,” Hearst said with a smile that felt like someone dripping ice water down his spine.

“We would never put Ollie or…Pop-Tart in danger. We would make sure that all variables were accounted for. We would ensure that all tests were…gentle enough to minimize any risk.”

Minimize not negate.  

“But if Deke and the baby are linked and your health is linked to the baby’s stress level then we need to know that sooner rather than later.”

Dr. Hearst looked at Seth. Saint gave a low growl, but the man wasn’t deterred. 

“We should also make sure that this only pertains to his baby and not all pack babies.”

“Hell no,” San snarled. “You want to risk the lives of four of our children? Four? Even someone like you has to see that’s insane. I don’t want you near even one.”

“There will be no risk,” Hearst said, his confidence staggering in the wake of what had just happened. “We can do experiments that are gentle but still allow us to see the extent of Deke’s range. With Seth’s pregnancy, we may need to wait until the fetuses are larger, but it behooves everyone to know just how deeply this connection runs and how it's tied to Deke’s emotional and physical state.”

“You’re not touching them.” Saint’s voice cut through the room—quiet, controlled, but absolute. His arm tightened around Seth as he stepped forward just enough to make it clear he meant it.

Silence fell, sharp and immediate. Even Win stilled.

San let out a harsh breath. “We’re done here.”

“No.”

The word came from Ollie. Soft. Strained. But firm enough that everyone turned to look at him.

Even Deke stilled behind him.

Ollie swallowed hard, his hand finding Deke’s wrist, holding on. Grounding himself before he spoke. Before he gave them something he didn’t want to give.

“We can’t pretend this isn’t happening,” he said quietly. “You all saw what just happened. If they’re right—if Deke and the baby are linked—then this isn’t just about curiosity. It’s about survival.”

San turned on him. “Ollie—”

“I know,” Ollie snapped, sharper than he meant to. Fear frayed the edges of his control. “I know what they’re asking. But if something happens to Deke—” His voice cracked. “Or the baby reacts like that again and we don’t understand why—what then?”

No one had an answer for that.

Deke’s arm tightened around him. “I’m fine,” he said quietly, but his voice was rough, like he didn’t fully believe it.

Ollie closed his eyes briefly, then looked back at Dr. Hearst. Logic. He needed logic. Control. Terms.

“We agree to testing,” he said slowly. “But only under our conditions.”

Hearst’s smile sharpened. “And those are?”

Ollie lifted his chin. There he was—the planner, the strategist, clawing his way back to the surface.

“Nothing invasive,” he said. “No inducing stress. No pushing Deke past baseline. You monitor—only monitor—until we understand what triggers a reaction.”

San nodded immediately. “And we’re in the room. Every second.”

“Every test stops the second Ollie or Deke says it does,” Seth added, voice still shaky but firm with resolve.

Saint didn’t speak, but the look he gave Dr. Hearst made the threat clear enough.

Deke’s hand slid into Ollie’s, squeezing. Silent agreement. Silent trust.

Ollie didn’t look away from Dr. Hearst. “You don’t touch Seth. Or his babies. Not now. Not ever. Not unless we say otherwise.”

A pause.

Then—

“Agreed,” Hearst said smoothly. 

Too easily. Like he’d already anticipated this outcome.

Hearst wasn’t done. “But you have to agree to allow us to keep studying Deke.” Ollie opened his mouth to remind him what he’d just said, when Hearst raised a hand to stop him. “We will stick to lab tests and simple stimulus tests, nothing too strenuous for Deke or the baby…or you, of course. 

Ollie’s stomach dropped. He could feel regret bubbling up inside him almost immediately like heartburn. 

But it was too late to take it back now.

They’d already made a deal with the devil. 

And the truly terrifying part was…he was still the lesser of two evils.