Unexpeggted an mm shifte.., p.1
UnexpEGGted: An MM Shifter Mpreg Romance, page 1
part #1 of Love At First Shift Series
UNEXPEGGTED
LOVE AT FIRST SHIFT
BOOK 1
LORELEI M. HART
COLBIE DUNBAR
SURRENDERED PRESS
CONTENTS
1. Cedric
2. Abel
3. Cedric
4. Abel
5. Cedric
6. Abel
7. Cedric
8. Abel
9. Cedric
10. Abel
11. Cedric
12. Abel
13. Cedric
14. Abel
15. Cedric
16. Abel
17. Cedric
18. Abel
19. Cedric
20. Abel
21. Cedric
22. Abel
23. Cedric
24. Abel
Next in the series
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Surrendered Press
UnexpEGGted
Copyright © 2022 by Lorelei M. Hart & Colbie Dunbar
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
1
CEDRIC
“Cedric, are you coming?”
“Be there in a minute.”
I made no move to follow my friends up the steep mountain path. Instead, I stood at the edge of the cliff, studying the secluded valley below that had been gouged by wind and rain over thousands of years. It had drizzled earlier, making the jagged edges of the cliff face glisten but, as the light was fading, the sun peeked out, tinging the sky with pink.
This was my home, the place where my family had ruled for generations, though in the twenty-first century my father, the Alpha of our flight of dragons, governed rather than reigned. Dragons were at home in the rugged mountains and deep valleys where it rained for many months of the year, making it the perfect location for us to take our wings and soar through the mist high above the landscape.
At least that’s what dragon shifters did once they reached the age of twenty-five. Unlike other shifters, whose beast was revealed during adolescence, we were adults before we took our scales. When I was a small child, my friends and I crouched in the long grass and watched, open-mouthed, as our parents and the flight elders circled overhead, their huge wingspan creating shadows on the mountainside.
A few would break off from the main group and compete against one another, spitting fire at rotting trees while others would slide almost silently through air before they spied a tasty treat, maybe a deer or a mountain goat nibbling grass, unaware they were about to be snatched up in strong jaws, their bones crushed as the magnificent winged creature made a meal of them.
How we all longed for the celebration when we could get our scales and wings for the first time. But that wasn’t the only first the birthday would bring. Our designation: alpha or omega, would be revealed. While there was no way of knowing definitively which of the two we were, many of us had developed traits that favored one or the other, though it wasn’t as clear-cut as in the old days.
Back then, alphas were big, bold, and brash. They gave orders and prided themselves on their hunting skills. Because they gave birth to the next generation, omegas were expected to be homebodies, to be softer and stay in the background rather than demand attention.
But times had changed and, rather than each designation being the polar opposite of the other, their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, skills, and outlook on life were more based on the individual.
Unlike most of my friends, my future wasn’t uncertain. I came from a long line of alphas who were also our flight Alphas. I would take over as leader once my father retired, and I envied my peers because their future wasn’t predestined. They got to choose how they’d live their life.
But there was a niggling doubt, almost like a voice in my head that questioned whether I was destined to be the alpha everyone assumed I was. There wasn’t anything I could pinpoint that suggested I was anything else, and when my friends and I were together, nothing shouted that I was different from them.
“Cedric, come on.”
Pushing the questions out of my head, I followed my friends until we reached a cave— a flight meeting place—where we lit fires on rainy days and told stories of how dragons used to live in caves, some keeping away from humans while others terrorized villagers just for the fun of it.
Today wasn’t a day to relive the past but rather to play football on the flat grassy patch in front of the cave. But my mind wasn’t on the game, and I got shouted at for my lack of concentration until it got too dark to play and we made our way home.
The flight houses were built on stilts and nestled into the mountainside. Though Father was the Alpha, he also ran a business, a very successful one called Draco’s Home Furnishings where most of the dragon shifters worked, me included. We made wooden furniture and, while I was mainly in the office, sitting behind a computer, I spent part of the day on the factory floor. But this wasn’t a location where furniture was mass-produced. Our pieces were lovingly created by master craftspeople.
The shifters in our flight who worked elsewhere drove down the mountain to the town beside a river that cut through the valley. Some days I longed to not sit in an office but meet new people who didn’t belong to the flight. Perhaps even a human or two.
“There you are, Cedric.” My omega dad, Cadmus, was setting the table. “Let me guess. You were daydreaming about meeting your beast and finally taking your wings.”
“You know me so well.” I kissed his cheek and went to wash up, waving at Uncle George, my father’s younger brother, who was on the deck drinking his before-dinner beer and gazing out at the magnificent scenery below. He lived in a studio on the third floor of our house with his son, my cousin Kirin, and had done so since his mate died.
“You’re so lucky, Cedric.” Dalinda, my little sister who was only eight, pouted as she skipped down the stairs. “I have to wait years before I meet my dragon.”
“Just as we have all done, poppet.” Dad kissed my sister’s head and sent her to get napkins.
“What’s this I hear about you wanting your scales already?” Father stood in the doorway, grinning. He’d been in a meeting in the valley all afternoon, and I’d been so distracted I hadn’t heard the car. Yes, he could have flown in half the time, but pesky humans with binoculars or hikers camping in the mountains might have seen him. Before smart phones and social media we could pooh-pooh their suggestion at seeing a flying lizard, but now humans documented everything from their dinner, to their pets, to them falling over. A camera was as close as their back pocket.
“Daddy.” Dalinda jumped into Father’s arms. “Did you bring me anything from town?” My sister was fascinated by human TV programs, music, and toys. Her bedroom was an ode to everything human.
“Maybe. But let’s eat first. I’m starving.”
“No!” Dalinda stomped to her place at the table and yanked out the chair. No one paid her any attention, though, and she wouldn’t get her surprise until after dinner no matter how much she pouted.
“We got the shipment packed and loaded into the truck,” Dad told Father after they shared a kiss. Like me, Father was often stuck in the office or a meeting, whereas my dad was head of production. “Cedric, tell Kirin dinner’s ready.”
But there was no need to yell for my cousin who galloped down the stairs, two at a time. Maybe he’d heard Dalinda’s ruckus. Uncle George wandered in, his half-drunk beer clasped in one hand.
Father sniffed the air. “That smells so good. Venison stew?”
“Yes to the venison, no to the stew. It’s stroganoff,” Dad replied.
My family shared a glance before Kirin piped up. “Did you make it, Uncle Cadmus?”
“You’ll be pleased to hear that I didn’t,” Dad said, his back to us.
There was no need for anyone to respond because we were all thinking the same thing. This was a meal we could eat and enjoy without making faces because there was too much salt or not enough spices, or the meat was raw. Dad was a terrible cook.
“I cooked this evening,” Uncle George informed us.
Dad brought out a huge pot of stroganoff while my uncle carried out noodles and I placed a bowl of greens on the table. We said little until we’d all eaten a few bites and congratulated my uncle on his cooking prowess. He and Dad loved sharing the story of how when my dad met Father and invited him home for dinner, it was Uncle George who cooked the meal—he and my dad had been classmates, so they had known one another for years—and they pretended Dad was a great cook. Father always said, as well as recognizing his mate, he thought he’d have amazing meals for the rest of his life. Wrong!
“You did good, Papa,” Kirin said with his mouth full.
Dad glared at my cousin. He may not know his way around a kitchen but he expected us to mind our manners at the table, and talking with food in our mouth was a big no-no.
“How’s the piece you’re working on, Kirin?” Father asked as I passed him the vegetables.
“Come and see it in the morning, Uncle.”
“You’ll love it,” I told Father, and both Dad and Uncle George nodded in agreement.
There was a lull in the conversation, and I put my head down and concentrated on
“Not long to go before your big day, little cousin.” Kirin loved lording it over me even though he was only six months older.
“I can’t wait,” I replied truthfully. Couldn’t wait to take to the air for the first time, but there was a knot in my belly at finally being labeled an alpha. The years leading up to this moment were kinda carefree, even though I had a demanding job, working full-time with my family and friends.
But as the date for my birthday grew closer, the questions I’d asked myself and dismissed reared up and refused to be ignored. What if I wasn’t an… No, I couldn’t think of it, let alone say it. There were no omegas in our immediate family, and there hadn’t been any for generations. I was my father’s heir. The future was mapped out, and nothing was supposed to mess it up. Unless…
“I remember my twenty-fifth birthday like it was yesterday.” Uncle George sucked in a forkful of noodles as his eyes glazed over. We’d heard this story countless times, and Uncle embellished it with every retelling.
“You didn’t come home for a week,” Father noted.
“You met Aunty, right, Uncle George?” Dalinda asked as she slurped her noodles.
“I did.”
Kirin covered his father’s hand as Uncle George’s eyes filled with tears. Last year, my aunt had succumbed to a disease suffered by dragon shifters centuries ago. Having believed it had been stamped out, both my uncle and cousin were still grieving at her unexpected death. My Aunt Kayda was the only one who’d sensed I might not be who everyone assumed I’d be. Her death saddened me not only because she was family, but I lost a possible ally.
Not that my family wasn’t supportive. They were, and I loved them. But none of them considered the possibility that I was different.
2
ABEL
I grabbed the mug of coffee from my counter and headed out to the back porch of my new home…new rental, anyway.
“Are you coming, Woofy?” I whistled when my bundle of fur didn’t come running for his morning outing. He was still used to life in the desert, where I had to leash him before his morning walk. Without that sound or my whistle, he just figured I was waking him up for nothing. Lazy dog. The best dog ever, but still…beyond lazy.
He came loping over, his tail wagging.
“’Bout time you got here. Let’s go so we can enjoy the sunrise.”
I loved the cool morning air and couldn’t ask for a better view. This cabin wasn’t my permanent home, my rent only reasonable three quarters of the year. During the summers I could either stay for quadruple the rent or move out to make way for their summer people. I was going to have to do the latter.
But, for now? For now, it was perfection. When I first accepted the job here, I didn’t think about practical things such as cost of living and salary. I just gave them an immediate yes and put in my two weeks at the job I was working back then. Maybe it wasn’t the best life-altering decision-making plan I’d ever enacted, but it got me here and so far I was loving it.
I sat on my favorite chair, an old rocker that had seen better days, and Woofy went into the back yard to take care of his morning business. I loved that he could do that here. Before we moved, I’d lived in an apartment building, and walking him was the only option. This was so much better for him and I both.
Bringing the mug up to my lips, I took a long sip and thought about all I had to do for the day. I was working in the admin wing of the county hospital as basically a glorified paper pusher. I didn’t mind the work. It didn’t stretch my mind, but it was important, and it paid the bills.
Today was going to be a busy one with some end-of-quarter audits beginning, meaning I probably should’ve headed out already to get a jump on things. But this was my favorite time of day, and the selfish side of me wasn’t willing to give it up for anything, not even making my day at work better.
“Are you having fun?” I called out to Woofy who was chasing something flying I couldn’t see from my vantage point. He was so into it, he didn’t even look in my direction to see if I had anything worth saying. Silly dog.
Woofy kept chasing the bug, or whatever it was, as I rocked in the chair and sipped my coffee. Bug chasing was pretty much the only time my sweet fur baby wasn’t lazy, another reason this move was great: no worrying about Woofy getting too close to a scorpion—again.
We probably looked like a postcard or an old television commercial and not real life. And, in a lot of ways, it didn’t feel like real life. Real life was back in the desert where everything was difficult, especially Eddie.
Eddie was my ex, and he wasn’t particularly awful, at least not as a boyfriend. But we weren’t meant to be. There was no spark, we had nothing in common, and, other than living in the same building and having it be convenient, there were no plus sides to our relationship.
I’d been foolish, assuming he’d be grateful I broke up with him. We were bored, sexless, laughless, and basically boyfriends in name only. How could he not be?
Only he wasn’t, crying himself to sleep that first night. Or so he told me—repeatedly—every day when he knocked on my door begging me to take him back. I didn’t understand the whys of it all. We seriously didn’t even like each other. But, for some reason, he saw breaking up as a failure.
It was best for both of us that I came here. He needed to see the possibility of forever with me truly was impossible, I needed to not dread a knock on the door, and my new job might not pay as much as my old one, but I enjoyed it more and didn’t come home emotionally drained. Yeah, this was definitely a good decision, though I made it without even pretending to think it through.
“Time to come in.” I drained the last of my coffee and stood up, the sun now peeking over the mountaintops.
It would be a great day for hiking if I didn’t have so much work on my plate. Good thing the weekend was coming up. I’d already decided which new trail I wanted to tackle. I had a list of 113 trails within an hour of my cabin. I planned to hike each and every one, a good chunk of them with Woofy by my side—if I caught him on an energetic day, which could happen…maybe…fine, he was only hiking the short trail that led to the river, and even then it was going to take us an hour.
Woofy followed me in, ate his breakfast as I packed my lunch, and was sound asleep by the time I told him I was leaving for the day. The odds were great that he was going to be in that same exact spot when I got home. Poor pup had such a stressful life.
My drive to work was only about twenty minutes, which wasn’t too bad given how great my place was. My car disagreed. My poor little two door was the only thing in my life not adjusting to our new location. She was a big fan of flat surfaces, and there were none of those here. I was going to have to cave and get a used SUV or truck when the snow started to fly, but, for now, she was doing the job, even though she complained the entire way with noises I’d never heard from her before.
“Come on Cupcake, I know you can do this.” I rubbed the dash as she struggled up the highest peak we needed to cross on our journey. Why did I call her Cupcake? I didn’t even know. It was the silliest car name ever, but also it fit. “See. I told you that you had this.”
Barely. A new car was probably a sooner rather than later need at this point. But cars cost money and I needed more of that to get a decent one.
“It’s all downhill from here, Cupcake.” And it was, too, the hospital sitting in the valley.
Compared to any hospital I’d ever worked at, it was tiny. Tiny but mighty, my boss, Holly, said often. And she wasn’t wrong. We had a small NICU, some robotics that surgeons from the closest city came to learn about, and our own helicopters for when we didn’t have what a patient needed.
