Page 245 of Claim Me
I listen to all of this in stunned disbelief. I never imagined a human body could even contain systems like that, but that still is not the end of it.
Blue admits that he can also release enough compounds into his bloodstream to trigger anaphylactic shock in anyone who touches him, while remaining completely unharmed himself.
Paradoxically, the fact that we were captured together may actually have made the situation more dangerous for him in certain ways. I do not have any kind of defensive systems like his, which means my death would inevitably have led to Blue’s death as well.
As shocking and surreal as all of this feels, part of it is also deeply sad, because I know the sheer amount of safeguards inside him exists only because of the number of threats he has faced. At the same time, though, I feel a strange sense of relief knowing Blue is not entirely defenseless. And through all of it, I think his greatest weapon is still his mind and his ingenuity.
BLUE
Almost exactly three weeks after we were kidnapped, I wake up in the middle of the night with a strange sensation.
Gabriel and I are, as always, sleeping in Joining, so I carefully ease myself off his cock and head to the bathroom, assuming it’s just some kind of stomach issue.
A sudden, unfamiliar pain twists low in my abdomen. I look at myself in the mirror, my cheeks flushed, my pupils blown wide.
The one possibility that flashes through my mind right away feels almost impossible. Impossible? Come on…
It’s been nearly two months since I first slept with Gabriel, and I still haven’t run that test on myself that would clear up my doubts.
I even prepared a portable ultrasound device so I could do it, but I haven’t used it yet. It’s just been sitting there, waiting for the right moment.
I leave the bathroom and head to my small office on the second level of my penthouse.
I don’t use it often since I usually work in the one two floors below, but right now it’s perfect. I turn the machine on, pick up the probe, and position myself in front of the screen.
My hands are shaking, strange… and my breath keeps catching in my chest.
Reactions like this are rare for me. I’ve practically turned self-control into an art form, but now my whole body is trembling like it’s caught in a violent gust of wind.
Even though I’m a skilled diagnostician when it comes to ultrasound and I’ve examined countless patients, doing it on myself presents a strange difficulty, as if I have to split into both patient and doctor at once, two opposing needs, two completely different perspectives on my situation.
One almost clinical and professional, and the other belonging to a sixteen-year-old boy whose future shattered, who cried himself to sleep for weeks and months, aching for that small organ he lost, the one that meant so much to him.
Maybe too much? Maybe I built too much tragedy around that loss, because I did learn how to live after all, and I did learn how to enjoy life despite what happened.
Human resilience is immense! I turned mine into a point of pride, and now part of me is falling apart while another part is being born again as I press the probe to my abdomen.
The image calibrates on the screen, and out of the interplay of light, shadows, and darkness, what I’m looking for comes into view.
My uterus.
Such a simple image.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times on ultrasound screens in other omegas I’ve examined, those who came to me for consultations, often with tumors or other degenerative conditions, since I always handled the most difficult cases.
But this uterus is different, it’s… perfectly normal. Healthy.
Instinctively, I freeze the image on the screen, lean in, and take basic measurements like a clinical doctor would, calmly analyzing what I see, describing it as if I were about to print the image out for a patient.
My eye recognizes the condition immediately. This is a uterus ready for heat. The lining is thick, fertile, waiting, and the best part is that it doesn’t look anything like the uterus of a first heat, which all omegas go through and which is usually infertile.
In young omegas it’s half the size and the lining isn’t developed, but here everything looks as if the first heat has already happened.
On the screen is the uterus of a mature omega.
And I’m looking at it, lodged in my own body, in a place where there used to be nothing but an empty cavity, as they tore the damaged organ out of me after that accident.
My shadow, what was once that sixteen-year-old boy, finally raises its head tentatively, curiously, while… another part of me, the strong persona I built…
