Page 58 of Omega's Triplets

“What was what?” she asked.

“You didn’t feel that?”

“I was asleep, I think.”

He eased her away from him just slightly and rested a hand on her stomach. For a long moment, he was silent, and she watched him curiously.

Then— “There!”

She had felt it that time. Something had definitely moved. “The babies!”

Mark jumped up and pulled on his shorts, then tossed his robe to Maddy. She put it on, wondering what this was all about. He pulled her to her feet and out of the bedroom, into the common room that had begun its conversion into a nursery.

He pounded on the other two doors, the doors that led to his brothers’ rooms. “Harley! Jamie! Get up!”

A moment later, Harley and Jamie had come stumbling out of their rooms, both looking half asleep and irritable. “What’s going on?” Harley asked.

“It’s the babies!”

Jamie came a little more awake at that. “The babies? What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Maddy said hastily. “They’re moving.”

“They are?” Harley came close. “Can I feel?”

“Of course.” She reached out and took his hand and Jamie’s, pulling them both in to rest on her stomach. “Do you feel that? At least one of them is doing somersaults in there.”

“I can feel it.” Harley’s voice was full of wonder.

As one, the four of them moved to the couch. Maddy sat in the middle, with Harley and Jamie on either side of her, their hands still resting on her stomach. Mark knelt on the floor in front of her. “Do you think they can hear us?” he asked. “The book said they might be able to.”

“You read that book too?” Maddy cried. “Honestly, the three of you are incorrigible. I don’t know how you go out and buy a pregnancy book and don’t immediately give it to your pregnant omega.”

“It won’t happen again,” Jamie assured her.

“Yeah, not now that I took the book!”

They all laughed. Alphas and omega stayed up well into the night, discussing what the future held for their children and feeling them begin to explore the possibilities of movement.

***

THE NEXT MORNING, MADDYwas exhausted.

Reese made bacon and oatmeal and eggs over easy for breakfast and the others ate heartily, but Maddy felt as though she’d just completed a marathon. Maybe staying up all night had been a bad idea.

“Back to bed with you after breakfast,” Mark said as her head drooped low over her orange juice. “You need to catch up on sleep. Consider that an order.”

“An order?” Harley looked up.

“She submitted last night,” Mark said, smiling. “In all the excitement, I guess we forgot to tell you.”

“For real?” Reese turned around where he stood at the stove. “That’s awesome, Maddy. You’re part of the family now.”

She smiled up at him through the haze of her exhaustion. “I guess so,” she agreed.Part of the family. In the moment, she had been so caught up in the physical and emotional joy of submitting to Mark that she hadn’t had a chance to think around the edges of her decision. But now, she saw it in another light.Family. She was one of them now, really one of them, and whatever happened going forward, they would face it together.

She hadn’t had a family since she’d been thirteen years old. It felt like a miracle.

Suddenly, the kitchen door banged open, hitting the far wall. Piper came running in, her eyes wide and fearful.

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