Page 72 of Omega's Triplets

Maddy shook her head. “I don’t want to wake the kids up.”

“Oh, they’re awake,” Harley said. “I think they’re almost as excited as we are. They’re having a little party in the kitchen while they wait to meet the babies.”

“What kind of party?” Jamie’s expression was stern. “We don’t really need them getting drunk tonight.”

“Relax,” Harley said. “I think they’re making cupcakes or something.”

“Will it be hard on them?” Maddy asked. “Not being the kids anymore, once the babies come?”

“They’re looking forward to it,” Harley assured her. “Piper can’t wait to babysit, and Reese says he’s going to make them all into a soccer team in a few years. I think Amy’s just ready to stop being thought of as young.”

Maddy hissed as another contraction gripped her. Jamie looked down at his watch, his face showing concern. “They’re getting pretty close together,” he said. “I think it might be almost time.”

She felt suddenly afraid. “I don’t know what to do.”

Harley knelt at her other side. “We can do it,” he said. “All three of us, together. We can handle this, I promise you.”

The next half hour was a haze. Maddy felt adrift in fear and pain, her body completely overwhelmed. By the time she heard the first baby cry, she was already exhausted and felt she couldn’t keep going. But her alphas were there, kneeling around her, speaking encouraging words.You’re so beautiful, they told her, their hands on her face, on her stomach.You’re so strong.

She thought it would never end. She thought she would live in searing agony for the rest of her days. And then, just when it seemed too much to suffer even a moment longer, it was over.

She came back to herself slowly. She was aware of nothing so acutely as the cries of her children; though, after a few moments, she began to notice that someone was wiping the sweat from her brow. She looked up. Jamie. He’d gotten a washcloth at some point. Now, he smiled down at her, looking as though he thought she’d hung the moon. “You were amazing,” he told her quietly. “You did perfectly.”

“The babies? Are they all right?”

“They’re gorgeous.”

“How many?”

“Five,” he said.

She exhaled deeply. “Just like we thought.”

“Just like we planned for,” he agreed.

“I want to see them.”

“Mark and Harley are getting them cleaned up. They’ll be back in a moment.”

She struggled to sit up, desperate for a look at her children, but Jamie placed a firm hand on her shoulder and held her down. “No getting up,” he said. “You just gave birth. Lie still. You have some recovering to do.”

It was an order. Maddy felt it wash over her, felt the sublime pleasure that always came along with submitting to an alpha’s command. Today, though, it wasn’t enough to distract her. Not from this new and urgent need. “I want to see them, Jamie.”

“They’re coming now.” He stepped back from the bedside to make room for Mark and Harley.

The bed was wide enough for all five babies to be laid down, side by side. Maddy lifted the nearest one into her arms. “It’s a boy.”

“Three boys and two girls,” Mark confirmed proudly. “Fifty fingers and fifty toes. That one there—” he pointed to the child in her arms— “is the firstborn. I’d say he’s most likely to be the new alpha—but it’s really too soon to know for sure.”

“They could all be alphas,” Harley pointed out. “Rarefied bloodline, remember.”

Jamie nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that were true.”

Maddy felt a strange sense of pride. To think that the next three alphas of the Hell’s Wolves might be right here on her bed—that she had made them—made her feel immensely important. Precious, even. Her childhood had been full of people taking care of her and putting her on a pedestal, making the world revolve around her because she was an omega. Only now, with her children by her side, did she fully appreciate the beauty of the role she’d been born to.

Mark waved a hand at his brothers. “Okay,” he agreed, “but theprimeomega. Like I am with us. The one who leads the leaders.” And again, he gestured to the boy in Maddy’s arms.

“I wouldn’t be too cocky,” Harley said. “Not after what happened with the Death Fangs.”

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