Page 113 of The Omega's Alpha
Bax dropped into the chair beside and looked me over. Abel, of course, went to talk business with the other alphas, because of course. “How are you doing?” Bax asked.
“I’m fine. Getting tired of being treated like fine china.” Tired of being as big as a house too, but I wasn’t going to say that.
He raised his eyebrows. “You won’t be fine china much longer. Pups are convinced their parents are indestructible.”
“I know.” I sighed and shifted on the chair, my fingers slipping on the damp glass. It fell and spilled down the side of my chair. “Shit,” I said, with feeling. And of course, that was when my womb tightened up again, so I was trying to move the chair and pick up the glass while Bax fussed at me, and having to fight my own body just to be able to bend.
“Did you get any on you?” Bax asked. “There’s some cloths over on the tables.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, but Bax was already running his hands over the legs of my loose bearing pants.
“No,” Bax said. “You’re soaked. Do you not feel that?” Then he froze, and I saw him lift one hand to his nose, scenting. “Holland, you’re in labor.” He looked at me. “Couldn’t you tell?”
What? Labor? “It didn’t hurt,” I protested. “How could it be labor?”
Bax leaned across me and grabbed Quin’s arm. “Help me get him up to the apartment,” he said brusquely. I was glad to see that he was adapting to the Mercy Hills way of things—I knew I liked it much better. Two years ago, when I’d first come to Mercy Hills, he’d never have ordered an alpha to do something in that tone of voice. Mercy Hills had been good for him.
Quin scooped me out of the chair and began striding for the apartment building. As we went, he did that magic thing again that sent the young alphas scrambling to do whatever secret orders he’d given them.
“I can walk, you know,” I told him, though secretly I was near swooning with the romance of it all.
“Mate,” was all he said, but the look he turned on me was full of fierce pride and devotion and I kissed him out of sheer happiness.
Mercy Hills had been good for me too.
Chapter Ninety
We weren’tin the apartment five minutes when Bram burst through the door. Between them, it only took him and Bax a minute to strip the bed. We’d been keeping my birthing kit in the closet, and I watched while Bram dragged it out and unfolded the heavy old blanket that would protect my mattress from the mess of birth.
“Quick,” he said to Bax, and glanced at the sodden and stained front of my loose bearing pants.
My belly clenched up again, a weird ache that drew my attention away from the two men remaking my bed, and when I came back to myself they were both standing beside me, waiting for me to notice them.
“Time to get you undressed,” Bax said, and reached for the tie at my waist. The cloth fell around my ankles and I took Bax’s hand to steady myself as I stripped out of everything I was wearing and climbed up onto the bed. The contractions were coming faster—I could feel my womb already gearing up for another one.
Quin hung about in the doorway, anxiety practically pouring off him. I reached for him and pulled him down beside me. “Ready to be a dad again?”
“Absolutely,” he said, but I missed it if any more words followed because my womb tightened into a high round ball, tenting my belly up, and this one hurt. I closed my eyes and sucked in a shocked breath as sweat broke out over my body. My insides ached and the entire length of my omega line burned.
When my body finally relaxed, I looked up into Quin’s frowning face and smiled. “It’s okay. It’s really not that bad.”
“It looks like it hurts,” he said dryly, but kissed my sweaty forehead anyway.
“Adelaide’s here,” Bram said, looking up from his phone. “I’ll go let her in.” At Bax’s nod, he left, and I was just thinking of what we could talk about to pass the time when the next contraction hit.
Adelaide was in the room when I became aware again and both she and Bax were peering at my omega line with startled expressions.
“What?” I asked them, and the first faint pricklings of worry started.
“The baby’s crowning,” Adelaide said. “How long have you been in labor? You should have called me before this.”
Bax looked up at me and chuckled. “He didn’t know he was. I hate you, by the way. It’s not fair that you had no morning sickness, no weird symptoms, now you don’t even have labor pains.”
I felt the tightening start, and a low ache in my belly and back that promised more pain. “That’s what you think.” And then I disappeared into that strange realm where the pain was everything, and my body was making all the decisions. I leaned into Quin and reached out to him from that inner place, the omega part of me, taking comfort in his strength, and felt his warmth reach out to me.
This contraction didn’t seem to stop, simply ebbed and strengthened, and then I realized, when the burning along my omega line turned into outright fiery agony, that I was having the babyright then.
“That’s it,” I heard Adelaide say. “Push now. Let your body tell you what it needs.”
