Page 3 of Abel's Omega
“There was an accident on the way back from the meeting. They were running late and they hit a curve wrong, going too fast.” His voice was low and there was a wealth of sorrow in it.
I felt no sorrow—I just needed to know. “And?” The pain grew to a peak and I stood there, deaf to everything except the call of my body. When the contraction faded, I glanced at the two shifters. “I’m sorry, I…missed that.”
“Are you okay?” Salvodoro asked. He reached awkwardly for me, understanding growing in his face.
“Please. Just tell me what happened.” I had time. I needed to get the pups into their beds and call the midwife. I was early, though I hoped not too early. It was less than two weeks to my due date—surely that was okay?Please don’t let my baby die.
“He’s having the baby.” Hands gripped me, and I shook them off.
“Fan and Teca. They need to be put to bed.” I bent to pick them up, but Salvodoro shouldered me aside.
“Go call the midwife. I’ll look after them.”
Call the midwife? How? I stared back and forth between them in confusion.
Carl was the first to break the stasis. “Stupid omegas.” He shook me, but gently. “Go get your phone and call the midwife.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
He and Salvodoro looked at each other as if their estimation of my IQ had just dropped twenty points, which would be hard considering that they spoke to me like I was a five-year-old some days. They thought he hadn’t given me a phone because I was too stupid to look after one.Iknew it was because he didn’t see the point, since all I needed to do was look after the house and drop pups for him. Oh, and ease his cock whenever he felt like it.
Carl pulled his out and placed the call, while Salvadoro carefully picked up the pups and followed me down the hall to their rooms.
My birthing kit was in the large closed porch on the back of the house. Once I was certain Fan and Teca were going to stay asleep, I retrieved it and set it up on the floor out there. Even though Patrick was dead, I couldn’t bring myself to risk staining the mattress with the messy side-effects of birth. So I spread everything out, like I had for the last three, on a heavy layer of foam that covered the floor at one end of the porch. Blankets and towels, a bowl for water, the faded receiving blanket that I had used for each of my precious babies. Salve to ease the aches and tenderness around my Omega line afterward and a long strip of cloth to cover it until my body sealed itself again. The cradle would have to wait—Beatrice was still in it, and I had thought to set up her new bed this week. The newborn could sleep out here with me for the three days I would need to recover, anyway. I rather enjoyed the excuse to keep my baby close by me. It was something that hadn’t been possible when Patrick was around.
The midwife’s footsteps sounded inside the house. I laid down on the foam and prepared to bring my new baby into the world.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the end, the baby didn’t come that night, but the midwife put me on bed rest, which of course I couldn’t do. Still, Noah manged to hang on for another week, and then he came in an almost painless rush, and so quickly I’d washed and wrapped him even before the midwife arrived. He was the first one I’d been allowed to name, and I chose a name that would have been a source of contention with Patrick. Yes, it was a strong name, from one of the human religions, but it meant Comfort. And he was a comfort to me, as I held him close and dreamed of a better future.
I told no one about his Omega line.
It would have been a joyful occasion, except for the limbo I found myself in. I was still in Patrick’s house—the Alpha’s house. But I wouldn’t be allowed to stay there. The new Alpha would live here now and I and my babies would go…where? I had no family here to claim me. No one had come forward to claim guardianship, which told me Patrick had never thought about what might happen to his family if he died. I could go back to Buffalo Gap, but the babies belonged to the pack—I’d have to leave them, and that was something I absolutely wasn’t going to do.
Which left finding a new mate. I spent that week after Noah’s birth making list after list of all the single shifters in Jackson-Jellystone, male and female alike. I didn’t much care for sex, considering how little it seemed to be about me, so it made little difference to me where I mated. Maybe some day I’d discover a preference, but not now. I thought I was prepared when Salvodoro came to see me.
“Baxter,” he said. His eyes were sad as he gestured me to a seat in the living room. I sat on the couch, in the very seat where I’d first learned the news of Patrick’s death. Salvodoro sat across from me, in the chair I rocked my babies in when they had trouble sleeping.
“The new Alpha has been decided. It’s time to speak about your future.”
I composed myself and did my best to look open and cooperative. “Yes?”
He glanced away and cleared his throat. His hands twitched upon his knees, and he made a visible effort to still them. “The Alpha and I have spoken at length about you and your situation. You’re an attractive young male. Obviously fertile, a hard worker, and pleasant to all around you.”
I nodded. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. I’d worked hard at the second two and had been blessed—or cursed, depending on your point of view—with the first two.
He looked me in the eye and a terrible suspicion began to grow in me, confirmed by his next words.
“Patrick, obviously, wasn’t expecting to die so young. He made no provision for you, appointed no pack member to be guardian to you and your pups.”
Nothing I didn’t already know. I lowered my eyes and waited to hear what he had to say.
He took one of my hands in his and held it. “Baxter, an omega on his own, or with only one child, would have no trouble finding a home. But four…” He shook his head. “No one wants to take on that responsibility.”
A rage like I’d never experienced swept through me. Damn Patrick and his forced weanings of my babies, bringing me back into heat so he could get another pup on me. How dare he? I hated him even more now than I ever had, and if he hadn’t been burned as the human laws demanded, I would have pissed on his grave in hopes of passing my own curse on to him.
I don’t know what Salvodoro saw in my face, but years of hiding my anger behind a mask of submission or regret must have held. He moved to sit beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. “It’ll be okay. They’ll go to families who will look after them. They’ll be cared for just like you would care for them. And you can have more. Your new mate will want pups, so it’s not like you’ll never have children again.”
