Page 2 of Omega's Flight
"I think you're pretty clean now. Can you rinse off?" I turned away and listened to her splash as I lifted her towel off its hook and came back to the side of the bathtub to rinse the bits she'd missed— which, to be honest, was most of them. "Time to get out," I sang, and she climbed over the side and into the towel I held open for her. The water sloshed and left puddles, but if Degan wasn't home yet, he wouldn't be home for another hour, so I carried Pip out to the kitchen and got everyone organized around the table. I could clean up the water after they were fed.
Snacks weren't much, mostly some crackers and jam, maybe peanut butter, but they were necessary with fast-growing pups. Otherwise, they'd be up at four in the morning looking for breakfast and disturbing their Da. Degan worked long, arduous hours keeping the vehicles here in Jackson-Jellystone moving or performing the other maintenance necessary to keep the enclave from falling down around our ears. And when he could get work outside walls, he'd work even more, especially if it was in the city of Jackson. The travel time didn't pay, but the human money would mean a few small luxuries and more than few corners uncut.
At the moment, we were too close to Christmas for him to have much work that paid cash, and I'd assumed it was this fact that was making him as edgy as he was. Most times, I could handle him, manage his ego and his alphaness, but it helped when he had work outside walls, bringing in extra money. He liked to be able to spend it, on himself, but on the family too.
Luckily, I had until May before the real expenses of a new baby would start to hit, and he already had a tentative offer to work for a company in Jackson. Construction, not mechanics, but it was good pay compared to the enclave. If the first month went well, there was a possibility of more, all through the summer.
My mate was a good worker, strong and reliable, and I was proud of him for that. I just wished...well, it was hard to say what I wished. That he treated me the way he treated his alpha friends? Not exactly, though I would have liked something close to it. I just wanted him to see me as something more than a slightly more capable child, to go with his other three. Soon to be four.
While the pups were eating, I snuck off to the bathroom to finish wiping down the tub and pick up my towel. On the way back to the kitchen, I stopped in the pups' room and laid out blankets for this cool winter night. During the summer, we all slept naked, but in winter sometimes it was too cold for that. The air tonight felt like one of those nights.
We only had the three blankets, and one partly finished one that I worked on whenever I could get my hands on bits of cloth that were still presentable. Where was I going to find the money in the household budget for the cloth to finish it? I thought about that tiny bundle of cells busily growing inside me and worried. Maybe I should have coaxed Degan into using a condom that night. I had so little faith in myself, it hadn't felt worth the effort it would take to convince him.
And now look where we were.
I'd have to hope he'd find a way to make more money in the spring, before the work outside walls started up. Even mid and late winter were good for mechanics, with vehicles breaking down under the stress of cooler and wetter weather.
And in the spring, the pack would buy some old cars and the mechanics would fix them up, and the pack would sell them on for more money. Degan would work as much as he could then, and for a while we'd have small luxuries, until the extra funds dried up, or the work did.
I wished the pack would fix cars all year long, but Degan said there wasn't money in it, just in spring when the college students were looking for cars for summer, and in fall for the same reason.
Sighing, I spread the blankets out on the pups' beds and went back to the kitchen to start them on their bedtime routine.
C H A P T E R 2
W ith the pups snugly tucked into bed after brushing their teeth and listening to their story, I had the house and the rest of the evening to myself. I finished cleaning the bathroom, wiping up the last of the evidence of Pip's attack on cleanliness, then put the towels in with the washing for tomorrow.
I only considered 'borrowing' Degan's towel for half a second before I went through the laundry bag again to find Henry's towel, which was the driest and least filthy of the bunch.
The slightly musty smell of damp laundry made my stomach twist a little and something low in my belly cramp, and I wondered if I was coming down with puppy sickness. My first time ever. But then my stomach settled and I put it out of my mind.
While the bathtub filled, I set out the two pairs of Degan's jeans I needed to mend and hunted out the special thread I'd bought for them. Ordinary thread couldn't stand up to the abuse that Degan's clothes took, and I'd saved until I could get a different one, recommended to me by another of the Jackson-Jellystone shifters. It had cost a few credits more than I was really comfortable with, but was so worth it in the end. Now when I sewed a tear closed, it stayed sewed. And that meant I had more time for other things. Like baths.
The water was almost too hot to get into, but I eased myself down, hissing as I inched bits and pieces of me into the water. I knew that my body would get used to the temperature, and this way I could stay in longer before the water grew too cold to stand. Degan had likely eaten at his mother's, which meant I had at least an hour before I could expect he would be home, and I could still have my soak with time left over to make sure I was in my chair doing my mending before he came through the door.
Silly alphas and their delicate egos—why did they all seem to think omegas were fragile flowers who needed to be managed?
Oh, this is so good.
The heat soaked through my muscles, and I imagined the tiny pup in my belly stretching and snuggling in the warmth as it coursed through my body. In another month, I might be able to feel him or her in there in momentary flutterings like gas bubbles, but with intent. I couldn't wait. Just...I wished that Degan brought home more credits than he did. It had been two years since my household allowance had been increased and the older the pups got, the harder it was to make the credits stretch. But he couldn't bring home extra that didn't exist, I knew that, and it was up to me to make it work. That was the job of the omega.
Stop thinking like that. I was starting to spiral down again. These ideas and worries were like a well-worn path down to a dark and familiar place where I didn't want to go. I didn't have time for it, with three pups to raise and an alpha to look after.
Think about something nice.
Nice.
This year for Christmas I'd made Ann a beautiful headband to wear, for when we didn't put her hair in braids, and I'd embroidered all over it with shifter pups playing games. It was beautiful and had taken me the better part of six months to finish.
For Pip, I'd bartered more embroidery in exchange for a carved wooden box for her to keep all her strange collections in. It was big, and I'd had trouble hiding it from her, but absolutely had been worth the effort. I knew she'd love it, and I'd love not having her dead bugs and pretty stones scattered all over the pups' room.
And for Henry, I'd made him little winter hat out of scraps of furry fabric and lined it with soft flannel. It had ears like a wolf and tied under his chin so he couldn't lose it, because if my boy had a talent, losing things was it. I hoped he'd grow out of that particular ability. Soon.
That's better. Thinking about the pups always made me feel good. The heat from the water was doing its job too, and I felt as limp as a noodle. My eyelids drooped and I let my head loll onto the back of the tub and sighed in happiness. I'd have to be careful not to fall asleep in here, but this was just about idyllic.
Maybe I should tell him tonight? I still had the pregnancy test that I'd taken this morning. I could pull it out and show it to him—it would be kind of fun, not to say anything, just present it to him. Like an early Christmas present.
Maybe this pup would be an alpha. I mean, no one ever knew until puberty hit, but you could sometimes tell early. Like, I'd known for sure within a month that Henry wasn't going to be an alpha, or even a beta, which was fine by me. One alpha personality in the family was really enough, but I'd also understood Degan's disappointment that he wouldn't have an alpha son to pass his skills on to.
