Chapter Twelve
It felt right to spend Sunday with Serge and Dexter in a bizarrely domestic bubble. We stripped my bed together, showered, cooked brunch, and just hung out at home, as if we were already bonded mates. It made my omega sing to know that this could —no, would— be our life soon enough.
Serge was going to move in, Dex would also move into my room, and Dex’s current bedroom would be converted into a study space for Sergio’s research. He was even talking about setting up his own sacred space-slash-shaman store (for lack of a better description) here for the pack.
I thought that would be awesome and might also take some of the strain off my brothers when it came to the more magical side of unlocking alphas and finding fated mates.
Speaking of my brothers, we were just getting ready for bed —with plans to sleep and only sleep— when my phone lit up with Brandt’s name on the screen.
“Hey, big bro—” I started with an easy smile, only to be cut off by Micah’s exhausted, but still overjoyed, voice.
“The boys are here!”
I re-routed immediately, turning on my heel and heading towards the garage instead of towards the bedroom. “Congratulations,” I beamed, already excited to meet my nephews. “How’s Bran?”
“Tired, but healthy. Baby mama and both babies are doing well.”
I laughed. “Does he know you call him your baby mama?”
There was a pause. “That can be our little secret, right?”
“Considering how exhausted you also sound, I think I can pretend it was a slip of your tongue.” I was dimly aware of Dex and Sergio both following me as I went looking for my car keys, which I usually dropped into the bowl on the side table in the hallway, directly beside the door that led to the garage. They were not there. I frowned.
Dex snorted and headed into the garage, then returned with my keys in hand. “You dropped them next to the rear passenger door,” he said.
I blushed, recalling why. I’d had a bit of tunnel-vision on Friday night.
“Tell me more about my nephews,” I demanded of my brother’s alpha, mouthing a ‘thank you’ in Dex’s direction, “and can I come meet them now?”
“Would you mind waiting until tomorrow?” His reply made my shoulders sag, but he explained, “Brandt was in labor most of last night and all day. He needs to rest, and Casey’s monitoring the boys for us—”
“What? Why?” Casey was a neo-natal pediatrician from a hospital in Sioux City. He and Tammy, another human pediatrician, had become honorary members of the pack when Brandt and Micah’s triplets were born prematurely and needed specialist care. “You said—”
“They’re fine, I promise. It’s mostly precautionary, given everything we went through with the girls. And we think Patrick and Finlay have a touch of jaundice, so—”
I lost the rest of his sentence behind my squeal. “Awww, Mike! Their names are perfect!”
“Thanks,” I could hear his proud daddy smile and I glanced towards my mates, imagining what they might be like when —if— we had babies of our own. “Anyway, you can meet them tomorrow. Bran just insisted that I call you. Eric delivered them, so…”
I sighed, a bit jealous that my younger brother not only met our nephews first, but also got to be the first to hold them, even before their parents. Then I realized just how stupid that pang of jealousy was, and I nodded, though I knew Micah couldn’t see me.
Tossing my keys into their rightful place in the bowl by the door, I listened to them clink against the ceramic pleasantly. “I get it, and I appreciate you calling to tell me. Go rest up with Bran; you sound dead on your feet, too. Oh, and give him a hug for me. I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”
He bid me goodbye and I ended the call, then I smiled at my mates. “Brandt had the babies. They named them Patrick and Finlay.”
Dexter nodded, but he was always awkward when it came to situations like these. It was kind of cute, the way he seemed so unsure of how to respond. Endearing, even. Or, at least, I thought so now that I wasn’t pissed at him.
Sergio, on the other hand, smiled warmly back at me. “That is wonderful news.” He cocked his head. “Did Micah say if they scented like dragons?”
“No, I…” I trailed off, struck by the realization that Sergio was Micah’s biological father. Even though he and Micah didn’t acknowledge it, I suddenly wondered what Brandt would have to say about the sudden change to my relationship with the older beta-come-alpha unicorn. “Oh my God.”
“What’s wrong?” Serge asked, the furrow in his brow deepening.
I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights. My mouth worked, but I couldn't formulate the words.
My family dynamic is so fucked up.
“Sage?” Dexter closed the distance between us and gently took me by the elbow, guiding me back down the hallway towards my —no, our— bedroom. “What—”
“I…” Swallowing down a bubble of nearly hysterical laughter, I shook my head. “I just…Brandt’s mated to Micah.”
Dex and Serge shared a look before Dex drawled, “Yes…and?”
“I’m Brandt’s little brother.”
“I mean, Eric is—”
“Dex,” I interrupted him with a burst of irritation, still trying to wrap my mind around the genetic fuckery fate was putting us through. “I’m Bran’s younger brother.”
My mates shared another look.
“Yes?” Dex stretched the word out, still not following my logic.
I sat on the edge of my mattress and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Does it not seem strange to you that Micah’s biological father is my…
uh…is one of my fated mates? When Micah is mated to Brandt and all, I mean?
Like, our kids, should we have any” —and I really, really hoped we would— “will be both cousins and, like, uncles and aunts to Brandt’s kids. Genetically, anyway.”
Dexter did not seem as weirded out by this as I was. “Huh.”
I swiveled my gaze between my mates, both of whom seemed completely unflustered by my sudden revelation. I didn’t get it.
My hands flapped emphatically in the air. “You don’t think that’s…I don’t know…a bit of a clusterfuck?”
“It’s unusual,” Dexter acknowledged after a beat before sitting down beside me.
He nudged my shoulder with his. “But we can’t change fate, baby.
Serge is our alpha, and a damn sexy one at that.
” He shot Sergio a wink. “Are you seriously freaking out over our hypothetical future children being related to their cousins in more ways than one?”
I felt a thrill run through me at the easy way he said ‘our’ children, including himself in the scenario. A spike of desire for him hit me deep in my belly, and I clenched against the slick which threatened to leak into my underwear.
Apparently, my mates wanting to be dads was a turn on for me.
Considering how badly I wanted to have children, this wasn’t actually surprising.
Taking a deep, calming breath, I released it through my nose and then answered begrudgingly, “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds dumb.”
“Because it is dumb,” Dex was matter-of-fact. “Whether our children and Brandt’s are related on just your side or both yours and Serge’s makes absolutely no difference to anything.”
And…yeah, okay. He was right.
I didn’t understand how he had become the rational one between us. It felt like the world had turned upside-down over the weekend and I was struggling to get a grasp on my new reality.
A reality where I had mates. Two of them. An alpha and my best friend.
A reality where I might be able to have the family I had been longing for for centuries.
A reality where Dexter was softer and sweeter and made valid, logical points.
Ugh.
It really did feel strange that I was being the ridiculous one of the pair of us.
Still, I didn’t think it was the right time to spring our news on my brothers. Not with Brandt having just given birth and the twins potentially needing neo-natal care. In a few days, when everything was settled, maybe. That’s when I would tell them.
“Is it weird that I forgot how tiny they can be?” I mused, cradling the eldest of my nephews, Patrick, in the crook of my arm.
Both boys looked like they were going to take after Brandt, with tufts of dark hair and dark blue eyes which would probably change color as they got older.
But they were still so small, not even weighing seven pounds each, their itsy-bitsy hands only just able to stretch around my fingers.
“The girls were smaller,” Brandt replied, gazing down at Finlay who was nursing at his chest.
I nodded. “There were three of them squished inside you at once, though. So less growing space.” Then I smiled at him. “Have they met their little brothers yet?”
Micah snorted. “Yeah, Carson brought them around last night. Belle thinks they’re dolls, Luce started crying as soon as the boys did, and Rita was more interested in crawling into the bed with Papa.”
“I mean, they’re only a year old,” I argued. “They have no idea what’s going on, really.”
“One might argue that we hardly ever have any idea what’s going on, either,” Dexter’s smooth voice teased from behind me, and I felt his warmth against my back before his chin settled on my shoulder as he looked down at the baby in my arms. “Well, he’s a cute little thing, isn’t he?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Brandt’s eyebrows climb up his forehead as he and Micah shared a look.
I resigned myself to at least one awkward conversation with my older brother before the day was out, but I still wasn’t ready to tell them about Sergio.
Not while I was still processing that whole revelation myself.
I also knew that Brandt might have certain opinions about our decision not to bond straight away.
He and Micah had bonded —deliberately— without barely even knowing each other, both so convinced that fate wouldn’t steer them wrong.
My romantic side was a bit jealous that I hadn’t experienced that same rush of absolute certainty.
That my alpha was more cautious, wanting us to talk it all out first.