35. Stanton
I’m so fucking excited. I feel like a kid going to a toy shop. I’m not only going to get my omega back, I’m going to hear my baby’s heartbeat.
When Lucas came back from talking to Grace, he mentioned everything she told him. In my heart, I know there’s a chance the three of us are going to work this out.
“You seem happier,” I tell Lucas.
He doesn’t seem as jaded as he has been lately. Today, he walks with a slight spring in his step. There’s a lightness to his movements and a brightness to his gaze. It’s as if he has emerged from the long, dark tunnel his thoughts had driven him into.
Last night, he never touched a drop of bourbon.
“I’ve been going over the conversation with Grace and it’s made me think a lot about how selfish I’ve been.”
Selfish… that surprises me. “Oh...”
His icy blue eyes meet mine. “She’d only just revealed as an omega a week or so before her heat, and I know she never had any plans to continue being an omega afterwards. Why would she present her neck to me if her plan was to get a beta implant?”
I nod. “It was probably ingrained in her brain, not to lift her chin, despite how much she wanted to.”
He sighs. “I have to be honest with her before I try to make things right with her.”
“About what?”
“I betrayed her that night.”
I lift an eyebrow and wait. “I removed her birth control, yet she’s never once mentioned it to me. Never once argued with me about it.”
“Because she wants your baby.” His watery eyes meet mine as realization dawns on his face. “Deep down, she couldn’t stop her omega from wanting everything with her alpha.”
“Do you think?” he muses.
I smile. “She wants you Lucas. Just open your eyes and see it.”
Right now is not the time to tell Lucas the baby could be mine. For now, I have to keep quiet and bury my intense feelings because Lucas needs Grace more than I care to think about.
“It’s time. We need to support our omega and meet the baby.”
Lucas laughs. “When was the last time you fucked someone other than Grace?”
“The night we lost the game. I can’t even look at anyone else. It’s only her for me now.”
He laughs. “Shit. You really have it bad.”
“You do, too. Pity you’re just bull-headed like your father.”
He groans. “There’s something to tell you about that, but later.”
“Intrigued.” But I’m not ready to talk about his father, when I’m still annoyed with what he did. “When was the last time you fucked anyone?” I ask Lucas.
He grins. “When I made our omega pregnant.”
“Our omega?”
He sighs. “But what if she won’t accept me... us?” He pauses for a moment.
“Nah. It’s not happening. She’s our pack omega, and she needs to accept we’re her alphas,” I say, grabbing my jacket.
As we step into the waiting room, Grace’s head snaps up from her book, and her eyes widen with excitement when she sees us. She sets the book on the table in front of her and stands up to give us a hug.
“Thank you for coming,” she gasps. “Both of you.” Her teary eyes trail to Lucas. “I never thought…” She swallows.
“I know,” Lucas says softly, wrapping Grace in a comforting embrace. She softens in his hold, like she’s been desperate for it. “But we’re here for you now. You’re not alone in this.”
I stand back, watching them, feeling a mix of emotions swirling inside me.
Grace looks up at me, her eyes searching mine. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice thick with emotion.
I nod, unable to form words around the lump in my throat.
“Grace Foster,” a lady wearing medical scrubs says as she stands at the double doors.
My heart races. Knowing we are soon going to see the new life Grace is bringing into this world. A baby that will bind our pack in a way that months ago I would never have expected.
The lady leads us to the room, where the sonographer has Grace lay on a bed as Lucas and I take a seat on the opposite side of our omega.
“This will be cold.” The sonographer uncovers Grace’s stomach, applies a layer of gel on her abdomen, and starts to move the ultrasound wand over Grace’s belly.
Lucas and I anxiously lean in to watch the screen. A hushed silence fills the room as we wait for the first glimpse of the new life growing inside our pack omega.
The monitor flickers to life, displaying fuzzy black and white images that slowly sharpen into focus.
“There.” The sonographer points, tracing a small shape on the screen. “That’s your baby, and...”
Grace’s breath catches, her hand instinctively reaching out to grip mine tightly. I squeeze back, a surge of protectiveness welling up inside me.
Lucas gently covers our intertwined hands with his own, and Grace lets out a surprised gasp.
“Let’s listen,” the sonographer says. A second later, the sound of a beating heart thrums. The room fills with the sound of that precious rhythm, like it’s the only sound I want to hear.
Tears well up in my eyes as we watch the tiny heartbeat pulsing on the screen, and then another.
“There’s the other one, hiding.”
“I’m having twins?” Grace whimpers. Her watery gaze meets mine, a soft smile plays on her lips amid the tears. She turns and gives the same look to Lucas. AT the same moment, I feel hope bursting through our shared bond.
She wants him.
She wants us.
She wants this pack.
“What are the chances of the twins having separate dads?” Grace asks as longing bursts through the bond.
“A very good chance.” The sonographer smiles. “You have two separate eggs.”
“So they won’t be identical?”
“Heteropaternal superfecundation is when two eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm cells. And we know in omegas this is not unusual. Unfortunately, it’s a bit early to know if this is the case with your babies. We do know there are two eggs, but everything else we’ll know further down the line if you want to take a test.”
“But there is a chance,” I ask.
“Absolutely. Because omegas have packs.” She glances between me and Lucas. “Like I mentioned, the chances of heteropaternal superfecundation are higher among omegas than any other designation.”
“And they both look good… healthy?” Grace checks.
“Everything looks exactly as it should with twins.”
“And sex?”
“You can have sexual intercourse. It won’t harm the babies.”
I laugh as Grace’s face reddens. She coughs. “I mean the babies. Can you tell this early what sex they are?”
“If they cooperate.” She smiles and nods. “Do you want me to try?”
She turns her head to where me and Lucas are sitting.
I look at Lucas, who is staring at the screen, staring at the images.
“Do you want to know what our babies are?” Grace asks.
“Too fucking right I do,” Lucas says.
Grace chuckles at Lucas’ eagerness.
“Okay then,” she says, turning back to the sonographer. “Tell us.”
The sonographer adjusts the screen and points. “This one,” she says, showing the baby on the left, “is a girl.”
Grace gasps, her hand flying to her mouth in excitement. “A girl,” she breathes out, looking at Lucas with tears of joy in her eyes. “I’m going to have a daughter.”
“And this one,” the sonographer continues, moving her finger to the baby on the right, “is a boy.”
“And a son,” Grace cries.
I let out a whoop of joy. “A girl and a boy!” I yell, almost in disbelief.
Grace strokes the skin where her babies are growing inside her. Lucas places his hand over hers and I connect the three of us together, intertwining our hands as we gaze at the screen, showing our two precious babies.
“We’re going to have a daughter and a son,” Lucas says outside the medical room, still shocked as he stares at the printed images.
I turn to Grace and ask, “Do you forgive us? Will you give us another chance to be a family?”
Lucas’s eyes, deep pools of icy blue, flick from the photo in his hand to me and then over to Grace. His forehead creases with worry.
“Only if you forgive each other,” she says.
“We’re friends,” I say.
“Just friends,” she asks, sending a burst of worry through the bond.
“I need to tell you something before we have this conversation,” Lucas blurts. “Before any decisions are made.”
Ah fuck!
Don’t ruin this, Lucas.
“I removed your birth control during your heat,” he says, worry etched across his face.
She smiles. “I know.”
“You do?”
“That’s why I showed you where it was.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I felt you. I wanted you to take it off. Then I knew you smelled me like I smelled you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to when I wasn’t in my heat. But I woke up, and you were gone.”
He sighs. “Stanton lost his mom that night.”
Grace gasps and turns to me as sorrow slides into the bond followed quickly by love. “I’m sorry. That’s why you told me you’d been depressed.” She takes my hand.
“I’m fine now.” I can’t tell her it was also because I lost her. Not today. This is about her and Lucas.
Lucas smiles at me. I give him a slight nod to continue talking.
“I thought you’d be sleeping a lot longer. I needed to check on Stanton and get your breakfast and then…”
Tears lace her eyes. “You really did come back for me?”
He nods.
“And you checked on me?” I ask, surprised because he never told me.
“Because we’re not just friends, are we?” Lucas stares at me for a moment, and then he turns to Grace before he looks where our babies are growing inside her. He smiles when he raises his head. “We’re pack mates?”
Grace presses her hand on her chest as hope gushes through the bond. She whispers, “Please.”
“Do you want us?” Lucas asks.
Tears, happy tears I hope, run down Grace’s cheeks before she sucks back a breath and says, “I need my alphas like I need air.”