Chapter 43
Hudson
Istare at the grainy black and white image for so long my eyes are getting dry. Blinking rapidly, I sniffle as the first wave of emotion overcomes me.
How is this possible? And what does that mean for me? For the alphas?
I asked a nurse to retrieve them for me; I want to be the one to break the news to them. They need to hear it straight from my mouth.
Why am I so nervous? I didn’t ask for this, didn’t anticipate…
A light knock on the door startles me out of my thoughts.
Des’s face appears as he peeks around the door as though either ensuring he has the right room or waiting for my invite.
“Hi,” I say with a wobbly and now watery smile as tears well and roll down my cheeks one after the other. I’m not even sure what emotion is stronger as I watch each of them enter the room, grave looks on their faces as though they’re simply waiting for the worst news possible.
I have no idea how they’ll interpret what I’m going to tell them, how they’ll react.
Alex makes it to my side first with Desmond right behind him. Alex lowers onto the edge of the bed where I’m lying while Des goes to the other side and takes my hand in his. So warm. So soft. So strong and sure.
“Are you okay?” Des asks, his sweet voice soft, his face full of sorrow.
I nod when my throat feels as though it’s clogged with emotion.
It takes me a couple times to finally get words to come out in any form of an intelligible language.
“We need to, um, talk. About the baby.”
“We can try again,” Mason says. “I’m so sorry.”
Des squeezes my hand. “Please come back home. Let us take care of you, help you heal from this. One of us can…I’ll quit. Or one of us can quit.”
“I don’t want that,” I say as Desmond’s words tumble from his mouth and tears drip from his chin.
“We can cut back our load. Look for a beta to join the pack for when we’re not home. Anything you want. Please. Just…come back home,” Mason says, surprising me. Is he seriously begging as much as Des?
“It took this for you to open your fucking eyes?” Alex says. A growl erupts from his chest, and I wrap my hand around his bicep when it looks as though he’s seconds from lunging at his mate.
“We can try for another baby. Or not. Just please –” Mason says, begging again in a very uncharacteristic show of emotion.
His words finally register. Try for another baby. They think I lost the pregnancy.
I hold my hands up and am mildly surprised when he stops speaking instead of plowing forward.
“I didn’t miscarry,” I say. At least the tears are slowing, and I can see his face more clearly.
“Then what happened? Why are you crying?” Des asks, pulling my attention to where he’s now hovering over me, one hand on the bed beside my head.
I hold up the piece of paper, the sonogram, to show the alphas.
They each take it, stare at it, then pass it on.
And all three look as confused as I did when I first saw the image on the screen. Even after the doctor pointed everything out, it took a lot of squinting. I’m still not sure how he could tell anything from the blobs on the screen.
“I’m carrying triplets.” I point to the individual shadows on the paper, point to where the nurse marked Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C. “We’re no longer having a baby together. We’re having three.”
I’d been scared the hospital was going to make me stay overnight. I hate hospitals. Always have. They’re so gross. So many germs everywhere.
Luckily, I was released with instructions to follow up with my OB/GYN as soon as possible.
The doctor at the ER thinks there’s a good possibility I’ll end up on bed rest, but I have a feeling it won’t matter whether it’s medically necessary or not.
The alphas refused to let me so much as walk from the car to the front door of their house.
Oh, and they refused to let me return to my apartment without one or all of them staying with me until after I see the doctor.
“Can I get you something? Alex said you threw up a lot. Do you want to try to eat something? You definitely need to drink something,” Des says as he lowers me onto the couch in the omega quarters.
“Some soda would be –”
“Water. No soda,” Mason barks and my muscles twitch.
I turn a glare on him. “Was the bark really warranted?”
A soft pink washes over his cheeks and I smirk. Good. He should be embarrassed.
“Fine. Water,” I say to Des.
He leaves the room and Alex lowers to the cushion beside me, immediately tugging me onto his lap and wrapping his arm around me.
His cheek nuzzles against mine and a broken purr leaves his chest, easing a touch of my anxiety over being back in the house.
Mason continues to stand near the door, his eyes flitting back and forth between me and anything but me as though it’s hard to look at me.
I search the bond, but his side is still locked down as it has been since we emerged from the nest after my cycle.
Des returns a few moments later with a couple bottles of water cradled in one arm and a box of crackers in the other. “I figured these would be easier on your stomach if you start getting hungry. I can order something else if you want. Or ask Amy to make you –”
“I’m fine, Des,” I say with a chuckle.
The sting of rejection is still there, but the joy over the news of not just one but three little lives growing inside my belly is currently overshadowing everything else.
Des sets the bottles and crackers on the table before picking up one of the waters and cracking the lid for me.
“I can open my own water,” I tease.
“We should have been doting on you like this from the start.”
After taking a long draw from the bottle, I wipe the back of my hand across my lips and shake my head. “I wasn’t technically your omega. I was your…incubator.” It’s meant as a tease, but saying the word not only sounds gross but earns a frown from Des and a growl from Alex.