Epilogue Elliott #2
Bringing his face close to where I was being pummeled by little feet, Jet said, “Cut it out, you two. You’re hurting your daddy.”
Immediately, the babies stopped their attack on my insides.
Letting out a relieved sigh, I said, “I hope they listen to you as much out of the womb as they do in.” I curled up, comfortably cocooned in my little pillow nest.
After a huge yawn, I said, “I’ll make dinner in just a minute…”
I didn’t know anything else until I heard a noise and opened my eyes to see Jet standing at the dresser in front of the window folding baby blankets. The low position of the sun behind him told me I’d been asleep for a while.
“Where did those come from?” I asked groggily.
“Nova. Laura has gotten so many of these as gifts since Jake was born, she said we should take some.”
Laura had finally gotten pregnant again and gave birth two months ago to Ashley, a plump, blond, happy baby. I was thrilled for her.
“I never thought I’d say this, but thank the gods I’m an omega x. If I had to be pregnant for four more months, I’d die.”
Ben’s accelerated pregnancy meant he’d given birth around the same time as Trey and Jackson had.
Jackson and Carter’s son, Carter Jr., arrived first. A few days later, Trey gave birth to another little boy, Robert.
Then, a week later, Ben went into labor and had a little boy who looked just like Colt.
They named him Hunter. All three little boys would turn one next month.
Recently, Ben had shown me the little star-shaped freckle on Hunter’s shoulder.
“Thank you, El. For putting your life on the line and ending this nightmare. I’m sorry I didn’t have faith in you. Please forgive me. If you hadn’t done what you did, I’d be worrying about Hunter for the rest of my life, and we’d all still be hiding.”
I hadn’t known what to say except that I forgave him, of course.
But since then, every time I felt down about myself, I remembered his words.
Not that all my brothers hadn’t shown their appreciation in one way or another, but somehow, knowing that Hunter wouldn’t have to grow up in fear drove home the fact that I’d done what I’d set out to do like nothing else had up to that point.
David’s baby girl, Sarah Jane, just turned seven months. I was never going to be able to remember all the birth dates; I’d be lucky to remember my own babies’ birthday.
Over this past year, the cases against Drs.
Mooneyham and Freedman went to trial. Only two other doctors from the other small facility had been arrested.
Evidently, the efficient manner in which the omegas were examined and then disposed of didn’t require a large staff.
I had to testify against Mooneyham and Freedman, and Jet nearly had a nervous breakdown because we had just found out I was pregnant.
He was so over-protective of me, it wasn’t funny.
If it weren’t for my dad being with us, I don’t know what would have happened.
He somehow kept Jet from locking me in the hotel room so I couldn’t go out and kept me from making myself sick with worry about testifying.
In the end, the experience wasn’t as awful as I’d been fearing.
After being kept in prison for months before the trial, both doctors had become pathetic shadows of the sadistic bastards I’d met at the central facility.
It seemed many of the prisoners incarcerated with them had omegas in their family and didn’t take kindly to crimes against them.
I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for the two doctors, though.
Something else that happened over the past year was that, after the shutdown of the omega program and the purge of many dishonest betas from the government, communications between the United Regions and other countries reopened.
When the media reported the trials, whatever country that Neil Havers had been living in since he’d handed Ben over to the government chucked him back to us and he was sent to prison.
Best of all, Edge was finally apprehended while working with an omega trafficking ring.
I learned his real name was Francis Carmichael.
Whenever his scary face appeared in my mind these days, all I had to do was say, “Hi, Francis,” and it would make me laugh.
That helped a lot in reducing the fear of those memories.
Unfortunately, the three men who picked me up at the mall, along with the jowly man they’d taken me to see, had as yet not been apprehended.
“Do you think the babies will come tonight?” Jet asked me when he finished folding the blankets.
“Why tonight?” I asked.
Shrugging, Jet said, “Well, it would be fitting for them to be born on the anniversary of our mating celebration, don’t you think?”
“You’re such a romantic,” I said, shaking my head even while firecrackers went off in my heart.
“On second thought,” Jet said, coming toward me with a lecherous look on his face. “Maybe they’ll hold off and I can have my way with my pregnant omega.”
“Pervert,” I said. “I can barely move, and you want to spear me with that big thing?”
“I love it when you talk dirty, my scrumptious little dumpling,” Jet said, leaning in to kiss my neck.
I couldn’t help but giggle when Jet nibbled the sensitive skin under my ear.
“I’m beginning to think you chose this tattoo just so you could kiss your own initials,” I said. “And stop calling me fat!”
“I didn’t call you fat,” he said.
“Dumplings are fat.”
“Dumplings are succulent and one of my favorite things to put in my mouth,” Jet corrected.
I gasped and pushed him away when dumplings made me think of dinner.
“Oh, no! I didn’t cook anything for you to eat!”
Putting his hand on my arm, Jet said, “Calm down. I made us some salads with the leftover chicken on them. If you’re ready to eat, let’s go into the kitchen.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” I said as he helped me off the bed.
“I don’t mind making dinner once in a while. I could see how tired you were.”
We sat down at the kitchen table to eat.
This was one of my favorite times of the day—Jet would arrive home from work, we’d do something together like an odd job, or may a little afternoon delight, and then I’d make dinner and we’d sit down to eat.
Sometimes he helped me cook, but more often than not, I cooked because I enjoyed doing it for him.
“I saw Keane talking to that rodeo alpha in front of the coffee shop again,” Jet told me, digging into his salad. “That makes the third time in two weeks. I think the guy noticed Keane goes there after work and waits for him.”
Jessup was a small, generally friendly town with inhabitants who weren’t prejudiced against omegas—at least, not outwardly.
After realizing that they could safely find jobs in Jessup without having to be mated, all my friends decided they’d let nature take its course when it came to finding a mate.
Keane had recently taken a job at the hardware store close to Jet’s office.
“Keane would never be interested in some rodeo cowboy,” I said.
“You never know. That alpha seems persistent.”
“I know Keane. He doesn’t like to get dirty. He had to work on the ranch, but he avoided the messiest jobs whenever he could. It’s why he took the job at the hardware store. No way is he going to date a guy who rides bulls and falls in the mud all the time.”
Jet seemed to find my reasoning amusing. Eyes alight with laughter, he said, “I’m pretty sure that a year ago Keane would have sworn you would never mate an alpha at all.”
Annoyed because he was right, I asked, “Care to make a little wager?”
Jet’s humor turned into interest. “What do you have in mind?”
I thought about it. The only money I had of my own came from the goat soap I made, and I hadn’t been doing that lately.
Suddenly, I knew. Smiling slyly, I said, “If I win, you have to sweep and dust the cellar for a year.”
Last fall, Eric had asked if anyone wanted to learn how to can food.
Several of us had, so he began teaching us the pressure method.
We’d only had a month of instruction before the canning season ended, but time enough to can some beets, apples, tomatoes, and summer squash.
We picked the lessons back up a couple of months ago when Eric taught us the water-bath method, which we used to can pickles and a variety of berry jams. When Jet started building our house, he included a cellar in which to store the jars of canned food.
I’d canned some green beans a couple of weeks ago but had been too tired to can anything else since then.
The cellar was perfect for its purpose, but I hated cleaning it because of the many spiders and other multi-legged bugs that hung out there.
If somebody didn’t sweep and clean off the jars every couple of days, no way was I going to go down there.
Since Jet hated creepy crawlies as much as I did, we took turns at the hated task.
Because of this, I wasn’t surprised when Jet hesitated about accepting the bet. “I…don’t know about that.”
Smiling smugly, I said, “Afraid of losing? I don’t blame you. No one knows Keane better than I do.”
Jet frowned, then a shrewd look came over his face.
“All right. I’ll take the bet, but if you lose, you have to agree to sex whenever, wherever, and however I want for a year.”
“But I already do that!” I argued. My mate was truly insatiable when it came to me.
“Most of the time. But not all the time.”
I thought about it. How bad would it be if I lost the bet?
When had I ever turned him down, anyway?
I knew Jet wasn’t going to ask me to have sex in front of anyone, which was the worst thing I could think of.
He was pretty damn horny, though. Still, I couldn’t imagine him asking me to do it if I was sick or super tired; he was way too considerate of me.