Chapter Twenty-Six
Isabella
I’d taken to journaling again. After I got everything that I wanted out of my old house, which wasn’t much, I rediscovered my love of journals. My old ones weren’t the easiest to read. Seeing how naive I had been early on was painful, but they reminded me of just how far I’d come.
I started a new one when I found out I was pregnant. In this one, instead of the old words, If I am a good omega, follow the rules and don’t make waves, I’ll lead a happy, fulfilling life, I wrote on the top, I’m the omega I was meant to be, and I have a happy and fulfilling life.
Today’s entry was different than the ones I’d made recently.
Most of them had been about getting ready for the baby or spending time with my bears, something I’d been increasingly wanting to do.
I loved my mates. I loved talking to them, hanging out with them, going places with them.
But for the past week or so, I wanted to be around their bears, and because they were the best mates ever, they indulged me.
Today’s entry was a sketch of York’s bear lying in the sun. It was the image that stayed in my head long after I joined him in the grass, leaning in to his body and taking a small nap before he had to head to a consult.
I’d asked the midwife if there was a reason why I’d been so needy and focused on bonding with my mates’ beasts.
She told me it really had less to do with me and more to do with our baby wanting to be around other bears.
My longing to be with them in their fur was a sign I had a cub growing inside me.
My mates swore they didn’t care if our baby was a shifter or human, and I believed them.
I wished I could say the same, but I wanted our child to be like their dads, to have the strength of their beasts, to never be alone, always having their bear with them.
Of course, I’d love our child no matter who they were, but that didn’t stop me from wanting the best for them.
I closed the journal I was looking at, put it on the side of the bed where it lived, and waddled out to the backyard.
I was restless, so very restless this afternoon.
A few times, I tried to sit and work on a project or head into the kitchen to make a batch of cookies or prep the veggies for dinner, but I couldn’t sit or stand still long enough for any of that. I had to keep moving.
“Hey,” Lyon said, jogging up to my side. “Where are you heading?”
“I don’t know. For a walk, I guess.” I grabbed his hand. “Come with me.”
“Of course.”
The other two were on job sites. They’d been taking turns staying home with me. I swore I didn’t need them to. I would be fine alone. It wasn’t as if there was still someone out to get me.
If anything, I was protected now. Mark was still a piece of shit, but seeing his people and his mistress come back in that shape had made him unwilling to take a chance at pissing us off or letting others in his circles do so. That worked for me.
I didn’t win this argument, and ultimately, they decided that it was best to have someone here in case I went into labor. According to the midwife, it could be any second now. That had been last week, and I was still very, very pregnant. I wasn’t so sure I believed her anymore.
We walked, neither of us saying much. That was one thing I really liked about my time with Lyon.
There was no pressure to have something to say, no expectation we would do anything.
We could just be in the same space together and be happy, or, in this case, walk together hand in hand.
My pace was dreadfully slow, my legs feeling heavy, my belly lower than it had been.
I’d never really believed it when people referred to “the baby dropping.” I thought it was a turn of phrase, but my belly was definitely in a different place than it had been two days ago.
There was a crackle in the sky, far off in the distance. “We should probably head back,” Lyon said, squeezing my hand. “Sounds like a storm’s rolling in.”
The sky looked fine, but I agreed, knowing that once we saw it, it would be too late for me to waddle all the way back.
The journey home was even slower, my back beginning to hurt.
Once I got inside, there was nothing I wanted more than a bath.
Lyon set one up for me and helped me get inside.
The new tub was deep, which was great once I was settled, not so great when I was trying to get my ginormous body inside or out of it.
I sank into the warm, bubbly water, leaned back, and closed my eyes, enjoying the moment. Lyon was there, but he let me be. I was grateful he stuck around, though, especially when my belly cramped.
If this was what a first contraction felt like, labor was going to be horrible.
I was already wondering if I could handle it, and my labor had just begun, if that was even what this was.
Maybe I’d just walked too far. The pains had to be progressing and at a certain interval before we called the midwife.
But fuck that. I needed her there now. “Call Janet.”
“Is it time?”
“I don’t know, but call Janet!”
She didn’t live far away and was there moments before my other mates showed up. There was no doubt in my mind that Lyon had called them. Normally, I’d be upset he did that behind my back, but I was so happy to see them, all I could think to do was thank him.
The midwife gave me an exam. She said my heart sounded great, my lungs were perfect, and I was already seven centimeters dilated.
“How is that even possible? I felt one contraction. One! Yes, it was horrible, but one! How am I seven centimeters?”
“Because each baby does what they do.” Her explanation was not helpful.
I didn’t have time to be mad about it, though. The next contraction slammed into me, exponentially worse than the last. My mates came running in, not even pretending to knock, Cash demanding to know what the midwife did to me.
“Oh, brother. If you alphas are going to be like this, I’m leaving,” she said, rolling her eyes.
York looked legitimately confused. “Like what?”
“Like you’re going to be riding her ass the whole time,” I explained.
His mouth formed an O. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Janet told him not to worry about it, that she understood how hard it was to see people you love in pain and they’d better get used to it.
Seven centimeters skipped straight over eight and directly to nine then to ten in rapid succession. I had more knowledge about what was supposed to happen during pregnancy than most omegas did, and so, of course, mine decided not to act like any of the scenarios I’d read about.
“It’s time to push with the next contraction,” Janet said. “How do you want to do this?”
We’d made a birth plan, but part of it was double-checking at each step to make sure I hadn’t changed my mind on anything.
For pushing, I wanted to be in my nest with my mates surrounding me: one behind me, one on each side, holding me up and supporting me as I brought our child into the world.
And that’s what we did. I’d been through some difficult things in life, some physically hard, others emotionally.
Pushing our baby out topped all of them.
There were times when I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it, and when Janet handed me our son, I saw why. “He’s not little.”
She laughed. “No, he wouldn’t be, would he? He’s got three bears for fathers.”
“Sorry,” they all mumbled.
“Don’t be. Look at him. He’s perfect.” I brought him to my breast for his first meal, and we watched in awe as he drank. “We did this,” I whispered, a tear slipping down my cheek.
“Thank you, omega ours,” Cash murmured from over my shoulder, still behind me, acting as my pillow. “Thank you for making us fathers.”
“We really need to settle on a name,” I said. We’d gone back and forth on names more times than I could count and decided, ultimately, that we would wait until he was here. “I think he’s an Orson. What do you guys think?”
“Orson.” They each tasted the name.
“I agree,” Lyon said. “He’s an Orson.”
After a last quick check on the baby and me, the midwife had my mates take me into the next room so she could clean the bedroom and get it ready for us.
When she said, “get it ready,” I was thinking new sheets, but no.
She brought the bassinet in, put a pitcher of water and some cups by the bed stand, and had a fruit and cheese platter on a fold-up tray, telling me it was time to rest, hydrate, and fuel up.
I climbed into bed with my mates, our baby asleep in my arms.
Nothing in my life was the way I’d dreamed it would be all those years.
It was better.
A million times better.
I’m the omega I was meant to be, and I have a happy and fulfilling life.