22 #2
Hannah blurts it all out because she’s nervous. “I know you won’t like this, Mom, but I want to have babies.”
Joni turns to look at me with really wide eyes.
I clear my throat. “Not mine. I mean, we thought we’d try one, and Gatlin really wants to be a dad, so it seems to make more sense for that, but if Hannah doesn’t mind, maybe someday.”
Joni turns back to Hannah. “Gatlin? Who I’ve met once? You want to let him impregnate you? Isn’t he ten years older than you?”
“Six,” says Hannah. “Five now. He doesn’t turn thirty-one for months.”
Joni rubs her forehead.
“I know,” says Hannah, cringing. “I know it’s not what you want for me. But you have to realize, with Callie running all over the place talking about nothing but babies, it’s been a lot.”
“Callie is older than you.”
“By three years,” says Hannah.
Joni takes a deep breath. “Callie is married. And she and Andrew have been together for a decade, essentially.”
“Yeah, but she had to get a paternity test,” says Hannah. She looks at me. “Maybe I would have to… how would we…?”
I drink my lavender lemonade and nope out of talking about that in front of her mom.
How do I feel about Hannah being bred by Gatlin? Very, very aroused.
Uh. I guess I shouldn’t think about it that way, though?
Maybe I should think about what it would be like for the whole undertaking, which is a lot.
It’ll be hard on Hannah’s body, and we’ll all have to help her and take care of things, and then there will be a baby, and we’ll have a lot of responsibility.
But Calliope and I had younger siblings that we did a lot with, and I’m comfortable with kids.
(We have both tried to reach out to the other children, the ones we left behind, but they won’t speak to us, not since we left the Polloi.)
I don’t currently have a job or anything, and I think I could be a great stay-at-home caregiver.
It would give me something meaningful to do, which my therapist is always harping on.
I like the idea of pregnant Hannah, with a growing sexy pregnant belly, and I like all of it, really.
It makes me feel lots of warm fuzzy feelings.
I want it, want all of us together, want a pack.
I never thought I’d have something like that.
Joni huffs. “I don’t know why I’m saying anything at all. You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, and you’ve made that entirely clear, Hannah.”
Hannah cringes again. “This will be your grandchild, so I was kind of hoping you’d be a little bit excited.”
“You’re so young,” moans Joni. “And anyway, don’t they live an hour and a half away?”
“I’m thinking about buying a house down there,” says Hannah. “Ellis will keep this place he has here, so that when we want to come and visit family here, we can stay there. So, we will come back from time to time. And it’s really only two hours away, and that isn’t actually that bad.”
“You’re moving?” says Joni. “You’re moving and getting pregnant, and permanently tying yourself to… those men.” She looks at me, shaking her head.
I know, I know. I’m not the kind of guy anyone would want their daughter to settle down permanently with.
Hannah puts both of her hands down on the table.
“Look, I had this realization that what I really want to do with my life is to be part of something bigger than me? I thought maybe it was the publishing industry, but I realized, that was just me trying to be like you. You want to fix the whole world. I don’t really want to fix things, though.
I want to preserve things. I want to hold things together.
I think there need to be people like you in the world, Mom, but there need to be people like me, too. ”
“Of course there need to be people like you, sweetheart,” says her mother. “And I never wanted you to feel as if you had to be like me.”
“No, I know,” she says. “You didn’t make me feel that way.
I just… I wanted you to be proud of me. But I feel like the world is made up of smaller units and someone needs to be devoting themselves to keeping those things strong.
If I want to be a mom and to be a, um, I don’t know…
not wife but, like… pack member,” she settles on.
“If I want that to be what I focus on doing, I think it’s worth doing. ”
Her mother lets out a breath.
“And I’m not saying anything about you and your choices, because you didn’t want to do that, and you couldn’t have wanted to do that, and it all worked out fine, you know?”
Joni regards her. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about my daughter telling me that she wants to do something entirely differently with her own children than I did with mine, or that she wants being a mother to be her focus. Maybe some part of you resented me, Hannah—”
“No, no, I swear,” she says. “I didn’t. I don’t.
I just want this for myself, Mom, and I want it to be about me, not about you.
” She inches her fingers across the table.
“I feel like we’re created to go together, different kinds of people.
You and Dad, for instance. He’s proud of you, because you’re doing the important work in the family, and he does what he does in service of you, and the two of you are a unit.
If you were both trying to pull against each other, though, if he didn’t give you that level of importance, you couldn’t work together. ”
“I don’t think your father is in service to me,” says Joni.
“You’re an alpha, Mom,” says Hannah, sighing.
“But, don’t you see, Dad doesn’t mind. He likes it.
And that’s what I want to be. I want to be in service to my pack and my family, and the one thing I can do for them is to have the babies and be the mom, and I really want it.
” She sighs, looking off into the distance, and she’s the prettiest girl in the world, I think, and I wonder why it took me so long to see the wonder that is Hannah Wihlbilt.
“I’m sorry,” says Joni. “That just sounds disgusting, being in service to anyone.”
“Well,” I say with a little shrug, “you are an alpha, Joni.”
“But I don’t want people to serve me,” she says, exasperated.
“Maybe some of us want to serve others,” I say.
Hannah shakes her head at me. “Omegas don’t want to serve either.
They want to submit, but that’s not the same thing.
Service isn’t about being ordered around, it’s about seeing all the things that need doing to keep a thing together, and doing them.
It’s about putting the whole above the parts.
It’s about having a purpose and having it guide you.
” She shrugs helplessly. “Maybe this isn’t the kind of thing people want to hear, but when I was all alone and no one noticed me, I did not feel empowered, I just felt invisible. ”
“Yes, you’re grateful that someone is finally paying attention to you, Hannah, but you don’t have to throw yourself away being a broodmare to these men.”
Shit, that makes my cock hard. Can we call her a broodmare while she’s being fucked by Gatlin?
Do we get to watch Gatlin getting her pregnant?
I’m really hoping it can be a big thing, where we track when she’s fertile and then hole up for a few days and she gets fucked a whole lot and Kane and me are only allowed to use her mouth or each other and we can play with her pretty breasts and talk to her about what a good girl she is and how we need her to take all of Gatlin’s seed and get very pregnant for us.
I return to the conversation, feeling warm all over.
“…throwing myself away, because I don’t feel like I was anyone until I had someone to be anyone for,” Hannah is saying.
“That’s… what?”
“You just don’t get it,” says Hannah.
“Maybe not,” says Joni. She softens. “I love you, Hannah. And no matter what happens, that will never change. If you have a baby, I will love that baby. And if you ever need me, I will come and collect you at any time of the day or night. You never have to stay with any of them.” Joni is glaring at me, though.
I clear my throat again. My cock is still really hard, and I’m distracted.
Eventually, we leave the subject and we get our sandwiches, and we have a mostly pleasant lunch, talking about other things.
When we get home, Hannah says that she’s glad that she talked to her mother about this, because it’s over and not hanging over her head. Obviously, she wishes her mom would be more enthusiastic, but she’s sure that this is what she wants.
Later, when Hannah is asleep, I send a text to both my alphas, saying that I really want to make breeding Hannah like a heat for her.
I mean, she won’t be in heat, obviously, so it’ll be nicer for her because she won’t be desperate and uncomfortable and needy, but I want her to be the center of everything, like an omega, and I want it to be a prolonged thing, days of sex, where she just stays in bed and gets filled full of come again and again.
Kane texts back, Well, let’s say I’ve teetered off the fence and into full fuck-yes territory on this. Little warning next time you’re going to send texts that are going to give me a fucking knot, omega?
Gatlin texts back, Sure, okay, this sounds great, at some point in the distant future. But we’re not there yet.
Thing is, I don’t think Gatlin actually wants to wait. I’m practically positive of that.
I doubt he will take much convincing.