Page 71 of Our Haunted Omegas
“I’m not here in a royal capacity,” Doctor Dolores sighed. “I’m here as a favor to your carrier. He wanted to ensure that you had someone on hand that would come in the middle of the night or the tail crack of the morning. I don’t care who is born first and I’m not reporting to anyone. I’m more worried about getting all five of you through it with your brains intact and without anyone being more sleep deprived than they have to. As for security, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let him. If you don’t want to be followed, make them believe you’re worried about the egg’s safety. You’ll lose some privacy here but guards won’t abandon eggs to follow you.”
“No,” Ambry shook his head. “We’re not giving up that privacy. If I want to lay with my balls out in here I will and I’m not taking any chances after Reve---”
“Understood,” Doctor Dolores nodded before Ambry got himself too worked up. “I will be on my way once the egg hardens. Congratulations to all of you.”
“All of us?” Teal arched a brow. “Who am I making babies with?”
“That is none of my business,” Dolores held up her hands as if she walked into an invisible wall. “I’d check the gossip rags if you’re unsure of who you’ve had intercourse with recently.”
“Intercourse? Really?” Teal laughed and I shot him a look that said to leave her alone.
“If you don’t understand the definition of that word, may I suggest returning to medical school, Teal Moonscale?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Odell
The second month of my pregnancy made me fat. It was as if every bite of food I took went straight to my gut, ass, and thighs but I couldn’t stop eating. Meals, snacks, handfuls of nuts, or whatever. It didn’t matter. If it wasn’t going to eat me first, I ate it. Hell, some of the meat I ate might’ve been raw enough to try to eat me first. I still ate it. I took to hunting in the nearby woods, shifted and fat, I just about squashed the deer I took down and if they gave me trouble Cobalt was there to end them with a snap of their necks. Sometimes I was even patient enough to wait for him or Teal to skin them before I dug in. Sometimes but not always. Sometimes I even sharpened my teeth on their antlers. Teal didn’t like that very much but then again, he wasn’t the one walking around with a bowling ball inside his belly.
Guardie tagged along. He didn’t mind helping me sniff the deer out, but he wouldn’t help me kill or eat it. He devoured cooked food, but my theory was he wouldn’t take an innocent life even to fill up his own belly. Besides, I wasn’t even sure he had to eat. He was more dog than a shadow now with an inky black coat, but he could still be a hand or a tendril when he wanted to.
When I wasn’t out hunting or in the kitchen, I was either somewhere letting my libido run wild with Cobalt or in the nest with Ambry and his egg. I always brought him back part of each and every kill, but the alphas wouldn’t let me drag it into the nest. So, I dragged it into the yard and switched places with him. I stayed in the nest while he went out to eat. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust the alphas to guard the nest and the egg because we did but there was something more primal and furry at workinside our nervous systems. We were wolves and keeping the pack close was the best and maybe the only way to ensure the survival of our pups no matter which shape they came out in. We hoped that the egg would hatch before my baby was born. Then Ambry would feel up to hunting while I stayed pregnant and in the nest with his baby.
“We can hunt for you,” Cobalt announced one evening after all five of us had settled down into the nest. “Any of us.”
“We know that,” Ambry said before I had the chance to speak, “but we like to feel useful too. Our wolves want to feel like they’re part of something more than sitting around.”
“You’re growing a life,” Cobalt said, aiming his words at me. “That is doing something. I mean it. Hunt for as long as you can but the minute – and I mean the very minute – it becomes too much let one of us do it. I’ll go if you want me to and if you want me around I’m sure Teal or Indigo can go.”
“And if Ambry wants Indigo to hang around too, I’ll go,” Teal looked up from his phone on the far side of the nest.
“And if you meet your mate before then?” I asked and hated myself immediately. The words had slipped out before I meant them too.
“Maybe they’ll be a hunter then,” Teal shrugged. “I know your theory, Odie. All of you have it even if you won’t say it aloud. You think my true-mate is lurking out there somewhere nearby. I don’t think life works out that neatly but if I meet them before you have your baby or hell while your baby is a baby, I can still hunt. It’s in my nature after all.”
He and Cobalt shared a look across the dimly lit nest that gave me goosebumps. There was a secret those two didn’t divulge to the rest of us and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was. A scratching sound chased away my goosebumps and all of us looked toward the garage door. Teal was the first to climbonto his bare feet but before he even swung one leg over the edge of the nest it sounded off again.
“It’s the egg,” Indigo said, rolling onto his side before pushing himself up into a sitting position.
Ambry and I moved at the same time, our ears strained to hear another scratch. It came slowly at first and then faster. The baby inside the egg was coming out and soon. Teal sat back down and sent Dolores a quick text before joining the four of us surrounding the egg.
We waited in silence, barely breathing between the scratching and kicking noises. Ambry moved closer and closer to the egg until his body was all wrapped around it. He kissed the blue shell over and over and whispered little things that I couldn’t make out to his baby. Indigo sat ready with a warm blanket and all the supplies to clean up whatever egg yuck was left inside the shell.
From everything I read with Ambry while we waited for his egg to come and then to grow to its full size (hip height for us), there wouldn’t be much yuck left over. Inside the womb, dragon eggs were infused with everything they needed to grow on their own once they were laid. That’s why you couldn’t really guess how long an egg would take to lay or to hatch. Once the egg was laid, it grew at its own pace absorbing all the nutrients provided to it inside its carrier’s body.
I held tight to Cobalt’s hand, our fingers entwined, as one by one two tiny hands and two tiny feet emerged from the shell, creating an almost cartoonish silhouette.
“Come on, baby! You can do it!” Ambry cheered on his little one.
We had to let the baby break out most of the way by themselves. It was the way of things. Dragon hatchlings were born incredibly strong and able to survive a few days without milk. Not that anyone starved their babies these days but it wasnice to know in case the carrier’s milk took a bit to come in. Their strength waned as their little bodies absorbed whatever extra nutrients made them stronger. Some people theorized feeding a dragon hatchling right away made them grow bigger and stronger. We weren’t sure about any of that but Ambry’s milk had come in a few days before. We wanted that to be a sign, but we’d read about others who had milk for years before their baby’s egg finally hatched.
While I was lost in thought my little nephew had flopped himself out of the egg. He laid on his back looking up at us as if we were all lazy assholes who wouldn’t help a little man out. A sob tore from Ambry’s chest and my eyes started to leak following his lead. Though, it didn’t take much to make me cry these days.
Indigo wiped off the stray bits of eggshell from the baby before wrapping him up tight, kissing him on his little head, and passing him off to his carrier. We all gathered close for a better look as Ambry stretched out onto his back with the baby already rooting around his chest.
“Robin’s his name,” he announced a second later. “For Robin’s egg blue. I wanted to keep the theme.”
“Love it,” Indigo said and stole a kiss before stretching out alongside his mate. He put a big, protective hand over Baby Robin and I sobbed. Cobalt pulled me into his arms, but I couldn’t stop crying. The baby was perfect. They were the perfect little family and I wanted nothing more than to have my baby in my arms. I wanted to hold them close and name them and have them here with us. I was only two-thirds through my pregnancy, but my baby was already all I could think about.
