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Lily

I’d spent so much of my life believing I’d never be a mom.

There had been also pockets of time that had been so dark, I feared being a mom, knowing it would be the cruelest thing I could ever do to a child.

All of that was before I met my mates and discovered that true love didn’t just exist in fairy tales.

Rumor always seemed like an outlier to me. Sure, she had an amazing life, but that made her the exception that proved the rule. That was why it took me so long to let my mates in.

That time was behind me now. But because I hadn’t expected pregnancy to be part of my life, I also was very ill-prepared for what pregnancy would be. I knew the typical pregnancy woes like being nauseous, tired, and everything aching. But my perfume being altered? That one took me aback.

A few times I caught my new scent, and it wasn’t unpleasant—but it also wasn’t me.

My mates disagreed. They said it was the most alluring scent in all existence and showed me just how true that was to them.

Not once did I feel undesirable. As I grew wider, and wider, and then freaking wider, they looked at me like I was the most delicious snack they couldn’t wait to get their hands on.

And I loved it.

The one thing I didn’t love about pregnancy was missing my wolf.

That was the hardest part of this pregnancy, bar none.

Some shifters took their fur or scales or feathers throughout their pregnancy.

Some just for the first few months. But my wolf had been firm.

She didn’t believe it was safe for us to do so, and I trusted her.

She was the one who’d protected me the most in my life, and even when she wasn’t allowed out during the darkest of times, she never once blamed me.

She never went feral, a fate that was the end of man omegas.

If my beast thought staying in my skin was safer, I would.

And now that my belly barely fit through the doorway, the longing to shift was starting to get bad. I told my mates about it. That had been huge for me. I didn’t like worrying them about things they couldn’t control, and this was one of those. Or so I thought.

And what did they do? They offered to not shift too. As if I could ever let them suffer simply because I was having a hard time.

We came up with a compromise where the three of them would be in their fur as much as possible. They always snuggled in my nest, sat on the couch beside me, and when I went for a walk, they flanked my side. It had helped. A lot.

And now that the pregnancy was nearly over, I was getting impatient, beyond excited to meet our new little one.

But also, I was enjoying my pregnancy. There was something empowering about carrying my mates’ child inside me.

Protecting their young the way my mates protected me.

It was probably just hormones. Pregnancy hormones were no joke.

I stepped out onto the porch, needing some fresh air after cutting enough onions for not only the orders we had coming up at the farmer’s market but also for back stock.

I was trying to get ahead for when the baby came.

I planned to take time off from doing the canning but not much time away from the farmer’s market.

I loved it there, and if I could keep going through my maternity adjustment, I planned to do that.

I was hoping to catch one of the guys, but they weren’t to be found. So, I did what every omega would in my situation—and I said the magic words, “I’m hungry.”

Because no matter where I was, once I said that, someone showed up. They loved to feed me.

What surprised me was that this time, it was all three of them walking out of the welding shop, smiling bright as can be.

“What are you up to?” I never trusted them when they got this smiley. They were always up to something. Never anything bad but always something.

“We’re coming to feed you,” Roan said.

“You know, I just said that to see where you were.”

“Yeah, we know, mate.” Harlan kissed my cheek and then told me to close my eyes. I did, and they guided me straight to the place they just came from. No surprise there.

But what was a surprise was when I went inside and saw a wolf made of scrap metal sitting on the table. It looked almost fluffy at first, the details stunning.

“Did you make this?” I looked at Harlan.

“We all did. We figured our little one would want a piece of us nearby.” He wrapped an arm around both Roan and Benji’s shoulders.

“You welded?” I looked right to Roan, who had tried a couple times and…it hadn’t gone well.

“No, I painted. But Benji did something too.”

Benji went over and gave a long pet to the nose of the metal wolf and it started to play the most beautiful lullaby.

My mates had worked together to make a special present for our baby. My eyes blurred, the emotions so high. Maybe from the pregnancy, maybe from the beauty of it all, but all I could give them was a broken, “Thank you,” because the words weren’t coming.

“I think we broke her,” Roan said, wrapping his arms around me from the back. The other two did the same from each side, and I was officially the center of my mates’ embrace, one of my favorite places on this planet.

“No, you didn’t break me, alphas mine. You made me whole.”