Page 17 of Omega Dragon Manny (Shifters For Hire #3)

BEAU

Being pregnant wasn’t for the weak. I learned that quickly.

The first trimester, I went through bouts of morning sickness and exhaustion while taking care of the three little ones.

But then, just as I got over that, they began to walk and I was on my feet all day.

My belly was huge as I tried to keep up with not one, not two, but three little ones who rarely went in the same direction.

My mate swore my belly wasn’t huge. For the first time since we met, I suspected he was lying. The only other conclusion was that he needed new glasses. Because I was objectively huge for not being at the tail end of my pregnancy.

But even with the stomach issues, the exhaustion, and the endless chasing toddlers around until I wasn’t sure which side was up, I loved being pregnant. I was looking forward to building our nest and having our clutch.

Clark and I talked about our nest a lot, where to put it, what it would be like.

His jaw nearly hit the floor when I first told him dragons laid eggs.

I wished I’d taken a picture of his reaction.

It was priceless. He settled into the idea quickly and now was encouraging me by giving me links to fancy bedding I might like for it.

I was excited, too. Except, as the weeks went by, I added a layer of nervousness to that excitement. Based on the calendar, it was time for me to start building. My nesting instinct should have been kicking in full speed, but it wasn’t.

I even tried to fake it, hoping I could jump-start the process. One afternoon during the kids’ nap, I ordered a passel of pillows online. When they arrived, I surrounded myself with them, waiting for that spark to catch—but nothing.

And while that was worrisome, it wasn’t the most stressful part. My belly didn’t feel the way it should. Every morning I pressed a hand against it, hoping for the hard, steady firmness that should have been there. But it just felt…soft. Human.

I hadn’t gone to a doctor. Human doctors would absolutely lose their minds discovering eggs existed. The local midwife specialized in wolves, which was great when we needed advice about the triplets, but not what I needed right now. I needed a dragon midwife.

If I’d still been in a flight, it would’ve been easy, but I wasn’t.

The couple of calls I made to my old flight shut down the conversation quick, cutting off access to their midwife completely.

It was wrong on so many levels, I didn’t even want to think about it. I had enough other things on my plate.

Instead, I did what anyone in my position could do…

I threw money at the problem and went to Shifters for Hire.

I told them exactly what I needed and offered pretty much every penny I had in savings.

I didn’t want to worry Clark. He’d obviously help with the money, I knew that, but he was still juggling work.

He was better about balancing his time now by saying no to projects he didn’t want or couldn’t handle and such, but it was still a work in progress.

Alpha for Hire came through a few days later. Only catch? We had to go to the midwife.

Clark’s arm was wrapped around me as we settled into bed for the night.

“I need you not to be mad at me,” I said quietly.

“Why would I be mad at you?” He kissed the spot where he’d marked me, his human teeth leaving a gnarly scar that looked more like I’d been in an accident of some sort than anything else.

I thought it was beautiful and caught myself staring at it in the mirror most days.

“On Saturday,” I said, “we need to go on a trip.”

He rolled to face me. “I want to look at you, because I have a feeling this conversation’s going in a direction that’s going to need more than a couple of words.”

He was right. It would.

I told him everything about my belly, my worries, my flight, and about the midwife. I even mentioned how I was paying for it.

“Oh, sweet omega.” He cupped my cheek. “I wish you had come to me. You’ve been carrying this burden all alone.”

“It’s fine,” I said too quickly. “It was my choice. I’ve learned my lesson. It wasn’t a good decision.”

“No,” he said gently, “it wasn’t. But you told me now. And on Saturday, we’ll go see the midwife.”

We brought the babies with us. It was a couple hours’ drive, but a nice one. When we arrived, I expected a cabin in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place dragon midwives usually worked from.

Instead, the midwife’s office was in a strip mall under a sign that read Omega Baby Services, Incorporated.

“Are you sure this is it?” Clark asked.

“I’m sure,” I said, though I didn’t sound it and was now second-guessing myself.

We walked in, holding the kids’ hands as they toddled their way across the tile floor. I had to laugh because every day I walked more like they did, and every day they looked more like big kids learning to run. At some point, we were going to meet in the middle.

“Come on in!” An older dragon met us at the door. “I’ve been waiting. You’re the first dragon I’ve had in a while. Come on back, let’s get you checked out.”

He did a mix of things I half-recognized from human medicine and half didn’t, like when he held a pendulum-like string over my belly, then dabbed essential oils or maybe it was tinctures on my pulse points as he hummed something low under his breath. But he did test after test.

Then he sat back in his chair and said, “Well, I see what you’re worried about. But you don’t need to be.”

The weight that fell from my shoulders was instant. “So the eggs are fine?”

“Well, see, that’s the thing,” he said slowly. “There are no eggs.”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

“You’re having human babies,” he said simply.

“Human?” I blinked. “Is that…possible?”

“Apparently,” he said with a chuckle. “But from everything I can tell, they’re good and healthy. And I shouldn’t have used the term human, that may or may not be true. There just won’t be any eggs. That doesn’t mean they won’t shift later on, it just means they won’t be born in their dragon form.”

He went on explaining everything, but most of it went right over my head because I was too busy focusing on the movement under my hands, the one I’d been mistaking for gas for the past couple of weeks. Oops.

And just as I was coming to terms with that, he added one last surprise.

“Oh, and you know there’s two, right?”

I stared at him. “Two? Like twins?”

“Two,” he confirmed, smiling. “Exactly like twins.”

Clark blinked, then laughed. “We’re gonna need a bigger car.”

He kissed my cheek, and I laughed, too, while the triplets were running in circles around the chair I was sitting in, squealing with joy. They had no idea what was happening but had fed off of our happiness. It was adorable.

“We’re gonna need a lot more than a bigger car,” I said, smiling down at them. “We might need a bigger house in a few years.”

When the midwife excused us to have some time to talk, I turned to Clark. “Are you okay with this? Are you sad I couldn’t give you dragon babies?”

He took my hand, squeezing it gently. “Why would I be sad? Whether they’re dragons or not, they’re our babies. They’re healthy. And that’s my biggest dream of all.”